The government has implemented a series of racist and elitist changes to immigration policy that is going to create huge hardship and hurt in the migrant communities for anyone who is not already very wealthy.
Immediately after being elected the government imposed a radical cut in the number of people being granted permanent residence. It went from 47,682 to 37,947 in one year from June 2017 to June 2018 and 34,992 for the September 2019 year – a ten year low.
The government has also announced plans to continue the large-scale importation of “temporary” skilled and unskilled labour with little or no chance of transitioning to permanent residence.
Around 250,000 temporary visas with work rights are now being issued each year and a similar number of “temporary” workers are in New Zealand at any one time. This is nearly 50% higher than the number in 2010. Entire industries are now dependent on workers on temporary visas. Thirty percent of all labour in the hotel and hospitality sector is now on temporary visas.
The policies are designed to maintain a permanent pool of easily exploited labour. A recent discussion paper to strengthen tools for the government to combat migrant worker exploitation will have no impact so long as the system stays the same.
Maintaining this system has meant that despite the three government parties criticising the fact there were “too many migrants” under the National government who were putting pressure on infrastructure and house prices, there has been only a small decline in the overall flow of people into New Zealand on a permanent of tong-term (one-year or more) basis.
This number, which includes all New Zealand as well as foreign students and temporary workers has declined only modestly from 52,700 in 2017 to 48,300 in 2018. Media often refers to this number as the “Net Migration Gain” but is simply a net long-term flow number. The 2018 number is the difference between 145,800 arriving and 97,500 leaving. It has nothing to do with those coming permanently as permanent residents.
This is actually only a net gain of around 1% of the population each year and it is simply wrong to blame migrants for any lack of planning done to meet this increase.
New Zealand has also had a steady loss of NZ Citizens or other permanent residents overseas. There has been an average net loss of 18,000 a year since 2001 – chiefly to Australia to get better wages. Now one-quarter of the NZ-born population lives overseas.
These have had to be replaced by encouraging skilled workers to come to NZ as permanent residents. This has been around 40,000 a year for two decades.
These temporary migrant worker number has grown continuously over the last few decades. We have 100,000 students paying fees and being used to subsidise both the public and private education sectors. Often they are ripped off by both. Most work part-time. NZ has also radically increased working holiday visas and both skilled and unskilled temporary work visas.
The fact that some of these workers could graduate towards permanent residency was used by employers, education providers and the government to get them to come to New Zealand.
Allowing permanent residents to bring other family members, including parents, was a necessary part of a remotely humane policy that treated these migrants as anything more than economic digits to be exploited as much as possible for a little cost as possible.
Migrants with permanent residence could marry partners from their home countries if the relationship was deemed “genuine”.
Worker and students hoping for permanent residence could bring partners and children to New Zealand while they worked and studies. “Temporary” visas could be renewed and many “temporary’ migrant families have been stuck here for years in a “temporary” status because it has proven harder than they expected or been promised to transition to permanent residence.
Many of these “temporary” migrant families have made their lives here. Children have been born and know no other life than New Zealand. the fact their visas have been renewed again and again is proof that New Zealand needs them here and should offer them permanent residence.
There are three broad categories of permanent migrants: Business/Skilled; International/Humanitarian; Family. For the last twenty years, NZ accepted around 25,000 in the skilled/business category, 3500 for international/Humanitarian and 15,000 for family (including about 5000 for parents).
This was deemed a reasonable and humane balance. Immigration agents had a fair idea of what to expect in the different categories to help their clients.
However, over the last few years, there have been a series of harsh and sudden changes that have made migrants lives hell.
Firstly it was clear that the permanent residence number should have been increased to allow for those workers who had undertaken study, training and got jobs able to earn the points needed for permanent residence to suddenly have these criteria changed on them without warning to prevent them accessing permanent residence. This happened a few years ago for fast food managers whose category was eliminated by Immigration NZ while keeping many other far less skilled categories.
