1. Spot on analysis. Nothing wrong with carefully managed immigration, but you need to have in place sufficient infrastructure, housing and jobs for them. National has been cynically doing it solely to goose the GDP figures to make them look like they are great economic managers (as opposed to “reckless” social expenditure from the left), when in fact the exact opposite is true.

   • ‘Nothing wrong with carefully managed immigration’ except that the quality of life continually falls as each person’s share of resources progressively declines and the land base that support ALL LIFE gets ruined. and, of course, the natural systems that are self sustaining get replaced by artificial systems which are totally dependent on petroleum and have NO LONG-TERM FUTURE.

   • Yes, when we look at the OECD GDP per capita figures, New Zealand is lagging behind many other developed countries, and is somewhere in the middle field of the OECD.

     See page 10 graphs showing NZ’s GDP per capita is below the OECD average, as incomes have not kept up with “growth” (page 9):
     https://www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/New-Zealand-2015-overview.pdf

     GDP level per capita and productivity up to now:
     http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV#
     http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV

     NZ compares with countries such as the Slovak Republic and Israel, and is well behind many other countries in Europe and elsewhere. It is just over 50 percent higher than Chile’s.

     We are sold “growth” that is hardly keeping up with others, in a low end catch up phase, and income distribution is uneven, and lags behind other nations’ income situations.

     While Australia has lower growth on a nominal basis, Australians still enjoy much higher living standards.

     • Anyone who quotes GDP in anything other than a derogatory manner just doesn’t get it. GDP is FRAUD!

       Do some research and wake up, please!!!

       • Come on, no matter what kind of system we have, GDP measurements are just one tool to measure economic activity, and it is the commonly used one. There are of course some flaws or issues with every instrument to measure any economic activity, but what else would you propose as an alternative?

2. Um..http://www.tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/external-debt
   Nothing adds up, nothing makes any sense, garden path gets longer, debt gets bigger http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/newzealand, takeover by the Chinese elite any day and we will be paying homage to the Red Dragon, or is it green, or maybe yellow. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-03/chinese-are-buying-large-chunks-land-across-america-and-zillow-now-enabling-it
   but I guess we bought into the “100% pure we’ve never had it so good” meme that we fell asleep with our beer, chips spilling onto the sofa.
   But then again, we’ve been led by the rogues of City of London and then by the assassins of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex and now we are trained to follow anything that struts, puffs and huffs.

   • Yep. The Chinese word for No Zealand is Xinxilan. That’s the plan, full neo-colony of China. And our so-called leaders are traitors to the bone, selling us up the river for a few pieces of silver. Hang em all.

     http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11812362

     • Hang em all.

       No.

       • Organise treason trials (betrayal trials) and when they are found guilty sentence them to 20 years hard labour?

         The reason revolutionaries have to deal harshly with the criminals they depose is that the criminals depose will ALWAYS attempt a counter-revolution and attempt to re-establish the previous regime’s inequity. Just look at what happened in Venezuela after Chavez gained power and didn’t hang the fascists who had been in control for decades.

         • Oh dear.
           Sorry, political violence is always wrong.
           Better to stick to debating not knifing.

     • the Chinese and the Indians have exploited a loop hole in our Super this needs to end asap. We are paying for their parent to retire in our country and burden our health system that doesn’t even look after NZers. Another area is local councils need to stop selling our water change the bylaws

   • Wrong we are a rockstar economy, John Key and MSM have told us so.

     • Yep, alternative facts, I bet.

3. Brilliant stuff. People bringing this to attention have been harassed
   And followed too, even Auckland uni researchers.

   • Kia ora, thanks for that Jones.

     I’d like more info on your reference to researchers and others being harassed. Feel free to email me at fmacskasy(at)gmail(dot)com so we can discuss this further. As per usual, I offer sources complete anonymity if requested.

4. Why do we have a major drug problem here in New Zealand are our people that badly educated and disillusioned they are plying themselves with illegal substances or are we soft on the distributors and suppliers of these drugs?

   We need to address the problem?

