Immigrant Disaster?

By
Stephen Minto
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34
1025

New Zealand has been blighted by heavy immigration. Just ask a Maori. It lead to intergenerational theft of wealth resources through pakeha provoked military violence, blatant violations of Treaty clauses, murders and rapes. All leading to poverty and social ostracism in their own country, which is still currently reflected in low levels of health, high crime statistics and a lower life expectancy. Consider the poverty of immigrants living in late 1800s United States, or the fate of native American people. And if you think that’s ancient history then ask a Palestinian if heavy immigration is good.

Immigration is not a simple ‘good’. But almost all discussion of immigration currently happens within the inadequate framework of what business and economists think about economic growth. So a bit of background.

Just before the covid lockdown, immigration to New Zealand almost reached 200,000. And we had a raging housing affordability crisis. Our infrastructure; transport, public transport, education, health were all still struggling. (Labour has massively increased spending in all these areas — in contrast to the National evangelical tax cut idiots who ran everything into the ground). The Productivity Commission has estimated a $104 Billion infrastructure underspend has been run up.

But still some in the business community think New Zealand over the next 10 years should have another 4 million people (400,000 immigrants a year!) without raising taxes (well it cost’s us and you nothing to train them and they are better/more skilled than New Zealanders, and less crime so cheaper — all simplistic insights). Some business leaders want a right to bring in an immigrant if they have a job to offer the immigrant (there is risk some will pay for a job to come here). To the business community everything on the benefit side is a gimme. Any costs are government costs. So when it comes to impacts, the two things we know about the business community; it’s narrow minded, and self-serving.

But beyond the infrastructure costs, how much immigration is good?

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Imagine if we allowed in a million — Chinese communist party members, or maga southern evangelicals. Any of these and other groups would have significant cultural impacts. Would Maori retain their currently slightly improved societal standing? LGBTQ?

The fact is we want immigrants, to assimilate to our society and cultural values. Tolerance for diversity, respect for the Treaty, respect for equality and the rule of law, adherence to democracy, openness to dialogue, rejection of corruption, acceptance of freedom of speech , etc. These are not a given. Our cultural respect of immigrants does not extend to accepting hate speech as free speech, e.g., some maga appear to be struggling with this. Even Britain has struggled with some residual female genital mutilation, etc. We have value judgements that say you can’t have some of your cultural values. At heart democracy is dependent on enough people being tolerant that a less tolerant minority can be respected but ignored in the democratic sense, and controlled in a legal sense. Stability and prosperity helps this process of assimilation, but the volume of people does too.

But we aren’t pure either. Only a short time ago our democracy repeatedly delivered a ‘kingmaker’ who was percieved by some to hold ‘change’ hostage and had a tinge of racism to their appeal. Dealing with climate change and a whole host of issues was seriously impacted. The kingmaker problem could come back. We are lucky at the moment that both liberals and conservatives are behind the benefits of immigration. Not long ago we had more divisive political campaigns like iwi/kiwi.

Our democracy is fragile. We do not have a constitution or a proper bill of rights to help hold these/our values in place. Courts capable of defending civil rights outside of legislative dictate e.g. The three strikes bill should have able to be looked at as a civil right issue and able to be struck down. We have to undertake a constitutional journey before we undertake any major levels of immigration, because the risks are great.

So lets just not turn the immigration taps back on full bore as the government has recently done with students and working visas:

1: Immigration must not outpace infrastructure development (including affordable housing). This means business must face a hard discussion on how much to increase taxation on them. They are one of the main drivers for immigration. There is no gimme. How about some user pays for the $104billion infrastructure deficit. (The tax on the economic growth from immigration won’t cover it as business tax rates are so low),

2: The volume of immigration must allow society to adapt and evolve without stress. Why not align to the birth rate? That rate, could reflect a sub conscious in the individual of a collective awareness of how much it costs in society to have children i.e. can afford new people? Or it gives an indication of what locals expect to see for new people in their community? (I claim as much credibility as some economist math geek, the most discredited profession in the world, who draws a chart and declares their idea true). So births are about 56,000 a year and immigrants could match that. The previous gungho of over 100,000 a year immigrants is not desirable and we know it created infrastructure and cultural stress. History tells us immigration should not be a dominant experience for a community.

