‘I consider them spam…’, New Zealand minister in trouble for making controversial comment on Indians

New Delhi: New Zealand’s Immigration Minister is in the news these days. She has given a very controversial statement about Indians, which has now become a controversy.

New Zealand’s Immigration Minister Erica Stanford, while answering a question in Parliament on May 6, said that she receives a lot of emails from Indians seeking advice on immigration to New Zealand. But she never replied to these emails. She considers them as spam. Her statement has now become a controversy.

Erica Stanford, while defending her decision to use her personal Gmail account for official work, said that I receive a lot of unwanted emails, such as people from India seeking advice on immigration, but I never reply to them. I consider them equivalent to spam mails.

She said that I followed the Official Information Act and forwarded all important emails to my parliamentary mail address. However, I receive a lot of unwanted emails, such as from Indians. I do not reply to these.

However, when the controversy grew, Stanford said that her statement was misunderstood. I only said that I consider these to be similar to spam. My comment was about the emails received on personal email and not in the context of Indians.

Priyanka Radhakrishnan, a New Zealand MP of Indian origin, criticized Eric’s insensitive statement and called it shameful. She said that such statements present an entire community in a wrong way. It is not appropriate to make such comments while being in the position of a cabinet minister.

She said that the Immigration Minister felt the need to present the people of one country in a negative way. If you are from India, do not bother to email her because she will consider your mail as spam.