OPINION
As I recently reported, the Albanese government is trying to convince Australians that a paltry 10 per cent reduction of record-high immigration levels is some kind of big deal. Australians aren’t falling for it.
Would that New Zealanders could wring even that much concession from their elites.
Immigration has long simmered as a political issue in Australia, but the elite cabal – both major parties, big business, the media and the chattering classes – have so far successfully conspired to keep open discussion suppressed. Historian Geoffrey Blainey was an early victim of leftist cancel culture, simply for suggesting that Hawke-era high levels of mass immigration were unsustainable – economically and most especially socially.
From the vantage point of 2023, the Hawke era looks like a moderate trickle. Hawke peaked at 160,000 immigrants per year. Albanese is importing half a million per year. In just three years, Australia will be swamped with the equivalent of the entire population of Auckland.
Except that the population of Auckland is exploding, too. Even with its super-dooper-turbocharged mass immigration, per capita, Australia is getting off lightly compared to our cousins across the ditch.
New Zealand will reduce immigrant numbers to relieve pressure on housing and infrastructure, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said on Dec 11.
Current net migration stands at 118,000 a year – higher per capita than neighbouring Australia – meaning the country’s population grew by almost three per cent in the year ending September.
Massey University demographer Professor Emeritus Paul Spoonley told Radio New Zealand last week that the nation could end the year with the highest net population gain in the OECD.
Just like Australians, New Zealanders are finding themselves priced out of a roof over their head, and with their roads and cities crumbling around their ears, as a tidal wave of the Global South floods into the country.
After decades of underspending, the new government is forced to find the money to fix the country’s aging infrastructure, with NZ$100 billion currently budgeted. But costs are increasing by the day, and Infrastructure NZ says the true deficit could be more than $200 billion.
Some critical infrastructure is already failing.
For instance, the entity that supplies drinking water to the nation¦s capital, Wellington Water, said last week that the region faces an acute water shortage and could run out by February.
If that happens, it will not be able to guarantee the supply of water to hospitals and rest homes.
Yes, but think of all the chi-chi ethnic cafes!
Also like Australians, those younger New Zealanders lucky enough to afford a house are watching their mortgage payments, along with the price of everything else, spiralling ever higher, thanks to the inflationary pressure of mass migration.
While house prices plunged as the Reserve Bank increased mortgage rates to curb inflation, they are once again on the increase, raising the spectre of further increases to the cash rate. The bank specifically warned last month that the surge in migration posed threats to inflation by stoking demand in the economy.
On the other hand, New Zealand is fortunate to have a new government that is at least starting to talk the talk on curbing mass immigration.
With the cost of living consistently topping polls of what New Zealanders were most concerned about, the incoming government has been looking for ways to manage demand for more infrastructure and housing.
“We’re inheriting a system that’s been a complete hash,” Mr Luxon said.
The prime minister was critical of the previous government’s arrangements, saying borders had been closed “at a time when employers were looking for workers” during the pandemic, and then “Labour opened the floodgates just as the economy was starting to slow.”
The big question, of course, is whether they’re prepared to walk the walk.
The resulting high net migration rates were not sustainable and any immigration should be linked to filling of skills shortages, Mr Luxon said.
“We’ve got to go back through and actually make sure that any immigration is linked very strongly to the economic agenda of New Zealand,” he said.
“We can’t always control Kiwis returning or Aussies, but what we’ve gotta do, is make sure that we are getting the settings right. It’s gone from being way too restrictive, to being way too loose, and we’ve gotta find that balance.”
Mr Luxon conceded it was “very hard for any government to lay out … a hard-and-fast number” for suitable migration levels.
The Epoch Times
Which, I’m afraid to say, sounds exactly like the sort of bullshit the Big Australia fanatics use to justify importing millions of cheap workers from the Third World.