Well, that's definitely a start.
Immigration Minister Erica Stanford is conceding that "we can't have" a net 126,000 migrants a year coming into the country, as we did in calendar year 2023.
The Minister, however, wasn't keen in her interview on TVNZ last weekend to indicate the types of numbers 'we can have' coming into New Zealand on a yearly basis.
Look, I'll forgive the caution, given that Stanford is stepping into an unholy mess bequeathed her by the previous Government.
In fact, I took some encouragement from Stanford's words. It's good that she intends to look at the "structural make-up" of inbound workers - with over half of them last year in the unskilled category, something I just find incredible. And it's good that she intends progressing the idea, as raised by the Productivity Commission, of a policy statement requiring New Zealand's governments to set a clear strategic direction for immigration policy, although she stressed it was "very early days". I sincerely hope that doesn't mean the idea might ultimately be slipped into the never-never category.
And I did very much like this quote from Stanford: "One of the issues that we don't do very well and haven't done forever in this country is plan."
An NZ immigration minister talking about planning? I may become giddy!
I guess we now need to wait and see what the government comes up with in the short term to try to fix the current, definitely very unplanned, dog's breakfast that we've been confronted with in terms of our migration issues.
And then we need to see what 'planning' will materialise for the longer term.
It seems clear that there will be a rebalancing of the numbers coming into the country between skilled and unskilled workers. The explicit targeting of New Zealanders-first for jobs, as Stanford clearly indicated will be the case - is essential in my view.
As I've said before we can't just consign, particularly young Kiwis, to the job scrap heap because its easier to get people from overseas to fill jobs.
And that's not an emotional thing. It's pragmatic. Once someone's born in NZ they become the responsibility - and potentially a problem - for the country for as long as they live. Send someone to the scrap heap early on in their lives and that will come back to bite us all through anti-social outcomes. We are already seeing a fair bit of that. Carry on as we have been and it will worsen.
I'm not suggesting this is an easy issue to fix - at all. But, regardless of the effort required - and I concede there might be a fair bit of effort required - it's more desirable to in the first instance try to fill jobs with people already in the country. The 'easy fix' may well be overseas sourced workers, but long term that really isn't going to fix anything. Beware the 'easy' solution. It may be anything but.
So, that's one very key migration issue. For me, however, probably the biggest issue is the 'big picture'. It's the big picture that no NZ government has ever cared to look at.
Will this Government?
Well, I have to say, one word that I didn't hear coming from Stanford's mouth during the TVNZ interview - unless I missed it - was 'population'.
We need to talk about population.
If we really want to talk about planning for migration, we can't do it without putting the whole thing into the context of a proper population strategy. And until I see differently, I suspect that this Government will, like all of our governments previously, attempt to conduct immigration policy divorced from any overall thinking about population. Mistake.
Until there's some clear, over-arching, understanding in this country even of something basic like what is the magic number of people we would like to have in NZ, I just don't see how decisions can be made about the numbers of people allowed to come into the country.
How can you possibly decide what numbers of people are appropriate to let into the country if you don't have a clue what the optimum size of your population should be?
Setting migration numbers in total isolation from some idea of a desired overall population number means that we are inevitably setting ourselves up for annual population 'creep'.
It's fair to say that in this country in more recent (non-pandemic) years, the 'creep' has become more of a gallop. In calendar year 2023 our population increased an amazing 2.8%. And this was a year in which our natural population increase - through births minus deaths - was at an 80-year low.
The feeling I get is that most regular readers of this website probably reckon we've already got enough, or in fact more than enough, people in the country.
But somehow I can't see it as remotely likely that a National-led government would ever seek to completely curtail inbound migration. Leopards and spots and all that.
In future years the inbound numbers might not be 126,000, but I'm betting they will remain appreciably more than the existing inhabitants of this country might be comfortable with.
And while a focus on skilled workers rather than unskilled is sensible enough, another area I wonder about in terms of future migration here is the, what I would call chequebook migrants - the high worth individuals who grease their path into the country by putting a nice dollop of cash on the counter.
My problem with this type of inbound migration is around what it actually contributes to the economy.
