Satirist Robbie Nichol analyses how immigration affects our economy for an audience at the Circa Threatre in Wellington (with Andrew Little in the audience).
51 Comments
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0207/S00380.htm
Winston's speech to Chinese Communities and Associations 2002 - quite interesting
First, and let’s be clear about this, no New Zealand First immigration policy has ever been anti Asian, or anti Chinese or anti any race.
Immigration is not about race, it is about the number of migrants that New Zealand can reasonably sustain.
That may or may not be true, but there was a cufuffle when MP Brown asked "will they fit in ?" etc.
[See Keith Ng "Mr Brown - Hug"]
I think this is kowtowing to political correctness. Why shouldn't a nation which was reportedly 95% European not want to stay that way? NZ went the other way when the Burke Review of Immigration declared:
"the infusion of new elements into NZ has been of immense value to *the country* in the past and would continue to be in the future".Immense (of course) is hyperbole something we use to cover lack of argument. The real reason was that our homogeneity was considered racist. In other words this heralded multiculturalism and the cult of diversity. These Chinese are taking advantage of our flakiness but I doubt many of them would see it as being other than flakey or baizou. You can't rely on the opinions of ethnic leaders as they are part of that system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4R8o56ilQs
makes me wonder if Winston uses the issue or is in the issue, NZ First has a decided lack of talent and they do zero to encourage discussion other than allowing those who guarantee $10/month a say. Bet their MP's don't give 10% of their incomes to the party (like the Greens)?
When we do get long term plans like the Cullen Fund there are ultimately no votes because Joe Public only thinks about the cash in his back pocket. The Nats are able to call it pragmatism to grease the voters palm in the seeking of power at almost any cost. What actually occurs verges on the edge of criminal neglect of the good for the population as a whole.
Sell the sizzle, ignore the steak.
Leave the bbq for someone else to clean it.
Economist Krupp - his comments are assuming the immigrants never get old or ill. I'm an immigrant (2003) and now I am old and ill. Not all economists agree that immigration is good for the economy - see M Reddell. If you follow the logic all we have to do is swap our entire population with somewhere else and we all get wealthy.
Very not pleased he can make jokes about exploitation of workers! Time he read Prof Christina Stringer's report on worker exploitation in NZ and then he might stop laughing.
Painfully obvious the answer is immigration is good when it is controlled/limited and bad when excessive - just like taking paracetamol.
Why are some people interested in immigration: it is to do with a sense of identity - some people identify with their country and its assets and heritage and others don't. Note it is usually immigrants who care about New Zealand the most.
Facile, unfeeling and unfunny - last time I will bother with this 'satirist'.
Calcutta and Guangzhou both have a population of about 14 million. What a utopia New Zealand would be if only we could get all of those people to come and live in New Zealand. If only we had all of those people then wages wouldn't be so stubbornly high and businesses could flourish! I read in the Herald the other day that our food is expensive because there are NOT enough people living in New Zealand - its a scale of economy stupid! Imagine all the unicorns and rainbows there'll be when we're all holding hands dancing and singing about how much higher our quality of life and GDP/capita is now that we've got a much high population density. Broccoli wouldn't cost $5 anymore. You only have to go to Guangzhou or Calcutta to see how much happier the people are living there, which is strange considering that they all want to come here..
I was with you all the way until you said "note it is immigrants who care about New Zealand the most." Obviously you do, but as a broad statement that is not true. Many immigrants are here for what we can give them as opposed to what they can do for us. Controlled immigration (my definition) comes down to choosing those we need - not those that need us.
This is a guess but we want immigrants that add value to NZ where we have shortages. That is doctors, civil engeneers etc. Not immigrants who are a burden on the system, and who help to keep wages low in non skilled jobs or dont work and are a burden on the health system. Non skilled jobs could be shop workers, waiters, service attendents etc. These sort of jobs should go to NZers
Its a quid pro quo. If immigrants want to live in NZ, thats great, but we need to get something out of it as well, or else we might as well just open the gates and let anyone in. Which seems to be happening now with 70,000 people a year.
