By Jenée Tibshraeny
The theories are flying as the pundits pick apart the available results from the election.
‘Labour’s handling of tax will see it lose the election’, ‘the major parties gazumped the minor ones’, ‘everyone’s “had enough” of Winston’, ‘Jacinda sparked a youth-quake’, and here’s another one… ‘National takes the cake for being the party of migrants’.
I acknowledge the hard evidence for this latter hypotheses isn’t there. But the anecdotal evidence is compelling enough for the theory to be explored.
To begin with, the preliminary results show support for National increased in south and west Auckland, despite these areas arguably being among those hit hardest by Auckland’s housing and transport woes.
With the median house price in Manukau up 62% in the last five years (to $793,000), and the weekly median household income (from all sources) in the Auckland region up only 29% (to $1,778), the cost of living is clearly an issue.
And then try commuting into the city from the outer suburbs and you’ll see your quality of life wither away before you.
These changes in party vote from the 2014 election, charted by Stuff, are fascinating.
Put to Labour’s campaign manager, Phil Twyford, he points out the fact that the parts of Auckland where National made the greatest proportional gains, were the parts it didn’t have much support to begin with, so had more new votes to capture.
For example, while the percentage change in Manukau East was relatively substantial, Labour still received 64% of the vote, versus National’s 23%.
Twyford says this graph tells the story.
He says the three dots on the far right are Manukau, Mangere and Manurewa, the next five moving left are Kelston, New Lynn, Mt Roskill, Te Atatu and Maungakiekie.
The first graph does of course also show Labour increasing its share of the vote substantially across Auckland, reflecting an increase in support for Labour overall.
Nonetheless, with migrant communities having a strong presence in the parts of Auckland that saw support for National increase from the last election, it’s fair to question whether a lot of National’s support came from this sect of society.
The Chinese psyche
From a Chinese perspective, research suggests this is bang on the money.
According to a Trace Research survey, 74% of Chinese voters recall giving their party vote to National in the last election, versus 14% for Labour. This time around, 59% considered Bill English their preferred prime minister, and only 20% Jacinda Ardern.
Trace estimates there are 168,000 Chinese New Zealanders of voting age, which represents 5% of the voter roll.
Labour’s East Coast Bays candidate, Naisi Chen, is one of two Chinese nationals on the party’s list.
Currently in her final year of completing a law degree, Chen is keen to see more Chinese representation in parliament.
Yet she recognises there are a number of hurdles for Labour to cross, to win the Chinese vote.
To begin with, she says the Chinese psyche is generally to support the current government. In this vein, she says Labour received more support from the Chinese community when it was in government.
Chen maintains most Chinese media will accordingly lean towards whoever’s in government.
She also concedes that without Labour having a Chinese MP until Raymond Huo was sworn in after the Mt Albert by-election in March, it has been on the back foot.
Asked about the extent to which the Chinese community sees National’s policies as more favourable than Labour’s, she accepts it views Labour as less pro-migration than National.
Chen also admits the Chinese community is afraid the possible introduction of a capital gains tax will see property prices fall.
Scaremongering around tax and migration policy
Yet she says National and National Party supporters have used scaremongering tactics to hit raw nerves with the Chinese community around these issues.
National for example repeatedly asserted that people would be taxed more under a Labour-led government, despite the water tax being the only tax put on the table, and the promise made (admittedly rather late in the game) that any tax changes, including the introduction of a capital gains tax, recommended by a tax working group would not be implemented before the 2020 election.
Chen says the scaremongering happened in mainstream media, as well as on WeChat.
Labour’s campaign manager Phil Twyford, agrees: “The National Party consistently and blatantly lied during the campaign. The Prime Minister and the Finance Minister consistently lied, and their campaign advertising was based on lies that for instance Labour was going to put up income tax.
“You could argue that Labour didn’t effectively shut that down quickly enough. You could also argue that the media, by running the lies of the National Party as if it was one truth among many, contributed to a great deal of confusion in the public mind.”
Asked about whether he believes the migrant community saw Labour’s immigration policy as anti-migrant, Twyford says: “We took the view that National had allowed a massive blowout in net migration numbers. They had allowed net migration to quadruple in the last few years.
“[We believed] that a better balance was needed in immigration policy to take away some of the pressure on infrastructure, while ensuring that immigration policy continued to deliver the skilled migrants that the economy needs.
