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The latest spurt in migration numbers suggest they may not have peaked yet

The latest spurt in migration numbers suggest they may not have peaked yet

Population growth from migration is picking up again, with a net population gain from migration of 69,119 in the 12 months to August.

That was a new record for any 12 month period ending August and equalled the previous record for any 12 month period.

This suggests that migration numbers may be yet to peak and could have started a new upward curve, which will put further strain on already stretched resources such as transport, housing, health and education, particularly in Auckland where the pressures from migration-fuelled population growth are most severe.

One of the biggest changes occurring in the mix of new migrants coming to this country is a decline in the number of migrants coming from India and ongoing growth in those coming from China.

China and Hong Kong have now overtaken India as the biggest source of migrants, with a net gain of 10,817 in the 12 months to August (up from 9102  in the 12 months to August 2015), while the net gain from India has dropped from 12,676 in the 12 months to August 2015 to 10,631 in the 12 months to August this year.

They were followed by a net gain of 4907 from the Philippines, 4588 from the UK, and 3415 from South Africa.

There was a net loss of 2588 New Zealand citizens in the 12 months to August and a net gain of 71,707 citizens of other countries.

There have also been changes in the types of visas being issued to people coming in this country on a permanent or long term basis.

There has been a decline in the number of people arriving on student visas, particularly from India, with student arrivals from India declining by 22.7% in the 12 months to August compared with the same period a last year and down a whopping 66.4% in the month of August compared with August last year.

That suggests a very substantial decline in student numbers from India, most likely as a result of publicity around the poor quality of courses provided by some private training institutions and the difficulties students have obtaining employment at the end of their studies.

However migrants coming here on residency visas are up strongly, particularly from China with those arriving from that country on residency visas up 28.6% in the 12 months to August compared to the previous 12 months and up 35% in the month of August compared with August last year.

This suggest very strong growth in migrant numbers form China.

The UK tops the list of  source countries for those arriving on work visas, followed by France, Germany, Australia, US, and the Philippines.

However in a First Impressions newsletter on the latest figures, Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said the bank expect annual net migration to gradually slow from the current record levels.

"Foreigners who have arrived on temporary work or student visas over the past three years will start to depart," he said.

"In addition, an improving Australian economy is expected to entice New Zealanders across the Tasman.

"However this will take time, meaning annual net migration will remain at elevated levels for some time."

Net long term migration

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62 Comments

Here we go again!!!

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Key things... Chong Kee!

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Why are we expecting numbers to peak or fall? The trend appears to be up and up and there is no reasonable sign of this changing due to any obvious factors. e.g. policy or otherwise.

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Precisely , why did the Government not communicate with us about the immigration numbers or is it a State secret?

We only find out about what has occurred months after the migrant and his family have arrived and are desperately looking for somewhere to live ?

SURELY they knew about this well before we read it in the media ?

After all, there is obviously a delay between when the visa is granted and when its issued when the migrant arrives , whether its 1 month or 2 years , we know there is a timeframe .

Why don't they tell us what to expect , just tell us what they are doing ?

The NZIS know exactly how many and what type of Visa'a they issue , daily , weekly , monthly ?

Why on earth did they not let us know what they were doing ?

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But it's all just NZers returning from oz, says JK. Yeah right.

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31,000+ are Kiwis moving back to New Zealand from Australia.

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207,000 work visas issued in the last year...dwarfs the returning kiwis...soft migration extremely high

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Net loss of 2000+ new zealand citizens.

Population Ponzi.

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Not 31,000 at all. There are still more New Zealand citizens departing to Australia than arriving from Australia. However, the net loss has shrunk from 39,700 in the June 2012 year to 3,500 in 2016. This deficit was more than offset by small net gains of Australian citizens (3,000 in 2016) and other citizens (2,400 in 2016), giving a small overall net gain of 1,900 in 2016

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So these numbers ...69,119 are they just, permanent and long term arrivals ? what about the other arrivals...
More than 200,000 people were issued temporary work visas in the year ending June, almost 30,000 more than the year before. Student visas passed the 100,000 barrier... I am trying to find the total number of additional people NZ is trying to cater for??
About 800 new residents are settling in Auckland each week, the city's chamber of commerce says.

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good question, what really is the total number of miigrants, temp and permanent. Govt trying to mask it by diluted reporting and red herrings like returning kiwis

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Don't provide a work visa with the student visa and see those numbers fall "magically".
But the education system is not only the immigration's backdoor, it's also a juicy export sector.
Or ...charge even more international students and with that money provide free tertiary education to kiwis and take advantage of the situation.

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Expect the India numbers to fall significantly yet. While Woodhouse won't admit it the rort and fraud stories will lead to a government tightening (which may already have made a difference). As for Stephen Joyce's export industry dreams - thanks for nothing Mr Joyce.

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Only a increase of just 100 people in a month? doesn't seem like anything to panic over.

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While that is true, it would make some good reading to dig down a level.