   • Drugs are very carefully controlled and distributed. It’s huge business. The “busts” that we see given publicity are just window dressing to keep the population believing that “every effort is being taken to bring these terrible traffickers to justice”. I think many in the police force are innocent. I think just as many are not. Corruption is rife in this country and the sellouts sit in parliament and in corporate offices. Drugs are big, big money and the bribes are huge. Strong people within strong communities can address the problem and that, IMO is the only way of solving this awful problem.

     • I think that’s a near certainty, given that even after the biggest busts there is no tangible effect on either supply or price on the streets of the drug involved. So the busts are at best a waste of time (they don’t “protect” the consumer) or at worst a cynical means to control supply.

5. declining real wages are not contrary to neoliberal economic theory….indeed they are a fundamental goal of neoliberal globalisation…otherwise known as ‘the race to the bottom”.

   http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3666&context=jssw

   • I guess this is the stuff the Bilderbergers like John Key and Ruth Richardson discuss at their meetings in Europe the NWO, getting wage costs under control?

6. 100% Frank! 🙂 What a depressing shower the bunch of NATS are. They know the price of everything but the value of nothing! 🙁
   Neoliberals Know The Price Of Everything And The Value Of Nothing

   http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/16/neoliberals-know-the-price-of-everything-and-the-value-of-nothing/

7. Another great summary of facts there, thanks Frank!

   Here is a graph that gives you an impression of where we were in 2013, but the last two years have brought us even more immigrants, hence the high net immigration gains per annum. While some will be students that may return to their home countries again at some point of time, Immigration NZ (as so within the framework of government policy) do ENCOURAGE students to also work and apply for residency:

   Here a graph from 2013:
   https://data.oecd.org/migration/foreign-born-population.htm

   And look at this report from 2014:
   http://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359963625/dozens-of-countries-take-in-more-immigrants-per-capita-than-the-u-s

   “The Settler Nations

   Immigrants make up more than a fourth (27.7 percent) of the land Down Under; two other settler nations, New Zealand and Canada, weigh in with 25.1 and 20.7 percent foreign-born, respectively. That’s compared with 14.3 percent in the United States.”

   Immigration NZ offers the following to students coming here:
   http://nzstudywork.immigration.govt.nz/work-rules-for-students/working-on-a-student-visa/
   http://nzstudywork.immigration.govt.nz/work-rules-for-students/staying-to-work-after-study/
   https://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/resources/staying-to-work-after-study

   For the NZ government we have, this is a “win win” situation, as they sell education for high fees (exports) and at the same time get often highly motivated or rather desperate students who come here to find higher costs to live and study than expected, so they go on the job market and compete for ANY job with the locals, keeping wages and salaries down.

   Ask Mike Treen re the percentages of immigrant and student workers in fast food restaurants, at Sky City Casino and so forth.

   Employers and the government love this cheap source of workers, who are in some cases even prepared to do deals where they work for less than the minimum wage, simply to earn some money at all.

   And as our “unemployment statistics” criteria is based on the fact that you care deemed “employed” when you work only at least one hour or more per week, we can see, how much BS is behind the stats we get presented.

   One should rather look at the underemployed rate, which must be between twelve to fifteen percent, to understand how high local unemployment really is.

   And while the opposition is slowly able to convince the usually biased or hopeless MSM that they have a point when criticising the government, the MSM now does at least sometimes ask Bill English and others re the high immigration we have.

   Pushed in a corner, all that hopeless Mr Blinglish can come up with is, to blame young Kiwis to be drug users who have bad habits and fail drug tests for jobs. That is of course BS also, so we get nothing but BS or no real answers at all, see also Bill English on The Nation today:
   http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1703/S00045/the-nation-lisa-owen-interviews-bill-english.htm

   • …see also Bill English on The Nation today

     I did, Mike. It was an ‘illuminating’ interview. Not because of English’s waffle (enough waffle to send a diabetic into a sugar-coma!), but because of his supercilious, arrogant responses to Lisa Owen’s questions. The smug attitude should have been sufficient to turn off any voter-viewer who was watching and listening. He was like a Sixth Form Prefect being interviewed by a Third Former for a school mag; barely tolerant of being asked ‘impertinent’ questions and with a grin that suggested he thought he had better things to do.