“The National Party tried to portray this as xenophobia or a desire to turn off the tap, which it never was.”
While National’s Chinese ‘Blue Dragons’ group has declined interest.co.nz’s interview request, a spokesperson says: “National stands by its campaign, including our criticisms of Labour’s proposed multiple new taxes that would hurt families and businesses.” The Blue Dragons is a National Party advisory group on Chinese issues.
Challenged on whether Labour did enough to correct any misconceptions, Twyford concedes that while Labour might not have convinced everyone, it’s too simplistic to think new migrants believed discussions around migration policy were “anti-migrant”.
“New migrants in a city like Auckland are working hard to try to establish themselves and get ahead, and the very issues like affordable housing and infrastructure pressures impact on them hugely.”
Twyford is adamant these were the right issues for Labour to campaign on.
Impact of the ‘Chinese sounding names’ and ‘Jian Yang spy’ sagas
Asked about the extent to which his Chinese sounding names stunt is still hurting Labour, he says the effect is “negligible”, hitting Twitter more than the Chinese community.
Chen however admits Ardern is still being asked about this and it’s “still taking up our media space”.
As for the impact of Newsroom revealing National MP Jian Yang hid the fact he studied at an elite Chinese spy school before moving to New Zealand, so could have been an officer in the Chinese military intelligence and a member of the Communist Party, Chen maintains this would’ve increased the level of support for Yang from the Chinese community.
She believes the community would’ve seen this story as an attack on Chinese MPs, not Yang or National.
She maintains the community would've empathised with Yang, as the majority of Chinese believe when they leave China, they leave the system.
“In China it’s very hard not to have anything to do with the Communist Party, or even the military regime itself. It’s part of the working life. The hospital, the schools are all part of the regime. There’s a lot of people who worked for state owned enterprises in New Zealand, and obviously they’re not all spies and they know how hard it is to try to get out of the regime as well.”
A National Party spokesperson says: “We believe attacks on Dr Yang’s character were racially motivated and politically timed a mere 10 days from the election.”
Indian community more enticed by cultural recognition than government handouts
What about the Indian community? To what extent has it helped prop up National?
Auckland-based India Trade Alliance general secretary, Sunil Kaushal, believes the National Party’s moves to preserve Indian culture in New Zealand, have gone a long way to help it secure the Indian vote.
He mentions National’s election promise to make it legal for Sikhs to carry a ‘kirpan’ (traditional knife) on them.
He also notes its willingness for Hindi to be taught in schools.
As for migration policy, Kaushal says: “No one will go into detail with what the policies are, but just to say, ‘we’ll cut down the number of immigrants’ is enough to drive them to the other side.”
And when it comes to housing, Kaushal maintains the Indian community isn’t looking to the government for help.
“Indians will never beg. You will find Indians and probably Chinese, they don’t go on the benefit. They will work three jobs, they will work long hours. To beg; the dole is literally begging for them…
“The first thing Asians in general will do is pay back their debt. You will not find Indians being a burden to the system. The caveat is, you will always get rotten apples in any community. You will always getting people exploiting others in the Indian community. But for the majority, it’s not in the culture.
“We would rather borrow money from our friends to get a house, than go on a dole and be a burden to the system.”
Asked about the fallout from all the exploitation and scandals involving agents selling Indian students false dreams of a great education from tertiary colleges on Queen Street, and good job prospects to follow, Kaushal says: “I don’t think it was a voting issue. Those who were affected couldn’t even vote.
“I think the Indian community does agree they need to sort this mess out. It is a mess. If you talk to most of them, no one wants this kind of dirt here. In my opinion, the organisation that escaped being scrutinised is the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, not Immigration New Zealand.”
National onto robberies and fraud
As for the effect of the spate of brutal dairy robberies that the Indian community has borne the brunt of, Kaushal maintains National has been quick to get on top of this.
“Crime is still happening, but the response time to crime has increased.”
National’s Manukau East candidate, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, says National has boosted police staff by 1,125. This includes 880 extra frontline officers, which will help ensure there’s a 24/7 patrolling police presence for more communities. It has also employed 20 “ethnic liaison officers”.
Bakshi has declined an interview request, but asked over email about the scandals around Indian students and tertiary education, he says: “The Government has zero tolerance for fraud and has invested heavily in intelligence-gathering and verification support resources for immigration officers in India.
