NZ Immigration Minister faces criticism over comment on immigration emails from Indians

New Zealand’s Immigration Minister Erica Stanford faced criticism after she referred to emails from Indian nationals seeking immigration advice as “akin to spam” during a recent Parliament session, as per a report by The Times of India.

The statement came in response to a question by Labour MP Willow-Jean Prime, who asked Stanford if every email related to her ministerial work sent or received through her personal account had been officially recorded. This followed Stanford's earlier admission that she had used her personal email for some official communications, including pre-Budget documents.

Stanford replied, “I have complied with the Official Information Act. I have also made sure that everything is available to be captured and have forwarded everything that I've needed to my parliamentary email address.”


She then added, “I will acknowledge, though, in a very similar case to Kelvin Davis, I receive a lot of unsolicited emails like, for example, things from people in India asking for immigration advice, which I never respond to. I almost regard those as being akin to spam, and so there are those ones. But, similarly, other ministers have probably had very similar issues.”

According to the report by TOI, Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who was born in Chennai and previously served as Minister for Ethnic Communities, raised concern over the minister’s choice of words. In a Facebook post, she wrote, “Earlier this week, in response to a question by @willowjeanprime the Immigration Minister felt the need to single out people from one country/ethnicity in a negative light. If you’re from India, don’t bother emailing her because it’s automatically considered spam. So much for the National govt’s all-of-government focus on strengthening the relationship between India & NZ and focus on people-to-people links.”

Speaking to Indian Weekender, she added, “Comments like these serve to reinforce negative stereotypes against an entire community of people.”

Stanford later clarified her remarks by saying, “I did not say they are spam. I said ‘I almost regard those as being akin to spam.’”

The exchange has led to wider debate about how immigration-related communication is perceived and handled by public officials.

(With inputs from TOI)