     This is a man who has none of Key’s smarminess or “likeable blokiness”.

     If this is what he has going forward into September’s election, I’m guessing the Nats may be in for a big shock on the night of the 23rd.

     
     And as our “unemployment statistics” criteria is based on the fact that you care deemed “employed” when you work only at least one hour or more per week, we can see, how much BS is behind the stats we get presented.

     Indeed, Mike.

     And Stats NZ’s decision last year to re-define the status of unemployed jobseeker eliminates those who use the internet for job-seeking. (Like, what else would unemployed use to look for jobs in the second decade of the 21st century?!)

     Unemployed figures were arbitrarily reduced on 29 June 2016 when Stats NZ announced;

     Change: Looking at job advertisements on the internet is correctly classified as not actively seeking work. This change brings the classification in line with international standards and will make international comparability possible.

     Improvement: Fewer people will be classified as actively seeking work, therefore the counts of people unemployed will be more accurate.

     More: https://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/2016-ongoing-jobless-tally/

     Stats NZ called the revising downward of unemployed numbers as an “improvement”. I call it a deliberate fudging of figures.

     It means that unemployment is much higher than the current official rate of 5.2%.

     • You are onto it, Frank, as always. The immigration fueled “growth”, which is rather low on a per capita basis, will be a kind of bubble that will soon burst, as it leads to all kinds of socio economic issues.

       We have about 43 of our health service work force who are immigrants, but a significant number do not stay for all that long, as the much praised “clean, green, relaxed lifestyle” they are promised does not turn out to be what they anticipated:

       http://www.asms.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IMG-Research-Brief_167359.5.pdf

       “Why do IMGs leave New Zealand?

       While New Zealand’s specialist workforce is becoming increasingly dependent on IMGs, growing from 35% in 2000 to 43% in 2014 (and still growing), IMGs have poor retention rates.
       Currently about a quarter of IMGs are lost within three years of gaining vocational registration, rising to almost a third by the fifth year post-registration. In a Medical Council – commissioned survey of a small number of IMGs (51) requesting a Certificate of Good Standing and who were leaving New Zealand, 41% of respondents had only intended to stay in
       New Zealand for a short period at the time of arrival; 24% left New Zealand for family reasons, 22% left to take up other professional opportunities or higher training, and 16% left for higher remuneration.” (page 5)

       So we have a fair bit of revolving door migration, or a kind of transfer station scenario, where new immigrants stay a while, and then leave for greener pastures, in Australia or elsewhere.

       Add also the low wage jobs in elder care, where we have high numbers of virtual slave workers at or just above the minimum wage, again with a very high proportion of immigrant labour:

       https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/2614/3019/0144/NZ_Aged_Care_Workforce_Survey_report.pdf

       “What are the work conditions like in aged care?

       We can no longer dispute that wages are low in aged care in both residential and home/community care. Wages average little more than the minimum wage which in 2014 was set at $14.25 per hour. As a comparison point, the New Zealand Living Wage for 2014 was set at $18.80. In residential aged care, many caregivers are paid less compared to other occupations within residential aged care. Indeed, this argument was made in the landmark case under the Equal Pay Act 1972, won by Kristine Bartlett and the Service and Food Workers’ Union against her employer. Some describe the low wages in care work compared to other occupations as ‘wage penalties’ .” (page 8)

       We have underfunded primary health care, which ‘Insight’ reported on yesterday, on RNZ:
       http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/insight/audio/201835159/insight-nz's-gp-service-in-a-'critical-condition‘

       Thus like with infrastructure and other issues, we are heading towards a disaster scenario, where we will struggle to provide the required services at the required standards to the many new immigrants we presently welcome with open arms.

