Yesterday I listened to RNZ’s political commentators. The principal topic was an aspect of the recently released May 2025 international migration. Kathryn Ryan starts by reminding us of the “old saying, would the last person to leave New Zealand please turn out the lights” (a saying which has been used in places other than Godzone).

The latest figure for net immigration was an inflow of 14,800; a net gain. But you wouldn’t have realised this. Ryan went on to say there’s a big migration outflow underway right now. And she’s correct if you only count New Zealand citizens. (Non-NZ citizens are people too; indeed, in that timeframe, 53,400 non-NZ citizens emigrated!)

Kathryn Ryan said there was a net loss of 30,000. There was actually a (provisional) net loss of 46,300 NZ citizens. (Possibly she – or her producer – had subtracted the all-migrant net inflow from the net loss of New Zealand citizens, having interpreted the overall 14,800 net inflow as a net inflow of non-NZ citizens.) In fact, this 46,300 net loss of NZ citizens was offset by a net gain of 61,100 non-NZ citizens.

(We should also note that total arrivals – not just people classified as ‘immigrants’ – in the year to May 2025 exceeded total departures by 3,797; less than the 14,800 ascribed to net international migration. The sum of total net arrivals in the six years to May 2025 was 244,000; an average of 40,000 per year.)

The total number of people who featured (in the period from June 2024 to May 2025) as either immigrants or emigrants was 264,000; that is, a number of people equivalent to five percent of New Zealand’s total population featured as either a permanent arrival or a permanent departure. This 264,000 includes 114,500 “migrant arrivals of non-NZ citizens”. Half of the 114,500 estimated permanent arrivals of non-NZ citizens were citizens of either India, China, Philippines or Sri Lanka.

In addition to getting the numbers wrong, a key problem with the framing of the RNZ migration discussion is that it rendered invisible these citizens of Asian countries; as people of Asian birth have been largely invisible in our intense discussions in recent years on binationalism. This gaze aversion by the political class is a kind of passive or casual racism. It is ethnicism to simply ignore the new New Zealanders who provide so much of our labour, and who generally perform their labour roles with professionalism and competence.

An important aspect of this problem is to ignore the ‘mammoth in the room’, that there is in Aotearoa New Zealand a substantial substitution of New Zealand born residents for non-New Zealand born residents; white citizens are leaving, brown denizens are arriving. In these latest statistics, for the year to May, there were 61,100 more new New Zealanders and 46,300 fewer old New Zealanders; 61,100 minus -46,300 equals 107,400. 100,000 is two percent of five million.

So, if 70% of New Zealand residents were NZ-born in May 2024, then about 68% of New Zealand residents will have been NZ-born in May 2025. (Just under 30 percent of New Zealanders were born overseas in March 2023, according to Statistics New Zealand.) The rate of ‘replacement’ is probably not quite that great, in that some of the citizens leaving permanently will have been naturalised rather than born in Aotearoa New Zealand. Another complicating factor is natural population growth – the excess of births over deaths – which was just over 20,000 in 2024. It would appear that about one-third of births in New Zealand (maybe more) are to mothers not themselves born in New Zealand.

Population ‘Replacement’ is a sensitive subject. The ‘far right’ in much of the Eurocentric world indulges in ‘replacement theory’, a conspiracy theory that there is a liberal “elite” (sometimes “Jewish”) agenda to replace ‘whites’ with ‘non-whites’. (There used to be a comparable case on the ‘far-left’, whereby ‘globalisation’ was interpreted as an agenda rather than a description.) The descriptive reality of today’s world is that there are disproportionately more – and substantially so – ‘brown’ and ‘black’ young people than their proportion among older age cohorts.

White people are diminishing, and non-white people are increasing in numbers. That’s not a problem. But it is perceived as a problem by many white people, especially disadvantaged white people in the economically polarised Euro world. If we tip-toe around this issue of changing global ethnic proportions, we leave the field to ‘replacement theory’ conspiracy theorists. We need to have adult conversations about the implications not just of aging populations, but also the re-culturation of our populations through demographic change.