Four years ago the National government suspended the parent category altogether. There had been some racist and anti-immigrant campaigns claiming the category was being abused by children abandoning their[parents in NZ to claim National Superannuation. This was a lie. A scientific survey found less than 1% of parents could be deemed to be in that category.
But when Labour reinstated the category recently they did so for only 1000 per year and families had to have an income of $106,000 a year to qualify for one parent and $159,000 for two. Even for the few families who qualify there will be some cruel choices imposed on who to bring. The income threshold was $65,000 for one parent before 2016.
More working-class families who need mum or dad to help with the kids while they go to work are going to be the more hurt. Many Chinese migrants are from one-child families and this will be an extremely painful imposition.
Last week it was revealed that Immigration New Zealand had secretly changed its policies for admitting partners of Indian migrants. Before this month it had been accepted that living together for two years as a criterion for a “genuine” partnership was not appropriate when many marriages were “arranged” marriages or the partners were not allowed to live together beforehand.
Forcing the new migrant to New Zealand to go home for two years to live with their partner before coming back was also not practical for those without a wealthy family to support them.
Immigration NZ simply stopped accepting partnership residence visas for anyone who married in India then came back to work without telling them of the change in policy.
Criticism from the Indian community of this policy change was met with racists taunts for go home if you don’t like it from NZ First MP and government minister Shane Jones.
These racist and elitist changes are going to continue so long as there is not a radical increase in the numbers being granted permanent residence.
Cutting the permanent residence numbers is simply a perverse decision in the current circumstances when employers are screaming that they lack the skilled workers they need.
Cutting the overall permanent residence number by 20% to 2018 led to a 35% drop in the number of visas being given in the “Skilled Migrant/Business” category from 28,644 in the June 2017 year to 18,513 in the year to June 2019.
Trying to rescue the “Skilled” worker category is part of the reason the parents and spouse categories are also being squeezed as much as possible.
But now the “skilled” worker category is so small it is able to be filled by workers earning the new and radically higher thresholds of nearly $80,000.
Does New Zealand need teachers as permanent residents? They will never be able to become permanent residents under this government’s mad policy.
Mike. I’ve said it many times. Immigration policy is the greatest act of institutional racist towards tangata whenua as it acts to keep Maori demographically marginalized and thus under the control of those in power. We just want to be free in the land of our tipuna and as long as we are kept as a small minority our freedoms can always be limited by others. Even if there are well meaning safeguards such as treaties and laws they can always be overruled by the majority – history is testament time and again to this.
Its extraordinary how we can say on the one hand that we need these people but on the other hand just treat them like dirt when they come. Its pretty obvious that allowing whole families is going to make migrants a whole lot more independent of welfare as there will be ready support for their children when parents work.
The point about the very small percentage increase on the creaking NZ infrastructure is important. Migrants are not the reason we have a housing crisis and present unemployment rates are low. It is just very convenient for business and government to have an underclass that gets the blame for every ill in the country. These people are granted visas because of worker shortages in Nz or because sector wages are so low that only migrants attached to a single employer can be forced to take them. Business and government in cahoots leaving the victims to reap all the hate of penny pinching anti immigration types whose only effect is to aid the government in doing nothing or even making the situation worse. Its like the lock em up and throw away the keys crowd. Except that here we are dealing with victims. All the screaming about the evil of immigrants only serves to encourage the government to turn the screws ever more tighter.
“Around 250,000 temporary visas with work rights are issued each year and a similar number of “temporary” workers are in New Zealand at any one time.”
Spiky, yes this does not effect housing at all, all the 250,000 people live in thin air! sarcasm.
I’m sure Labour’s 2,300 state houses will cover the circa 247,700 housing short fall per year. sarcasm.
Well actually @Savenz, most of those we’re now targeting as being undesirable are most likely to live under one roof, as opposed to those on or over the new $ threshold – who’ll probably be chancing their arm in investment ripoff property the first chance they get.