I live in the UK and I have a welsh wife, it is very hard to get into UK now even as a spouse. She needed to earn over 18,000 pounds a year. Which she didnt as I was the one that worked. Immigration is getting harder everywhere, NZ should be the same as its a priviledge not a right.
The Australian Productivity Commission found that there was little to no benefit to Australians from immigration, it had all been captured by the migrants.
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/downloads/pdfs/mi-jarrett-comm.pdf
Didi: Fair enough that does require an explanation: the middle-class well-settled fellow immigrants I meet (and at this point I am thinking of 3 Kiwis of Chinese origin, 2 of Indian, several PI and numerous fellow ex-Poms) express concerns about the way the immigration system is rorted but how they prefer NZ to their place of origin because it has a 'fair go' attitude, is not class bound, the air is cleaner, the pollution less obvious and the lifestyle better - in other words they like NZ heritage and traditions and are frightened not by it changing but by the speed of the change.
Yeah that was more right wing propaganda. For those that can remember Auckland 15 yrs ago and can compare it to now;
Most would like to step back 15 yrs and be able to drive to the airport or a west coast beach and not spend 2 to 3 hrs stuck in a traffic jam.
Most people who can remember back 15 yrs ago would feel comfort in the fact that the government dept was less than 10 billion dollars and there were no huge looming infrastructure bills on the horizon.
Most Aucklanders who can remember back to 15 yrs ago, would now say with the benefit of hindsight, lets train our own young people and keep a stable population where our children have opportunity as their birthright and employers are forced to pay a living wage if they want to attract an employee.
ah, er, perhaps you haven't been to Auckland recently? Been reading too much of other's complaints?
I lived in Auckland 15 years ago. Even 25 years ago. It is a much improved city since then, by a large degree. Sure there are traffic jams. What largish city doesn't have them? But "spending 2 to 3 hours" in a traffic jam is pure hyperbole, especially 'going to the airport' and is rubbish 'going to a West Coast beach'. You just made that up. It is not true. Which you would find out if you lived here.
I don't disagree that due to current roading construction projects you could spend up to 30 mins in an airport traffic jam, very occasionally longer. It might seem like 2-3 hours. But it is occassional and only concentrated at peak flow.
Then there are people who complain, ignoring their own foolish decisions. Like the cabin crew I met who had similar arguments - I lost sympathy when they told me they lived at Whangaparoa. Apparently they yearned for a clear run to the airport in peak hours from there. But that is selfishness and foolishness at its peak.
I also lived in Auckland 25 yrs ago David, and back then you really did know how long it would take to get somewhere. Now you have to plan your journey and build a safety time frame into the journey because you have no real idea how long the journey will take, add in rush hour and some rain and all bets are off.
Aucklanders tend to acquire a good understanding of how the traffic works and getting places is generally not a problem. Only once has it taken a couple of hours to get somewhere within the city in my entire time here (50yrs) and that was when a truck destroyed a motorway overpass.
Things have got busier but I like the new motorways and developing modern feel of the city. Going to the mall is more of a pain in the weekends but I just go very early to get a good shopping experience.
I feel the city may have more litter. I do wish people would just tidy up their bit of the road out front. Young people are leaving more fast food packages about the place.
Road works seem to take for ever. Why is it taking so long to do the Te Atatu South road? Even so my property out there will improve in value once it's all finished I guess so all good.
Northland Hippy I think that scenario is a bit special and of course a sensible person would leave between 7:00 and 8:00 just in case there was an issue. It's not the same as going to the mall or to work even. Nearly every time you would get there too early especially now with our new super tunnel. One could plan to have breakfast at the airport. I always go to airports early because I like the buzz of an airport so for me this would be no hardship at all.
