By David Hargreaves
Non-New Zealanders are continuing to depart the country in big numbers, which is causing the net gain from migration to fall quite quickly from high levels.
Over 2600 non-New Zealanders left the country in April, which was the highest total for an April month since Statistics New Zealand started publishing this information in 1978.
In the year to April, more than 30,000 non-New Zealanders left the country, which is up some 23% on the figure a year earlier.
The overall monthly gain from migration in April was 2460, which is the lowest monthly increase since May 2014.
The net migration gain in the year to April was 67,038, according to Statistics New Zealand.
That's down from record levels of over 72,000 seen during last year and is the lowest annual gain in around two years.
The figures are of course seasonal, but the trend for slowing migration growth is also demonstrated by Stats NZ's seasonally-adjusted figures, which 'smooth' out seasonal variations in migration patterns.
The seasonally-adjusted migration gain in April dipped below 5000 for the second time in three months.
You have to go back to the end of 2014 for the last time that happened.
If you take the average seasonally-adjusted gain across the past three months, and annualise it, this gives an annualised gain of around 61,000 net migrants - which is still high historically, but well off the kind of pace being set a year ago.
Stats NZ said the gain for the April 2018 year was made up of 130,500 migrant arrivals and 63,400 migrant departures.
“Interestingly, the number of arrivals increased in the April 2018 year, so it is the larger increase in departures that drove the lower net migration level,” population insights senior manager Brooke Theyers said.
More than 98,000 non-New Zealand citizens arrived in the April 2018 year. However, more than 30,000 non-New Zealand citizens left this country over the same period, up 23% on a year earlier.
This resulted in a net migration gain of non-New Zealand citizens of 68,100.
Conversely, the net migration from New Zealand citizens was a loss of 1,100 – made up of 32,100 arriving and 33,200 departing.
In the April 2018 year, migrant arrivals on work visas rose 5% to 46,400, while there was a 14% fall in arrivals on residence visas, compared with a year ago.
"The number of migrants coming to New Zealand to work has been generally increasing since the September 2010 year, and work visas have become the largest visa type from the March 2015 year," Theyers said.
"Migrant arrivals of New Zealand and Australian citizens have also been increasing since September 2012, but this increase has not kept pace with the increase in work visas."
The countries that were the biggest sources of work-visa migrants were the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
A residence visa allows migrants to live in New Zealand permanently. There were 14,300 arrivals on residence visas in the April 2018 year, down from 16,700 in the April 2017 year.
The source countries with the largest decreases in residence-visa migrants to New Zealand for the April 2018 year were:
- China (2,800 – down 700)
- United Kingdom (900 – down 500)
- India (900 – down 400)
- Philippines (700 – down 300).
The number of student-visa migrants stayed almost the same in the April 2018 year (down 100, to 23,700), while the number of New Zealand and Australian citizen migrants increased (up 600, to 38,700).
Net long term migration
Select chart tabs
97 Comments
This is the current situation: https://i.gifer.com/6KzY.gif
You can see a torrent of murky quality migration, cheered on by some "Howick" home owners and in the distance you can even see some "affordable" housing if you look closely.
What we don't see is the clean lake water is being displaced by this inflow of murky water. Skilled kiwis don't want to stay here and have kids when the schools, roads, health care and housing are all under huge strain. It's not as simple as adding migration to domestic population growth. It's difficult to measure exactly how many families would have anchored down here without the problems of immigration so the story is never told. Pandas were breeding just fine before they were kept in captivity.
But at least they are brain surgeons right? Well no, they're hair dressers, chefs, chefs-assistants, receptionists, petroleum transfer technicians and other taking the piss "skills" which any high school student can do. It's the equivalent of planting a bunch of weeds in your garden and pretending the garden is growing fast and greener than ever.
What are all these people going to do when automation comes along taking their jobs and Australia shuts it's door to anyone from banana republic New Zealand? We'll be stuck paying for a bunch of idle people to live off our hard work.
Turning off the tap 1/4 isn't going to fix it and Labour haven't even done that!
Bilbo
I’m sure if you gave the Nats another chance they’d open the gates wide again
You think it’s easy being a new migrant ?