“Because of the complexity of the market and the high incidence of fraud, the student visa approval rates for India have traditionally been lower than elsewhere. But as a result of the firm and decisive actions taken to tackle fraud, we are now seeing an increase in the number of quality visa applications from students.
“Any suggestion of a guaranteed pathway to residence for students is not a commitment that has been made by the New Zealand Government.”
Bakshi has also outlined what National has done to particularly benefit the migrant community in Auckland.
He says it has worked with Auckland Council to accelerate the $669 million Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative. It has invested taxpayers' money in the SH1 Southern Corridor Improvements project from Manukau to Papakurua, the EastWest Link roading project, and the Waterview Tunnel (begun under the last Labour-led government).
He has also provided a list of facts and figures around what National has done in health and education, highlighting $20 million of funding for Kauri Flats School in Takanini and $51 million more funding for the Manukau Counties District Health Board.
Bakshi makes no mention of housing, Sikhs being able to carry kirpans, or Hindi being taught in schools.
Auckland - an evolving battleground
Both Twyford and the National Party spokesperson conclude that due to votes being private, we simply don’t know whether there’s a link between the migrant vote and the growth of support for National in some of Auckland’s Labour strongholds.
The National spokesperson says: “We are proud to be an open and diverse party that welcomes all cultures. Reaching out to ethnic communities is an important part of campaigns as we have always seen ourselves as the party for all New Zealanders.”
Twyford recognises Labour’s put a “pretty significant” amount of resource into attracting the migrant vote. He also notes National’s efforts, particularly during the John Key era, to carve out support in places like West Auckland.
“That’s been a major part of their political strategy. It’s a contest zone,” Twyford says.
69 Comments
I have two simple anecdotes to share on this issue - both involving Uber drivers in Auckland, both of whom asked me who I would vote for just prior to the election. We had some good discussions but to cut a long story short, the first guy was from the Philippines who stated "we Filipinos all vote National". The other guy was Indian who said "we all tell our families to vote National - good for business see, and they let us come here."
I don't really mind the fact they were conservative-voting immigrants but certainly anyone who believes that the mass-immigration Auckland has "enjoyed" for the last 5yrs is having no impact on electoral power is fooling themselves.
The countries they come from have corruption riddling the whole system, so from where they are sitting the less intervention the better. In their countries the taxes are mostly just wasted and aren't used for the common good like they are here in NZ. They don't understand how a real social democracy can work, so they vote for less government, and laissez-faire policies that let the feedback loops inherent in capitalism snowball away.
I have had similar experiences while talking with employees at the company I work for who are migrants from Asia - they were all vocal in their support for National. As you say, this is a democracy and I am in favour of everyone exercising their democratic rights but the large number of recent migrants has most definitely changed the political landscape of the country.
Maori lost their sovereignty, majority and control of their own destiny in 1800s due to mass migration aka colonisation. The nation, up until now known as New Zealand, is nearly no more due to mass migration and the good old "divide and rule" doctrine of colonisation (let's be honest diversity is just a nice term for "divide and rule").
Welcome to NZ Inc where the only commonality binding the people together is "what's in it for me?".
I think if the rate of immigration is far slower than it is now, that that would not apply so much, as people would assimilate more while still retaining culture. There is quite a bit to be said for a culture mix, the food choices alone are testament to that, however, I am in complete agreement with you when it comes to mass immigration.
Too late now. There are many cultural pockets such as temples, mosques, ethnic suburbs and supermarkets. Next will be schools. The growth is a lot like a cancer, a street becomes majority populated by group X, group Y feels unwelcome and moves away and it grows from there.
Very hard to solve this problem without some kind of chemotherapy.
I don't see a betrayal. I see MMP at work. I want Winston to slow down immigration and also want Nationals tax policy.
I think National secretly want an excuse to pull the brakes on immigration. Even they can secretly see the damage being done to our society and our economy.
Who cares whether the migrant community vote for National or anyone else ?
Given you need either skills or money to get into NZ , it follows that the skilled and moneyed folk would be conservative and vote for a pro-business party .
Its just people wanting more free houses , bigger benefits and handouts , free education and free healthcare who were enticed into voting Labour .
If you have immigrated from a country where these things are not "free" you would not see them as important
I live in a rural community that has a high % of immigrants. They are all really good people with good values mostly from Europe, England and North America.