       Not only are schools and ECE centres bursting at their seams here in Auckland, not only are roads, streets and motorways not keeping up with accommodating additional traffic, not only do we have a housing and accommodation crisis, where people now sleep in garages, caravans and cramped, overcrowded flats, we will have a health system that is in danger of collapse, as the endless lies by this government bring tens of thousands of hopeful and desperate, whose expectations cannot be met, and which will also of course affect the local born and bred Kiwis.

       Thank you Mr Key, Mr English and the rest of the gangsters that run this show.

       .

     • …but if you work one hour a week now days at $14.75 per hour you are classified as employed?

       • That’s correct, Tamati.

         This is the Stats NZ definition, from their website;

         Employed: people in the working-age population who, during the reference week, did one of the following:

         worked for one hour or more for pay or profit in the context of an employee/employer relationship or self-employment

         worked without pay for one hour or more in work which contributed directly to the operation of a farm, business, or professional practice owned or operated by a relative

         ref: http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/income-and-work/employment_and_unemployment/HouseholdLabourForceSurvey_HOTPDec13qtr/Definitions.aspx

         In the first paragraph, a worker has to be working only one hour per week to be counted as employed.

         In the second paragraph, a worker doesn’t even need to be paid to be counted as “employed”.

         That shows how questionable Statistics NZ’s data is on this subject.

         • Shocking! Natz are complete fabricators to class 1 hr of work as being employed.

           I’ve also had relatives being shoved onto courses they don’t wan’t to do and have to take out student loans instead of being on the unemployment benefit.

           Clearly the growing unemployment statistics is the tip of the ice berg! Makes you wonder how many unemployed or semi employed people there are out there, falsely being written out of the statistics by the National government.

         • Yes, and the government here, same as other ones in the so called “developed world”, they all like to claim they follow INTERNATIONAL GUIDELINES, such as those by the ILO and Eurostat:
           Definition for being in employment:
           https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=779

           “Context:
           The Community Labour Force Survey defines employment (in accordance with the International Labour Office) as follows:

           Persons in employment are those, aged 15 years and over and living in private households, who during the reference week did any work for pay or profit for at least one hour, or were not working but had jobs from which they were temporarily absent. Family workers are also included

           The European System of Accounts (ESA) defines employment as covering both employees and self-employed persons, who are engaged in some productive activity that falls within the production boundary of the system.”

           See also this:
           https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=778

           And here the definition for being unemployed:
           https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=2791

           This is what in their eyes “seeking work” must mean:
           “The specific steps may include registration at a public or private employment exchange; application to employers; checking at worksites, farms, factory gates, market or other assembly places; placing or answering newspaper advertisements; seeking assistance of friends or relatives; looking for land, building, machinery or equipment to establish own enterprise; arranging for financial resources; applying for permits and licences, etc. ”

           So if you just look at ads, but find nothing that you feel qualified or capable of, and hence do NOT APPLY, you are therefore not even considered unemployed, as you did not register or “actively” sought or applied for a particular job.

           Of course, given the massive influence that the neoliberals and business lobbies have had on international organisations, such as the ILO and also OECD, the terminology has been defined according to what also pleases these powerful vested interest groups.

8. I still don’t understand how immigration is our problem. As we all know immigration stimulates the economy – so why don’t we focus on redistributing wealth and resources away from the rich to the poor? We’ve done the opposite for 30+ years.

   As I mentioned on another post: “If we never let those immigrants in over the past 30 years, then we’d still have a housing shortage because our housing policies and economic ideology are the problem. The 50% of Aucklanders who were born overseas have contributed to our economy and paid a shit-load of taxes. If we never let them come in, but still had neoliberal policies shaping our housing, then we’d still have a housing shortage. The market won’t have delivered us housing over the last 30 years regardless of immigration levels. Now Wellington and Dunedin are having housing squeezes – the crisis is spreading there. And it’s not because of immigrants, it’s because of our social and economic policies.”

   The same goes for roading and other costs – we live in a car culture. We’ve invested silly money into roads and highways, and ignored public transport. Auckland is poorly designed and should have had a subway built years ago.

   Yes, we have immigrants coming in and filling unskilled work, but that work often pays poverty wages anyway – I’d say that is where the problem is.