They fill those low paying jobs that kiwis won’t fill
Remember old man Leighton Smith & his tiny winery had to hire Fijian Indians to tend his grapevines
Same applies milking cows
Kiwis just don’t want to work hard that’s a fact
That's a silly assertion, not a fact.
Leighton's hiring Fijian Indians because it's cheaper to hire them than to offer wages that will attract local workers, many of whom have better options. I was reading just recently that if orchard wages were at the rate they were in the 1980s, people would make around $25 per hour - way more than orchardists or Leighton would want to offer today when it's easier to import a cheaper workforce for a season.
The reason Kiwis don't want to work these jobs are simple.
1. It's not secure, only lasting a few weeks to a few months at most.
2. It requires long hours of physical work. Kiwis have become accustomed to spending hours indoors interacting with a variety of digital devices. If you're gonna commit to physical work, why not learn a trade and charge $70 an hour?
3. As Rick said, there are better options. Unemployment is dropping, gig economy is booming.
Immigrants do these jobs because:
a) they're living 6 to a room and sending a large chunk of their pay back to their family in some third world country - great for the balance of trade
b) the job is stamped into their visa and it's just a means to secure residency. Once they've got that residency grappling hook down the family will follow
c) another migrant tricked them into working here for less than legal wages
d) all of the above
It seems both the governments share a similar plan to contain the unsustainable immigration level: stand by and do nothing on the arrival end since businesses run their sweatshops on this unending inflow. Eventually, our cities will become unlivable from the burden of unproductive, low-skilled people leading to skilled NZers and non-NZers growing weary and leaving.
Stats NZ should do a study on the skill level of leavers, which would give more perspective to our brain drain and brainless gain instead of just a meaningless net figure.
While the marketing might be different they're deeply similar in reality. Let's compare:
Landlord wellfare - check.
MPs own multiple properties - check.
Chinese MPs probably spying on us - check.
Cash incentives for dysfunctional people to have many kids - check.
~98,000 Jimmy Grants student chefs every year - check.
Sympathise with the retail lobby - check.
Bird's nest of bureaucratic RMA/building regulations - check.
Do nothing Nick Smith - do nothing Phil Twyford.
Smiling assassin John Key - Smiley face Jacinda.
Kiwi-buy-from-Builder - Welcome Home Loan.
TPP - TPP
One person's meat is another person's poison - replace meat with 'skill'. My skill was IT but what that means is hard to define. Well actually quite easy: how much are you paid. So if the permanent resident chefs are paid like say Jamie Oliver I will welcome them. Hardly needs NZ stats - any reasonable programmer could match the INZ Visas with the IRD annual income database and produce a summary by salary range. My guess too many low paid immigrants but why not produce the stats and prove me and all the other immigration skeptics wrong. But even if 95% of immigrants are good for NZ and paying plenty tax to pay for the extra infrastructure that would still identify the 5% who are being exploited by their bosses and a handful of criminals such as those importers of drugs who had had residency for 9 years but never made a tax return.
Better to do away with the skills list altogether and set a high bar such like minimum $75k salary. At least if they're going to fake the paperwork they'd be paying ~$16k in taxes each year. Of course the politicians wouldn't like that because we need cheap labour.
A Chinese bloke at my office said he is thinking of leaving. He can't bring his sick parents over nowadays you see. He tells me Toronto or Vancouver are already have a 50% foreign population so those cities are more friendly towards his kind.
Diversity is a strength? Yeah right. In reality it's very much birds of a feather.
As of the 2016 Canada Census Greater Vancouver is about 46% Asian, and 20% are from China or Hong Kong. I suspect our census this year will show Auckland being quite similar.
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/p…
Rather a shallow analysis. David Hargreaves argued that these changes are the previous coalition's changes filtering through and forcing immigrants to return home.
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/93368/david-hargreaves-says-tweaks-n…
"The fact that a March-month record number of non-New Zealanders (over 3,000) left the country long term last month tells you what is happening. People are reaching the end of the road on visas and having to leave."
