Tuesday, October 18, 2016

On the need for a sustainable immigration policy, and where I think you should stick it


The world is on fire.

And at the bottom of this fiery world is a small country (although it isn’t that small), which for the last three decades has been run like a sort of neoliberal theme park. Take its immigration policy, which aside from an embarrassingly small quota set aside for refugees is regulated via a points system grading prospective residents according to their skills in certain areas or by the amount of capital they are willing to bring into the country.

You speak English? Great, that was one of the requirements! You are willing to invest $10 million over three years? We no longer care if you don't speak English!

You get the idea.

The small country (although it isn’t that small) is tucked away so cleverly at the bottom of the world that desperate people wishing for a better life – or any sort of life at all – cannot reach it by boat. It is therefore practically immune from the blight of illegal immigration, with its attendant consequences such as increases in GDP, sudden availability of a greater range of foods, shit getting done all over the place and so forth. Fortunately – thanks to the foresight of legislators – a large portion of the resident population lives in such poverty that there are practically no jobs it won’t do, thereby reducing the need for undocumented foreigners. The judicious use of seasonal or fixed term work visas provides for the rest of the local capitalists’ needs.

The leading political parties of the small country (although it isn’t that small) comprise a centre-right majority which favours this rational and tidy points-based system, and a centre-left opposition which favours this rational and tidy points-based system but would also like to see the actual intake of immigrants reduced. House prices have been rising quite steeply, you see? And once the possibility that this might be due to a plot by the dastardly Chinese was discarded, or at least didn’t prove to be enough of a vote-getter, the finger of blame was pointed to the new migrants, all of whom increase the demand for houses, and some of whom – due to policies favouring wealthy newcomers – are using their wealth to actually bid for the damn things.

Who could have known?

So now the small country is practically bursting at the seams, if by bursting at the seams you mean it has half the population density of Europe, but only so long as you go out of your way to include Russia. Or one fifteenth of the population density of the United Kingdom. In fact the only countries in the OECD with fewer people per square kilometre are Australia, Iceland, Canada and Norway, due to being largely uninhabitable, whereas the small country – as well as not being actually that small – is quite lovely up and down.

New Zealand: nauseatingly inhabitable

Now I’ll be the first to admit that house prices are an actual problem. If something is not done about them soon, it is quite possible that the bubble will burst and the small country will no longer have an economy with which to support its population, old and new. However, I would argue that one could hardly blame migrants for this fact, and that maybe if the small country’s politicians didn’t divide their time equally between lamenting the problem and reassuring home owners that they will never, ever, ever, ever do anything to reduce the value of their properties, it might be possible to find a solution and still fit quite a few more people in.

In the meantime, however, anti-immigration sentiment on the putative left of the small country is a real thing. So for instance over the weekend the co-leader of the local Green Party went on television to inform the nation that net migration should be capped at 1% of the population every year including returning nationals. He said so in the name of a ‘sustainable immigration policy’, so that the country has time to build houses and roads and the other things that people need to live. ‘They are coming over here, and they are taking our infrastructure,’ he all but said. And it still might have been a half sensible argument, or at least I might have found it less surreal, were it not for the fact that the world is on fire.

Thousands of migrants die every year trying to cross the small bit of sea that separates Northern Africa from Southern Europe. Many of them would be classed not as refugees but as economic migrants, and of course none would come close to qualifying for the number of points necessary in order to ‘express interest’ in moving to the small country at the bottom of the world. They die because, in the words of Warshan Shire, that sea is safer than their land. Why else would you attempt a crossing that kills so many? And that is saying nothing of the five million people who have had to flee Syria to date, of which the small country is slated this year to take seven hundred and fifty, or the six million Syrians who are ‘internally displaced’. Or the over 15 million refugees from other countries and regions of the world awaiting resettlement.

The co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa thinks net immigration should be capped at 1% because, he says, that is the historical average, or the rate at which people could be peacefully accommodated by the small country. His 1% edict applies to voluntary migrants, but his party’s policy makes the same argument with regard to refugees, insisting that any increases of the paltry quota must be gradual ‘and the size of [the] total intake keyed to the provision of resources to provide adequate services for them’. We’re no longer talking single digits here, but fractions of a digit. Zero point zero one six per cent: that’s how much 750 people is to four and a half million. A number the Greens are willing to double now, and then subsume to the general principle that immigration policy should be sustainable.

