When will NZers wake up to the magnitude of damage National’s immigration policy has caused us?



Elite liberal opinion on Twitter in NZ (mostly from Wellington and the Wellington Twitter clique) snarls at any suggestion whatsoever that we need to urgently dismantle National’s horror immigration policy.

That snarling and claims of xenophobia need to be seen for what it is – idealogical wankery.

The same snide elite liberal opinions didn’t see Brexit coming or Trump because elite cosmopolitan identity politics demands the left and progressive movement see high levels of immigration as a natural extension of our collectivist values.

It’s bullshit sophistry of course fostered by those with an education and ability to trade those skills in a global market place. When you hear elite twitter scream ‘racist’ at any suggestion we need to shut down NZs dangerous levels of  immigration,  what you are really hearing is, ‘don’t threaten my personal ability to go overseas and demand large fees with my easily transferable skill set’.

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It’s identity politics as an Instagram passport.

The Left and Progressive movement must wake the fuck up to what National’s neoliberal free market immigration policy has actually done in 8 years and Bernard Hickey’s must read column today helps add numbers to the urgency of that change…

This was the amount of net migration to New Zealand in the year to the end of October, which is the latest data we have. It was yet another record high and represents population growth from net migration of over 1.5 per cent in a year.

That is three times faster than the migration rate into Britain, which helped lead to Brexit, and is almost twice as fast as the migration rate into Australia, which helped prompt the revival of Pauline Hanson.

Net migration over the last three years totalled 180,443, including 184,568 who came here on temporary work visas or as international students.

An Auckland University report published this week detailed widespread abuse of migrants by employers who paid them less than the minimum wage, overworked them and refused to pay holiday and sick pay. Many such workers are hoping to get permanent residency, which requires the co-operation of their employers.

The Reserve Bank has noted the surprisingly high number of working-age temporary migrants has suppressed wage inflation in the past three years.

Auckland has borne the brunt of this unprecedented population growth. The combination of net migration and more births than deaths has increased the number of residents and motorists by almost 3 per cent a year for the past three years.

All it takes now is a rain storm to gridlock the city and the housing shortage is now over 40,000 and growing at a rate of 5000 a year. Employers are struggling to find workers who can afford to live in Auckland, and the Government is spending thousands of dollars a week to accommodate people in motels.

…let’s unpack this. So we have record immigration at levels unheard of in the rest of the developed world and we are allowing migrant slave labour and exploited workers to push down labour costs for NZ workers while creating mass stress upon our infrastructure and housing.

How the Christ has this been allowed to occur over the last 8 years of a National Party Government? Well, Hickey highlights the horror of the self interest in National’s property bubble…

$1 trillion
That will be the total value of New Zealand’s houses by the end of 2016 if prices keep going up in December at the rate of the previous 11 months.

The value of New Zealand’s homes has risen by more than $400 billion, or two thirds, over the past eight years. Those homes are not bigger or fancier or warmer or drier or have better views, but interest rates are substantially lower and over that time we failed to build enough houses to match population growth.

Also over that time, New Zealand’s home ownership rate has fallen to close to 60 per cent and many young Auckland first-home buyers have had to abandon their dreams and deal with rents rising faster than incomes.

Yet voters also rejected Opposition proposals at the past two elections for a Capital Gains Tax. Labour has given up trying to campaign for any changes that would see house prices fall.

Less than half of young renters voted at the last election, and more than 90 per cent of property owners over the age of 50 voted. Politicians know this and have calculated that more voters want higher house prices, which means they can afford to ignore the renters.

…National have brilliantly managed to bribe the property speculating middle class boomers  to keep voting National so their untaxed capital gains wealth illusion continues to grow.

Demanding that we urgently shut down immigration and student visa scams until our infrastructure can be built up to cope with the landlside of desperate people trying to get into our country isn’t ‘anti-immigrant’, or ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobic’ – it makes perfect rational sense if our progressive values are to hold any political muscle at the ballot box. How else do we  break boomer property investing self interest that keeps them financially locked into voting National thanks to the Government’s purposely designed property bubble?

Progressives and the Left have allowed identity politics to erode solidarity for the same perverse individualism that neoliberalism feeds. The irony is that it is our poorest workers who bear the brunt of this intellectual vanity, they are the ones who are forced to compete with migrants for jobs, houses, social services and infrastructure. We see the impact of this in Brexit and Trump’s win.

It is time that the quality of life of our poorest workers in our society became more important than cosmopolitan elitism and the Left need to find the courage to make a stand against free market globalisation even if that means getting decried as xenophobic racists by the Twitter Wellington clique.