   IMO Neoliberalism can happily exist without immigration. UK and USA won’t solve their ideological crisis by getting tough at the boarder, and nor will NZ. If we work on strengthening our employment policies, then migrant workers won’t be exploited, and we’ll have livable wages. The ERA2000 is our problem, not immigration.

   • In just a few words, resources are finite, not endless, and the more people live in a particular geographic area, and rely on particular limited resources, the higher the stress on the resources.

     We can all try and become vegetarians, try to adjust to living in studio apartments in multilevel apartment blocks, and try to eat, use and share as little as necessary, but even then, one day a limit will be reached.

     The limit seems to be distant in NZ, but that may be only due to our over reliance on fossil fuels for energy (transport) and for products we make and use (plastics and various other things).

     Try replacing fossil fuels with regenerative resources, and we will struggle to house and feed the present population in acceptable ways.

     Also, I note, and have had endless experiences proving this, that Immigration NZ is instructed by law and so forth, to seek out “suitable” migrants, who need certain skills, qualifications, or at least study here to get them, and then to try all to convince a local employer of their “worth”. Others are invited as wealthy investors and some allowed in as family members or refugees.

     But for the most, the environment in which immigration occurs is highly competitive, and I have come across such competition for jobs and opportunities, which is becoming ruthless here in Auckland. Some migrants are angry and feel discriminated if NZers get preferred for jobs, some NZers are angered by migrants getting certain jobs. Many migrants feel they can only do lower skilled jobs, as the better paid do often simply go to Kiwis, who also assist their buddies and family into jobs if they become vacant.

     There is increasing tension all over the show, and that is a result of the levels of immigration we have. If we had an ideal world, things may be different, but the environment in which immigration occurs is one of competition and proving your worth, like a bottomless spiral, where some do all to underbid or outbid the competitor.

     So we have disunity, we have people work 60 or 70 hour weeks, who work in minimum wage jobs and even some paid less, in effect.

     That is what I see, what others observe, and hence some of us are seriously concerned about the future. This country cannot simply serve as a Noah’s Ark for all those escaping less fortunate places, as we need to change the whole global economic system to bring back balance and stability. At present individuals compete, companies compete, countries and populations compete, at all levels, and it is self destructive.

     • I’d still argue that the problem is inequality and our economic ideology, not immigration.

       “In just a few words, resources are finite, not endless, and the more people live in a particular geographic area, and rely on particular limited resources, the higher the stress on the resources.”

       The problem isn’t we don’t have enough resources, the problem is that a few people have too many resources.

       “There is increasing tension all over the show, and that is a result of the levels of immigration we have.”

       I disagree. I think the problem is inequality, and then blaming immigration becomes the symptom. We’ve seen that with Brexit and Trump.

       • Do you live in Auckland Fatty? It’s bursting at the seams. National’s high immigration policy is making inequality worse.

         • “Do you live in Auckland Fatty? It’s bursting at the seams.”

           I don’t live there. I don’t think it’s bursting at the seams. I’ve been there and many other cities around the world – many of which are far more crowded than Auckland. Auckland is a shitty city because of policy decisions made over decades. John Banks was the mayor there – so yeah, it’s going to be a shitty city. How about a subway 2 decades ago like other livable cities? The traffic problems are not due to population – they’re due to stupid decisions about transport. Easily fixable if people voted for them, but they vote for more highways and roads. People voted for inequality – they voted to give the rich more money, spend little money on public transport, and spend a lot of money on roads. Auckland is built on a property bubble – this is the result of policy decisions and our economic ideology, not immigrants. We need to think about inequality in terms of money and resources, not immigration.

           “National’s high immigration policy is making inequality worse.”

           Yes and no. I agree that our current immigration system is making inequality worse – I want to see changes to our immigration system. But it’s not immigration that’s the problem. I prefer Kim Dotcom’s immigration policy before Labour’s – lol at Labour. We could bring in more people, and we need to, but we should stop bringing in highly educated and rich people. It’s not immigration I have a problem with, or the number…it’s the way immigration is designated by class.