3: A process to develop a constitution and true bill of rights must occur before any major immigration increase over the already quite high birth rate level suggested here.

Immigration is undoubtedly good for society but difference has consistently been used in the past by the less scrupulous for negative purposes (e.g. Brexit). A smaller volume in immigration to better match our population size would allow an easier path to a mutual assimilation which is essential for a happy society.

p.s. But there is the problem of immigration administration and bureaucracy. A possible way to deal with some of that is, if a business wants to make a job offer to a person and bring them in as a right to be an immigrant (subject I assume to a criminal record check and that the person is trained and specialised etc). They could be matched to a women over the age of 40 who by choice or chance has not given birth. That women has created a gap in societys projected population increase. She’s owns that outcome. Why can’t she sell that population ‘gap’, one only (unless the birth rate was over 2), to a business, say for $100,00 or more, could be bid for if demand was over that minimum? The woman gets the money. (There are serious issues to iron out but overall less bureacracy than years of a points system). So, what would that be (56,000 approx births a year half female, supposedly 1 in 5 women do not have children) 5,600 positions a year (plus the backlog of previous years). That seems like a lot of people for business to bring in relatively trouble free. Obvioulsy this figure is within the 56,00 immigrant level. A high enough price to discourage a business just being a backdoor immigration route?

34 COMMENTS

  1. ‘respect for equality and the rule of law, adherence to democracy, openness to dialogue….. acceptance of freedom of speech’ – so a ban on all labour and green voters entering the country

  2. Even the left want to run a population Ponzi scheme.
    How will the addition of a further 56,000 rapacious primates to NZ each year help with emissions, pollution etc?

    • Bullshit. The left want the Roles Royce of education systems it’s wonderful conservative nationals that don’t want that.

      Poor stupid people are having browds of children, it’s the smart people that for what ever reason aren’t having babies. The more that education budgets are managed and privatised the stupider NZ gets.

      That’s not a Ponzi scheme problem. That’s a you problem

      • “it’s the smart people that for what ever reason aren’t having babies.” Men? They’re not equipped, intellect has nothing to do with it, obviously 😉

    • What on earth are you talking about? The Maori Party doesn’t support immigration. Mana didn’t support unrestricted immigration. Social Credit doesn’t support immigration.

      Labour and the Greens are neoliberal (extreme right-wing) parties, not leftist.

    • Reply to Timmyboy at 6.11am, ‘Hi, I think you make some good points on carbon impacts from immigration. But there will be immigration. It’s been over 100,000 a year. for many years. 56,000 is a big reduction of carbon impacts from that. Some immigration is good just not high volume. If we had proper constitution and bill of rights we could have more.

    • Not just smart people being de-prioritised, but people with empathy, initiative and 23 years experience are getting illegally fired from industries like rest homes, braying out for cheaper, migrant workers.

      I love how the worker who dobbed the rest home care worker in, wasn’t available to help her operate the hoist to help the man! (Sarcasm).

      Rest home worker dismissed for helping man off toilet the wrong way
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/129793175/rest-home-worker-dismissed-for-helping-man-off-toilet-the-wrong-way

      Is this the future for our elderly, or are we going to impose standards in this industry by making sure that those working in it, are paid enough to stay, have inititive and become experienced?

      Or keep prioritising employing the lowest of the low!

      In this case the poorly qualified care workers did not take the initiative to take a disabled mans head out of the drawer, and left him for 45 minutes, after calling an ambulance instead, so he suffocated.

      On the day he died, John Reimers’ head was trapped by a drawer for 45 minutes
      https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/on-the-day-he-died-john-reimers-head-was-trapped-by-a-drawer-for-45-minutes-20190826-p52kr4.html

      “Paramedics attending the scene told the inquest they were shocked to find Mr Reimers dead upon arrival. One said he was easily able to lift Mr Reimers’ head out of the drawer, roll him on his back and clear his airway.”

      Looks like the growing rest home care industry, can afford to pay more, but don’t!