If these high worth individuals come here and then simply make passive investments here - such as through an investment fund, or through buying an existing property - that simply doesn't add much to the NZ economy. Now, instead, if said high worth individual commits to start up a business here, and to employing people - IE adding discernible value to the economy, obviously that is a positive.
Anyway, let's wait and see what this Government comes up with. They will need cutting some slack because of the very fact that they have acquired a right royal migration mess from the previous government. And let's not forget that regardless of the numbers of people that may come across our borders this year, that 126,000 net number that came here last year is still here and it's a huge number that will have ongoing ramifications.
The upshot is that it won't be easy. But if this Government really does come up with a 'plan' for immigration that would be something. I confess though that my overall expectations remain low. Come on Government. Surprise me. In a good way.
65 Comments
As a teacher at a large (1800+ students) urban NI high school it has been interesting watching the demographic change in the classroom. My classes are now split evenly across 4 or 5 ethnicities - euro NZ, Maori, PI, and South East Asian. Personally I really enjoy teaching the migrant students, though I think the composition would really shock someone they hadn't been in a classroom for 10 years or so.
I'm really surprised that Maori have not made more of an issue with this tbh, it's potentially a huge existential threat to their political power in the long run.
Agree with your final statement. I still suspect a lot of immigrants struggle to understand the policies and processes that appear to favour Maori. In time they will become more vocal in opposition whilst Pakeha are fairly laid back and lackadaisical in protesting against this.
I suspect Maorification of NZ (Not Areateeroa) is a big issue but runs deep and not widely an open issue for fear of being labelled racist, but as Maori like Jacko spew clearly racist invective against non Maori the backlash will grow - Maori radicals like Jacko and Greenies will regret grabbing the tiger by its tale - the bite may be terminal.
NZ is becoming a multicultural country, not a bicultural one, and this is going to be more and more the case as time passes, and it is potentially a positive and enriching factor for NZ society, economy and culture. Like it or not, it is time for Maoris to get used to the fact that the time for race-based preferential treatment is finally coming to an end.
I think multiculturalism is an inherently flawed ideal.
When people talk about the benefits and cultural enrichment etc they aren't really talking about multiculturalism, they are talking about cultural assimilation. Whereby parts of other cultures are adopted into a shared kiwi culture.
The notion that there can be numerous distinct cultural enclaves all working together efficiently side by side doesn't appear to be based in reality.
Mass human cooperation is fundamentally based upon shared belief and values.
Yeah, I think this is going to be one of the key political dividing lines in coming decades. Asians who come here are, in my experience, much less respectful than Pakeha towards Maori rights. They strongly dislike 'sensitive' policing, they strongly dislike ethnic quotas in education (which disadvantage their children), they're not really swayed by arguments about historic injustice.
I think the response to this from the left will probably be to frame Asians as 'white-adjacent', basically just white people. Which might make them feel better but won't change voting patterns. There are a lot of Auckland electorates (the likes of Mt Albert, Mt Roskill) which are historically Labour but which, once lost, may not be again for a very long time if their massive Asian (Indian, Chinese, Filipino) communities feel that the Left disdains them.
New Zealand has control of its borders, most other countries have huge problems with illegal immigrants New Zealand doesn’t so if the government get it wrong the country will just vote them out.126k is huge amount compared to population around 2.5% increase in one year this is putting pressure on health service, schools, infrastructure all around the country.
The problem is BOTH parties end up pumpingin unskilled migrants
Neither party has a way to grow the economy and keep house prices from collapsing without lettinvmg in tons of unskilled migrants.
Its why skilled middle class kiwis are leaving in droves. Better money, public services and infrastructure over the ditch.
Nz will end up like the uk... with an elite class that have the money to use private infrastructre.. and the peasants who work for them withcrappy wellbeing and no prospects.
That Australia didn't drink the neo-liberal kool aid to quite the same degree as New Zealand gives them a historical income advantage, but they seem to be doing everything they can lately to narrow the gap in living standards for some reason.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/14i9vaw/average_income_in_australia_vs_new_zealand/
Get some of that 1% rental vacancy and 10% rent inflation down ya cobba.
Incoming passenger numbers are still huge - 47,000 net inflow in the last 2 weeks of January, and another 52,500 net arrivals in the first 2 weeks of February.