It really bugs me that they all came here for a lifestyle and cheap land but at least 1/2 of them say what NZ needs is more people.
Majority of migrants are small-medium biz owners or at least with a salary/wage earning job.
I am not sure they would like to be taxed excessively and at the same time be acknowledged that their tax money is going be spent on looking after some other people's 3rd, 4th or even 5th kids.
What makes things even worse is that their biz may get robbed daily by some kids. And those kids may have been living on tax money ever since.
It does not feel good to spend money to raise someone to rob you on a daily basis, does it?
PS: This is a very extreme analysis. I am just helping to paint a very cynical picture which might reflect someone's view just after being robbed.
This is the point I raise in the article though - Labour is not going to tax SMEs more. It hasn't announced any new taxes aimed at this group. The only tax it has confirmed is the water tax. The question is where Labour has gone wrong not shutting down these perceptions that it is the tax party. The robberies are disgusting, but how many more robberies may there be if the government wasn't supporting these kids whose parents can't support them on their own?
Thanks for your reply.
I know you put up facts. But voters have feelings over 'minor' facts -- Labour party is or is felt to be a TAX party and bad-tax-money-spender party. You cannot deny that, can you?
When it comes govt supports family, the general feeling towards Labour party is that they support family who cannot afford to raise many kids to produce more kids -- what an oxymoron?
I quite often read article pitying a full time working mother with only $20 left to spend on a whole week suppers for her 5 kids. Let's not dig into how much she receives from govt each week and let's not dig into how she spends her money. Let's just ask a simple question -- why does she have more kids than she's able to raise?
OK, ppl will throw big words such as freedom and democracy into your face." In this FREE country, she can have whatever number of kids she wants." (even at some else costs!!!)
Let's apply the same logic then -- she has her freedom, while I also have my freedom to choose NOT to, or elect a government that chooses not to ENCOURAGE families to have more kids than their ability to raise.
I am just helping you to analyze the conclusion in your article.
You're not wrong. WFF is a huge mistake. I hate paying LAZY dumb people to breed. The government should stay out of genetics (be it eugenics, or in this case disgenics).
But on the other side there is the National party. They're very eager to sell young kiwis down the river, replace us with other populations who don't want to fit in. They also want the LAZY land banking classes to have all the resources. Clever what they're doing though, the greedy old people are dying off and they'll be replaced by tru blu Asian voters.
It's no wonder many many middle class skilled young people have left, there is nothing here for them. No house, no kids, roads, shops and swimming pools packed full of people. Which parasites would you like to support - the party of entitled old people, land barons and farmers or the party of the entitled breeder lazy degenerates?
They have been accepted as guests and a very large proportion of them are not citizens.
New Zealand has thankfully, just, on balance, elected a government that chooses not to ENCOURAGE our country to have more migrants than our ability to support.
I look forward to New Zealand First sorting out that sense of entitlement. Now ease up on the stereotyping of the people actually from New Zealand.
How do you think young kiwis feel about being robbed of hope for their future, in the country that they and their ancestors built over generations, to make way for hundreds of thousands of migrant voters who don't integrate and vote for more immigration and more inequality?
to have more migrants than our ability to support.
Yes, the problem is infrastructure capacity. Hospitals, schools, roads, water, sewerage, stormwater systems - all stretched to overflowing - and many built more than 2-3 decades ago and in need of renewal..
When you think about it - all the existing infrastructure has been paid for by past generations of residents - yet new residents begin using it from the day of landing.
If we need or want to maintain the present levels of immigration and we intend that those new residents enjoy the benefits of residence immediately on being granted residency, and we intend to continue with a broad base, low rate tax regime - then it makes sense to me to introduce a tax differential (on both income and capital) for new permanent residents which might last for the first (say) ten years of their residency status being granted.
Michael Reddell (in the link provided by andrewj above) suggests a payment of $20,000 per annum for those here on work visas;
Visas would be subject to a fee payable to the government, of perhaps $20,000 per annum or 20 percent of the employee’s annual income (whichever is greater).
Which would be paid for by the employer.
A tax differential then addresses the permanent resident issue.
Australia is of course facing the same infrastructure deficit issue and its way of resolving that is to amend the social/welfare entitlements available to new NZ residents. I think differential tax for a limited period of time is a much better way.