Applying this last matter to Aotearoa New Zealand, a nation state with rapid population turnover, the overall national ‘personality’ can be largely retained so long as immigrants come from a wide range of other countries. When I was in Sydney last year, I heard a story about the emergence of India’s ‘caste system’ in Australia. This is the kind of cultural change that we do not want in New Zealand; such cultural colonisation can be averted by avoiding too much immigration from a single country. And through a process of cultural fusion, rather than either assimilation or the emergence of cultural silos.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

As the New Zealand government confirmed it would apologise for the 1970s Dawn Raids against Pacific Islanders, memories have surfaced for those traumatised by them, including one elderly man.

The politically-driven crackdown on overstayers from the Pacific Islands involved special police squads raiding homes and workplaces, often in the early morning.

Savelio Ikani Pailate, 93, remembered being chased by dogs in the middle of the night.

He said they had to run to away to Manurewa, to places “where there were no houses”, with some being injured because they fled in bare feet.

Pailate’s case was before the court at the end he was allowed to work, but the police ignored it and deported him anyway.

He dreamt of buying his family a home and getting his children educated

He achieved that after returning to New Zealand and working until age 82, refusing to listen to the many voices against him.

The crackdown on Pacific overstayers. Video: TVNZ News

Racially profiled
Racially profiled and picked up randomly by police, workplaces were raided and homes stormed.

“They’d call it the Dawn Raids but they actually raided just after midnight cause our families would be up and gone before dawn because that’s what they did, they worked at the crack of dawn,” Pakilau Manase Lua of the Pacific Leadership Forum said.

Pacific People’s Minister ‘Aupito William Sio wiped away tears as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed she would apologise for the Dawn Raids next week.

‘Aupito described what the apology would mean, and the significance of restoring mana for the victims of the raids.

The Pacific People’s Minister, whose family moved to New Zealand in 1969 from Samoa, spoke of being raided, having “memories about my father being helpless”.

“We bought the home about two years prior. To have someone knocking at the door at the early hours with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth wanting to come in without any respect for the people living there.”

‘Aupito described it as “quite traumatising”.

“The apology is about helping people heal. People who have been traumatised.”

Ardern and the government will formally apologise for the 1970s Dawn Raids that targeted the Pacific community on June 26 in the Auckland Town Hall.

This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will make a formal government apology for the 1970s Dawn Raids against Pacific Islanders on June 26 at a commemoration event in the Auckland Town Hall.

She made the announcement today alongside Pacific Peoples Minister ‘Aupito William Sio.

Ardern said there was strict criteria cabinet needed to apply when deciding to make an apology, including:

• whether a human injustice must have been committed and was well documented;
• victims must be definable as a distinct group; and
• victims continued to suffer harm, connected to a past injustice.

Cabinet decided the criteria had been met in relation to the Dawn Raids, Ardern said.

There have been two previous government apologies meeting these criteria – the Chinese poll tax in 2002 and an apology to Samoa for the injustices arising from New Zealand’s colonial administration.

Ardern said the Dawn Raids were “routinely severe with demeaning verbal and physical treatment”.

She said when computerised immigration records were introduced in 1977, the first accurate picture of overstaying pattern showed 40 percent were British and American “despite these groups never being targets of police attention”.

Both Labour and National governments oversaw a crackdown on overstayers from the Pacific Islands in the 1970s.

“To this day, Pacific communities face prejudices and stereotypes established during and perpetuated by the Dawn Raids period. An apology can never reverse what happened or undo the decades of disadvantage experienced as a result, but it can contribute to healing the Pacific peoples in Aotearoa,” Ardern said.

She would not say what the formal apology might involve but said it would focus on the ongoing impact on the community, and the history.

There was a period around 2000 where amnesty was available, she said.

People were “dehumanised” and “terrorised” in their homes, Ardern said of the Dawn Raids era.