      Ryman reports first half underlying profit of $85.2 million, up 11.4%
      https://www.rymanhealthcare.com.au/community-news/article-half-year-results

      Is that what people want with an ageing population?

      Profit, driven system where people looking after the aged are paid so poorly, have poor comprehension, no initiative, while the kind, experienced, care operators are fired and they pay less than everyone else?

  3. Some good points. It would be fair to say we don’t know the effects of immigration. But the Q and A panel said immigration was good because they could all eat different yummy foods at restaurants now! Thats the level of stereotypical research and discussion we currently have. But they did acknowledge immigration had caused the housing crisis!!! Lord have mercy on my soul.
    Your idea about selling a spot for 100k is a Barry Crocker sorry.
    Is social cohesion the best it’s ever been? Is continual growth sustainable or even desirable?
    Lord grant thy policy analyst’s the wisdom to answer these questions.
    Congregation:Lord have mercy.

  4. You can’t have a low wage economy and still have a welfare system.

    Anyone on minimum wages need the rest of the tax payers to support them to the tune of $7000 per year.

    Then if you are on average wages then you are tax neutral.

    Therefore to make NZ benefit by migration, NZ migrants need to have a highly paid job and no dependants.

    NZ is doing the opposite, low or cash jobs in dubious professions aka fast food not known for health benefits, hard physical jobs that then the people end up on ACC, foreign pensioners who have high health and pension needs, foreign children who all need a free education here, people who have huge wealth and buy up assets here (employing more minimum waged migrant workers) and so forth.

    Government keep putting taxes up for those who have a so called high paid jobs, driving them out and stealth taxes driving up the cost of living for those who work.

    People who don’t work, you get more stuff free in general in NZ.

    Life’s reality is that a large amount of people have to work to have a healthy community and surprisingly not everyone can be a labourer, or chef for cash or low wages, for NZ to be successful.

    Too many migrants into NZ who all need services like health care, transport, housing, education and justice needs – instead of getting a few who have special skills.

    People want to live and work in OZ and Dubai because they paid well generally and don’t care about the residency.

    Migrants who are high needs, low, no, income, come to NZ.

    NZ has a lot to learn.

  6. Winston Peters used to talk about immigration in nearly the same way as Minto has now… for years … maybe 30 years.. he was derided as racist … how time has changed. Peters was right all along.

  7. Mr Minto,

    It is easy to determine what motivates right wingers to call for open borders. Cheap labour. A housing market that only ever rises because it introduces scarcity. What motivates the left?

    I spent some time in this area myself. It became curiouser and curiouser to me, why outwardly far or extreme left activists, the sort who wear the first of the ISO on their t-shirts, why they were so little concerned with migrant worker exploitation, let alone the welfare of existing workers in New Zealand.

    I looked at what the most extreme open border advocates had in common. It turned out, they had something in common in terms of religious and / or ethnic background. I decided that they were motivated by things unspoken.

    I’ll leave it at that.

  8. Mr Minto,

    It is easy to determine what motivates right wingers to call for open borders. Cheap labour. A housing market that only ever rises because it introduces scarcity. What motivates the left?

    I spent some time in this area myself. It became curiouser and curiouser to me, why outwardly far or extreme left activists, the sort who wear the first of the ISO on their t-shirts, were so little concerned with migrant worker exploitation, let alone the welfare of existing workers in New Zealand.

    I looked at what the most extreme open border advocates had in common. It turned out, they had something in common in terms of religious and / or ethnic background. I decided that they were motivated by things unspoken.

    I’ll leave it at that.

  9. When NZ had a population of 3 million we were a richer country per capita when compared to other countries. While business and some economists contend that immigration is good for the economy the historical record shows it’s not good for the original people.

    1973 population 3 million. Per capita GDP. OECD rank #16
    2003 population 4 million. Per capita GDP. OECD rank #22
    2021 population 5 million. Per capita GDP. OECD rank #26

    Over the last 50 years the income we receive from primary production based on the fixed land resource has had to support an additional 66% population increase and on average new Zealanders have become poorer compared to the rest of the world.

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