Paul Spoonley (born 1951)[2] is a New Zealand sociologist and emeritus professor at Massey University where his specialist area is social change and demography and how this impacts policy decisions at the political level.

[15] In early June 2022, Spoonley, along with fellow sociologist Professor Joanna Kidman, was appointed as a co-director of the Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism He Whenua Taurikura.

[42] The project is a collaboration with University of Waikato and Te Puna Haumaru New Zealand Institute of Security and Crime Science,[43] and Devon Polaschek welcomed the appointment of the panel and the "diverse range of expertise and experience they bring to this complex issue".

These immigrants were often portrayed negatively in the media, with some examples of public hostility, but the article held that "the politics of exclusion gained its most obvious expression during [the] election year through the comments of Winston Peters".

In the newspaper article, Spoonley gave examples of racism against Asian children and noted that "migrants found New Zealanders friendly on a personal level but were puzzled and threatened by racist public comments".

Other issues identified included a dropping fertility rate and an ageing population in New Zealand, deficits in infrastructure and how temporary work visas were managed in terms of a possible transition to permanent residency.

There was also the need to address how immigrants were viewed by the local population, build awareness of the value of diversity and social inclusion and deal with extremism that created anxiety through such things as hate speech and xenophobia.

He said that the challenge was for the country to adapt to a different demography, and the default response that this would be solved by immigration was unlikely to provide the solution, exacerbated by the impact of lockdowns to manage the pandemic.

In the same opinion piece, Spoonley said that a growing concentration of New Zealand's population growth in Auckland, would need policy interventions by the government to prevent "stagnation...[or]...decline" in other parts of the country.

[56] Spoonley has held that how well a country such as New Zealand acknowledges the significance of the transformation of the ethnic make-up of the country due to diverse immigrants, is measured by the positive identify choices immigrant families make, particularly in education, where children having a positive identity is closely related to "valued self-worth with a sense of shared identity that is further believed to promote beneficial relationships, sense of belonging and social cohesion".

[57] This paper, which presented findings from a doctoral research programme and was co-authored by Spoonley, argued that there was a need to keep re-examining the issue in New Zealand because these identify choices determined a sense of belonging and inclusion that had implications for the wellbeing of immigrant families.

"[57] In 2019 Spoonley was involved in review of how the issue of social cohesion had been handled by New Zealand governments since the introduction of a cabinet paper providing indicators for assessing immigrant and host outcomes in 2005.

[58] The authors contended that an approach which focused on developing indicators of cohesive ties that point to the small mechanisms contributing to "unity, togetherness, continuity, coherence, connection, linkages and interrelatedness between people and groups...has the potential to shift the conversation away from the relatively ubiquitous emphasis on cohesion as a property of ethnic differentiation...towards an understanding that differences between individuals and groups are multi-faceted, inevitable and enriching".

[65] In the light of the Christchurch mosque shootings (2018), Spoonley was critical of New Zealand's complacency about the potential threat from far-right groups, including neo-Nazi and extreme nationalists.

[63] Spoonley retired from his position as Pro Vice-Chancellor at Massey University in 2019 to work on a book in which he expressed concerns with the "far right, and particularly ultra-nationalists and white supremacists being reinvented as the Alt-Right...[and becoming]... much more successful in influencing mainstream debate and political actors".

Spoonley commented that this was more comprehensive than anything he had previously researched and made the point it indicated that there was a "degree of sophistication, especially in relation to online far-right activities, which is new and concerning".

Jacinda Ardern explained that this was to be the first annual hui to "look at ways to challenge hate-motivated extremist ideologies and to discuss priorities to address issues of terrorism and violent extremism".

[72] At the conference Spoonley presented as part of a panel in a session called Addressing the causes: how can embracing community and diversity-focused approaches contribute to preventing and countering violent extremism.

Spoonley was involved in a 2020 survey that identified the three most important diversity issues in Kiwi organisations as wellbeing, gender equity and bias, and noted that the disruptions of COVID-19 had caused further challenges that needed to be solved collectively to emerge into the "new normality".

He expressed a concern that while New Zealand was a very diverse country, immigrants could be adversely affected and it would depend on the resilience, networking, collaborative capabilities and resourcing of the ethnic communities to manage the situation.

Stuart Nash the Economic Development Minister said it was a response to the threat of COVID-19 and an opportunity get a balance for foreign labour while encouraging incentives to upskill local workers.

There were mixed responses to the measure including that it was "scapegoating migrants for problems with housing, infrastructure and working conditions", that it lacked detail and would not address the worker shortage.

Spoonley said that the report showed a tightening up of policy settings around temporary workers and the opportunity for them to transition to residency and "suggest[ed] that some industries might...[have needed]...to justify why they're on the skills shortage list...[in effect]...tying migration more to demand in the local labour market".

He acknowledged New Zealand struggled to be competitive internationally with wages, but concluded that "migrants tend to come to NZ because of life style, education and safety of the country", and the challenge was to have the capacity to process applications.

[89] As the 2022 Wellington protest entered its third week, Toby Manhire noted that a paper co-authored by Spoonley in December 2021,[90] had identified New Zealand was trending toward more public displays of "anger, fear, and hatred of others...[possibly]...accelerated by some responses to actions taken to address the Covid-19 pandemic....from members of society who, for historical and other reasons, [had] low trust in government or in other elites such as medical scientists".

In the same article, Spoonley said online toxicity remained a concern and the protests at parliament served as warning of a "vitriolic element" that could enable extremists to undermine social cohesion by violence.

He suggested that force by police may be necessary because some of the protesters blatantly did not accept legal authorities and online threats and the deliberate spreading of mis- and disinformation was highlighting the "malign influence of conspiratorial and socially destructive views for our liberal democracy".