           We need more immigrants coming in to sustain the health and retirement costs of baby-boomers. And we need to ensure more equality. We can have more immigrants and more equality – that’s easy if we just view our inequality problems from a class perspective.

           Half of the left want to see an end to immigrants who are taking poverty wage jobs. That’s weird to me – do we really limit our demands to keeping immigrants away from our poverty jobs? We need to demand more than that…seriously, that’s lame. We may as well forget about politics if that’s our demand.

   • It’s just a lot easier to blame foreigners for the ills facing New Zealand instead of the neoliberal policies advocated by both Labour and National. I reckon most of the people commenting on here have no clue how to difficult it is to come to New Zealand as a foreigners. My partner and I are “skilled immigrants” and it was quite difficult to come here, I can only imagine the loops the undesirable unskilled immigrants are forced to jump to come to New Zealand.

     I wonder if Australia will start advocating the expulsion of the 400k+ Kiwis taking jobs from hard-working Aussies. I wonder what that would do to the “finite” resources in New Zealand.

     • We are talking about a global problem, over population and un-sustainability of an ever growing population. Do we want to join the rest of the world and in the end have the same problems?

9. Bill English is just doing what he is required to do by the transnational banks and corporations that run the western world: maintain the banks’ [fractional reserve banking and charging interest on money created out of thin air] Ponzi scheme a little longer and provide markets for corporations to sell more stuff. And provide opportunities for local opportunists to rort the system.

   The fact that between them banks and corporations are wrecking the planet and causing massive overpopulation (or even destroying their own children’s futures) is of no interest to politicians, whatever ‘colour’ their political party.

   If Labour or the Greens were to ever gain power they would promote the short-term interests of banks and corporations, declare the ‘need for immigration, and promote continued use of the dysfunctional GDP system which is at the heart of dysfunctional economic system because it assigns positive values to negative factors and negative outcomes..

   Cowardice, deceit and betrayal are the bywords of the age we live in, Frank.

   And nothing will change until the western world’s liquid fuel supply goes into severe decline (almost certainly between 2018 and 2022).

10. How many lies can the people of this country keep swallowing… It is sickening to watch.

11. Great post!

    Immigration is also being used as a way to break the NZ welfare system up.

    With Health, education and superannuation all under threat.

    Unemployment, disability and other benefits are already being destroyed by National. Working for families is being eroded by National.

    We are already hearing that National are thinking of putting Superannuation age up. This seems odd when they allow aged parents of migrants into NZ who have access to benefits like health and so forth after a few years.

    The government could just have visiting rights for migrant parents but not let them access health and super services but for some reason even though we can’t seem to afford it for Kiwi workers anymore, they have a policy to fund new aged parents coming into NZ (often as free babysitters, who then get supposedly ‘granny dumped’ and have to go on welfare).

    The government policy is not fair. It is also creating disharmony within groups as resources are not enough. It should be the governments job to ensure everything is fair and that they are protecting their citizens including the 1 in 5 migrants and their children already settled in NZ and the next generation’s prosperity – not destroying it by having deliberate poor policy decisions to make a quick buck and hide their disastrous economic performance, at the expense of many.

    Key and now English are doing a Muldoon, they are destroying NZ for their own selfish ideology while removing savings ability out of NZ and running up debts – that the next generation will have to pay for.

    Not to mention the environment which is being polluted and destroyed by National – again using fake statistics to hide it.

    • Oh yes, talk about our welfare system, and I can tell you that I met so many new migrants, who frown on the welfare system in NZ, as it does in their view promote laziness and irresponsible conduct.

      Many of the new migrants are either socially conservative and “value oriented”, believing in their own “hard work”, as that was why Immigration NZ allowed them to come in, to work “hard” and “prove themselves”.

      Others are convinced capitalists and neoliberals, who are happy to vote for ACT any time, they believe also in self responsibility, or in family looking after the needy, not the government.

