Population growth from migration is continuing to break records, with the net migration gain hitting an all time high of 72,305 in the year to June.
Net migration has grown explosively over the last four years, with the net gain in the June year increasing from just 7907 in 2013 to 38,338 in 2014, 58,259 in 2015, 69,090 in 2016 and 72,305 in the the last 12 months, according to Statistics NZ.
The latest gain was driven by record arrivals of 131,355, less long term departures of 59,050.
Of the 131,355 arrivals, 45,071 came on work visas, 38,456 were NZ or Australian citizens, 23,983 were on student visas and 16,711 were on residency visas.
"Over the past three years, annual net migration has been consistently hitting record levels due to an increasing number of non-New Zealand citizen arrivals," Statistics NZ population statistics manager Peter Dolan said.
In the 12 months to June this year there was a net loss of 1284 New Zealand citizens, with 33,473 departing permanently or long term, and 32,189 returning after a long term absence.
Just under 100,000 non-New Zealand citizens are now arriving permanently or long term in this country each year, with 99,166 arriving in the 12 months to June and 25,577 departing long term, giving a net gain of 73,589 non-New Zealand citizens for the 12 months to June.
The biggest source country was China with a net gain of 10,351 from that country in the year to June, with another 789 from Hong Kong.
That was followed by India with a net gain of 7409, the UK 6728, South Africa 4867 and the Philippines 4646.
The latest numbers bring little relief for Auckland which is already bulging at the seams from migration-fuelled population growth, putting increasing pressure on housing and infrastructure such as transport and the health and education systems.
Nearly 60,000 of the people arriving in this country permanently or long term in the 12 months to June stated they intended to live in Auckland.
But there were also nearly 19,000 who did not state where they intended to live and half of them probably settled in Auckland.
Auckland's net gain (arrivals minus departures) from overseas migration was probably around 43,000 in the year to June.
Net long term migration
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107 Comments
Anybody who thinks Auckland is a slum hasn't had much experience travelling abroad.
For sure, Auckland has its poorer areas - but the city as a whole is far from a slum.
Of course, some people here will assert that Auckland is a slum - in a vain attempt to push down property prices. But that's a pretty sick agenda!
The well-initiated can, of course, see through them and won't have a bar of it.
Pointy, pointy, pointy. Someone who has travelled will understand that Auckland is not all that some people make it out to be - it is at best Sydney's runty little cousin. Those who are intelligent enough will understand some are trying to use a word salad of clichéd marketing statements in an attempt to fool themselves that things are better than they are.....
PS
Double-GZ is the one who is saying Auckland is a slum.
BadRobot, I find your lack of faith disturbing. Must I become the anti-John Wheeler and post the Mercer quality of life index again and again?
Auckland would be number one if it sorted out its infrastructure but you know what infrastructure isn't everything. It's not the end of the world if your infrastructure is a bit average. People still flock to Auckland because of many other reasons. It is a bastion of freedom and has a good climate. A lot of rain in a sub-tropical zone is actually a good thing believe it or not.
I think the freedom thing is often overlooked. We are actually much freer than Europe or Australia. There are very few limitations are on what we are allowed to believe and express. This freedom is in danger but right here and now it is pretty marvelous. This is the main reason why I will be voting National.
Oh Dr Smith your probably really shouldn't have responded. Why should I have "faith" and in what should I have "faith". Just because I don't believe Auckland is the "best" city in the world doesn't make my point of view any less valid - no matter what you may think. You can trot out any number of "surveys" to try and prove your point - in the end they are all just opinions - and simply I don't care , I think it is irrelevant. I think Auckland is a hole. You at least now acknowledge that Auckland has infrastructure problems which is a start.
You talk of freedom - well guess what - Canada has freedom, Australia has freedom , Norway has freedom and believe it or not even those pesky Scots have freedom. Freedom is not the preserve of Auckland (or New Zealand for that matter) other country's have freedom. I would be interested to know how NZ is "freer" than these other countries.
You seem desperate to play up Auckland / New Zealand and quietly ignore that the rest of the world doesn't believe the same things as you.