The same is continuing in April, with more non-New Zealanders departing. In most cases, probably not by choice.
mfd i'm inclined to agree that the higher numbers of non-NZers leaving could be related to changes to visas that National implemented. Makes you wonder why National waited so long though?
I do also wonder how many other factors there are too? For instance, there is much anti-immigrant sentiment in the media, a government who at least stated that they would reduce immigration (whether they will or not is yet to be seen). Then there is the house price inflation, which spread out across the whole country over the past 2 years. If you were a migrant on a low wage, seeing the political sentiment turn against you, house prices increasingly out of reach of your pitiful wages perhaps you'd be more inclined to leave? So it might be a combination of factors, including National's visa tweaks.
mfd Practically yes. The tweaks to immigration policy that National invoked in the 11th hour will undoubtedly be demonstrating effect, especially the change to parents of immigrants I imagine. However, those tweaks didn't gain much international media coverage, whereas the Coalitions "BANNING FOREIGN HOUSE BUYERS" policy was all over the world news. Psychologically, at least, those headlines might well have been heard by immigrants as a less than welcoming policy, even if it didn't affect them directly. There does appear to be a growing dissatisfaction with immigration globally, so I wouldn't be surprised if global migration is simply slowing everywhere. I follow the British news, immigration there has steeply declined since the Brexit vote. Some of it started immediately because of the souring sentiment (before changes to visas even began).
I can't tell if this is a satirical post or not anymore. If not, then I'm really surprised that people assume National policies aren't what are driving skilled youth to relocate.
Why contribute to a country where investment is so skewed towards stagnant real-estate, rather than productive industries including technology and innovation?
I'd really like to know if such naive comments come from a specific demographic.
My uber driver the other day. He got residency as a chef. Just has to wait three years till he gets his passport. Then his plan is to move to Australia. We are an easy back door plain and simple. And because we are an easy back door the aussie are taking a harder line with us. Pretty simple really.
Your theory is utter bollocks mate.
And as this trend has progressed, the employers seem to be screaming louder and louder that they cannot get the staff that they want. Does that mean that the immigrants 68 times less productive, or 68 times less likely to fill our needs than the citizens that we are loosing, or some combination thereof.
Clearly, they are still letting the wrong immigrants in, the recent bunch just aren't prepared to accept low enough wages.
Employers scream and scream about difficulty recruiting in a tight labour market, but weirdly healthy market dynamics like offering higher wages just don't apply.
This immigrant bashing makes a change from spruiking houses
Look it’s hardly the immigrants fault if NZ allows easy access & welfare benefits free healthcare & schooling for their children
NZ has to offer something as there’s other countries to migrate to
I have yet to meet a lazy Asian or Indian or Seth African
Be happy kiwis
Exactly. My better half is Welsh, and technically my daughter is as she was born in England. So I'm definitely the same boat. My Dad is Australian as well.
Nothing wrong with immigrants, its the quantity and the quality that needs addressing. We also want people who want to continue the kiwi culture. The funny thing is everyone bangs on about diversity, and accepting culture, but what about accepting NZ's culture so we don't lose our identity. We are a small nation and our culture can be easily diluted, with mass immigration.
I have met a few & have them as relations. Getting a visa for South Africans is much harder & more stringent though, than many other countries. Even other African nations have it tougher. Whereas for others they do not even need to bother with adequate checks on the visa applications and if they come here on a "holiday" or "study" visa they can easily claim and beg for residency (better if children are involved). But this is a system of abuse of both sides and if you fail to see the abuse of immigrants as being bad then it is likely the factor you are using to support them being here. "yet to meet a lazy" when we already know NZ has imported sex slaves, slave workers, illegal wages, invalid illegal contracts, illegal working & housing conditions, invalid fraudulent degrees more expensive than actual quality in demand training, and visa scams. If you honesty cannot see what is wrong with that and the money the NZ government loses to cover the bills of the social degradation then you are far far gone.
Good Graphics. Thanks David.
Looking at the monthly graphic, there is quite a strong seasonal pattern to the figures.
Still far to many however, and at least 2 to 4 times other nations where the citizens think that their imigration is too high. A long way to go yet, but encouraging. It will be interesting to see the figures in a years time when historical figures under the national government ponzie scheme era work out of the YOY total.