“… it left a lasting impact. People were told at the time if you did not look like a New Zealander they should carry ID to prove they are not an overstayer. You can imagine what impact that has on a community to live in an environment like that.”

‘The stars have aligned’ – ‘Aupito

Many in the Pasifika community have long called for an apology, with more than 7000 people signing a recent petition.

The Pacific Peoples Minister said other communities, including Māori, were also impacted by the raids.

“I don’t think there is any Pacific family who was not impacted on by the events of the Dawn Raids and there is a strong moral imperative to acknowledge those past actions were wrong through an apology, they recognise those actions were unacceptable under the universal declaration of human rights, and are absolutely intolerable within today’s human rights protections, ” ‘Aupito said.

While the raids took place almost 50 years ago, the legacy of the era lives on today “etched in the memories and oral history of Pacific communities”.

“This apology is a step in the right direction to right the wrongs of the past and help heal the wounds of trauma that still resides in the psyche of those who were directly affected.”

On a personal level, ‘Aupito said it was a “huge deal” for the government to acknowledge the wrongs of the past.

“The stars have aligned,” Sio said, acknowledging the role the prime minister and ministerial colleagues played in agreeing to the advice they received.

‘Aupito recalls ‘traumatising’ raid
‘Aupito said there were many Pacific families who would talk about the Dawn Raids, and he wanted to give them the opportunity to talk about the trauma and help them heal.

Talking about his own experience, he said his family was raided in the early hours of the morning about two years after they purchased their home. His father was “helpless”, he said.

Talking about his own experience, ‘Aupito said his family was raided in the early hours of the morning about two years after they purchased their home. His father was “helpless”, he said.

“To have somebody knocking on the door in the early hours of the morning with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth in that door, and wanting to come in without any respect for the people living in there — it’s quite traumatising.”

His sister and 82-year-old father would not talk about that time, ‘Aupito said.

Other Pacific families had similar experiences, he said.

“You have to remember, we felt as a community that we were invited to come to New Zealand. We responded to the call to fill the labour workforce that was needed, in the same way that they responded to the call for soldiers in 1914.

“So we were coming to aid a country when they needed us, and when that friend or country felt they no longer needed us they turned on us, trust was broken.”

The apology was about restoring trust and building confidence in the next generation, he said while trying to control his emotions.

“I do not want my children or any of my nieces or nephews to be shackled by that pain and to be angry about it. I need them to move forward and look to the future as peoples of Aotearoa.”

PM to get covid-19 vaccine
On the Covid-19 vaccine, Ardern said more details about the rollout would be announced on Thursday.

The prime minister will receive her first dose of the vaccine on Friday, June 18, afternoon in the South Auckland suburb of Manurewa, alongside her chief science adviser.

They Are Us film
On the They Are Us film project, Ardern said everyone should know the discomfort she felt about the project, but at the same time it was not for her to say what projects should or should not go ahead.

“This is a very raw event for New Zealand, even more so for the community that experienced it and I agree that there are stories that at some point should be told from March 15, but they are the stories of the Muslim community, so they need to be at the centre of that.”

Auckland-based producer Philippa Campbell has withdrawn from the crew working on the proposed film. In a statement, Campbell said she deeply regretted the shock and hurt the announcement of the film has led to throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

Immigration policy and overstaying
Speaking about the current immigration policy, Ardern said there would be consequences for overstaying, but there were ways to do it “that do not lead to discriminatory practice”.

Asked if the apology for the Dawn Raids would include amnesty for some people, Ardern said there should not be expectations about that.

Amnesty in the early 2000s gave a pathway to regularisation for some Pacific people, Ardern said.

Any amnesty would apply to a wide-ranging cohort, she said.

“We wouldn’t want to seek to apologise for a discriminatory policy and then by giving that apology discriminate others by only having a certain policy apply to one group,” she said.