BadRobot, my comment about your lack of faith was referencing this classic Star Wars scene:
I don't think I am "desperate" to play up Auckland/New Zealand, I just enjoy it. I think it comes across better to be positive especially when there is a ton of data to support it. No one is impressed if you think Auckland is a hole. You don't even live here, right? I would never dream of describing your home town like this.
As for freedom I believe we have far more freedom of speech in NZ than any of the other countries you mentioned. The UK is particularly oppressive and Orwellian. Someone got arrested for quoting Churchill.
Lets get this straight - you use a quote from one of the more Orwellian scenes on celluloid and then complain about supposed Orwellian actions in the UK - talk about a bit confused. I'm still not sure what I am supposed to have faith in.....
I sorry if you are not impressed but I didn't know I was here to impress you (or anyone else for that matter). I don't care what you think about my "home" town. This sounds like the parochial beliefs so evident in New Zealand. On the one hand people talk of "global citizens" and yet on the other expect some sort of patriotism for a particular town or country as if it matters. New Zealand seems to go into a depression when the All Blacks lose as it life itself is solely dependant on the winning or losing of a game - I''l let you into a little secret - it doesn't matter. Patriotism makes an assumption that everyone believes the same things - sorry they don't.
Yes I found the report on the person arrested for quoting Churchill - he was quoting Churchill from 1899 - with a typical Victorian view on Islam. Don't put Churchill on a pedestal - not all his views would be acceptable today.
While we are at it , I found this.....
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3545137
It appears New Zealand can be just as Orwellian as well.....perhaps not as free as you thought.
An observation: what's the nation-of-origin of most Uber drivers? Auckland AND Wellington in particular. A lot of them are recent arrivals and honestly don't seem to have prospects other than driving passengers in cars. This isn't racism, just my observation. Also, exactly what jobs are some of these recent arrivals expecting to get vs what they wind up having to do....?
Re-edited to put it back in:
It's a wee bit jarring...one of my first impressions of you on this forum was the Editor warning you for your casual racism about how it's good Chinese all choose to live in the same suburb because they feel comfortable having people with the same shaped eyes around: Source
It's hard to reconcile your desire for as many migrants as possible with that same commenter...Or is it a desire for as many as possible as long as they're not living in your back yard, but merely driving house prices up as much as possible? I.e. just a necessary evil of growing your wealth?
I believe immigration has it's place because who am I to say I deserve to be here any more than anyone else just because of where I was born, something none of us had any control over. Yet I think immigration needs to be at a rate that our country can manage in terms of infrastructure etc. I have no facts to back this claim so let it be an opinion but I feel like we (NZ) simply can't cope with this rate of immigration. I feel like something needs to be done to stem this large inflow until NZ is better able to cater for such a high rate.
It is completely unsustainable alright but, regardless, you do "deserve" to be here and have rights that are a consequence of being born here. Others have no such right whether they deserve it or not.
Another thing you have is a proportionate share of the natural assets of your country and a proportionate vote in choosing who you are to be governed by. No one asked if you wanted to give your share of those things away but that's what happened. I've only got half left now, double the population in 35 years (2% growth) and it'll be halved again and so on.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/economic_indicators/NationalA…
The government statisticians put our assets at about $1Trillion (2015) which is about $210,000 per person. So my family of six has about $1.5million comprising roads, schools, hospitals, gold reserves, pension funds, etc. When someone leaves my share goes up about 30 cents and when someone arrives it goes down 30 cents.
This doesn't bother me if there is a spare seat at the local school, the road is not congested and there is a spare bed at the hospital. In fact I would pay to get some immigrants to live here - say a professor of surgery or Adele or some other uniquely talented artist. Nor would I be bothered if each immigrant gave the government $210,000 but of course we would have to return it to any Kiwi or permanent resident leaving permanently.
... luckily for me , I have a fresh copy of Nick Smith's own book of mathematics " When Things Just Don't Add Up " ....
Now , there's 72 305 shiny faced new migrants lobbing into Godzone every year ... divided by 365 ... and we average 198 arrivals per day .... we're building how many new dwelling per year , across the country ? ... 20 000 say ... OK .... average 55 per day ...