Why would we be interested in what you watched in Bermuda. Also, as someone who is NOT currently resided on NZ soil, you keep rubbing in your American and Canadian extravaganza that has nothing to do with NZ *yawn* This website is .co.nz not .NorthernLights.com LOL
It is difficult to recall accurately the situation decades ago but my recent experience of Auckland traffic was a shocker. Last November we had my sons graduation there; it took nearly two hours to get to our inner city hotel from the start of the Northern Motorway (going south) We were actually stopped or travelling at walking pace for extended periods and making the required turns in the inner city was all but impossible without taking extreme risks. No roadworks or major accidents. The Taxi driver said he had just come from the airport and a similar time to make that wee journey. Seeing all the stranded folk, tradespeople trying to get an effective days work done makes you wonder about the efficiency of it all. I know of many Kiwis absolutely fed up with the place on many levels, be interested to see the demographic changes with the next census.
Travelling to a West Coast Beach
Well David Chaston, I gotta tell you 5 years ago when things were better, I was showing a visitor around Auckland mid-week and after having a midday snack at Devonport left to go to Piha at 1:00 pm - got as far as Glen Eden and got stuck in traffic at the train crossing. Wasn't moving. Even allowing for 3 hours to get there, gave up at 4:00 pm and headed back to Lincoln - didnt get to Piha
Hey Zachery and David C, I get it that population growth has helped make you wealthy along with making good decisions and investing in your future.
But surely you can see that Aucklands population growth is fast becoming a national problem.
Soon you Aucklanders will expect the rest of the country to help pay for the infrastructure you need.
Soon you will want the NZ taxpayer to contribute to the higher wages that will be needed for Auckland to have police, school teachers, hospital staff and all those other basic services that a city needs to function.
Or do you really believe Auckland is such an economic power house that it can be self funding? Remember that most of NZ's export earnings are generated in the provinces. You actually need those earnings to import cars and computers. You need us more than NZ needs Auckland.
I have made this point before, but I think it is a bit of a myth that the urban centres aren't pulling their weight, or that it is the provinces that are supporting them. The last regional GDP data is for 2016 (see Stats NZ) and that shows Auckland GDP represented 37.2% of the national GDP share, and yet Auckland had 'only' 34.4% of the population. For the Waikato, the numbers are 8.3% / 9.6%, for the Bay of Plenty the numbers are 5.2% / 6.3%, for Wellington they are 13.5% / 10.8%, and for Canterbury they are 13.2% / 12.8%. (For Northland they are 2.5% / 3.7% !)
Sure, GDP is not a perfect measure, but it is all we have. And it includes export activity (among many other things).
If public policy decisions were only made on the basis of 'export earnings' there would be very little added value and certainly much, much less than now (and it is too small now). The country would just be a pure basic commodity player with all capital needed coming from outside the country.
Yes, urban centers have problems. But that is not unique to New Zealand. And our issues are now 'modern' ones, far removed from the issues we once had, as populations moved from a rural base to an urban one. At the same time living standards and the expectations of improvements have become well embedded. As they should be. One modern example; UFB is normal now and the investment and sustainability of that would be impossible without the urban concentrations. Regional-only UFB could never be afforded. Across many other issues, the story will be the same.
I doubt your conclusion.
Read this recently ""Since 2000, Auckland has grown by 30 per cent and the rest of the country by 13 per cent. Over the last 15 years … we’ve also seen Auckland’s average per capita incomes falling relative to those in the rest of the country. Fifteen years ago average Auckland incomes were 124 per cent of those in the rest of New Zealand. Now it is more like 115 per cent.”"
So yes Auckland has higher incomes but compared to almost all other international cities the premium over the rest of the country is small. Bluntly Auckland is failing.
Yes plenty of well paid jobs - for example the Councils IT department has a very high average wage and boasts the biggest IT dept in the country but balanced by far too many poorly paid low skilled jobs.
"Landlords don't maintain rentals". I think you'll find that we do maintain our rentals properties Zac and do a much better job at it than a Letting Agency. Even with a supposedly fully managed service from a Letting Agencies, I've found that I had to keep chasing them to get repairs done and then they charge much elevated costs.