Still only a marginal shift. We need to drive the net immigration down to a fraction of what is now. Increase the people quality, and up drive New Zealanders incomes and skill levels. All at the same time and quite doable. In my view New Zealanders would benefit from such an approach.
You have to factor in the downsides of the immigration pattern we stupidly have allowed. It's not just Auckland, the awful downside has turned to the heartlands. Just in the last week I directly heard of the housing problems in both Oamaru and Teviot.
Oamaru. The exact reasons are debatable - as for everywhere. But back 'then' folk could afford to provide themselves a roof. Now it's a mismatch of incomes to cost with a significant few falling off the end of the range. Demand is driving prices up, but incomes remain static.
Mentioned is increased business activity driving population increase. Lots of immigrants. Tourism with people using beds. Airbnb taking out what were previously rental units. Oamaru is a very well organised town in it's social services, they can cite this as a change with Authority.
At the housing crisis end, there is trouble even finding motels for people, even with WINZ paying.
So there is increased demand, at the same time as income suppression. Folk just not able to afford it, and that leads to developers not being able to make the numbers work in their trade.
It ain't half as bad as the big cities, but it's there.
Population level growth due to immigration (because post boomers average family sizes dramatically shifted), has created a large demand along with substantial investor number growth. With demand being pushed pretty heavily it would not matter what the Auckland council did, there would still not be enough houses and a high price increase/bubble was always likely with that as a factor. Japan is interesting as a comparison, because they literally are begging for more children from Japanese mothers.
Really enjoyed Oamaru when I visited for the one and only time 3 years ago. I remember looking at property prices back then (out of curiosity more than anything) and a decent house wasn't much more than $200K - and many had been on the market for 6 - 12 months. Just did a search on Oamaru property now and most properties are listed as "deadline sale" which is a sure sign the market is hot!
Adding the 28,000 or so natural population increase that means we have to find new homes for 95,000 people. How many homes is that? 30,000-38,000. Are we doing that? That means that we are continuing to go backwards at an alarming rate. How can the government let anybody into the country other than a very small number of people that we need to solve the problem.
In the year ended March 2018, 31,392 new dwellings were consented. Who knows how many of these will actually be built, and how many of these are replacing exiting houses that are going to be demolished.
Assuming 2.7 people per household on average, seems to me that we need to be building 35,000 dwellings per year to accommodate immigration and natural increase.
Chris-M part of the problem is surely that no one can agree what the problem actually is? Let alone which skills we need to import to help solve the problem. All the various industries impact on each other and yet we are constantly fed oversimplified stories about individual issues.
If there are not enough Kiwi fruit pickers, one old fashioned capitalist solution might be to raise wages to encourage interest in the job, rather than complaining that Kiwis are too lazy to do the job and that the government needs to allow for more cheap but willing immigrants in to pick them. Or perhaps the Kiwi farmers have planted too big a crop?
But context is never presented in the media. What you hear is; "Not enough Kiwi fruit pickers - import more!!! begs desperate farmers".
What is better for NZ? A population increasing faster than it can actually accommodate? Or a smaller crop of Kiwi fruit? Is the reduction in Kiwi fruit picking going to be causing as big a crisis? How does the Kiwi fruit crisis compare to the housing and debt crisis on a national scale? Why should the needs of Kiwi fruit farm owners be national news when they haven't even tried basic market tactics (increasing wages) to attract staff?
How is it that NZ simultaneously has a shortage of builders, teachers, nurses etc but no shortage whatsoever of uber drivers? How did that happen exactly? Are we supposed to believe that native NZ-ers just decided that being uber driving was a better life choice than professions that have a massive shortage? Interestingly, i've taken 100's of ubers and only ever met one Kiwi-born driver. Most of the Uber drivers i've met are wildly over qualified for being a taxi driver and they all complain of being unable to get a "decent job" in NZ? Often they tell me, they came over to NZ and studied, but once they were trained/qualified they couldn't get a job within that field. Again, none of them trained to be builders, nurses or teachers (or any of the fields with chronic shortages) though.