Sometimes, although I agree with a lot of what you say, I really think you need to think things through in a bit more detail – and with the benefit of accurate statistics.
(As, btw does NZ First, because it won’t be long before there’s noone to wipe your mother’s bum if and when she gets parked up in a Rymancare facility, or when Shane finally gets past his mid-life crisis and discovers many of his whanau won’t get “off the couch” to assist him in preserving his exceptionalism).
It really hasn’t been thought through all that well, but then there’s an election to win in not-too-many months, and egos to be preserved.
But if one wanted to reduce it all to some algorithmic/mathematical formula (i.e. if the intent was to reduce immigration numbers), we’d be getting serious about shoving it up the perpetrators and kicking them out where possible, whilst being a little more caring and sharing, and in solidarity with the system’s victims.
No doubt we’ll kick the can down the road a bit more though eh? (But look where it’s got us this far).
I’m going to be watching carefully when we go grovelling for a few more Free Trade Agreements with the 3rd Whurl !. when we’ve failed to understand kulcharill differences (SPECTACULARLY) going forward – just as we’ve failed in addressing @Kauri’s concerns.
OnceWasTim
Are you seriously suggesting that 250,000 people are going to live under one roof?
Even if they live 4 to a house, that’s 62,500 new houses need per year JUST for the temporary residents alone. Then there is the 50,000 people being granted permanent residency so at 4 to a house, that another 12,500 new houses needed.
So if every state house goes to migrants not the 12,000+ existing desperate residents already in NZ in poverty waiting for a state house, then there is still a 72,700 state house short fall PER YEAR based on the ‘historically high’ amount of state houses being built of a meagre 2,300 so far.
Labour has actually increased migrant temp visas by 18% and the increase year on year of the scam of temp visas is running at about 18% every year under the Natz too, because many of the people coming into NZ are people like Anil Verma who don’t leave after their degree, and who get more people into NZ like his new wife and unborn baby, under scams like Shepherd Ndarowa. (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/116802378/i-have-no-hope-penniless-migrant-relying-on-foodbanks-after-boss-fails-to-pay-up).
Many of the migrants themselves are blowing the whistle because they want to see the ponzi stopped too, so minimising and turning a blind eye to what is going on, is as bad as the exploiters themselves!
I think where we agree is that we both agree there is huge immigration issue which are not being addressed by government.
You want more deregulation of the industry and migrants who seem to have zero prospects hanging around in NZ after their legitimate reason for being here, and therefore being preyed on and I think they are better off going home after their degree/diploma or real work permit expires, rather than fake jobs and bringing wives and parents and children here, while they live in poverty and help the scams proliferate .
The immigration rules already set in place should be adhered to and strengthened, not every visa rule is an exception or bad things happening to people seem to make them want to get a visa exception, while everybody who gets scammed gets a free visa extension by government. It’s kind of like rewarding criminal behaviour in NZ.
The government needs to stop the scams by deporting the scammers and anyone who lies on their visa application or goes on to exploit others and commit crimes after coming here has their permanent visas/citizenship cancelled which will remove the backlog of scams and allow the migrants who honesty meet the criteria to come here and not wait years for their application to be processed because of all the fake documentation by the scammers.
Funny enough, ordinary citizens want to protect victims rights and society not reward exploiters!
As for your comment, no one to wipe your mother’s bum, of course not, because 10% of the migrants coming to NZ are elderly migrants so of course demand for aged care is skyrocketing which benefits private care like Rymans.
The people who paid taxes all their lives in NZ increasingly have their parents not being looked after, or are too poor to retire anyway and still working, and it makes the situation worse that in the last decade tens of thousands of elderly migrants are able to come here and get the same benefits as those who paid taxes all their lives.
Natz cancelled the migrant parents visas because they found that many migrants “abandon” their parents financially, who go onto emergency benefits and that they take up more health care than ordinary citizens! https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/315435/migrants'-parents-cost-nz-'tens-of-millions‘
They they marry and bring more old people into NZ!