.. righty-o then ... and this is the Gnattily clever bit : .. divide the number of new arrivals per day by the number of houses built per day ( 198 / 55 ) ... and it appears to our brains trust ( Nick ! ) that the average immigrant only has to wait just 3 days and 14 hours for a brand spanking new house !
And you lot reckoned that Wild Bill & the Gnats had no effective housing policy ... tisk tisk ... shame on you for not sharing the Nick Smith wisdom ....
Each immigrant brings a partner and one and a half children? And they go and live in the ghost towns of Otago.
And if you are right and I'm wrong (quite feasible) then on day one they wait 3 days as you say but then the next day the next arrivals will wait 6 days and the 3rds day's immigrant will wait 9 days etc.
Of course it is easier for them to buy or rent existing houses and just push the unfortunate kiwi families into garages, motels, and cars - but that doesn't matter since they don't read this blog, nor vote.
According to the CIA World Factbook NZ is behind Canada, Australia, UK, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Iceland and more for 2016. Not sure how accurate it is though.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2…
You can do maths, right? 72,000 per year, about 4,700,000 people. About 15 people per thousand, only beaten by Qatar, British Virgin Isles and Luxembourg. 3x Canada, Australia, 4x US, 6x UK. I don't have time to look at how good the other data is, but their NZ value isn't even close.
Austria to send troops and armoured vehicles to border with Italy to block migrants
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/04/austria-send-troops-armoured…
Angela Merkel has destroyed Europe. The Germans and Swedes have lost their rights to free speech, they are not even allowed to express their displeasure towards excessive immigration. The Austrians and Germans should be send troops to the Italian coast to help Italy turn away the economic refugees. I sincerely hope NZ does not go down this route.
It's an unfolding disaster what's going on over there and, as has been pointed out, the MSM are fully out to lunch on this one.
Seems that the prevailing zeitgeist being pushed by the neo lib globalist cabal (incredibly aided and abetted by the lib left and the dripping wet MSM) is the destruction of the nation state as we know it. There are forces at work to gradually reduce your democratic rights with the global corporations and supra national agencies taking power from you and your sovereign government (e.g. TPP) Divide and conquer!
Divisions within society are emphasised and social cohesion weakened by high levels of immigration of the worst kind.
Very well said, it is extremely concerning to watch western civilisation disappearing. The liberal left really have no idea what they are causing, the female activists have completely lost their marbles, they have spent years fighting for female rights but now want to give it all away. George Soros has absolutely no conscience. If NZ does not vote for WP (he is the only one willing to address immigration) then I fear there is no hope and I am glad I will be dead in 50 years
Check their actual policies.
NZF say nothing about a target. They have had power and done nothing before - can you trust them?
Greens actually have the magic phrase " Yearly Immigration Quotas" on page 9 of https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/immigration_20170322.pdf but james Shaw prefers values over evidence.
Labour - seem to be back-tracking and want more immigrants in Auckland to build houses for immigrants.
TOP - looks good to me but they have many radical policies that it is hard to think of anyone except Gareth himself who would support all of them.
Anybody who doesn't identify with NZ is one too many a permanent resident. But there is no problem with secondary affiliations (such as POM, SA, Chinese, PI, etc).
The problem with having the wrong primary identity goes two ways: what we think we are and what other Kiwis think we are. So the racism is in assuming any immigrant is not proud to be a New Zealander.
Immigration is the easy option for pumping the GDP metric. What the sheeple won't be told (or informed of its relevance) is the impact on "share of GDP" per capita. Not that they will really take any notice anyway. Ironically, they'll be thrilled or appalled by house prices while spending a greater part of their day stewing in traffic congestion.
It is not immigration at fault it is how we do it.
72,000 wealthy people earning above average will increase our GDP per capita. On the other hand that has never been tried.
Sadly with our economy not doing that well compared to the other OECD countries it might be hard to find 72,000 people willing to reduce their current standard of living to come to NZ.