There is a large group of ethnicities and communities that would argue for a pathway to regularisation, she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written for, and first published by, German magazine Cicero.de (ref. Attentat in Christchurch – Willkommen in der Hölle). Thanks also to Prof David Robie, Pacific Media Centre AsiaPacificReport.nz for providing the featured image for this article.

OUT OF THE BLUE:

It was 1:39pm, Friday March 15. As was usual for a Friday hundreds of people had turned up to pray at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, Christchurch. All was peaceful, women, children, men, people of all ages young and old, both Sunni and Shia, were in contemplative repose free of worry. It was a mild, late summer, 20 degrees celsius day. Earlier, the touring Bangladesh Cricket Team had briefly visited the mosque, but left early to attend a press conference. By 1:39pm, they had returned and were outside exiting a bus, intending to continue with their prayers inside the mosque.

At 1:40pm, ahead of the team, a man entered the mosque walking quickly up the front steps. He was carrying an assault rifle and dressed in combat uniform. He immediately began shooting people who were kneeling in prayer. The shots rang out and the Bangladesh team members realising they were witnesses to an attack, retreated, and fled on foot to nearby Hagley Park.

Back inside the Al Noor Mosque scores of worshipers were being gunned down, some killed instantly, others bleeding to death. The victims included little Mucaad Ibrahim who was three years of age.

Mucaad was known by his loved ones as a wise “old soul” and possessed an “intelligence beyond his years”.

Eye witnesses said that once the killer began shooting people, little Mucaad became separated from his family. In the chaos, his family could not find him. The next day Police confirmed he too had been shot dead by the killer.

The murders continued at the Al Noor Mosque until the killer’s firearms ran out of bullets. Then, he simply walked out of the mosque, got in his car, and drove six kilometres to the Linwood Mosque. There too were people who had gathered for their regular Friday afternoon prayers.

Mr Aziz picked up an EFTPOS (electronic funds transaction) machine from a table inside the mosque. He ran outside. He saw a man he describes as looking like a soldier. He said to the man: “Who are you”. Mr Aziz then saw three people lying on the ground dead from shotgun blasts. He realised the man was the killer. He approached the attacker, threw the EFTPOS machine hitting the killer, who in turn took from his vehicle a second firearm (a military style semi-automatic assault rifle) and fired four to five shots at Abdul Aziz, missing him. Then, in an attempt to lure the killer away from other people, Mr Aziz shouted at the killer from behind a car: “Come, I’m here. Come I’m here!”

Mr Aziz said he didn’t want the killer to go inside the mosque and kill more people. But the killer remained focussed. He walked directly to the entrance, once inside the mosque he continued his killing spree. Survivors speak of the killer wearing “army clothes”, dressed in “SWAT combat clothing”, helmeted, wearing a vest and a balaclava.

Inside the Linwood Mosque, another witness, Shoaib Gani, was kneeling in prayer. He heard a noise like fireworks but he and others weren’t too concerned and continued with their prayers. Then, as he and his fellow worshipers were kneeling speaking verses from the Koran, the man next to him fell forward with blood pouring from his head. He had been shot and killed instantly, Mr Gani said. Then others too began falling to the floor dead.

Mr Gani crawled under a table. He saw the killer and his firearm. “Written on the rifle were the words, ‘Welcome to hell’,” he said.

Victims, who were wounded and bleeding, were pleading with Mr Gani to help them. But he was frozen to a spot under a table knowing that the killer was walking around the mosque killing as many people as he could. Mr Gani believed he too would also soon be dead, so he reached for his cellphone, he called his parent’s back home in India. But no one answered. He tried to call his father’s number, but the phone kept ringing. He saw people around him bleeding to death. Others with fatal head-wounds “their brains were hanging out. I just couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do.” Mr Gani phoned 111 (the New Zealand emergency number) and told the authorities people were dead and injured: “The lady on the phone asked me to stay on the line as long as I could.”