Rather obviously mass immigration directly increases the need for infrastructure related professions like teaching, nursing and building much more than it increases the need for uber drivers or Kiwi fruit pickers.
This problem has been allowed to build for a long, long time and presumably some gigantic errors have been made in skills and education provision within INZ and government policy.
If there's not enough kiwifruit pickers (insert any other low wage industry suffering from labour shortages), and market forces aren't bypassed by letting in a flood of workers from developing countries, then one of two things happen. Either wages and conditions are improved, or else technology is developed to mechanise the tasks involved. I would say both are desirable outcomes.
Oh Doris, i'm in total agreement. But yet, this is never presented as part of the context when this kind of item hits the news. We are always fed the idea that we have an intractable problem that only government can fix. The problem is;
- lazy Kiwis
The solution is;
- not-lazy immigrants
how is it you have not appreciated the difference in a low skilled to high skilled job environment, with higher levels of productivity & consumer spending. Importing minimum wages just create more social costs which we all have to pay for, (well those of us paying tax in NZ and not exporting the profit overseas).
The price of a gold kiwifruit orchard has doubled in the last 2 years.
Those who have purchased say a 4 cHa gold orchard are paying $120,000 more in interest per year than 2 or 3 years years ago, but aren't prepared to pay , via the contractors, for 15 people to earn an extra $5 dollars an hour for the 2 days they spend picking their orchard.
Complain about input costs, but they're bidding themselves into double the debt ..... double the interest payments.
This is a problem of their own making.
I have some sympathy for the Green growers who genuinely would be on thin margins. But Gold growers have just bid themselves up to the same thin margins. If they can't make a profit and pay a market wage, then their orchard iin't worth what they've paid for it.
An industry that requires large amounts of bottom of the barrel labour doesn’t deserve to exist here. If the industry is set up on the basis it uneconomic on anything other than wages at or below the minimum wage we are better off without it. If the industry refuses to make itself more productive to reflect the costs of labour in NZ then good riddance.
There is a lot of plain B.S. uttered by employers of pickers. Via a young relative I am well acquainted with one local scene. example. One big employer had gathered a crew of 40. Many of them foreign backpackers who had travelled from other parts of the country for what was portrayed as two months work.
10 days after starting they were all laid off with 24 hours notice.
At the same time the local horticulture nabobs were saying in the media that they could not get staff. If you ever read that line in future reframe that lie as. "We want as many people available as possible at all times, even if we don't need them"
And yes we do understand it's a weather dependent industry, but that's not the cause of atrocious employer behaviour. Some of the employers are great, and many are quite abusive.
When I was a high school student I sometime used to work as a rouse about in a shearing gang. The accommodation was provided at a very nominal fee and I was paid 10 shillings per hour. That was really good money in those days, from memory well over twice what was available elsewhere. It is the equivalent of $62-87 in today's money according to the Reserve Banks inflation calculator. It is no wonder that with farmers paying $16 to $20 an hour they are having trouble getting staff.
While I was on the site I checked how much how house prices have increased over the same period. As above wages increased by a multiple of 62, however house prices increased by a multiple of almost 158. So house prices have increased over 2.5 times faster. No wonder so many people are now struggling.
The fruit picking jobs used to be the best for students, great earners to save up for moving out and seasonal work. Nowadays relatives cannot even get an answer back on applications for fruit picking work, (they would need to be paid minimum wage and that is too much for the employer and too little for the worker).
I’m not sure if we’ve got this right. It seems immigration is a good thing if we target the right skills but it’s tough because to bring in one doctor you need to bring their family too. It’s likely a 3:1 ratio. So for net immigration of 68k you are probably only bringing in 20-30k potentially highly skilled people. That’s if you even get the skills right and from reading these posts it doesn’t appear we do.
When is the foreign house ban supposedly going to see the parliament floor again? That will likely cause some visa holders to leave if they can’t buy a house.
I have zero confidence in the infrastructure planning involved with this kind of equation though either. For each 4 person family, it's not just the house they require, that's 2 extra kids in a classroom, 4 extra people requiring health, social and welfare resources etc. Does one skilled person ever balance out that equation if they come with a partner and kids? Or is one extra skilled person always just adding to the infrastructure burden? This is the kind of question that I have yet to see addressed by any government or "think tank".