Not easy when I'm having to work full time as well. I'm so glad, that I sold my last rental property at the peak of the market.
"Aucklands population growth is fast becoming a national problem".....I totally agree.
I would also say that Aucklands population growth is fast becoming National's problem! Because when you see the swing voters are going to make come this election, National are going to realise the country has woken up to the immigration ponzi scheme.
There are plenty of mutterings by Aucklanders about how their city has become an overpriced congested nightmare and the deterioration in quality of life that's resulted.
But I'm not sure that they outnumber those rubbing their hands together in glee about the free money from property value appreciation.
Nation building and strong resilient peoples and community:
italics
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate ReleaseJuly 07, 2017
ICYMI: WSJ Editorial: “Trump’s Defining Speech”
“The White House description of Donald Trump’s speech Thursday in Warsaw was simply, ‘Remarks by President Trump to the People of Poland.’ In truth, Mr. Trump’s remarks were directed at the people of the world. Six months into his first term of office, Mr. Trump finally offered the core of what could become a governing philosophy. It is a determined and affirmative defense of the Western tradition.”
Trump’s Defining Speech
Editorial
Wall Street Journal
July 7, 2017
The White House description of Donald Trump’s speech Thursday in Warsaw was simply, “Remarks by President Trump to the People of Poland.” In truth, Mr. Trump’s remarks were directed at the people of the world. Six months into his first term of office, Mr. Trump finally offered the core of what could become a governing philosophy. It is a determined and affirmative defense of the Western tradition.
…
But—and this shocked Washington—the speech aimed higher. Like the best presidential speeches, it contained affirmations of ideas and principles and related them to the current political moment. “Americans, Poles and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty,” he said. This was more than a speech, though. It was an argument. One might even call it an apologia for the West.
…
But the speech’s most provocative argument was about our way of life. It came when he described how a million Poles stood with Pope John Paul II in Victory Square in 1979 to resist Soviet rule by chanting, “We want God!”
“With that powerful declaration of who you are,” Mr. Trump said, “you came to understand what to do and how to live.”
This is a warning to the West and a call to action. By remembering the Poles’ invocation of God, Mr. Trump is clearly aligning himself with the same warning issued to Europe some years ago by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict.
…
Mr. Trump is taking a clear stand against the kind of gauzy globalism and vague multiculturalism represented by the worldview of, say, Barack Obama and most contemporary Western intellectuals, who are willing, even eager, to concede the argument to critics of the West’s traditions.
…
It was an important and, we hope, a defining speech—for the Trump Presidency and for Donald Trump himself.
Some excerpts from Trump's Poland speech. Huge enthusiasm for Trump in Poland. It's time to stop being cynical. As the best of the West I'm confident that the people of the Anglosphere endorse the following message. Emphasis mine:
We are the fastest and the greatest community. There is nothing like our community of nations. The world has never known anything like our community of nations.
We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.
We reward brilliance, we strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.
We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success.
We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives.
And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything, so that we can better know ourselves.
And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom.
That is who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies and as a civilization.
What we have, what we inherited from our — and — and you know this better than anybody and you see it today, with this incredible group of people — what we’ve inherited from our ancestors has never existed to this extent before. And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again. So we cannot fail.
-------------
We have to remember that our defense is not just a commitment of money, it is a commitment of will. Because as the Polish experience reminds us, the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means, but also on the will of its people to prevail and be successful and get what you have to have.The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it? We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive.
----------
Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield. It begins with our minds, our wills and our souls. Today, the ties that unite our civilization are no less vital and demand no less defense than that bare shred of land on which the hope of Poland once totally rested.Our freedom, our civilization and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture and memory. And today, as ever, Poland is in our heart, and its people are in that fight.
Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail, our people will thrive, and our civilization will triumph.
