Influx of 238,964 migrants arrived in New Zealand in the year to March, with Stats NZ also reporting a record annual net loss of NZ citizens

Don't worry. Willis is onto it.

Apparently tax cuts for "low and middle income earners" (yeah, right!) and tax cuts for landlords will see more houses, schools, hospitals, roads and everything built. It'll all become clear May 30th. She's really good with spreadsheets - or so I hear.

Considering the existing backlog valued by InfraNZ at over a hundred billion dollars, we need to brace for rapidly falling standards in infrastructure and public services.

Erica Stanford admitted last month that more than half of all incoming workers are classed as unskilled or low-skilled. It is safe to then assume these workers will neither help build the infrastructure nor pay their way in tax dollars or via economic activity.

All that before we figure out who is going to operate and maintain those hospitals, schools, etc.

No, NZ has needed this for a while now.

There is a housing crisis ( cost of buying and renting as well as available stock) already.

There is a health crisis ( available doctors, nursing and specialist ) already 

There is a school crisis ( quality of education ) already. 

There is a infrastructure ( roads quality and capacity, public transport ) already.

but we've built so many cycle lanes... 

Apparently - yes. 

Yes, but you need to factor in the delays in a) processing times and b) people proceeding with coming here.  Many of these immigrants were probably granted visas prior to National (happy to be proven wrong).

Next year's numbers will be telling. 

You shouldn't be confused Baywatch, the figures are for the 12 months to March 24. National made this pledge in February. You see Baywatch, they can't change immigration that happened in the past, under Labours watch.

Net migration for this month was 4,500, so annualised that's 54,000. 

45k is triple the per capita legal immigration in average OECD countries.

Yep, we have hired a few low skilled Dick's lately.

Long term departures of NZ born citizens you mean (the young and brightest hopefully)

At least we're not as bad as Canada, yet. 

Might want to pick a better phrase there, chief.

I went to Chemist Warehouse the other day to buy a fragrance for my wife (who says romance is dead?) and was served by a very friendly and enthusiastic Chinese sales assistant ... I know she was Chinese as I learned Mandarin for a few years and recognised some phrases when she was serving another customer, so I'm not pulling a Phil Twyford here. 

She was at great pains to tell me that although she'd only been in Christchurch for a couple of weeks (and it was a bit cold to her liking) she preferred it to Auckland where she had been for the past several years, as there weren't so many immigrants.

Hopefully that pushes up the wages for good tradesmen 🤞

Let’s not dance around. It is bad.

Referendum? .... "tell him he's dreamin".

There's more chance of finding Lord Lucan riding around on Shergar than there is of an immigration referendum ever happening.

Why? Because both the political left and right are hooked on the weapons-grade crack that is mass, low quality immigration - they are merely puffing on the pipe for different reasons.

The right loves mass immigration because it's the easiest source of cheap, compliannt labour and ever-increasing demand which is required to feed the beast, particularly for housing which means higher rents and more valuable property. Remember how the "business lobby" squealed about the way that potentially restricting migration might negatively impact the economy (i.e. their profit) to the point where Labour caved despite being in a strong position to say 'no'? 

In the NZ context, centrist NZ First only exists because its leader is cunning enough to pick an issue or two that gets an easy combined 5% of the vote. That's why Winston has stopped yapping about immigration and instead has chosen to focus on toilets and Covid.

The more extreme left (e.g. (e.g. Greens) loves mass immigration because it's the easiest way to atone for the perceived past and present evils of formerly heterogenous European/Anglo societies and assuage post-Colonial guilt, in doing so laying the foundations for a 'post-national' state where we can all live in a utopia where 'diversity is our greatest strength'. The only caveat for this portion of the left is the less European and more unemployable and welfare-dependent the immigrants, the better.

The mainstream left loves mass immigration because it provides a steady stream of future lower income voters, and the overpaid public sector management and academic class (which sets the agenda - not the 'working class' who are sufficiently stupidly tribal to keep voting Labour despite the shafting that mass immigration brings, perhaps until something drastic occurs that crystalizes a fomenting resentment towards immigration policy e.g. the collapse of the Red Wall in Britain with Brexit and the last election) is paid well enough to be utterly insulated from the negative effects of mass immigration.