There are probably some skill shortages that don't always involve importing whole families. So for instance, young nurses, teachers and builders might not have families yet, they might even be happy to work in NZ for 2-5 years just for the life experience. What can we do to increase and incentivise those types of immigrants directly? Is NZ advertising directly to new graduates in other countries within the professions where shortages exist as other countries do? Does this kind of strategic planning even happen?
Yes I agree the math on the infrastructure side does not make sense (amount of productivity compared to cost) and the emperical evidence is the stress we already see in the system. Because if it did work we would be far more prosperous. Time for a zero based approach one would think and tracking GDP per Capita as the economic lagging indicator of success vs. Pure GDP growth.
I doubt even 20-30k of them are highly skilled.
I'd say about 2500 of them are. But who knows right? We need to see some sort of breakdown.
I do know however that the education sector (those providing 'English language' courses etc.) are a large export earner.
So that's why the immigration tap is not being turned off. The government doesn't want to lose the tax revenue.
The new figures consolidate international education’s place as New Zealand’s fourth largest export sector, supporting more than 33,000 jobs across New Zealand.
A little dated, but probably not too far away from today's figures: https://enz.govt.nz/news-and-research/ed-news/further-growth-for-intern…
Paashaas it wasn't a conscious omission.
And I agree that's a serious consideration. Indeed, despite the life altering, culture shattering, nation dividing impacts of globalisation, the ramifications of such have only just recently begun to become a huge political hot potato. Although now the negative aspects of globalisation have become so far reaching and complex that it's nigh on impossible to weigh up the problem objectively. The problem is so huge that it has fueled populist movements globally. A way to voice dissatisfaction certainly but will it improve anything?
Are the benefits of globalisation worth the negatives? Was there enough consideration at nation level as to how nations would cope with the negative effects during the first decades of scrambling for a share of the trade pie?
If maintaining market share of Kiwi fruit in the global market is so important to NZs economic and cultural future then surely the government should throw all the money they can at increased infrastructure and allow as much cheap labour in as they possibly can? No?
I remember the Immigration dept (NZIS) was previously parked ( and rightfully so) under Internal Affairs.But, under John Key it was quietly relocated under Min of Business, Innovation & Employment.
Any concerns raised by NZIS that security-sensitive information would be compromised was steam-rolled over.
So immigration was more a business concern & less with internal & border security, etc.
High time to reconsider things & put right what was done by National primarily to pander to foreign & self-interests of those weilding the levers of power at that time
Not correct. NZIS was part of the Department of Labour for umpteen years, two decades at least, and went to MBIE with the rest of Dept of Labour when Key and chums merged together all those huge unwieldy super-ministries.
Internal Affairs always had responsibility for citizenship, and still do.
Is it too late to join the urban exodus?
The halo effect - the cancer has spread
'BOP have become increasingly like Auckland'.
'You've come to escape Auckland and Auckland's come after you'.
'I come here and I'm pushing local people out'.
'We hated living in Auckland, we couldn't get our heads above water, we were in the grossest flat. Just cold, damp, not somewhere you want to raise a child.'
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12…
"We're on one income at the moment – with two littlies at home – so when you see the cars driving up to open homes, you feel totally financially outgunned. "
Obviously not reading interest.co.nz property they need to get with the program, its double income at $75,000 a piece. Keep the ponzi going, high debt is the goal. Forget about the kids debt and making banks rich is the only game in town.
Mind you when the kids are five maybe they can send them out to work. We don't want those bank shareholders to miss out on the latest launch and the 100K birthday party for their kids.
This is just nuts.
"Two years ago, the median house price in Hawke's Bay was $275,000. The April 2018 REINZ house price index report now puts it at a record $445,000, an increase of 62 per cent, while the housing inventory is one of the lowest in the country, at just nine weeks."
