During Covid the world came to a standstill.
No travel, no movement of people, no fishing, no nothing. Go home, stay home.
Initially it was an odd novelty but by the end of it, “lockdown” was a toxic word and we stayed in it for far too long.
It meant the people desperate to emigrate here went elsewhere. We basically told them to. We missed out.
Doors were closed in New Zealand and open elsewhere, so the skills for hire went to Australia and beyond. Our businesses, frantic for new staff and specialist skilled workers, could only watch as we went without.
The people we needed weren’t coming. Businesses I spoke to on and off air were so desperate in some instances that they jumped on planes themselves and headed for overseas markets hoping to find the right people and bring them back to New Zealand. Designers, engineers, IT specialists, nurses, teachers -- we needed all of them, then some.
While that situation was never going to be forever -- and sure, our gates eventually opened -- we were arguably one of the last cabs off the rank.
Immigration is wonderful because that is how the world operates, and how economies exist. Immigrant workers want new opportunities, and countries with skills shortages are only too happy to take them on. New Zealand has been part of that club for decades now -- a safe, workable western democracy where you can set up a business and flourish. Your kids can go to school and go on to do great things. We are relatively benign in a security sense. Not naively safe but pretty safe and positioned, most of the time, out of harm’s way. We have no dictator robbing us blind and dragging us off the street. So, understandably, we are an attractive place for migrants.
100,000 and counting
From 2014 until Covid struck and our borders closed, our net population gain from immigration surged to historical highs.
That’s the difference between us leaving for work offshore and people coming here. It’s usually a net gain, but never say never: it can fluctuate. And it has.
Even when you consider the 40,000 New Zealanders who have upped and left this year, the immigrants have poured in the other way, and by the end of the year we are on track to see a 100,000 net gain in our population. That’s just this year. It’s a record. Nothing else comes close.
Politicians in office love it because they call that growth. I’m not so sure it’s great growth. Are people better off or does it challenge and diminish existing standards of living?
I think some will be better off, but largely, it challenges those already living here, and some will face a lessened experience as a result.
House builds slow, immigration rampant
With building consents trending down and construction of homes slowing, how do we allow record numbers of people into the country and expect them all to be able to find a place to live?
It is downright madness. Do the maths. For every 200 people arriving in a city the size of Auckland we might be able to find housing for just under half of them if we are lucky. As a result, some people already on the margins of society will be further pushed to the sidelines.
Just look at the recent discovery of 30-plus immigrants holed up in a single house in the suburbs. Out of work and part of a scam, they were uncovered through an Immigration New Zealand sting. Dawn raids are back. Officials are waking up households to identify those who shouldn’t be here and they come across a house full or workers who are here on a false promise and stranded.
No one wins out of this and it’s more rife than we care to consider. One view is that this happens elsewhere, not here, right? Wrong, it has been happening for years.
Good or bad?
Immigration is a topic Treasury has done plenty of work on. Some economists conclude that immigration growth left unchecked, or at all costs, is not good growth. It can drive poor social outcomes across health, education, and impact access to core public services along with housing and infrastructure.
Truth is, we let the people in and build later. Much, much later, which is why we all feel squeezed right now.
In the past 12 months, we have not asked many questions at the gate, with such measures as the accredited employer work visa scheme, and in they have come. Without this fresh supply of workers our hospitals and aged care facilities would be under even more pressure and our farms would be struggling.
We do need to plug holes and get economic growth. But because we were behind the eight ball, a sense of panic was created -- that we might be bypassed by the world entirely, so we’d better grab who we can now.
Some of these migrants will be fantastic assets; others not so.
Do we need to do this to ourselves?
We are doing this to ourselves. We have designed it this way by having a policy to get growth at all costs. The last National government used immigration like a drug and got addicted. The dying months of this administration have used the same tool. Once again, we are on the verge of another immigration fuelled housing boom. Hold on good luck.
Here is what happens when there is no design and it becomes a mess. Dr Paul Spoonley, Massey University emeritus professor and population expert, reassures me that if the gain this calendar year is 100,000, around 50,000 of them will stay put in Auckland. Just think – about 50,000 people. It’s a city the size of Napier being dumped into Auckland this year, and next year, and so on. And it’s not the people that worry me; it’s what are we doing to manage the growth and keep our standards of living as high as they are now.
If a city the size of Napier arrives, are we bringing their schools and hospital services as well - or do we fit those people into an exhausted, stretched system, that is, quite frankly, already broken?
You got it! We squeeze them into what is already here. It’s got the makings of a powder keg society that must blow at some point.
What does the finish look like? Do we even know what we want here or what we are creating?
Let’s have a proper debate, a population debate. This affects all of us.
How big do we want to become? And what does that look like?