I think it is instructive that he made a speech like that in Eastern Europe. That is where tensions against 'others' are strongest these days, and where the linking up of strong social regressive tendencies to working class voters has had its biggest impact. And the harsh lessons of the success of alternate realities and racial / cultural separateness are spilling out of that region into other backward rust-belts. It is capturing an anger of being left behind. Trump is the ideal messenger, it seems.
He could not deliver a speech like that 500 kms to the West of there. Nor would it resonate on the two US coasts. They can see past this call to go back to a mystical nonsense of cultural separateness. It was never any good.
It is also instructive that more Americans voted against Trump than for him. It is instructive that Western Europe (France, Holland, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy - and did I mention Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand?) all voted to reject such notions. The front line of cultural isolation is Russia, Hungary, the Balkans, the Caucasus. (Even in Poland, the audience had a rent-a-crowd aspect to it.) There is a certain, and probably unintented irony about preaching cultural regression to the Poles who are actually working hard to reject the threats of the same from Russia. They want to move more to the Merkel / Macron vision.
Despite the [Murdoch] WSJ editorial, I doubt it is a speech that will resonate very far. (And yes, I have read it.)
When the US President went to the G20, he seemed isolated. After the speech, he seemed lost. At the G20, he appears rejected.
Personally, I am attracted to a much more positive vision of the future. Hankering for a past that never was is far less appealing than aspiring for a more optimistic future. Trump can say what he likes - but he is a sociopath and will say anything without actually meaning it. What matters is what he does. Domestically on healthcare, on infrastructure, on immigration, on science, on improving opportunities for those who lack them (not for those who already have them). Internationally, what matters is defense of human rights, trade, tackling extremism's causes, science (the climate, etc).
Trump words don't come with any resolve. At least, I am yet to see any.
Never watch it. Nor do I watch Fox. (But Murdoch's WSJ and the increasingly strident Australian are on my reading list.)
Is the mention of #1 an implication that Trumponomics is working? Better take a closer look at the trend. It was higher under the previous administraion.
Yes, #2 is apparently correct. Be interesting to see if Trump voters in the Rust Belt will do the work those illegals were coming to do. I bet they will complian through when no-one shows up willing to work. Certainly the non-farm payrolls report shows no effect of those jobs being filled. You would think that without the illegals, legal jobs would rise (someone has to do the work), especially at that magnitude of reduction in the border flow.
Certainly Eastern Europe has a long history of dealing with incursions from further East. Fighting the "hordes" as it were for centuries. Western Europe and especially the UK have been largely spared the onerous task of driving off serious invasion forces. For example the battle of Vienna which crushed Ottoman ambitions in Europe and saved the Western world was led by a Polish king.
I don't think Trump is calling for a return to the "mystical nonsense of cultural separateness" as you put it. Indeed I think that is an outrageous strawman argument. Different cultures are by definition separate anyway. If you mix them up and blend them you will have a new culture. How I see it is a call to protect and develop the institutions and mores we have currently and not a return to the past. Western ideals are the best yet developed for human freedom and prosperity. Everyone who adopts them gets freer and richer. It wont be good for anyone to have those ideals eroded or overwhelmed.
The sentences I highlighted are the key points in my opinion.
We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.
I believe this is something that is seriously in danger. Europe is approaching Orwellian levels of thought control and surveillance, entirely because of the influx of alien (to the West) cultures and beliefs.
And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything, so that we can better know ourselves.
Currently people are being arrested and even imprisoned in the West for merely expressing opinions. This is done in the interests of public harmony, again because of the influx of foreign cultures. Speeches concerning freedom of speech are being shutdown by organized mobs at universities and at public venues.
Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield. It begins with our minds, our wills and our souls.
I think this is important. The ideals of the West need to be kept alive for ourselves as well as for immigrants. People actually come to the West because of its Western ideals, ideals that make freedom and prosperity possible. This is something that every individual, native and immigrant, needs to foster in their hearts. Immigrants especially need to buy into this before embarking on their journey to the West.