Life happened mate. Birth defects & risks rise significantly with women bearing children later on post 30 (costs to the NZ taxpayer from the increased health issues). Unfortunately that is where this generation usually has kids, now 10 years on from the previous two generations because even affording housing is difficult on two wages, let alone the previous generation's middle income 1 wage. You could freeze a woman's eggs, fertilize them later and use a surrogate when they eventually afford housing in late 30s, 40s but in NZ there really is no surrogate system, it is prohibitively expensive and surrogates or even birth parents in NZ often have more rights over the child than the genetic or adoptive mother. So solutions for having children later on poses far more of a gambling risk with health, legal & financial issues. Technically they are being more responsible by recognising the inescapable medical issue boundary there. After all most of the previous generation is telling them it was easy "back in their day" and everyone should be able to rent & continuously shift rentals every 2 years up until they retire.
High immigration still boosting house prices
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/corelogic-migrant-numbers-still-bolsteri…
It is good to read David Hargreaves dispassionate account of the latest immigration figures. Like most of those who have commented I'm in favour of reducing immigration to numbers more in line with other countries but I suspect the average Kiwi is either uninterested in the subject or mildly in favour (we all know at least one or two decent immigrants).
There are two major problems with the figures (1) they are based on arrivals/departures (2) a major factor is movement of Kiwis which is largely out of our govt's control, in fact more in Australia's govt control.
The data for granting permanent residency is the most significant of the figures; the figures for work visas and students are far less important since if there is a severe recession they will eventually go home and not be replaced. These figures from the article are interesting: China (2,800 – down 700), United Kingdom (900 – down 500), India (900 – down 400), Philippines (700 – down 300). They show that INZ are beginning to be serious about looking for diversity and belatedly tackling the creation of foreign colonies on NZ soil (that multiculturalism beloved of well paid academics but the potential cause of ethnic disturbances throughout the world).
Sadly the small number who benefit from our lax immigration policy are also major funders of our political parties and advertisers in the media: property investors and various small businesses (bus companies wanting to make a profit on their council contracts, care homes wanting to make profits on their contracts, orchard owners, fast food outlets, etc). Getting a balanced discussion without our govt publishing facts often descends into unpleasant semi-racism or very selective quotes from other countries that do not apply to NZ today.
BLOODY RIDICULOUS .............. annual gain of 67,000 and we are still only consenting and building 8,000 houses annually.
What happened to Winston Peters election promise to "hit the pause button " on immigration ?
We are building no new schools , no new hospitals , not enough roads and trying to get everyone onto a dirty -run down over-priced and hopelessly erratic public bus service .
We need to STOP, just STOP this flood of people coming in here until we have:-
1) Got on top of our road building
2) Built enough NEW schools
3) Built enough NEW hospitals
4) Opened all the farmland between Auckland and Warkworth for housing
5) Opened all the farmland between Kumeu and Helensville for housing
6) Opened all the farmland from the Bombays to Huntly for housing
And just for the avoidance of doubt , we have enough Taxi drivers , enough $2 shops, enough scruffy little lunch bars , and enough nail and hair salons .
Has immigration only shrunk by 5,000? thats not enough!!!! it should be halved. Infra structure is seriously groaning. Out patient clinics at any hospital are filled with immigrants getting health problems sorted.. schools are struggling and so is housing.. why are that many people still being allowed into New Zealand???.
I'm not a scholar or economist or by any means an intellectual. But even I can see the epic problems mass immigration has caused our small country & I haven't yet seen any good points that have come from it! I hear Kiwis are not entitled to any government assistance in other countries, I hear Kiwis are homeless in Australia & neither Government doesn't want to help them either!!
All I ever hear is NZ is a great place to be an immigrant, they live off our benefits & pensions after they bring over the rest of their families. But woe betide if you migrate to their countries, don't expect equal treatment, don't expect a handup let alone a handout!!! Only NZ splashes all the money it cannot afford to at immigrants, while we the people suffer!!!
I work for a Government department & the majority of complaints about our services come from self entitled immigrants who expect the world & everything in it!!!