1. Are those people leaving, the same people that came here a few years back, now have Citienship and are off to OZ.
2. Are those coming in replacing skills we are losing, or
3. Are we losing skilled people, and gaining unskilled people.
4. Are they returning citizens fed up with overseas, or
5. Are they returning citizens who were kicked out from overseas.
6. Is it just a natural flow of people (i.e. do other countries have the same sort of ins and outs)

I have no real idea of what the reality is, but it would be interesting to know.

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No one knows Noncents. You would expect to see some serious follow up research on the questions you mention and also just what are the immigrants doing here in terms of employment, businesses, taxes paid and so on. Hard to believe but it's almost like the Gov. don't want to know and just assume she's all good.

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"You would expect to see some serious follow up research on the questions you mention"

I learned a long time ago not to expect. I think even replacing that with "hope" would be too optimistic.

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Where does the 100 a month figure come from?

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{edit} Should have said the following...

its an 85 gain from last figures, so the peak isn't really much more than last time.

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Enjoy the wide-open spaces, and peace and serenity of NZ while it lasts! I'll more than happily sacrifice a measly ~1% per capita GDP growth for the lifestyle that NZ affords (or did afford) based entirely on low population density...

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right, because South island is so overcrowded.

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It's more crowded than Antarctica...

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It is pretty full of tourists and there is a lot of pressure on the environment.

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Well New Zealand is the size of the United Kingdom in landmass with a population the size of Ireland.

Even if this migration kept going at the same rate for 5 years New Zealand would still have a very low population density compared to most of the world.

More people live in Sydney than in all of New Zealand. While Melbourne will soon pass New Zealand in population too.

76% of the NZ population lives in the North Island & just 24% live in the South Island.

33.4% of the New Zealand population lives in Auckland.

New Zealand is currently ranked 205 out of 244 Countries & Territories in population density.

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Ah another grow for ever on a finite planet believer? Either that or you believe the world is flat? because that is the only way you can grow for ever, if its infinite.

Today our modern agricultural system feeds 20million people using oil and natural gas. By 2050 there wil be neither ad we will be doing well to feed 5million NZers. Just consider there are 70million people in the UK and wonder how well that is going to go for them (and many of the rest).

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No why would you think that? NZ would still do well as a country even with a population of 10 million.

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Shall we make that the target then?

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New Zealand would be a sh!t hole (like the countries all our immigrants are fleeing from) with a population that size.

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Send the lot over to Aussie - they've only got 3.3 per square kilometre against our 16.
I like that sort of density, feels about right - pull up the drawbridge!

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No thanks. Australia already has enough Kiwis as it is. New Zealand should be taking in much more refugees anyway.

Australia should just send all future Asylum seekers arriving on Nauru & Manus Island to New Zealand it would save the Australian taxpayer a fortune!

70% of Australia gets less than 500mm of rain a year.

Not to mention your wrong on the population density. New Zealand is (17.44) vs Australia (3.15).

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I'll tell you how it works. Your "student" comes here, gets a job at the dairy/liquor store/$2 shop/restaurant/gas station for $2/hour. Gets "job offer" and thereby qualifies for residency. A short while later he's on the plane to Aussie.
Australian immigration is being administered by your Kiwi neighbourhood dairy. Cute no?

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Central Australia has a very low population density, why dont they start filling that up?

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Not enough rainfall is a huge reason why.

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What you need is desalination. Imagine it; put in a few hundred desal. plants and you could be taking heaps more immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees. To get up to our population density you would need 132 million people but why stop there - maybe a middling population density like Austria would be in order - 100 per square kilometre giving a good solid 760 million brand new Aussies. You lot need to start pulling your weight.

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Humbug

Explain - How you transport the salt-sea water to the Simpson Desert in order to desalinate it, and at what cost

One thing the Red Centre of Australia has going for it is feral camels, camel meat and camels milk
Millions of them

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It was just a wind up.
There was talk of cutting a break to flood the large area that is below sea level in South Australia (I think) the resulting flow would run basically forever (due to evaporation) generating electricity and moderating the extreme climate. To be honest the whole country is barely habitable and why anyone would voluntarily live there is beyond me.

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Aussie has already got $15 billion worth of mothballed desal plants. The poor fools built them when Tim Flannery and the BOM insisted it wasn't going to rain much any more and when it did “So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems.” Oh well at least Tim got a beach front house out of it.

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I think it is well north of $15 billion for the Wonthaggi plant when you take into account care and maintenance and interest costs

Cost $15 billion just to build - produces a little bit of water every now and then - clears the cobwebs out

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Crow22 darkness ... you do realise that the entire world is massively in overshoot mode - comparisons to unsustainable population levels are pretty meaningless. (ie take away the food powered by Oil - a temporary arrangement only) and factor in depleted natural resources then see what is a reasonably world population.http://one-simple-idea.com/Environment1.htm

The world population in year 1492 was 500 million people.

The world population in 1804 was 1.0 billion people.

The world population in 1922 was 2.0 billion people (doubled in 118 years; increasing on average by about 23,000 per day).