Our movement’s values and compassion can be channeled into lifting NZs appallingly low refugee quotas and insuring they have the resources to enable them to assimilate and function with autonomy in our society. We don’t live up to the obligations of our movement by shouting ‘racist’ at any attempt to shut the floodgates of immigration that are causing economic damage and exploitation.



  1. “$1 trillion

    We are headed for an almighty crash.

  2. Immigration is being used by National to keep them in power, pretending the economy is working when it is not.

    At the same time, immigration is a time bomb for the welfare state. We have 1.5% of new migrants who are poorly skilled and apparently 25% of student visas go into residency. And there are huge scams with that. So we are actually importing in significant numbers of low skilled scammers and giving them residency with a fake qualifications. Added to that is their parents can come in straight away and within 10 years and get free welfare. So for every person who has a ‘food services’ qualification we can get 2 aged parents and probably a marriage to bring in another person and then 2 more aged parents. God know what happens if they divorce. The numbers are staggering for the potential burden on NZ welfare system, even before you look at all the other factors such as housing. The 1.5% per year could potentially go up a factor of 4 for each new resident. i.e. 6% per year artificial population growth eligible to enter.

    With many migrants voting National to keep the scam going National are effectively importing in more votes to stay in power, and there is disjointed co operation from the opposition on the issue. Many opposition parties up until recently burying their heads in the sand and more worried about identity politics than what the fuck is going to happen to our kids and social democracy if we keep this up.

    I also feel sorry for the 2nd, 3rd generation migrants who have nothing to do with it and the migrants who are here legitimately and being lumped in with the scammers who in many cases are being scammed themselves by migrant agents – but once here – what more can they do but try to gain residency any way they can?

    And as for buying up property, the National government has directed them into this area by the 10 million plus investor category, gambling trips to Sky City and the 0% tax haven status and getting rid of the language test so what else can they do?

    It’s a good damn awful mess for all concerned.

    The government urgently need to stop immigration. And they need to clamp down on marriages and aged parents coming in.

    The government also need to get IRD to help the newcomers to understand the NZ tax laws and do regular audits on new arrivals every couple of years to makes sure 1st generation migrants understand their tax obligations and to stop fraud.

  3. Right on Martyn. Trouble is no one is listening. When they do wake up to what is happening to this Country it is going to be even harder to fix fairly than it would be now.

  4. When are you going to stop bitching and start exposing the real culprits – the ones who are manipulating human affairs and have designed this worldwide madness ; immigration insanity and so many perpetual wars and much suffering.
    The criminals who orchestrated all that we oppose and want to change and expose.
    This goes way way beyond NZ politics but it impacts us and we need to know how and why.
    Dig deeper and see who is really pulling the strings and dictating to our govt. We have a right to expose the truths.


    More and more people are rejecting the MSM and we know why.
    Their credibility stinks and they are biased and loosing audiences. They are beholding to the very criminals they need to hold accountable. That is why it is so important for TDB to be bolder and expose the truths and real culprits.
    TDB is a great alternative site but at times you ( Martyn ? ) avoid and delete the very comments that expose that which needs exposing – the free flow of information and truth and honesty in journalism.
    Then you may realize why it is a mistake to glorify Chomsky.

    ” Fake news hoax ” – lives with the MSM and hopefully we here are not so
    bought and sold. We want to support the truths coming out.
    Let us challenge our perceptions and check out someone who is telling the truth about this recent fake news movement and those behind the scenes dictating to and controlling the media and govts. etc. IT IS ALL ABOUT PERCEPTION.

    Please consider listening, with an open mind, to someone who knows why this fake news movement is growing and the finger pointing at the wrong people and wrong ideas.


  5. ‘That is three times faster than the migration rate into Britain’

    It would pay to check supposed facts before repeating them and trying to build a narrative around them.

    Net migration to Britain is running at 4 to 5 times that to NZ according to migration statistics:

    ‘net migration = +335,000 (similar to YE June 2015), comprising +189,000 EU citizens, +196,000 non-EU citizens and -49,000 British citizens’


    • Population Britain 65 million so 335,00 net migration is 0.51%. Population of New Zealand is 4.5 million so 70,000 net migration is 1.5% so as a percentage against population it is 3x that of Britain

  6. I doubt that a big proportion of property owning baby boomers are all that enamoured of this mad immigration policy or the auckland house price explosion partly associated with it, notwithstanding it may benefit them on paper personally. Granted many of them will be national voters but in spite of as much as because of the phenomenon .

    What I think is that just with the Clark administration, to curb immigration (or the mass sell off of NZ citizenship) and to curb sale of NZ farmland ,infrastructure , real-estate etc would show a disastrous balance of deficit. Better to leave it to someone in the future to deal with.

    Cheers David JS


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