Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Migration re-think needed
Too seldom is a well-reasoned discussion of migration found in New Zealand. So it was a pleasure to read Gareth Morgan's latest article on the topic. Migration policy, he says, has two major components - economic and compassionate, of which the economic rationale predominates. Trouble is, no-one really knows how successful the economic aspect is. We see some obvious results, such as the housing boom. But there is little information to tell us how long it takes for the economic benefits to kick in. Possibly several generations.
Too many immigrants are unable to find jobs, because employers are unwilling to risk taking on staff who don't fit culturally or linguistically, particularly with New Zealand's draconion employment laws.
"It is clear that in New Zealand the high migration targets are economic-based; set at more than 1% of the population each year they are way too high to be compassion-driven. Migration policy then has a responsibility not to meet its targets by importing people whose cultural gulf from the New Zealand way of life is so wide. Having minorities rendered miserable aliens in their new land does no good, despite the obvious hand-wringing, do-goody intentions of the infinitely tolerant," he says.
Too seldom is a well-reasoned discussion of migration found in New Zealand. So it was a pleasure to read Gareth Morgan's latest article on the topic. Migration policy, he says, has two major components - economic and compassionate, of which the economic rationale predominates. Trouble is, no-one really knows how successful the economic aspect is. We see some obvious results, such as the housing boom. But there is little information to tell us how long it takes for the economic benefits to kick in. Possibly several generations.
Too many immigrants are unable to find jobs, because employers are unwilling to risk taking on staff who don't fit culturally or linguistically, particularly with New Zealand's draconion employment laws.
"It is clear that in New Zealand the high migration targets are economic-based; set at more than 1% of the population each year they are way too high to be compassion-driven. Migration policy then has a responsibility not to meet its targets by importing people whose cultural gulf from the New Zealand way of life is so wide. Having minorities rendered miserable aliens in their new land does no good, despite the obvious hand-wringing, do-goody intentions of the infinitely tolerant," he says.
