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11 April

Does immigration harm or help the economy?

Posted in articles, magazines

Immigration Nation – Simon’s latest Idealog article

  Does immigration harm or help New Zealand’s creative economy? Immigration Nation looks at the positive impact immigration can add to New Zealand, which far outweighs the potential costs. Like it or not, we are in a completely globablised economy. Borders, nations, countries don’t mean as much as they used to. By welcoming the right people, we can not only gain the skills and energy of new arrivals, but also harness their connections back home – wherever “home” is.Of course “the right people” is a big qualifier. The article goes some way towards addressing how we find those folks, but ultimately I hope it starts a conversation. After all, conversations are powerful.

Re: Immigration Nation – Simon’s latest Idealog article
posted by Eric 3:55 PM, 11 April 2007 NZST
Hi,read your article today in a taxicab. Great magazine. Good article.I arrived in NZ two years ago exactly- as a skilled migrant. We (my wife and I) have lived in quite a few countries, the U.S, Sweden, France, Holland and the UK. In addition we have both travelled extensively in business as well as privately. I am sorry to say this about my new country, but the truth is that I have never anywhere experienced the level of exclusion and hostility that I have in New Zealand. It comes through in every aspect of daily life. It is always patiently explained to me that I do not understand this market, and that I have no local knowledge, etc. I am also constantly reminded that I am “foreigner”- as thought I wasn’t already aware. I have been a “foreigner” in all the other countries I have lived and never before been accused of not being capable of understanding the market or the local donsitions. I am often told how “unique and special” NZ is. It is utter bollocks. it is not unique and special in my field at all, and not hard to get ones head around. It is just about 10 years behind most comparable markets, but that doesn’t make it hard to understand. The sad thing about all this is that like most migrants I do love this country. Why migrate to New Zealand ? Well it certainly isn’t for the career prospects. It is not to make money (my salary ehre is about 20% of what I earned in Europe). So, for most skilled migrants we actually come here because we love the country and we really care quite deeply about it. This makes being treated like some piece of shit the cat dragged in even more hurtful and annoying. So much for professional life here. In my private life, I happen to be married to someone of a different ethnicity than mine (I am white European). This has never really been an issue anywhere else in the world were we have lived- it is here though. Here’s some quick stats for you. We lived in Sweden for over ten years and in that time encountered one racial incident. During 11 years in London there was one racial incident. Over seven years in Paris, 2-3. In the first year in New Zealand 5 incidents, two of them directed towards my toddler son, including being called a “halfcast” to his face, and a car attempting to run over my wife and two kids when in their pram with while the passengers shouted racial abuse. Daily at work I hear racist abuse and views being aired openly which any educated person in any other country I have lived in would know would be completely unacceptable, as well as factually incorrect. It is absolutely true, but also scary, that I met more Maori people at my work in London than I do here.

I don’t know what the answer is here. I don’t really know why Kiwi’s are like they are when it comes to foreigners- they certainly don’t act this way when abroad. All I know is that I would really like to stay and I would love to keep contributing to the future of this country (I am currently working on a project which is critical to the nation), but I feel that having this constant career disadvantage as being labelled as a “foreigner” is depressing and may make us leave in the end. Maybe the answer is what a friend of mine, a migrant from the UK , proposed yesterday “us foreigners have got to stick together” , he said, “and do business with each other, because the Kiwis will never trust us”.

The painful truth about migration, which politicians in almost all countries hesitate to air because they know it would not go down well is:

- There is a net profit from migration as the tax revenues from migration in any given country outweigh the cost of migration over time.

- All areas of the world currently primarily occupied by people of white European descent need rapid mass migration to pay for the care of its ageing white population.

- There are only a couple of areas from which this migration can come if the objective is for migrants to be well educated; North Africa (yes Muslims, shock horror), Southeast Asia, India.
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