$10k, 11 days and one failed deportation
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/376220/10k-11-days-and-one-failed-deportation
And apparently up to 30% of migrants who bring their parents into NZ end up not working in NZ themselves, and just leave their parents here to be cared for by the NZ taxpayers!
Then there is the cost of the migrant pensions. Grey power warned about it in 2011 and governments now have an even bigger pension and aged care crisis and still adding to it….
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1110/S00572/grey-power-warns-of-impact-of-high-immigration-rates.htm
In short it is another crazy idea about immigration to make NZ taxpayers pay for the aged migrant parents, from Labour!
No wonder NZ First is on the rocks!
Like I keep saying to you @savenz, I agree with a fair bit you say, but you are a little selective at times and prone to see things from a one-sided perspective.
Generally, the parents are most likely to live under one roof (unless it’s a complete shithole OR they’re wealthy enough to get another property to rent – not too likely, ESPECIALLY those that have been conned into coming here to be exploited).
The old story – we’ve been punishing victims and slapping perpetrators with a wet bus ticket for far too long, and its only RECENTLY this are beginning to change in any substantive sort of way.
Then, as I’ve pointed out before – what is effectively double standards. We have the expectation of being able to economically ‘migrate’, or seek a better life, or shuffle off overseas on a variety of multiple or double passports.
Then there’s that reference to dowry and the tradition of arranged marriages -AS OPPOSED TO FORCED mariages (INZ seem to have had difficulty in distinguishing in the past).
Contrast all that with a few English toffs; or who traditionally pays for the reception – if they’re not too poor; or the little prezzies the couple are showered with at the reception – again if they’re not too poor). Or indeed the Marriages at First Sight a lot of people fawn all over, or the transactional hookups and meets (fuckbuddies et al) that occur. And then there’s things like divorce rates (adjusted for the fact that the west are generally marrying (and as a consequence divorcing) less – even given that, the stats aren’t that pretty.
OK for someone like @ Cleangreen to be pissed off (and rightly so) that his son can’t bring his wife to NZ and her parents if that suited his predicament in terms of child-minding et al.
But hey – that’s all kind of different!
It’s a bit like Shane Jones, or a few gNats trying to lecture me on the sanctity of marriage. Or me flitting off to Europe using my ‘other’ passport.
As it happens, and despite the refugee crisis in Europe, there are several countries that treat people studying, working and otherwise and damn sight better than we’ve been doing.
Again, the worst of it is due to bad policy, under-resourcing in the past (and even now), attitude and just shear muppetry.
And how do we know? Well we know because of a number of cases legit immigration lawyers end up handling; really high staff turnover in specific areas of the ‘system’; the number of processing delays we now have; fucked up restructures; and staff who’ve previously worked in that cistern; AND actually one or two other things such as failure to deport over-stayer arseholes when reported with all the appropriate details provided (and I don’t mean Shroubrek either).
Oh – did I mention things like an increase in successful Section61 appeals, or the spin and bullshit offered up by ‘officials’ when things go tits up (problems that are usually down to their past facile advice and policies and decisions made as to past monitoring and oversight)
Don’t buy into the victim blaming rhetoric. What was that shit John Key once said on Hardtalk about being able to find other statistics/cases to suit his stance?
By the way, I prefer to rely on peer-reviewed research (e.g. Spoonley, Stringer, others); first hand information from those within the cistern at the ‘coal face; people who provide support for some of the victims and their first hand accounts; and good investigative journalists who get off their chuffs and go find out (Steve Kilgallon amongst them, but several others). Far more so than those that have an agenda – self preservation and political partisanship, and populist politicians
Spikeyboy Agree 100%. Govt is disgracefully exploiting and demonising migrant workers.
