Pacific Islanders

This is Deputy Secretary, Pacific and Development Group, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) Jonathan Kings’ message to the 22 NZ Scholarship students taking part in the AUT MFAT NZ Scholarships Programme Completion Celebration.

Years of hard work, dedication and sacrifice have been celebrated at Tuesday’s gathering at AUT, hosted by the University Scholarships Office – an event which also recognises scholars’ achievements while on award.

The clip, on the popular Fox Sports Matty Johns Show, showed small children attempting to pronounce the 'funniest' player names in the NRL (National Rugby League), most of which being Pacific Islander surnames, 9News network reports.

But the "Footy Kids in Cars" video has not gone down well with players. Former Samoa international Frank Puletua told 9News he was "disappointed that a segment like that got to air without any sort of thought about how it might be perceived by people in Pacific Island league communities."

The Pacific group will rise from 8 percent of the population in 2013 to 10 percent by 2038.

The broad Asian group will jump from 12 percent to 22 percent.

Maori will grow from 16 percent to 18 percent.

Due to lower birth rates the 'European or other' group will drop from 75 percent to 66 percent.

Modelling of smaller ethnic groups indicate the Chinese and Indian share of the population, about 4.5 percent and 4 percent respectively, will double.

Overall New Zealand's population is predicted to grow by about 1 million by 2038.

“On World Humanitarian Day, we call for a more humane world and seek to inspire action from people across the Pacific to bring this about,” Vincent Omuga from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Regional Office for the Pacific (UNOCHA ROP) said.

People in this region are no strangers to humanitarian needs with Pacific Island Nations making up four of the top 10 countries on the 2014 World Risk Index.