Outside, Abdul Aziz picked up one of the killer’s discarded shotguns. Inside the mosque, the killer’s assault rifle ran out of bullets. The killer then “dropped his firearm” and ran back to his vehicle. He got in the driver’s seat. Mr Aziz then ran toward the car. He threw a discarded shotgun at the killer’s vehicle: “I threw it like an arrow. It shattered his window.” Mr Aziz thinks the killer thought someone had shot at him with a loaded gun. The killer turned. He swore at Mr Aziz. When the window burst it covered the inside of the car with glass. Mr Aziz said the killer “then took off” driving in his car. He then turn right away from the mosque driving through a red traffic light and out into Christchurch suburban streets.

Some minutes later, Police and ambulance officers arrived at Linwood Mosque. Anti-Terrorist armed Police entered the mosque. Inside, Mr Gani said the survivors were ordered to put their hands up above their heads. The mass murder scene was covered in blood. The Police then secured the area. Some victims survived because they were under the bodies of the dead. Police told survivors to gather near a grassed area outside. There, people began weeping for their husbands, wives, parents, children, friends.

THE ARREST:

Seventeen minutes later, two Police officers identified the killer, apparently driving his car. They drove the police car into the killer’s vehicle, ramming it against a curb. Immediately, they disarmed the killer, cuffed him, noticed home made bombs in the vehicle – IEDs (improvised explosive devices). They arrested the man and secured the scene.

The rest of Christchurch was in lock-down, children were kept safe inside their classrooms, hospitals began to prepare for casualties, the city’s streets became eerily quiet, people were locked in to libraries, shops, their homes. Police and armed forces helicopters networked the skies. No one knew if the terrorist attacks were committed by a group of people or a lone gunman.

But back inside and entrances to the two mosques, 50 people were dead – one of the dead was discovered the next day by Police, the body was laying beneath others who had been killed. Scores of others were in hospital fighting for their lives, at least another ten were in a critical condition in intensive care. Pathologists from all over New Zealand and Australia were heading to Christchurch to help with documenting the method of murder of the dead.

Within hours of the killings, Australian media named the alleged killer as an Australian born citizen named Brenton Tarrant, 28 years of age. On Saturday morning The Australian newspaper’s front page read “Australia’s evil export”.

Other media in New Zealand followed with details of the man’s background. Brenton Harrison Tarrant appeared in court the next day charged with one single count of murder. Other charges will follow. His duty lawyer did not seek name suppression nor bail, the lawyer told the judge: “I’m simply seeking remand and a high court next-available-hearing date.” Tarrant stood cuffed, smiling at those in the courtroom, at one point signaling with his fingers a ‘white supremacist’ sign. He will next appear in the Christchurch High Court on April 5.

THE AFTERMATH:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later told media: “It was absolutely his [the offender’s) intention to continue with his attack.” PM Ardern said: “Police are working to build a picture of this tragic event. A complex and comprehensive investigation is (now) underway.” To balance the requirement of investigation with the customs of Muslim burials, PM Ardern said liaison officers are with the victims’ loved ones to help “in a way that is consistent with Muslim faith while taking into account these unprecedented circumstances and the obligations to the coroner.”

PM Ardern said, survivors of the massacre had indicated that this attack was not “of the New Zealand that they know”.

One day later, Survivor Shoaib Gani (mentioned above) told media he still could not sleep or eat. The sounds and sights were still vivid in his head: “I still can feel myself lying on the floor waiting for the bullets to hit me.” He said, he will travel back to India to visit family, but he will return to Christchurch: “It’s just a few people, you know. You can’t blame the whole of New Zealand for this… It’s a good country, people are peaceful. Everybody has helped me here. One right wing (person) doesn’t mean everyone is bad. So I can come back here and live and hope nothing like this happens in the future.”

In the hours after the attacks, all around New Zealand, in the cities and in small country areas, Police were stationed and were ready in case others were involved and were preparing further crimes.

Beside the Police officers, people, of all races and religions, began laying flowers at the steps to their local mosques. Messages included read: “Salam Alaikum, Peace be unto you”, and, Aroha nui”, “Peace and love”, “You are one of us”. The outpouring of grief swept the South Pacific nation, and as this piece was written, a mood of support, comfort, reassurance and solidarity with those of Muslim faith was in evidence.

