What National’s mass immigration policy means in practise

NZ First breaks with Government over ‘unfocused immigration proposal’ to establish two new pathways to residency

The clause has been triggered only a handful of times, with this the first time this term over immigration policy, which is expected to be a significant focus for NZ First at the 2026 election.

Leader Winston Peters said the Government’s two new pathways to residency represented “unfocused immigration proposal”, with his party having concerns it may be used as a stepping stone to Australia.

“We take them in, train them, up-skill them, look after their families, and then they emigrate. How is this an effective immigration policy?” Peters asked.

Here is what I think National’s mass immigration policy means in practise.

A relative of mine last November had a van full of Filipino electricians turn up at her house.

The local mutation of a power company she is with were updating their power monitors  from 2G to 4G and were sending out ‘staff’ to do this upgrade.

The ‘staff’ turned out to be Filipino Electricians who were conned into coming to NZ under the belief they would work as electricians only to find they had been recruited because they had the lowest and cheapest transferable skill sets.

These Filipino Electricians were told they were all contractors now and had to buy cars (from a vender who price gouged them), but gear (from a vender who price gouged them), and they were told they had to get housing (from a vender who price gouged them) that kept them working around the clock.

The Filipino Electricians who were so surprised to find thesmelves in such an unequal deal actually asked my relative to check their contract top see if it was really true.

My female relative had to tell them, “Why yes, you are fucked”.

We have built our economy on 4 pillars:

• Steal Māori land and NEVER pay for the full cost of that theft
• Allow property speculators to have enormous political influence
• Milk powder über alles
• Addiction to a Low wage economy that exploits migrant workers and drives wages down

It’s the fourth one that I believe brought the Pylon down last year…

Pylon collapse: Engineer raised concerns over baseplate know-how in 2021

A report into the collapse of a electricity transmission tower in Northland in June this year has confirmed the removal of nuts from the tower’s baseplates was to blame, and highlighted some oversights by the organisation responsible for the national grid, Transpower.

…I have no proof of this but my guess is that Omexom, the company subcontracted for this Pylon maintenance, were exactly like the Filipino Electricians. Migrant workers lured here on the false pretence of a job that quickly melts down to the lowest cost possible for the company who doesn’t do anything and just subcontracts it out.

I bet exploited migrant labour was behind the Pylon coming down and that this type of exploitation is not part of any examination of what went wrong.

It’s not locals who have been trained here, it’s workers being brought in with very little training causing these massive mistakes.

Let me be clear, my heart goes out to those Filipino Electricians and we have an obligation to stamp out migrant worker exploitation, I’m not blaming them for the Pylon falling over, I’m blaming corrupt business practices focused in importing workers with the legally barest qualifications so they can continue to reap profits.

Transpower made a $68million profit last year, they make that money by squeezing labour costs which lead to things like the Pylon following over.

Again, I have no proof Omexom hired in migrant workers, but I am deeply suspicious and I believe this new pathway will simply continue that exploitation.

All Government’s use mass immigration to solve our labour shortages rather than invest in our own people.

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