Infrastructure Deficit - black-out
An example of what is not widely publicised - in fact the mushrooms are kept in the dark
In the last 5 years 500,000 migrants have been added to the mix
In spite of that, In those 5 years the number of operating schools in NZ has gone down
By intentional design? - we don't know
https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/schooling/number-of-scho…
Then, in the 2017 budget the National Government generously announces it will build 6 new schools, with 2 in Auckland
Given that 80% of all migrants disappear into Auckland, is that enough?
Exactly. The same parallels of course can be drawn with respect to the health system.
And yes, it is of course by design (i.e., intentional) as is demonstrated by the fact that Labour needed to cancel the tax cuts (i.e., somewhat halt the progress/intention of being a broad base, low rate tax system) in order to begin the needed catch up on the deficits.
National (and the previous Labour government, to a lesser but not dissimilar degree) has been running austerity budgets - but just not calling them that.
And in a big way, they have attempted to transfer the costs of these deficits on schools, hospital boards and local governments (and PPPs).
It's simply not sustainable unless we all consciously agree to lower levels of service delivery. Presently, we are getting those lower levels of service delivery by stealth, rather than by overt admission.
Well.
Please stop instigating hate, OK?
Today's world is too modern and information is too freely available to enable a group of people to blindly hate another group of people!!!!!!
We all value common good such just, fair, work hard, rewards, respect, happiness, family, health.
We have differences and the correct way to deal with it is to learn to co-exist.
By the way, I think no Chinese people like this Maori dude.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10232745/Maori-Kings-son-used-racist-sl…
Wow, I know that it's relatively common knowledge that a lot of Asian countries (i.e. China, Japan, North Korea, et al.) are extremely racist while being culturally "pleasant and hospitable", however; if your post is representative of the "immigrant perspective", then not only do we need to cut immigration, looks like we need to reverse it.
Being an immigrant is a tangled thing and it's natural to worry that you can stay in the place you came to. There are plenty of examples (USA now) where folk who thought they were secure have the rules changed on them years later. Extremely anxiety provoking. Further you have ongoing relationships with people at home and family reunification posssibilities. Given all those if I was an immigrant I would be a single issue voter, in this case for National as they are the most in favour of immigration.
I think the high immigration is a serious mistake, but they are here now and will vote for immigration. We have a self perpetuating system that is going to be hard to buck.
In an overpopulated world, I most certainly do not support the practise of having more than two or at most three children. There are reports of some persons having many more than this and often to different fathers. Are there records for various ethnic groups? Is there a psychological incentive for newcomers to have more children to build up their ethnic group. Do some ethnic groups compete by outbreeding all others? Which groups are less likely to merge with others and is this racist? If migrants wish to remain 'racially' pure will this lead to future conflicts.
Having six children or more is selfish in an overpopulated world. Too many persons versus too little resources invitably leads to violence. Of course some religions manipulate their followers to have more children because they provide a larger power base. I have little respect for those so manipulated but it seems that increasing numbers now choose to ignore such teachings in educated countries. Italy for example has one of the lowest birthrates in the world. https://www.thelocal.it/20170306/ageing-italys-birthrate-has-hit-a-reco…
Our leaders should be able to think for themselves. I distrust those that succumb to dogma and especially those that try to impose their illogical thoughts on others.
And factor in that a sustainable human pop. level is thought to be somewhere between 1 and 2 billion, there is an excess 5 billion (and climbing) that rely on the burning of ever greater amounts of fossil fuel to be sustained ... so its an ugly interconnected problem.
All problems point back to overpopulation ....the exception being the financial system where more people & debt is the solution...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/europe/erdogan-turkey-future-o…
"Go live in better neighborhoods. Drive the best cars. Live in the best houses,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday in the city of Eskisehir, while campaigning for a referendum that would solidify his power. “Make not three, but five children. Because you are the future of Europe. That will be the best response to the injustices against you."
It's plain as day. I don't know why anyone would let such parasites into their nation.
What percentage increase can be due to it being Bill English who was PM and not John Key, due to Bill's family connection to Samoa? http://www.samoaobserver.ws/en/02_06_2017/local/20634/NZ-Prime-Minister…
The National Party's cognitive dissonance regarding immigration and reluctance to change course even when presented with goats can be explained here;
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-01/rip-monty-hall-time-everyone-c…
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