It will be interesting to see February's international student numbers, as Canada and Australia have substantially cut back their 2024 intake. They may all be headed here instead.
In fact, I took some encouragement from Stanford's words. It's good that she intends to look at the "structural make-up" of inbound workers - with over half of them last year in the unskilled category, something I just find incredible.
And yet National want to remove the blanket median wage threshold and replace it with per industry medians. Surely that will increase the number of low skilled workers coming into the country.
Small population countries can do well? Wikipedia list of countries by GDP per capita
Monaco
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Bermuda
Ireland
Switzerland
Norway
Cayman Islands
Singapore
Qatar
United States
Isle of Man
Iceland
Denmark
Faroe Islands
Channel Islands
Well United States is large. Surely one thing NZ taught the world in the past was that small but smart and determined beats bigness.
One other thing most of those countries have in common is that they are tax havens (to varying degrees). The others (Norway, Qatar) have massive oil reserves. Offshore finance and so on inflates the GDP without really lifting the quality of day to day life for the residents. It's also a race to bottom and one you can't win without getting the country blacklisted by the OECD. John Key has already tried the route of making us the 'Switzerland of the South Pacific and thankfully we have moved on from the idea.
Arguably a better indicator is GNI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nominal)_per_ca…
The only non-tax haven non-resource rich small countries ahead of us are Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Israel, Finland - so I guess we should be looking at Nordic style policies?
Agree. It is not only smallness. The populist spin would have us believe that we have to keep growing our population to keep growing. That is complete bollocks. I analyzed the economic performance of about 130 countries and found that there is a slightly negative correlation between population growth rate and increasing GDP per capita. I.E. Generally those with shrinking populations do better.
Noprway and sweden with similar population size appear to manage with massive immigration although is having major issues in Malmo with th eimmigrants of a certain ethnicity for the qavoidance of doubt that enthnicity is Muslim - check out France and Germany and see if there are similarities.
So half the migrants were unskilled. Taking jibs on minimum wage to make rich farmers richer.... at the taxpayers expense as we have to pay for the public services and infrastructure upgrades to support their workers... its a lossmaking exercise.
Doesnt matter who u vote for..thats what u get. Lol
Agree. It is completely insane. Unfortunately it is never going to change.
A large proportion of young Kiwi families will never own their own home or ever have anything other than a life of low paid serfdom. And it will be far worse when their children face these issues. Their only hope is to leave NZ and watch the country degenerate into a South Pacific banana republic from offshore. You will enjoy the country better as a tourist with all the minimum wage slaves running around after you.
The problem is that the government won't/can't talk about anything except in the abstract "economy" terms.
Migrants are perceived as economic widgets in the "labour" bucket that will have whatever impact on GDP. They aren't treated as people that will actually have an impact beyond GDP figures.
Noone will discuss ethnic composition, cultural impact, long-term vision for the country etc.
Can NZ even say it would like to remain a predominantly European nation? Should it remain one? Can Maori express concern that they are becoming a relatively even smaller part of the makeup of the country?
What portion of the new Kiwis are truly Kiwis? As in it push came to shove, would fight in a war for NZ? As the Swedish PM said last year "Being a citizen is more than just a passport".
https://www.thelocal.se/20240109/pm-ulf-kristersson-if-you-dont-want-to…
Pakeha have proven on many occasions they will fight for NZ and our ideals, as have the Maori. I suspect many 2nd/3rd generation immigrants of differing backgrounds would too. But what if the war was against China?
I don't know. But immigration discussed solely as a question of economics is incredibly naive to anyone with the slightest historical knowledge is foolish.
When NZ was colonised, guess what? It was fantastic for GDP! But that clearly wasn't the whole story or even most of the story from the perspective of the existing inhabitants.
"what if the war was against China?" That experiment has already been run in many countries around the planet. Once immigrant populations reach critical mass they become ghettoised. They don't have to integrate to run their lives and become little enclaves of the mother country.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/explained-what-are-chinas-alleged-secr…
I know many 2nd/3rd Chinese NZers from my schooling days that I am confident are Kiwis first. Ditto for Indians etc.
But more recent arrivals? We're kidding ourselves to think there aren't potential risks here.
