Peter Williams: The changing face of New Zealand

Latest immigration stats are staggering

In case you hadn’t noticed, the makeup of the New Zealand population is changing significantly every day, every month, and every year.

The most recent numbers from Stats NZ are simply mind boggling.

In the year to February, more than a quarter of a million people arrived here to live. Nearly 51,000 were citizens of India, there were 35,000 Filipinos, and 29,000 held a Chinese passport.

Mike Hosking: Optimism with our immigration numbers

We might have some good news, at last, around immigration.

From the new stats on Friday, the numbers look good.

People are actually arriving in a way that gives us hope around jobs and the labour crisis, around demand in the economy and for spending on things like housing.

The downside is a lot of people who watch these things are a bit suspicious of the accuracy of the numbers. The statistics department guess a bit as to how long people are going to stay.