The thing about historical averages is that we need to forget about them. And while we’re at it, fuck ‘sustainable’. The world is on fire, and nobody should know this better than the Greens, who are willing to extend the status of refugees to people fleeing the consequences of climate change. We are a developed country blessed by geography and whose political class is aware and accepting of what is about to happen. It is unconscionable that we should be having any conversation other than how best to prepare over the coming years and decades for the arrival of people – so many it scares us, so many we may have to learn all over again how to live in this place.






In other, painfully familiar topics, I wrote a piece for the Spinoff on the abuse of disabled children at Miramar Central School and what it says about our education system. 

9 comments:

ignotum said...

In 2019 here in Gisborne Tairawhiti, formerly Poverty Bay,the nation will celebrate the arrival of the immigrants from Polynesia and Great Britain. I hope you are in attendance. The other European arrivals - Dutch and French- will probably be overlooked because the writers of popular history writers tend to ignore inconvenient truths. Anyway as a fifth gen kiwi, on both sides, and as one who who was once reported in a daily newspaper headline urging the Min of Immigration (Labour) to settle 5,000 Vietnamese boat people in Christchurch I applaud your stance. My children are second gen kiwis because their mother is Dutch via Indonesia - just establishing my credentials- and after growing up in Godzone a couple of them have emigrated - one to Italy. The point I would like to make, for your consideration, is that population growth and displacement have been around since Colombo proved, for practical purposes, that the world was never flat; opening the way for the European invasion of the Americas. Metaphysically speaking the planet continues to shrink. For a time the governments of OZ and NZ will increase the number of border control/immigration staff with relevant language skills to 'process' refugees. In the meantime, as of old, the explorers and scientists with government sponsorship (including here in Tairawhiti at Mahia) are looking at a larger space and it may even be in your lifetime that the first settlors head that way.
Of course I endorse your point about our wealth-centric political representatives only wanting to share Godzown with 'Our Kind Of People.'

Giovanni Tiso said...

Coincidentally, driving to Mahia from Napier for a tangi I had one of my periodical realisations oh how big this country actually is, and how sparsely inhabited.

kiwi guy said...

I don't understand why you think we have to flood our country with Third Worlders because NZ is "sparsely populated".

If those countries are so overcrowded their political, economic and social institutions are collapsing, whose fault is that?

I like our small population, we have enough environmental problems as it is without importing millions of Third Worlders.

Just look at the flood of Africans and muslims into Europe - a total disaster.

Ironically leaders like Obama are the ones responsible for setting the world on fire or at least continue to fan the flames re: Middle East. Then they tell us we have to open the flood gates to all these refugees that THEY created through their incompetency in foreign affairs.



Unknown said...

Wow 'Kiwi Guy' your lack of empathy is stunning. I'm a 'Kiwi' too - I'm 5th generation pakeha on one side, 1st on the other (guessing you're white too) and I just have to say your 'Third Worlders' comments strike me as ugly and inhumane. I'm really concerned about the anti immigration rhetoric coming from the left at present. I'm an immigrant, grateful to be here, and know that on a shrinking planet we need to find useful ways to cope with an increasing population.

kiwi guy said...

Wow just wow, Jean, an argument based on "feelings" just doesn't cut it, the world is on the fast track to a global catastrophe, there is no escaping that now, hard decisions have to be made regardless of your personal feelings or dreams of some future socialist utopia.

"know that on a shrinking planet we need to find useful ways to cope with an increasing population. "

Can you explain what is useful about flooding NZ with millions of Third Worlders?

Shifting populations from areas being destroyed by over population is only kicking the can down the road, much like the Global elite via central banks around the world are doing with the economic ponzi scheme that should have been allowed to implode back in 2008 - doubling down on enormous debt loads with zero interest rates, NEGATIVE interest rates, QE to infinity.

You are attempting to put off the inevitable for a bit longer to avoid suffering, ironically your actions would only increase the inevitable suffering that will arrive due to decades, generations old decisions that never got dealt with.

Wringing your hands and wailing about your feelings and humanity doesn't change reality.

Brexit, Trump. The Left and Gloablists seem genuinely confused, panicked and at a loss to explain what is happening.

Lena said...

