Welcome election to the Labour Party Ethnic Sector Council

Ashraf Choudhary

Associate Ethnic Affairs spokesperson

21 October 2010

Media Statement

Welcome election to the Labour Party Ethnic Sector Council

The Labour Associate Spokespersons for Ethnic Affairs Dr Ashraf Choudhary MP, Dr
Rajen Prasad MP and Raymond Huo MP have welcomed the election of Somali-Kiwi,
Adam Awad as Chairperson and Chinese-Kiwi, Z.F. Wu as deputy Chairperson of the
Executive Committee of the Labour Party Ethnic Sector Council at last weekend’s annual
conference of the Labour Party.

The Sector, which is under the umbrella of the Labour Party, was initially established by
Dr Choudhary in 2004 as a platform to promote and include the ethnic communities in
political decisions.

The appointments of Adam Awad and Z.F. Wu means they will focus on enhancing the
objectives of the NZ Labour Party, Dr Choudhary says.

“They will provide an active and positive voice for the Ethnic communities within the Party
and wider political forums, and foster the setting-up of new Ethnic branches throughout
New Zealand, as a welcoming place for Ethnic members of the Party.”

“The outgoing chair Dr Pushpa Wood has done well in advancing these causes and I am
delighted that she will continue on the executive committee as past chair. We now have a
significant proportion of the Labour membership of ethnic origin,” Dr Choudhary says.

Dr Prasad also welcomes the ethnic diversity of the sector. “The Chair is of African origin,
his deputy is from Taiwan and the secretary is from the Philippines while many other
ethnicities are represented on the Ethnic Council.”

At the first meeting of the Ethnic Council, Chairperson, Adam Awad, said the new team
will build on what has been achieved so far. “During our term we want to build a solid
action plan for the ethnic sector. We want to be strongly action oriented. We will
strengthen our relationship with other parts of the Labour Party so all policies reflect the
true diversity of NZ,” he says.

For Raymond Huo the Chinese-Kiwi appointment strengthens Labour’s relationship with
the Chinese community.

"Being the largest ethnic sector in the country, Chinese-New Zealander’s have a lot of
respect for Phil Goff and appreciate that Labour has always put the needs of people first
- not just some people but all of us."

Dr Choudhary says one of the aims of the Labour Ethnic Caucus is to strive hard to keep
encouraging more ethnic diversity in the next parliament.

“The diversity of current ethnic sector elections supports this.”

Mr Awad agrees: “One of our goals is to increase the number of MPs from different
ethnic backgrounds. And we want full ethnic representation in the Labour Party. More
importantly, our goal is to get Labour back into government. And we will do that. ”

Contact: Ashraf Choudhary 021 799 573.