Public discourse has revoked almost exclusively around immigration as a question of economics for decades. But that framing is not the only one and we'd be naive to ignore the others.
Agree. This is the first question that needs to be settled before economic questions are raised - what is a country? I think that question of how many would sign up to defend the country really gets to the heart of it. I think we are totally naive to think the world sees land as simply different jurisdictions governed by respective law books. While that has happened within the anglosphere where values are largely shared, that is a very small pocket of the world that is very quickly getting gobbled up by the rest of the world who don't think that way at all. Once that critical mass is reached, it's all over.
National and NZ first have had 6 years to come up with a set of criteria for immigration. I exclude ACT because they don't care, the more the merrier. Whats this Minister whoever now suddenly realises the settings are not right. Pathetic.
In any event I suspect she is just making noises. Criteria for immigration will be set by others.
she is just a typical MP trying to get to the top,all noise, before the election we didn't let enough in now after the election too many came in, she is also a nimby and has fought the local council to stop any development in her part of the world least it upsets her lifestyle.
dont expect her to do anything but make noise
exactly correct. medium to high skilled labour will add value to our economy and infratsructure, attract higher salaries and pay more tax.
the big question is - what is the cost for local and central government to host an immigrant and keep our infrastructure and public service levels at an acceptable level. If the immigrant isnt earning sufficient money to pay that money via tax = then we shouldnt let them in - unless the employer funds the shortfall (which they wont).
1980-2010 world population increase: 3.5B
2020-2050 projected increase: 1.2B (low fertility estimation)
2050-2090 projected increase: -1.3B (low fertility estimation)
The future is an ever decreasing pool of potential immigrants, and following that, all out competition to retain a viable population
The higher the population number we start from, the more calamitous the collapse of our civic society will be.
Interesting stats about the number of nurses applying for accreditation to jump the ditch.
About 80% of them are new immigrant nurses, and the majority of them are applying without taking up their first placement in NZ. IE they are using NZ are a backdoor to Australia, which the Aussies will probably turn a blind eye to because they are nurses.
re ... "Look, I'll forgive the caution, given that Stanford is stepping into an unholy mess bequeathed her by the previous Government."
David, are you saying the previous government was responsible for the global disruptions causes by covid-19?
Or are you saying the previous government's response was completely wrong and we should have just ignored covid-19?
If so, may I remind you that the vast majority of Kiwis were behind our response and supported isolating NZ Inc. until vaccines and treatments were available. And overall, NZ Inc. did pretty well. (Just a shame the RBNZ also thought they needed to come riding to the rescue and completely distorted NZ Inc's economy in the process.)
Sorry David. Such words are ill advised, foolish, and basically wrong.
Further, when you write: "Stanford is conceding that "we can't have" a net 126,000 migrants a year coming into the country, as we did in calendar year 2023" without acknowledging that fact that 2023 was a catch-up year and a smoothing the number back over years where they was little or no immigration tells a completely different story, is nothing short of nonsense.
Sorry again David, but this is probably the most unbalanced article I've read from you. Quite saddening really.
I think the mess that is being referred to here is the recent influx of 126,000 migrants, so nothing to do with Covid, unless you believe that the recent influx was a) planned at all (ambitious belief in itself), and b) planned in relation to a targeted long-term trend. I'm not sure anyone believes that surely?
Are you suggesting that the current rate of immigration is based upon a delayed emigration backlog due to covid, and will self regulate downward without govt intervention?
Otherwise, I think arbitrarily smoothing the number back over several years is the more disengenuous presentation of facts.
The current monthly rate of immigration is unsustainable, regardless of there having been a bit of spare capacity due to low numbers previously. That won't remain the case.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I don't know how you come up with a magic number, unless it is a function of other factors, e.g. infrastructure, jobs available, unemployment rate, training capacity, long-term strategy regarding use of land. These factors are not set in stone, so wouldn't it make sense that population goal also changes in line with these or other factors?
My neighbour will move to Aussie next month. The husband served in the NZDF for over a decade and leads some large telecommunication projects after leaving the military; the wife is a school teacher. Beautiful young children.
If you cannot stop emigration, you cannot stop immigration - just a perspective.
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