The people are on fake jobs for the most part and creating a trial of frauds and money to other migrant criminals. The latest sob story highlights the issue.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/116802378/i-have-no-hope-penniless-migrant-relying-on-foodbanks-after-boss-fails-to-pay-up
Anil Verma comes into NZ as a student.
God knows what he studied but he doesn’t get a job that is highly paid or in their area of study, possibly because the tertiary course standards aimed at migrants in NZ are so low. (Unlike other countries that attract the best and brightest migrants for education, NZ has settled on low wage low skill courses, and rubber-stamping qualifications , to attract overseas students).
This also generates scams with so called educational institutions popping up that ‘sell’ the courses and help get poor people into NZ who don’t qualify because they can’t even afford the fees, let alone to live here!
First Private Training Establishment charged with and convicted of immigration fraud
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/media-centre/media-releases/first-private-training-establishment-charged-convicted-immigration-fraud
They then can work 20 hours of week, while they ‘study’ and Anil Vermagot a job at a petrol station.
They then are not happy with legal work because for the most part, it is unskilled and doesn’t get them residency. Real jobs, more than minimum wages are hard to find in NZ if you don’t have the right skills, so they start getting approaches by other migrants to work for them.
“He was on a student visa, working (legally) part-time at a South Auckland petrol station, when he got talking to one of his regular customers, a man named Shepherd Ndarowa. Ndarowa, a Zimbabwean migrant, part-owned a fibre company called GMGS and offered Verma work.”
The work is not work but elaborate schemes where people work for nothing as volunteers before other agreements are made to pretend he has a full time job with wages.
“Verma says he started work in June 2016 as a “volunteer”, working unpaid for three months before Ndarowa agreed to sponsor a work visa and gave him a contract promising him 40 hours of work a week at $20 an hour.”
The same migrant, Ndarowa, then operates another company which then applies for a work permit through that company.
“That visa eventually transferred to another company, wholly owned by Ndarowa, called S-Net Technologies, and the pay rate rose to $21.50.”
But they are not real jobs, with the labour not being wanted in NZ, but a scam.
“Verma says he was paid properly for the first month. After that, Ndarowa would deduct money from his payslip to bring his rate down to minimum wage, and his hours fluctuated wildly.
Verma says he’d often sit at home waiting for Ndarowa to pick him up for work, and his boss would arrive as late as midday or 1pm. “He was doing all the easy jobs by himself. When there’s the need for digging and hard work, he would call me … Just imagine, 10 or 15 hours’ work a fortnight on minimum wages.”
In the meantime, in spite of not having a real job or wage for months, Ndarowa goes back to India and to get an arranged marriage. It is common for a dowry to be paid in Indian culture, so having the the NZ visa (nobody knows it is based on frauds) in NZ is valuable.
“By then, he’d been back to India, and had an arranged marriage to Sujarta, who arrived in New Zealand on a visitor’s visa. She cannot get a permanent visa until her husband’s situation is resolved.”
Inspite of being on a visitors visa, the couple start expanding their family… and in spite of having no money, no job, no prospects, not being able to pay their bills in NZ and so forth, unlike normal people when things don’t work out, they don’t go back to their own country to raise their child, but instead try to get compassionate visa extensions and live off other’s charity to stay here and get media attention.
Work it out, if someone can’t get a real job in NZ at real wages, they should not be in NZ!
Meanwhile, local labour that doesn’t “volunteer” for free work don’t get the jobs or the contracts with legitimate companies because they don’t use visa scams for their labour and to make money!
I just hope police/ immigration starts to investigate Ndarowa’s activities and deport him and cancel any other work visas he has going!
While some sympathy for Anil Verma, at the end of the day he does not qualify for permanent residency here. He should go home, with his NZ study degree/diploma and his wife and start his life.
Holy cow. It didnt take you long to turn on this couple. Yesterday you were very sympathetic but at least by dropping your mask we can see where you truly come from. Such dripping vitriol really is quite ugly.
