Winston Peters
Wellington, July 3, 2016
(Prime Minister) John Key is deliberately flogging the excuse that record immigration of over 124,000 people a year is mostly planeloads of Kiwis returning from Australia.
He is wrong, and Statistics NZ figures prove that he is wrong.
Thousands more are still going to Australia than returning. Most of those returning are doing so because they are being treated as second-class citizens in Australia.
Over there New Zealanders can’t access ACC, health, welfare, and other benefits.
They have less rights than immigrants to Australia from Iraq, the UK, Bangladesh, Europe or Indonesia and all other countries as a result of the 2001 arrangement when Australia put its foot down on immigrants using New Zealand as a back door to Australia.
The biggest driver of record immigration has been a mass influx of people coming in, many on work visas, and many low skilled, as Treasury points out.
Mr Key refuses to recognise that his open door immigration has put enormous pressure on NZ – emergency departments are overloaded, schools are struggling to cope, housing is in crisis, wages are depressed, and migrants are being used as cheap labour.
Excluding mass immigration, New Zealand’s GDP growth rate was 0.1% for the first three months of the year, or less than half a per cent for the year.
But like an addict, he cannot get off mass immigration – consumerism from mass immigration is the biggest driver of our economy now.
Mr Key also claims the record number of immigrants is a ‘vote of confidence’ in this country.
Wrong again – much of the world is a hell hole from which many are trying to escape. We are the last choice for many after first being rejected by the UK, Canada and Australia, and the US – NZ is the last resort.
Wise, controlled and reduced immigration would help our economy, mindless mass immigration does not.
If there is one position out of this policy shambles it is that more and more commentators are belatedly coming to understand that.
Winston Peters is elected Member of Parliament from Northland Constituency and Leader of New Zealand First Party.
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Photo Caption: Winston Peters