The world population in 1959 was 3.0 billion people (increased by 1.0 billion in only 37 years; increasing on average by about 74,000 per day).

The world population in 2006 was 6.68 billion people (more than doubled in 47 years; increasing now by 211,000 persons per day!).

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You seem to forget 37% of the World's total population lives in just China & India.

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and China has had a 1 child policy.

India is expected to overtake them in 10 or so years.

Wonder why they are coming here?

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Does that factor in land in which one can not live? Ie National parks, Mountains, Farm land...

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The more densely populated a country is, the more reliant it is on external resources as it doesn't have the relative space for agriculture, mining, etc.... meanwhile they are consuming more.

UK, Japan, and Singapore are excellent examples of this. Stop the imports and the Nation is effectively finished.

Sydney and Melbourne exist on a Continent that can (at present) still supply its needs. Mainly because Australia is currently ranked 236 out of 244 in Population Density. Were Australia to get to NZ's density level, they would need to start importing water.

Interesting you mention Ireland. They already import just about all there energy needs (including electricity), they have very little industry outside of tourism. Their IT sector is propped up by Govt handouts/deals, and their farming is almost entirely reliant on EU Subsidies.

Ireland's five biggest cities combined are still less than Auckland. They are effectively full, they could not really support more people even if they wanted too. Immigration was a huge issue there before the GFC, however this was tempered when they realised just how much their industries were being propped up by the EU.

Could NZ have more people - yes to an extent, we have some spare capacity. But not that much given our resource availability.

The share speed of that will (and is) destroying our infrastructure, Auckland is quickly becoming a shambles, it was barely planned to have 1 million let alone 6 million inhabitants.

Our provinces do not have the work to maintain larger populations, and our main selling point overseas is our scenery for tourism, and our "greeness" for exports. Both of which directly conflict with High population Density.

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totally agree.

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Has anyone told them how expensive houses are here?

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Australia (excl Sydney) is more affordable than Auckland.

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Thank god the migrants continue roll in otherwise i may be able to find a job and then have to get out of bed before 10 o'clock.

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SShhh JK will call you lazy and the reason he has to bring people in to undercut your wages as business need cheap workers
otherwise who will do the jobs that you want to do
aw shucks maybe kiwis that want a job

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My only beef about immigration is ........WHY DID THE GOVERNMENT NOT COMMUNICATE WITH US , GIVE US THE HEADS UP , FORE-WARN US TWO YEARS AGO ABOUT WHAT THEY WERE DOING ?

We could have at least planned for this tsunami of newcomers , and geared up to build more houses , expanded the road network , expanded our schools and the healthcare facilities and just generally had the heads up .

Now we are left reacting on the run , scrambling to catch up , our houses have now become unaffordable almost half of all New Zealanders we don't know where the endgame is. Businesses are groping around in the dark , committing to capital expenditure when we don't know when the immigration will slow down or stop.

Why did the Government not just communicate with us ?

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That would assume they had a plan

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Plan is ; get elected, do nothing, get paid....

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Great news. I think New Zealand would be a whole lot better with 30m odd people. The sooner we get to that kind of number the better. Let's hope it continues to accelerate, the more the merrier.

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Not

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Yeah why not ruin things even more, National are on a roll in that regard.

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"New Zealand will be a whole lot better with 30m odd people"...The land that was once called Aoteoroa, is now called New Zealand, will then be called...?
A nation is more than just a piece of real estate....

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I'd accept an upper limit population of 5 million - but I do prefer it to be two million.

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Too late KH. Even if net migration averaged zero from now on in we'd still hit 5 million and counting in 10 years...

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Five million max population gets my vote because it is achievable, although it's a bit like turning the ocean liner around. Birth rates are important and as incomes rise (because of population stability) we could expect to see birth rates drop.
Personally, I'd like to see the population at say 2 million. But that's going to take a while because we are probably not going to shoot people - not allowed etc. A few costs population reduction that because of the need to do some nature restoration, but still very small costs compared with infrastructure build because of population explosion.
Who cares about GDP. It's increased incomes for the locals that should be the goal.

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JK says Housing and Immigration aren't a problem... ! We should all feel better now that National is looking out for Kiwis
1) Rising asset prices = tick...
2) Falling unemployment = tick...

Not to mention...
1) First home buyers in Auckland cannot afford a 10-50yr old 3 bed home that costs $250K to build new, only an ugly 2 bed sausage block unit that still costs $650K in most central suburbs (and is from the 70's)
2) Government is now spying on NZer's after JK broke the law related to spying on NZer's - so decided to change it...
3) The TPPA opens NZ govt up to prosecution from overseas companies to protect their profits (i.e. AU blank cigarette packet saga)
4) National still in denial

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Just what I needed....more competition for jobs!!!

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What jobs? Oh you mean building houses and infrastructure for immigrants. Thats the only jobs being created.
What a brilliant think big project population growth is! We've sold everything else, now we're selling our low population. Yay for National, yay for their long sighted, think about tomorrow brilliance. Yayyyy!!!!

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