You did read Mikes articke above? We set these standards in NZ and then actively send people overseas to recruit people to fill these places and savenz says its the stupid immigrants fault for believing the story of milk and honey?? You are a very hard person. The whipped are at fault for allowing themselves to be whipped?? This is about as far right on the ideology scale as one can get. A free pass for the whipping class and gratitude from those avoiding the whip.
Spiky, Weird you seem to be a self confessed advocate against migrant exploitation but no vitriol for the migrants exploiting other migrants like Shepherd Ndarowa… woke standards it seems!!!
(maybe read https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/10/25/5-buyers-of-tv3-that-would-make-things-far-worse/ in particular The Spinoff’s Woke TV and Green Party Pale Lime TV)
Obviously as well as supporting migrant exploiters the woke also like to turn a blind eye to those that pay money to those exploiters to gain residency with illegal job visas and who knows what was going on with the dowry and whether the wife was told before the marriage that the visa was based on volunteer work and the 40 hours at $21 was false and the rent hadn’t been paid for months.
The problem with a lot of lies, is that it impacts many people who if they had been told the truth might never have got involved. I’m not saying that is what happened but others could have been dragged into the mess without knowing the true circumstances of living in NZ and the government needs to stop it happening by removing the scams and scammers and the money changing hands based on visas in NZ.
Thirty percent or all labour in the hotel and hospitality sector are now on temporary visas.
It ain’t doing us much good!
Two million obese New Zealanders by 2038, study finds
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12083109
Study finds obese children at risk of serious illness
http://www.healthystartworkforce.auckland.ac.nz/en/news-and-events/study-finds-obese-children-at-risk-of-serious-illness.html
If we can get rid of the plethora of fast food joints, liquor stores and supermarkets selling unhealthy food, helped by the 30% slave labour, we are all going to be better off, when the Ponzi folds.
Oh yes and now the obesity epidemic is the fault of immigrants. Hahaha. Yes and if them Fijians would just stop growing sugar cane too!! Its so simple!
The family bit sounds very much like a reversion to the bad old days of the Chinese Immigrants Act 1881: https://teara.govt.nz/en/chinese/page-3#targetText=The%20Chinese%20Immigrants%20Act%20of,was%20increased%20to%20%C2%A3100. I wonder what modern-day China, our greatest trading partner, thinks of this sort of thing?
Ae!
Just as I’m watching eagle eyed at what others think amongst our neighbours when we go grovelling for the next FTA (going forward)
So far, they’re really not that impressed.
Bloody lucky we now have a Maori Policy Unit in MFAT (not sure if it is still a one man band) that has a little more understanding of our neighbour’s cultural fifferences and how they operate.
I support the few moves the COL has made re immigration so far, bar one, and I agree with Shane Jones statement “I would just say to the activists from the Indian community, tame down your rhetoric, you have no legitimate expectations in my view to bring your whole village to New Zealand and if you don’t like it and you’re threatening to go home – catch the next flight home.” Because this is what is happening – trying to bring the whole village”, rather than integrate and make a path in New Zealand with New Zealanders and that not only applies to Indians.
I support the few moves the COL has made so far re immigration, bar one. What I don’t like is the Parent category in any shape or form and the latest is worse because it’s only for the wealthier. If I were to decide to immigrate to another part of the world, I would not expect that my parents could to follow me there either for me to take care of them or them to house sit or baby sit for me. I would go back to my homeland if that was needed.
I am having problems with the continual “filling up “of New Zealand. It’s been like living in “a house under renovation” for 15 – 20 years now .Then in light of “climate change,” (which is really an over- populated earth problem ) when really we must each rationalise the way we are living and take quite a few steps back to lower unnecessary consumption and production it is a contradiction to be unnecessarily “filling-up” New Zealand with a drop in the ocean from other parts of the world.
If its qualifications needed – educate our own.
+1 On Watch
BTW generally India is widely regarded as being the most racially intolerant country in the world according to surveys! Lets take racist countries beliefs and make in NZ! How crazy woke is that!