They get the positives - talking a big game about diversity to feel good about yourself and advance your career, access to interesting cuisine options, discounted gig economy services e.g. Uber, and higher property values as they are hypocritical Scrooge McDucks when it comes to their own wallets - with no exposure to the downsides as they can afford the likes of health insurance, private education for the kids, and to live in pleasant areas with good schooling and amenities away from the poor people they claim to cherish. 

The average Kiwi, whether of left or right-leaning persuasion, is just collateral damage. Forced to endure ever-worsening traffic and hospital wait times, crowded classrooms and worsening infrastructure as a gang of morons from across the political spectrum refuses to let up the beatings. 

At this point you'd almost be forgiven for thinking the people who yap on endlessly about Klaus Schwab and the WEF wanting a world where "you'll own nothing" and merely be a unit of human capital actually might have a point, as it all seems so concerted. Slowing immigration to 50k per year is merely  polishing the brass on the Titanic.

The only meaningful move at this point would be a complete border shutdown for such time - for however long it takes, decades if required - until we have allowed infrastructure to catch up and housing costs to normalise, with the exception being for truly skilled immigrants in categories like medical care ... where we cannot so easily train in a short enough timeframe from the current population pool, or coax an existing Kiwi into doing the work through forcing employers to pay higher wages by removing the access to cheap imported labour. 

Going by all the news article into this topic, many are juggling multiple parttime and gig roles to scrape enough money to afford life here. That may appear nightmarish to the average Kiwi but, to an unskilled migrant from a third-world country, this is paradise compared to what they leave behind.

They have my sympathy although I firmly believe we lack the economic means to be running an economic refuge here and desperately need a major overhaul of the entire system.

It's much easier for Kiwi's to get Australian citizenship now so it's easier to make a long term commitment there. Less will be coming back too. 

That's many 'Young' kiwis. This is pretty irrelevant to the large older voting block - they get higher house prices and cheaper nurses for when they need it. 

It's madness, just crazy. The vehemence with which young professional people tell me they are off overseas permanently after they graduate is worrying. I push them on this, pointing out the Kiwi OE is a longstanding rite of passage and surely they'll follow we boomers footsteps and be back at some stage. But the passion with which they adamantly insist they'll not be coming back is noticeably different to the way we thought when their age. They are very firmly slamming the door on this country on the way out.      

Oh here we go.................

Are you hoping for a great natural replacement process?

My guess is they’ll be over represented in that stat vs their proportion of population… why, because a lot go when there is nothing on offer here in nz vs what they perceive they can achieve in Oz… lots have whanau already there too.

Some of course go off the rails and end up 501’s for us - yay!

Good work. That confirms the anecdotal trend I was seeing in Auckland.

Correct.

For the reality, look at Stats migration data:

https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/International-migration/Intern…

Start at cell QA167 (annual numbers) on the Net Migration tab and scroll your way up for a few years.

Do the same for QA86 (monthly numbers).

Then consider that the numbers for April (going by arrivals and departures) may reveal a trend of rapidly declining net migration.

CRAZY

Yes you see that sort of rhetoric often especially if you look at the comments in the Herald, but actually makes more sense for young people to leave under National who mostly want to look after those who already have the assets/wealth. 

So we need to turn NZ into an overcrowded s hole because Kev is bored? 

Sounds great until you need the hospital for a medical event and have to wait 15hours to be seen. They;'1l struggle to keep any form of service levels with the level of incoming demand, coupled with the ageing baby boomers increased medical needs. While I see your point of view when comparing to economies of scale overseas, we're growing the population too fast, and with the wrong spread of calibre of immigrants. No race or anything included in that statement, just plain simple skill level.

Found the guy who runs a vape store (or at least sells to them ... there's one on every street corner now)

And people giving up on having families.