Irrational

Therefore we question the logic of cutting back Malaysian Students without first carefully considering the possibility of taking in more students from other countries, if the intention was to redistribute and to correct the unbalance. We seriously question the rationality of implementing a major Government policy aimed at achieving a certain objective (and affecting hundreds of people) without first making sure that policy will at least work in a big way towards achieving that objective. The Minister of Immigration, Mr. Gill said, in a letter to NZUSA that "The purpose of the restriction is to achieve a better balance, more clearly related to our general overseas aid objectives, in the intake of private overseas students....."

Strangely enough, in the same letter and coming just before the above statement, he admitted that "It is impossible to say at this stage what effect controlling the entry of students from Malaysia will have on the number of students from other countries."

If the cut-back of Malaysian students was introduced for the purpose of allowing more representation of students from other countries as has been claimed, then logic tells us that there must be a large number of students from other countries who want to and can come to NZ in the first place. But the Government has been saying that it does not even know if the cutback will have the effect it was intended for. Our question then is: Which comes first — are policies the means to an end, or are "ends" the means to policies?