Guest Post: Immigration

A complex challenge for New Zealand’s future

Guest Post by ML Kearney on No Minister

• Introduction

Pre- the 2026 election , discussion has already begun on Superannuation reform and its links to Welfare overhaul ( both thorny subjects where action is overdue ) .

Both areas link to immigration which is affected by broader – including global – trends and factors.

Andrew Dickens: Politicians are missing the real immigration problem

So, the past week has seen immigration policies come to the force.

New Zealand First is signalling a tougher immigration stance, longer waits for residency and citizenship, a referendum to cap new residency approvals at 20,000 a year, and a 30-year population plan tying migrant intake to infrastructure capacity.

Anglo Saxon: New Zealand superannuation - Proposed reform of entitlement to benefits.

In this episode superannuation and welfare entitlements are on the table but not a leading election issue. But what has been proposed and what effect will it have?

Click to view

David Farrar: Heads must roll

The Post reports:

Immigration officials stand accused by their own minister of misleading her and her predecessors for seven years, engaging in creative accounting to dodge scrutiny and removing people from a $33 million IT project when they raised questions.

And ultimately, they achieved nothing. The entire project is now being written off with nothing to show for it.

Brendan O'Neill: The barbarism in Belfast

That crazed, savage knifing was a bloody byproduct of state failure.

Are we allowed to feel pure, cold rage yet? It’s what millions of us felt this morning as we watched footage of that barbarous assault in Belfast. However much the pleb-fearing thoughtpolice of Keir Starmer’s government might disapprove of such fury, it’s the emotion that swelled in all decent British and Irish people as they saw a brute rain stab after stab upon his sprawled, struggling victim. Good luck trying to curb the people’s rage over this act of wanton savagery.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: On borrowed calm

Across the Tasman, anger has propelled Pauline Hanson’s One Nation from a fringe outfit to the most popular party, on 31 percent in a recent poll, ahead of both Labor and the Coalition. Yet Australia’s preferential voting, which redistributes losing candidates’ votes, could still return a Labor government.

The same anger is loose across the democratic world, the product of a decade of crises that squeezed household budgets and loosened party loyalties. What it does to each country’s politics depends partly on how votes are counted.

Mike's Minute: Here's what the 2026 Election is about

I'm 100% convinced this election is about the economy.

Do people blame the Government in any way for the economic fallout from war?

Does the economic grind make you look to other political answers?

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Is anyone looking out for businesses?

We need to talk about what Chris Hipkins has said about immigration.

First of all, Labour can frankly shut up accusing the Nats of anti-migrant rhetoric because this is a party that hasn’t got a leg to stand on when it comes to migration.

Richard Shaw: Can a citizenship test really measure what it means to be a New Zealander?....

Kiwi or not to be: can a citizenship test really measure what it means to be a New Zealander?

New Zealanders like to think of themselves as an uncomplicated lot. So straightforward, in fact, that successful completion of a short test can determine one’s fitness to become a Kiwi.

At least, that’s the plan from Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke Van Velden, who has announced that from late 2027 part of the process of becoming a New Zealand citizen will entail scoring at least 75% in a 20-question multiple-choice test.

Olivia Pierson: The Renewal of the West and a Reckoning for New Zealand

We in the West are not merely stumbling through the malady of culture wars. We are decaying in our very core. We have ceased to bring forth children in numbers required for our future, shattering the bonds of strong family - especially after Covid insanity saw family members pitted against each other - and we’ve saddled our young with mountains of debt along with a gnawing sense of futility, offering them neither purpose nor the prospect of showing them how to build lives worth inheriting.

Kerre Woodham: ACT's immigration plan is not exactly 'ground-breaking'

It's good to see some parties releasing policies, looking at you Labour, whether you agree with them or not, given it's less than six months to the election.

ACT released its immigration policy over the weekend, a six point plan that ACT says will welcome people with shared values and who play by the rules.

Clive Bibby: Don’t be afraid to put your hand up

The one thing that helps nations overcome times of real uncertainty and threat to a way of life is the moment when all citizens over the legal age of majority realise that they have a part to play in how we collectively solve the problems we face. 

These times are almost always when the nation’s survival is under economic, pandemic or military threats from a source beyond our borders.

Barrie Davis: Indiana Jones Cries Fowl

Dear Perzen Patel,

I read your piece “NZ Indians have been silent on the butter chicken row. So I’m speaking up” in the Sunday Star-Times today (here). If the Indians have not mentioned it, I can see a good reason why.

Ryan Bridge: Kiwis actually love Butter Chicken, Shane

Take away migrants from our economy and the thing pretty much falls apart.

This is not Europe, where they're overrun with migrant boats and expensive hotel bills to house the passengers.

This is not the US, where illegal migrants poured across a porous border.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Another common-sense move from Erica Stanford

Okay, once again - not for the first time on this show and probably not the last - thank goodness for Erica Stanford.

Normally, she’s righting wrongs in education but today it’s her other portfolio: immigration.

Matua Kahurangi: A brand new home for unemployed immigrants while Kiwis rot on the waiting list

Over the weekend, AppleBear on X shared an RNZ story meant to showcase compassion in action. Instead, it ended up highlighting exactly why so many New Zealanders see the system as completely broken.

The article tells the story of the Tuiletufuga family, who “moved here from Samoa a year ago”, struggled to find housing, and for a period “lived in a van” before entering transitional accommodation. Now, after working with the Salvation Army, they have moved into a “new four-bedroom home” in Flat Bush, settling in just three weeks ago.

David Farrar: The changing face of Europe

I’m going to quote from UK’s Matt Goodwin. I do so as someone who is pro-immigration. I think moderate, controlled immigration is good for a country, and specifically has been good for New Zealand. But a good thing can become a bad thing is if it too large, or uncontrolled. If NZ took in 1 million immigrants a year (for example), it would be bad. Our infrastructure would not cope, and new migrants would not integrate as well as they currently do in NZ.

Goodwin writes:

Chris Lynch: Seymour defends Treaty stance, backs removal of Māori seats

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has dismissed criticism from former Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel over his comments on the teaching of colonisation, saying New Zealand should focus on equal rights rather than what he calls inherited divisions.

Dalziel wrote in an opinion piece that Seymour’s characterisation of how colonisation is taught suggests it “casts children as victims or villains by birth,” describing that view as “disgraceful.”

Mike's Minute: A mindset shift is needed to recapture our brightest

I am increasingly impressed by Iain Rennie, who is the Treasury boss.

He seems to say a bunch of interesting and insightful stuff.

Last year he warned about our growth rate, our debt and our inability to grow our way out of our troubles. He advocated for asset sales.

This past week he was at the Waikato University Economic Forum where he talked about our problem of exporting our best and brightest.

David Farrar: The actual impact of India FTA on immigration will be tiny

The India – NZ FTA allows 1,667 three-year temporary employment entry (TEE) visas per annum (capped at a maximum of 5,000 at any point in time).

However 1,466 of those visas are for skilled occupations already on the green list. We already issue 28,000 or so of these a year, including 4,500 a year to Indian nationals. So those 1,466 a year will be zero increase on what we are already doing. It is a floor, but a floor at one third of the level we are already at.