I do agree that what matters is what is achieved and Trump is still suspect even amongst members of the Alt-Right. However no one is hankering for a past but rather a better future than the worst case scenario we are possibly facing now. I really cherish the freedom we have now and don't wish to see it endangered. I'm thinking we need to be a bit more vocal, even aggressive, about our determination to protect and develop Western values. My mission is to push for the Westernization of the entire planet while ensuring those that wish to follow their own path can do so within their own communities at their own expense and risk and without bothering everyone else.
At the very least I want to be able to celebrate my own culture. I thought that was in the spirit of multi-culturalism or am I wrong?
We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.
But Trump games the law. There is a lifetime of evidence. He doesn't treat it with respect at all. No sociopath ever does.
And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything, so that we can better know ourselves.
That's basically not true for him. He demeans anyone who challenges him. He never debates; he attacks, harangues, belittles. These are hollow words from him. And yes, there are organised mobs, but they are the ones who use the fear of others as their main weapon.
Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield. It begins with our minds, our wills and our souls.
That fight was won a long time before social regressives came along.. It was his campaign's teaming up with Eastern European hackers to subvert their election that is undoing the cred that had been built up. Alone, he is unstitching this long-time advantage.
Seeing all immigrants as criminals with a secret plan to overwhelm us is the current alt-right conspiracy theory du jour. I meet lots of immigrants. Never found one who was likely to be in a fifth column. And immigrants engage in less criminal activity that the native born. They take scorn just through shallow profiling.
Over the years interest.co.nz has and has had employees born in the UK, Australia, China, Malaysia, India, the Philippines, the USA, Canada, the Sudan. All but one is still in New Zealand. Every one has earned the right to be called a Kiwi. Every one has made NZ a better place. Fear of them is completely misplaced (and probably only occurs if you don't know any very well).
Those employees of Interest.co.nz don't want NZ to be overwhelmed by too many new immigrants, I can guarantee you that. New Zealand changing for the worse socially and economically due to immigration has been a subject of discussion I have had with many immigrants. And anyway Trump is not against immigration or immigrants just immigrants who are hostile.
The fight may have been won but we mustn't rest on our laurels or more realistically our grandparents laurels. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It's a cliche but it's true. People must be allowed to voice their objections.
As for fifth columns well that seems like another straw man argument although in the UK there have been street demonstrations with people holding up placards stating, "Islam will dominate the World" and "Behead those who insult Islam". Maybe you should watch more CNN? As a student of evolution I understand that profound changes are a result of unconscious activity. Populations are decimated and others dominate without any thought involved whatsoever.
I don't think your arguments are made stronger by calling people "social regressives" or "sociopaths" or claiming that there are "organised mobs who use the fear of others as their main weapon". The common people's lusty outrage is a useful deterrent to bad behaviour and shouldn't be totally dismissed as all bad. Anyway all the violence reported has been overwhelmingly against Trump supporters. No one is afraid of Trump supporters. Absolutely no one, in fact they are the first people you will run to if you need help. Am I wrong? Look at what anti Trump folk are doing in Hamburg compared to pro Trump folk in Poland right now.
You haven't really addressed my points about the need to defend and develop Western ideals for the benefit of all people, locals and immigrants. Indeed the impression I get is that you view the West and its ideals as a myth and really quite bad and should be replaced as soon as possible by more vibrant cultures.
Permanent migration to Nz over the past 30 years was essentially pretty low when you realise most of it was a 'top up' for losses (incl highly trained skilled workers ) to Oz. Policymakers haven't grasped the fact there has been a shift in the past few years . For structural and political reasons, Australia doesnt want/need so many NZ migrants. Indeed it seems bent on nudging/pushing recent kiwi migrants back to NZ.
We seem to have been trying to lure a bigger and bigger range of overseas migrants into NZ at the same time as flows to Oz are turning around. Its a double-barrelled bad call, and so yes we do need to tighten it up over the next few years.
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