      The immigration policy of NZ Inc is so structured to favour the competitive, the determined, the opportunists and the hard nosed business operators. They come here to “contribute” in their way of understanding, and when they see people here less fortunate or less able, they often judge them harshly, and question the welfare system.

      This is of course all wanted by the government of the day, as they want divide and rule as a system, and they want endless competition for jobs, for business and for everything else.

      It is a system designed for opportunist capitalists, and convinced capitalists are the “desired immigrant”, there is no doubt about it.

      This also ensures National and ACT a steady supply of new supporters and voters by the way.

12. Outstanding work, Frank. It certainly makes English look to be a lying manipulator, along Paula bennett’s lines.

    The irony is that in putting out his anecdotal bullshit he opened the discussion up and allowed real facts to get out into the public arena. So next time he tries this strategy, it will backfire again on him.

    Keep holding truth to power, mate.

13. English has inadvertantly done us a favour.

    1. He’s come out as a liar, or at best, a fool who parrots anecdotes and masquerades them as “evidence”.

    2. He’s prompted real facts top become public, and shown that unemployed are not drug-abusing lazy layabouts.

    This is how he’s entered election year, by shooting himself in the foot.

    Nice one, Bill. Can we have some more please??

    • But with his “reset” talk for retirement and superannuation, Bill has now put the cat amongst the pidgeons, he is nearly as good at that, as Trump is with his Twitter account.

14. Complete rubbish of course.

    Firstly the majority of people arriving in NZ are already entitled to live here: Either they are citizens or dependents of citizens. There are strict entry criteria for the remainder.

    Next, unemployment is low – low to the point where a skills shortage is affecting productivity in multiple sectors. The remaining 5% unemployed are mostly unemployable for one or multiple reasons (addicts, criminals, illiterates etc).

    Isn’t it wonderful living in a country where people want to live, as opposed to the country that Helen Clark ruled, where 25,000 kiwis left every year?

    • unemployment is not low amongst our Neets though is it Andrew
      and of course unemployment would look low if you keep bringing more workers into our country that is why they keep going despite many NZers saying either slow down or re-evaluate. We al know how wages stay low more supply of cheap labour. It is called supply and demand economics 101 and who is interfering with the market now Andrew your tory mates that who

    • You haven’t read my blogpost have you, Andrew?

      Otherwise you wouldn’t be writing the garbage you’ve put.

      Firstly. “unemployment is low – low to the point where a skills shortage is affecting productivity in multiple sectors”.

      That is arrant nonsense. Unemployment is over the 5.2% (and rising) figure from Statistics NZ. You haven’t been paying attention because you’re too busy masterbating to your own bigoted fantasies.

      Otherwise you’d know that unemployment has been “revised downward” since June last year when Statistics NZ decided that “looking at job advertisements on the internet is […] classified as not actively seeking work […] Fewer people will be classified as actively seeking work” .

      So unemployment is actually much higher than the official “5.2%” rate. Stats NZ has simply hidden it.

      Secondly. Your claim that the “remaining 5% unemployed are mostly unemployable for one or multiple reasons (addicts, criminals, illiterates etc” ignores data from MSD that 99.5% of beneficiaries are drug-free.

      You’d know all this if you had bothered to mread what I wrote and checked the referenced data.

      But bigots like you don’t read stuff that dispels much-cherished prejudices. Your brain can’t seem to cope.

      Thank you for posting your rubbish. You’ve proven how thick some of our fellow New Zealanders are, even even faced with facts.

    • Andrew, try reading Frank’s blogpost before offering comments that are totally at variance with evidence.

      Otherwise you just come across as a Tory twat.

15. Bill English’s mates:

    https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/marlborough-express/20100819/281646776444009

    And here they are having a good old time together:

    http://imgur.com/YkudbRf

    Nothing to see here, move along!

16. Up-date on Radio NZ; http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/201835196/pm-puts-his-anecdote-on-the-line

    • What’s a little exploitation between mates?

      https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/marlborough-express/20100819/281646776444009

      and with said traffickers:

      http://imgur.com/YkudbRf

17. […] blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 5 March […]

Comments are closed.