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/most-racist-countries/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/
saveNZ – I challenge your assertion that India is widely regarded as most racist etc.
Your first cited reference didn’t include India, and the next two refs stated ‘most likely’ but with no hard data. I think that you’re just as prejudiced as you say that Indians are, and that our woefully homogeneous country can be like an enclosed order of monks towards people who are, or importantly, who look, different from us.
India is a huge diverse and ancient country which until comparatively recently, distinguished itself possibly more than any other civilisation which I can think of, with the tolerance which it showed to all the different strands of religion, encompassing them all under the umbrella of a name, which I think we in the West bestowed upon them, Hinduism. Factional religious differences – apart from the odd historical invasions of Muslims and others- are a fairly recent development – I don’t know why, but I’ll ask the next appropriate academic I see poking around the second-hand book shops.
However, I would say that Indians, ordinary everyday Indians, can be just as sexist as the NZ men who beat and batter and murder their womenfolk – indeed making us now better at this than at rugby.
One fascinating thing which I learned from an Indian academic, was that the phenomenon which we all too frequently see in NZ, of young men raping older women in their 80’s, is unheard of in Indian society. That was in response to my asking whether the inclusion of women in the pantheon of Hindu gods, had helped the lot of women in India. It is related to the position of the mother, in the family hierarchy.
The most dour individuals in the western world may be the Scots-Irish of Ulster, and if this country had been settled with more Italians, and French, and Spanish, and Greeks, and other peoples from continental and eastern Europe, then we may not be the suspicious close-minded splodges that we are.
We’re stuck with what we’ve got, but that’s no excuse for exploiting anybody, simply because they are in the position to be exploited, and Brokenback suggests what govt should have suggested, that we need to have explicit and comprehensive immigration policy which also acknowledges and encapsulates workplace needs, instead of what looks like ad hoc changes messing people around.
@Applewood, while I agree these types of links can be judgemental, my point is that the Indian and NZ woke community seems to want to throw a lot of racially charged criticism at NZ’ers, which is hypocritical in the context that the people they champion seem to score very poorly in world racial surveys and in the case of migrant exploitation in NZ, more than 50% of the exploiters are new migrants… so the NZ and woke deregulated approach to immigration is bringing worse racial and exploitation outcomes in NZ, not better.
Not sure about your interpretation either…
link one,
“India ranks as number one for the most racist country of all countries that were included in the study.”
2nd link,
“India and Jordan by far the least tolerant. In only two of 81 surveyed countries, more than 40 percent of respondents said they would not want a neighbor of a different race.”
This aspect of some Indian culture is in fact being “used” by the Indian community to push the boundaries of our immigration policies. New Zealand is a secular society and they should respect that. The modern day Indian is in no ways obliged to go with an arranged marriage, even in his/her own country.
They go into deep debt, come here, expect to get visas, then PR, then bring their bride or wife and parents here, also try to bring their brothers and sisters. The Indians are ‘good’ at this.
The obvious [ but generally unasked] question is:
When did we as a society /nation get asked or vote on a stated Policy of population growth by immigration ?
Long pause – never.
I’m old enough to recall businesses surviving [ with much difficulty ] the shortage of credit and outrageous interest rates of the 1980’s.
It wasn’t easy but most achieved it by cutting costs, working harder/longer and forgoing personal expenditure on all but the basics.
If we stopped ALL temporary migrant visas now, most of the ‘businesses’ that depend on them would suffer , but most would survive by hiring fewer kiwis and paying living wages to them.
Over time business behavior would change and it is even possible that training , upskilling and retaining valuable employees would become the norm.
I’m not holding my breath, there’s a whole bunch of concepts above that neo-libs don’t get.
+1 Brokenback, No referendum on immigration or Rogernomics. People impacted by Rogernomics have a lot more insights into how that is being used to subjugate workers more and only removing temp workers will bring about living wages becoming the norm and
“Over time business behavior would change and it is even possible that training , upskilling and retaining valuable employees would become the norm.”
