Well, that's definitely a start.
Immigration Minister Erica Stanford is conceding that "we can't have" a net 126,000 migrants a year coming into the country, as we did in calendar year 2023.
The Minister, however, wasn't keen in her interview on TVNZ last weekend to indicate the types of numbers 'we can have' coming into New Zealand on a yearly basis.
Look, I'll forgive the caution, given that Stanford is stepping into an unholy mess bequeathed her by the previous Government.
In fact, I took some encouragement from Stanford's words. It's good that she intends to look at the "structural make-up" of inbound workers - with over half of them last year in the unskilled category, something I just find incredible. And it's good that she intends progressing the idea, as raised by the Productivity Commission, of a policy statement requiring New Zealand's governments to set a clear strategic direction for immigration policy, although she stressed it was "very early days". I sincerely hope that doesn't mean the idea might ultimately be slipped into the never-never category.
And I did very much like this quote from Stanford: "One of the issues that we don't do very well and haven't done forever in this country is plan."
An NZ immigration minister talking about planning? I may become giddy!
I guess we now need to wait and see what the government comes up with in the short term to try to fix the current, definitely very unplanned, dog's breakfast that we've been confronted with in terms of our migration issues.
And then we need to see what 'planning' will materialise for the longer term.
It seems clear that there will be a rebalancing of the numbers coming into the country between skilled and unskilled workers. The explicit targeting of New Zealanders-first for jobs, as Stanford clearly indicated will be the case - is essential in my view.
As I've said before we can't just consign, particularly young Kiwis, to the job scrap heap because its easier to get people from overseas to fill jobs.
And that's not an emotional thing. It's pragmatic. Once someone's born in NZ they become the responsibility - and potentially a problem - for the country for as long as they live. Send someone to the scrap heap early on in their lives and that will come back to bite us all through anti-social outcomes. We are already seeing a fair bit of that. Carry on as we have been and it will worsen.
I'm not suggesting this is an easy issue to fix - at all. But, regardless of the effort required - and I concede there might be a fair bit of effort required - it's more desirable to in the first instance try to fill jobs with people already in the country. The 'easy fix' may well be overseas sourced workers, but long term that really isn't going to fix anything. Beware the 'easy' solution. It may be anything but.
So, that's one very key migration issue. For me, however, probably the biggest issue is the 'big picture'. It's the big picture that no NZ government has ever cared to look at.
Will this Government?
Well, I have to say, one word that I didn't hear coming from Stanford's mouth during the TVNZ interview - unless I missed it - was 'population'.
We need to talk about population.
If we really want to talk about planning for migration, we can't do it without putting the whole thing into the context of a proper population strategy. And until I see differently, I suspect that this Government will, like all of our governments previously, attempt to conduct immigration policy divorced from any overall thinking about population. Mistake.
Until there's some clear, over-arching, understanding in this country even of something basic like what is the magic number of people we would like to have in NZ, I just don't see how decisions can be made about the numbers of people allowed to come into the country.
How can you possibly decide what numbers of people are appropriate to let into the country if you don't have a clue what the optimum size of your population should be?
Setting migration numbers in total isolation from some idea of a desired overall population number means that we are inevitably setting ourselves up for annual population 'creep'.
It's fair to say that in this country in more recent (non-pandemic) years, the 'creep' has become more of a gallop. In calendar year 2023 our population increased an amazing 2.8%. And this was a year in which our natural population increase - through births minus deaths - was at an 80-year low.
The feeling I get is that most regular readers of this website probably reckon we've already got enough, or in fact more than enough, people in the country.
But somehow I can't see it as remotely likely that a National-led government would ever seek to completely curtail inbound migration. Leopards and spots and all that.
In future years the inbound numbers might not be 126,000, but I'm betting they will remain appreciably more than the existing inhabitants of this country might be comfortable with.
And while a focus on skilled workers rather than unskilled is sensible enough, another area I wonder about in terms of future migration here is the, what I would call chequebook migrants - the high worth individuals who grease their path into the country by putting a nice dollop of cash on the counter.
My problem with this type of inbound migration is around what it actually contributes to the economy.
If these high worth individuals come here and then simply make passive investments here - such as through an investment fund, or through buying an existing property - that simply doesn't add much to the NZ economy. Now, instead, if said high worth individual commits to start up a business here, and to employing people - IE adding discernible value to the economy, obviously that is a positive.
Anyway, let's wait and see what this Government comes up with. They will need cutting some slack because of the very fact that they have acquired a right royal migration mess from the previous government. And let's not forget that regardless of the numbers of people that may come across our borders this year, that 126,000 net number that came here last year is still here and it's a huge number that will have ongoing ramifications.
The upshot is that it won't be easy. But if this Government really does come up with a 'plan' for immigration that would be something. I confess though that my overall expectations remain low. Come on Government. Surprise me. In a good way.
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