M I understand your discontent and I agree that immigration has been very poorly managed in NZ. However, it's not strictly true that all NZ migrants receive a raw deal overseas. My Kiwi husband lived in the UK for 12 years, he received healthcare, tax credits, child benefit, paternity leave and pension. He was allowed to set up a LTD company (which we still run) and we bring all those profits from the UK into NZ. So now i'm a British immigrant in NZ, but receive no benefits, i've yet to see a doctor here and we send our kids to a private school, so whilst it's true that there are plenty of imbalances, its not true of all countries or migrants.
The UK has restricted NZ migrants quite a bit recently due to the shifts in NZ to UK migration. Even the early millennials were told to "get in before the doors close" so to speak. So even highly skilled family who migrated over there a few years before would not get in or see the same benefits now. Something about not even being able to manage services for locals etc... Australia are doing it as well, shifting their immigration policy to reduce access & support for NZders and family there are at risk. Although they were there for decades in skilled roles so it would be difficult for them to shift back, especially since NZ cannot even house and employ the in demand NZ graduates & trained skilled staff here. Really now the support overseas can reduce to nothing except for those who can appropriately follow the overseas skilled visa system without fraud and even then they cannot access support until full residency. Unlike NZ where there is ACC & travel accident healthcare, work without even a working visa, pay for visa entry schemes (even with criminal pasts and activity in NZ), overstaying on student visa & student benefits, clauses that allow relatives in, pension access so long as parents come in a few years before they would like to claim it, housing benefits and facilities for emergency housing, etc. etc. Pretty close to an open door since many of the student visas & courses were cheaper to get than other visa types and even a petrol gas attendant, cheap unskilled labourers & restaurant wait staff could get in under the "skilled" categories with little checks and balances.
Even with a mixed and diverse family the effects of the NZ immigration system in the past decade or two has been to devalue the quality of life in NZ, and strain the infrastructure so much it is only worth dying here, because most NZders will not be able to afford living even to the quality of the 1960's or 1980's. Your children and your children's children will suffer far more than you & even you too may never obtain the quality of life your parents or grandparents had. Unfortunately there is a lot of evidence that unsustainable population increases in any area or environment would do this and increasing a low wage economy does very little for a country as a whole unless those low wages could afford all living necessities into and beyond retirement without government subsidies.
The picture is even worse as NZ employers can be more discriminatory to workers with ageism and disability discrimination rife. These members of the public who often can be highly skilled & functional in employment roles but who cannot obtain gainful employment rely more on the state. Want to guess why employers can be so throwaway with existing staff & potential staff? There is no demand to make them indispensable. Even crime rises because once someone hits that first wrong step they may never find access to gainful employment ever again. Which of course drives more crime as they try to work around the system. Drawing more into their wake. The issue of lack of employment opportunities affects the honest families just as much as the families with a dishonest member. With even honest family members switching onto the dishonest path due to financial & environmental stress.(I have seen a few families in the community caught by this, and still even redemption is such a rare opportunity with employers. When kiwifruit farmers are employing past criminals & offices are retaining and employing elderly staff in new training roles then I will see it as a NZ with opportunities for all. Right now many employers can't even be bothered employing valid visa holders with little to no punishment in comparison to saved tax payments & added profits. So this country will be screwed, corrupt & with growing crime for a very long while yet.
Even the scientific studies proving this were very depressing on the long term effects. Normally it took a large cull of the population before it could even start to restore, (and that is something that no one wants at any means). So inherently we need to take it seriously, reduce the number & consider enforcement better and for gods sake work on the infrastructure and factors that influence the quality of living like affordability & availability of houses before all NZ taxpayers have to fork out for a ballooning number retirees that cannot afford their own housing much longer. Heck no one wants a 'Logan's Run' scenario or a 'Make Room, Make Room' one (more commonly known with Soylent Green, the part where suicide was actively encouraged for retirees and those over 60). I like my dystopian science fiction but I do not want to die in environments like it. Unlike other family members, even with highly skilled roles we cannot leave this country even if we wanted to. It is the one place we have left and even that is reduced in scope to only being a corner of the one place we have left in less than a decade.
Its the economy stupid - a low wage one. Migrants are only filling in jobs behind left by kiwis who head overseas - some of them receiving high value education and training here and leaving for better lifestyle and wages etc.
can hardly blame the immigrants, we should be grateful we could get cheap labour at short notice.
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