It is also sad that the unions have used self interest aka more temp workers getting residency means union growth of low paid workers which helps them, against the traditional concepts of scab labour.
Labour have now decided that if you live in a rural town you are now going to be competing with migrants for well paying jobs. Not so bad except the employers no longer need to try and recruit New Zealanders before recruiting overseas. This is assuming they did actually try anyway. So the government now seem to be trying to destroy the job market in rural New Zealand as well. In the town I live in, there is already a housing shortage. What exactly is it we are trying to do in this country? If the only thing keeping our economy going is immigration, then the last thirty years haven’t exactly been a roaring success have they? There are serious structural issues with our economy, but business as usual seems to be the order of the day.
@Alan +1, The COL government bring that stupidity in, then wonder why NZ First is on the rocks and might not make it back, Labour might be humiliated as a one term government because OZ/US woman weekly readers don’t vote here nor do the overseas big businesses they support or the scammers, and as for the Greens, who know what woke agenda they have because their former voters and MP’s don’t seem too impressed by their lack of logic on most issues, and neither does anyone else!
That is not because the COL are worse than the Natz, but because the expectation is that they should be better than the Natz.
I guess we will find out if the left voters send them a message as the COL start their pre election bribes and the tally comes out, how little they achieved in their first term in particular some of the few differentiators from the Natz which was keep NZ land/assets in the hands of NZ’ers… won’t sign TPPA… reduce immigration… solve the housing crisis….increase human rights for Kiwis living here… decrease the surveillance state and remove warrrentless surveillances and searches…
Unlike the Natz voters, the lefty voters have more principals and are less easily bribed at election time because they see it for what it is, so might not take 3 terms to work out like the Natz supporters, they were sold lies.
Also there are now so many identity voter groups in complete disagreement with each other, that a bribe for one group (aka more aged parents into NZ, deregulate migrant work visas in rural areas ) can backfire and send howls of protest by the majority of families already here whose wages and conditions are already going downhill and local elderly or their families are not impressed as they struggle to survive and access health care.
Stupid policy like allowing anybody into NZ in rural areas to work (when the government knows full well there are major shortages in rural areas like housing, infrastructure, education and health care) and that many of the work visas are scams with the job failing to last or the wages are fake!
Why do you think NZ’ers leave NZ, because there are less and less opportunities for them that are paid high enough!
This ain’t helping the brain drain, especially because it is based on money not skills and the skills NZ places as essential are laughable like retail workers and aged care, which a simple pay rise and no zero hour contracts, might pony up some local takers! Aged care nurses are paid less than regular nurses!
The loosening of work visas to rural areas is just another way to scam more people into NZ and bring their relatives here, while the sponsor (often a new migrant themselves making a fortune) gets a lovely fat payment on the side, before the job/wages disappears if they were there in the first place!
Welcome to the brighter, kinder NZ, aka slumsville where jobseeker runs at 11% per year while both all our political parties loosen yet again rules for immigration of workers and give another slap in the face to local families here.
“More working-class families who need mum or dad to help with the kids while they go to work are going to be the more hurt. Many Chinese migrants are from one-child families and this will be an extremely painful imposition.”
Well, if you immigrate to another country, do not expect your whole family to be allowed in also.
While Mike presents it like useful welfare being offered like child care by elderly, those elderly also qualify for the state funded super after only ten years, and I have met so many Chinese Gold Card holders on the buses I take, who speak almost no word of English, let along Maori.
Stop this BS, thanks, and it should also not be a question of earning and having money to let parents and siblings move here.
If a person immigrates, they should do so on their own or as a couple, and not expect the government to let their parents, brothers, sisters and cousins come here also, as that is just stupid policy.
The so called ‘government’ has enacted the wishes of the big business lobbyists and created a total mess, the full scale and impact, has yet to come.. VOTE FOR ME! Yeah right..
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