From the Nelson Mail:

Police say racism growing in Nelson
Kiran Chug
Thursday, 06 March 2008

Racial harassment is a growing problem in Nelson, say police who are concerned that few victims have the confidence to report race-related crimes.

One year on from the racially-motivated bashing of three Korean students outside a Waimea Rd dairy, Nelson Bays Police area commander Brian McGurk said racism was still an issue the region needed to combat.

Last March’s attack, which resulted in two men being jailed on assault charges, had brought Nelson’s problems into the public arena.

Mr McGurk said Nelson was continuing to face race issues because it was such an ethnically diverse region. Nelson city had the country’s third largest proportion of migrants per population, after Auckland and Wellington, with one in three people born outside New Zealand.

Police were aware through contact with community members that racial harassment was a problem for the growing numbers of people moving to Nelson from areas including Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific Islands, he said. However, most race-related crimes were never reported.

Mr McGurk said police were fostering links with ethnic minorities through increasing their presence at cultural events and getting to know community representatives. He hoped this would help victims of race-related crimes to contact police.

He said that while ethnic minorities were not being targeted by organised groups in Nelson, they were still subject to “intolerable” abuse.

Nelson Multi-Ethnic Council co-ordinator Evey McAuliffe said racist harassment such as people being subjected to taunting in the street was a problem in Nelson.

Mr McGurk will be speaking at a public forum hosted by the Office of Ethnic Affairs at the Nelson council chambers from 9.45am on Friday.