Businesses want their low cost wage slaves, guys. It's important:
Half of audited kiwifruit companies underpaid workers
This and selling off all our most productive assets and land into foreign ownership are the true path to prosperity. #HailNational
I have no problems with SUSTAINABLE immigration, I believe we should have dialled the number of new immigrant arrivals down at least a year ago. Infrastructure has NOT been able to keep up.......not to mention housing, and this is costing us dearly in our Schools, hospitals and infrastructure generally.
Lets welcome new arrivals , but maybe lets take care of what we have first ?
A poll was done recently where kiwi's were asked, is NZ going in the right direction. This is actually a really complex question. A friend and I talked about it last night and tried to think about what would NZ most likely be be like in 2050 if we don't drastically change course..
Our thoughts
-- 2050 we would see the health of the average kiwi being in a much worse state. In particular we would likely have a diabetes epidemic.
-- Pollution would be far worse.
-- New Zealand's population would be over 10 million
-- Inequality would be much worse
-- Buying a house in many area's of our most populated area's would not just be difficult, but simply unobtainable for most.
-- Foreign ownership would steadily rise and be far higher than today.
Can I ask: Is this really what we are trying to create? Because it seems that we are on a direct path to most of the things listed here.
Think of some really nasty criminal. You are happy they are in prison. Good. So you approve of prisons - of course. Then in sane countries they discuss how many people should be in prison. In the USA they have so many prisoners that they are bankrupting some of their states but any attempt to discuss the pros and cons of prisons are shut down with "you are being soft on crime".
In NZ that is how we discuss immigration. Any attempt to discuss is shut down with "you are being racist".
Mr Trump's response to someone shooting schoolkids was to say it wouldn't have happened if all teachers carried guns. So his solution for a unique gun culture was more guns.
And now we are demanding more immigrants to build the infrastructure needed to handle our record intake of immigrants.
Surely if we are leading the world in immigration and if the world has chosen not to follow us maybe we just might have made a mistake? And a rational discussion ought to take place.
James Shaw and Andrew Little attempted to start a discussion and they were shot down and are now desperately back-tracking.
Letting more people into the country 72,000 p.a and we have a housing shortage and crisis. Yet the government is spending 140k per week on providing emergency accommodation. This doesn't make any sense vote for change. National not getting my vote this time round. Short term gain for a long term major problem for future generations.
These are the figures for residency in the "International/Humanitarian Stream 2016/17" from the Dept of Immigration's database. Which of these countries have refugees created by the USA war machine?
1130 Samoa
381 Syria
300 Fiji
291 Tonga
243 Myanmar
196 Colombia
134 Afghanistan
111 Pakistan
78 Sri Lanka
Bob I would suggest Syria, Afghanistan and Colombia. What is your point?
My point is that as long as we have troops helping the USA fight their wars or help clean up the mess we are helping legitimize their aggression and we are part of the problem of creating refugees.
I realize we are taking few from the war zones but that is because we take from the long term applicants list.
I want NZ to stop aiding the USA in their so called war on terrorism, I would like to know if any of our political parties are making this stand. I do remember Helen Clarkes Labour govt refusing to help.
Mr Hippy, I agree with your policy - I certainly wouldn't have NZ troops in the middle east and I might well target our refugee policy differently. The difference between us your opinion is much stronger than mine. I honestly think the USA is not committed to doing the devils work - a view that may be popular in Iran. I really do think they meant well and have dug themselves into a giant hole caused by incompetence and some self-interested military interests having excessive influence. Certainly in the USA you can complain against the government but try that in most Islamic countries or Russia or China. If NZ absolutely had to shelter under a bigger countries umbrella I'd choose USA.
My point is we could take in 4000 with any being the result of USA aggression.
The word is 'could'. The government changed our official limit from 750 to 1000 without consulting Maori. Most political parties have published policies about refugees - generally increasing the current limit. I suspect they are virtue signalling not analysing the issue. However there is nothing to stop a legally elected government accepting any number of refugees - for example all 5 million Syrian refugees outside of Syria.
Would like to know how WE "could"
An annual intake of 4000 refugees would need an additional 1000 social houses annually that we don't have. Where would you put them. We are currently using motels as emergency housing costing millions per week.