You fail to realise that New Zealand itself is a third worldercountry when compared to first worlder countries like Finland, Norway and United Arab Emirates.

Anonymous said...

Lena... Finland and Norway will soon no longer be first worlder countries after the massive influx of migrants' which is precisely what kiwi guy is trying to say. I am European and I can tell you that there is a lot of social tension. Germany, France, Italy.... are all run down. A lot of the European citizens like me are worried and scared for what is to come. Whoever tells you different, are living in a bubble, like:
1-rich European that have their country houses and their fortune looked after'
2-politicians who could care less for the migrants and all they want is future votes so they can remain in power
3-delusional feminists
4-ignorant people who live in great countries and instead of ensuring a controlled, responsible, balanced, rational influx of newcomers, to ensure the prosperity of the country and society, go around pretending to be so liberal and understanding that they even would risk the future of their children and culture... all in the name of political correctness?

What makes people think that underdeveloped, medieval cultures would want to assimilate, cohabit , get along with more modern, developed cultures?
Why would the "newcomers" want to change their culture ? Their culture does not allow women to vote, their culture believe that women are inferior, their culture supports paedophilia ..... they won't. The number of rapes in Sweden has escalated to the point that it is the rape capital of the world.... the press keeps quiet because some governments make them be quiet. And I. An carry on with a lot of other subjects like European kids getting robbed, bullied, humiliated by migrant gangs for no reason....

I just think that in theory it would be a great thought that everyone could get along. If so, there would be no wars to start with.
I also think that it is very easy to criticize when one is clueless of what is really happening, sitting from the comfort of their house.
The reality is, and you have a living example with Europe, that all this migration is causing disruption, and eventually destroy our countries.
I suggest... how about all these people that care so much for the migrants move to, let's say Saudi Arabia, a first world country, and try helping all the migrants that cannot get in Saudi Arabia? It's closer than New Zealand, they won't have to walk so many miles, or cross any seas, and they are used to the climate and culture, which means they will integrate quicker ...
..... let's see who really cares now for the migrants.

Draco TB said...

"And once the possibility that this might be due to a plot by the dastardly Chinese was discarded, or at least didn’t prove to be enough of a vote-getter"

Actually, it was a vote getter - if Labour or any party had come up with the right policy. That policy was a complete ban on offshore owners. Instead Labour came up with the ridiculous idea of just restricting what they can buy which everyone knew wouldn't work and so they got no support from it.

"Or one fifteenth of the population density of the United Kingdom."

It would seem that the people who live here don't want that sort of density.

Now, I'm all for high density cities rather than the destructive sprawl that we have now but I'm also for limiting farm area to ~15% of the whole. Anything outside of the cities and farm land is to be left as wilderness.

15% is approximately what we need to feed ourselves now.

"as well as not being actually that small – is quite lovely up and down."

But won't be if we had the same density of population as Europe or the UK.

"And it still might have been a half sensible argument, or at least I might have found it less surreal, were it not for the fact that the world is on fire."

It is a sensible argument. You're just in denial of reality. Excessive immigration is causing problems including with infrastructure and reducing our GDP per person.

The big problem with people like you is that you truly think that we have unlimited resources and that we can just keep adding people at whatever rate we wish. We don't, no nation does and because of that we simply cannot keep adding people willy nilly.

"And that is saying nothing of the five million people who have had to flee Syria to date…"

You mean the five million people who would probably have been better off picking up a gun and defending themselves and their nation?

A number the Greens are willing to double now, and then subsume to the general principle that immigration policy should be sustainable."

A sensible policy. The one that you have, the one that you're demanding, is that we should have an unsustainable policy. The type of policies that have destroyed civilisations throughout history.

Giovanni Tiso said...

"It would seem that the people who live here don't want that sort of density."

Repeat after me: it's not about what people want.

It is bizarrely misguided for any party - but even more so for the Greens - not to take a pragmatic long-term view about what the future has in store in terms of mass migration. Like I said in the post, we are lucky we are this far away, but we won't be protected forever. The people will come. And how prepared we are - politically, socially, at the level of infrastructure - will dictate how well we cope.

But: the people will come. There is nothing you or James Shaw can do about it. You can either build cities and roads and reconfigure the landscape, giving up some of the land that is currently sacrificed to the sacred cow, or you can build a fucking big navy. There is no third option.