Current annual intake of 750 takes an additional 170 social houses annually - which we're not building - taking them out of existing stock
If we set aside a budget to accommodate them and build 1000 new social houses specifically for them that would cost $500 million annually then there is the welfare and education and health. That annual budget is now nearing $1 billion. Next year another $ billion. The cost accumulates. We can't even look after our own.
Idiocy on the part of the Greens whose co-leader had to commit fraud to house and feed herself
Zachary,
Unusually,I was thinking of you over the weekend. I am doing a course from the University of Exeter on The Controversies of The British Empire and I know from earlier posts,that you are a great admirer of its achievements. What made me think of you is that we are currently examining the issue of institutional and everyday violence,with many examples. I wondered how you would respond to this?
Hi Bob, you impress me as an intelligent fellow, I am surprised you think the USA are the good guys. I am even more surprised you would want them to rescue your country if needed.
I admit they helped out very well back in WW2 but the lions share of credit belongs to Russia on that one.
I wouldn't want to be in any country they have helped since then as they have mostly been laid to waist. As for their current wars it would be hard to argue that you can legitimately attack a country because a terrorist came from there.
The FBI credited Saudi Arabian nationals with the twin tower attacks and yet the USA continues to arm that country while pumping us with propaganda for reasons to attack more defenseless countries. The only thing the attacked countries and Iran and N Korea have in common is not using petro dollar for trade.
Note too sure what these categories mean; maybe someone with more knowledge will explain. These are all Samoans getting residence 2017 FinYr
Fin Year Approvals Stream and Substream
2016/17 Samoa 17 Business / Skilled Skilled Migrant
2016/17 Samoa 8 Business / Skilled Work to Residence
2016/17 Samoa 17 International / Humanitarian Other
2016/17 Samoa 1113 International / Humanitarian Samoa Quota
2016/17 Samoa 37 International / Humanitarian Section 61
2016/17 Samoa 1 Parent Sibling Adult Child Stream Family Tier 1 & 2
2016/17 Samoa 2 Parent Sibling Adult Child Stream Parent
2016/17 Samoa 12 Parent Sibling Adult Child Stream Sibling
2016/17 Samoa 935 Uncapped Family Sponsored Stream Dependant Child
2016/17 Samoa 335 Uncapped Family Sponsored Stream Partnership
The breakdown of the Humanitarian is
Fin Year Approvals Stream and Substream Applicant Type
2016/17 Samoa 9 International / Humanitarian Other Principal Applicant
2016/17 Samoa 8 International / Humanitarian Other Secondary Applicant
2016/17 Samoa 398 International / Humanitarian Samoa Quota Principal Applicant
2016/17 Samoa 715 International / Humanitarian Samoa Quota Secondary Applicant
2016/17 Samoa 37 International / Humanitarian Section 61 Principal Applicant
And compare with Syria
Fin Year Approvals Stream and Substream Applicant Type
2016/17 Syria 16 Business / Skilled Skilled Migrant Principal Applicant
2016/17 Syria 44 Business / Skilled Skilled Migrant Secondary Applicant
2016/17 Syria 4 International / Humanitarian Other Principal Applicant
2016/17 Syria 5 International / Humanitarian Other Secondary Applicant
2016/17 Syria 87 International / Humanitarian Refugee Quota Principal Applicant
2016/17 Syria 289 International / Humanitarian Refugee Quota Secondary Applicant
2016/17 Syria 1 Parent Sibling Adult Child Stream Family Tier 1 & 2 Principal Applicant
2016/17 Syria 1 Uncapped Family Sponsored Stream Dependant Child Principal Applicant
2016/17 Syria 12 Uncapped Family Sponsored Stream Partnership Principal Applicant
which I'd interpret as 87 + 4 Syrian refugee families with on average a partner and two kids.
Not 100% certain but migration from Samoa occurs under an Annual Pacific Quota Visa system which is not considered to be refugee status but is considered a humanitarian scheme
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/media-centre/media-releases/pa…
plenty of information available under "Pacific Quota Visa"
I think you are right. But refugee is a subset of humanitarian on their database. I guess it costs a lot more to take in a non-English speaking refugee than a Samoan. I don't know if we provide benefits and housing for Pacific quota. Is there anywhere on the web that explains the differences?
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