In Australia, Sydney’s landmark Opera House was like a beacon in the night; coloured blue, red, and white – the colours of the New Zealand flag embossed with the silver fern (Ponga) an emblem of Aotearoa New Zealand. Australia’s peoples, like in New Zealand, began laying flowers at the steps of its mosques in a gesture of inclusiveness.

In the aftermath, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to ongoing financial assistance to dependents of those who have died or are injured, and assistance, she said, will be ongoing.

Questions are being leveled as to how a person with hate can enter, live, and purchase weapons in New Zealand while expressing hate toward other cultures and harbouring an intent to kill others.

PM Ardern said: “The guns used in this case appear to have been modified. That is a challenge Police have been facing, and that is a challenge that we will look to address in changing our laws… We need to include the fact that modification of guns which can lead them to become essentially the kinds of weapons we have seen used in this terrorist act.”

When asked how she was coping personally with the tragedy, she said: “I am feeling the exact same emotions that every New Zealander is facing. Yes, I have the additional responsibility and weight of expressing the grief of all New Zealanders and I certainly feel that.”

That responsibility includes ensuring New Zealand’s Police, the nation’s intelligence and security services and “the process around watch-lists, including whether or not our border protections are currently in a status that they should be, and, including our gun laws.”

THE BACKSTORY:

Indeed, New Zealand is part of the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence network that includes the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Global surveillance is coordinated and prioritised among the Five Eyes member states. While significant resource, technology and sophistication is committed to the Five Eyes intelligence agencies, New Zealanders fear that those who find themselves as targets, or within the scope of intelligence officers, are predominantly of the Muslim faith.

In contrast, the accused killer who allegedly committed the horrific Christchurch mosque attacks, has been active both on social media and the dark web expressing, with an intensifying degree, his ideology of hate and intolerance. It does appear of the highest public interest, certainly from an open source intelligence point of view, to ask questions of why New Zealand’s (and indeed the Five Eyes intelligence network’s) surveillance experts did not detect the expressed evil that had radicalised the heart and mind of the perpetrator of this massacre.

It is also fact, that New Zealand is a comparatively safe and peaceful nation. But within its midst are people and groups fermenting on racially-based hate ideas. Whether it be in isolation or among organised groupings, the threat of racially driven terror crimes exists.

The alleged killer, Brenton Tarrant, has lived among those of New Zealand’s southern city Dunedin for at least two years. It appears he was radicalised around 2010 after his father died and he toured Europe. He wrote about becoming “increasingly disgusted” at immigrant communities. In early 2018, Tarrant joined a Dunedin gun club and began practicing his shooting skills and allegedly planned his attacks.

Regarding Christchurch, while it has a history of overt white racist gangs, at this juncture, it does not appear they were directly involved in this series of crimes.

But this leads to many unanswered questions, including:

• Was the killer a lone mass murderer, a sleeper in a cell of one?
• Were those with whom he communicated and engaged with on the web in extreme white racist ideologies aware of his plans?
• Was Christchurch chosen by the killer for logistical reasons?
• Was it because the city is easier to drive around than Dunedin, Wellington or Auckland?
• Was it because Christchurch has at least two mosques within easy driving distance?
• Were the Bangladesh Cricket team in his scope of attacks?
• Was the killer attempting to incite a violent response from Christchurch’s burgeoning Muslim community, or, expecting a response from the Alt-Right, from white racist groups such as the Right Wing Resistance (RWR), the Fourth Reich, and Christchurch’s skinhead community?

THE FUTURE:

Survivors of Friday 15th’s terrorist attack say they have complained of an increase in racism and expressed hate in recent times. They say, their concerns have not been taken seriously. These are the concerns that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to listen to, has committed to represent, and, as the prime advocate for her country’s peoples, to act on to ensure cracks in New Zealand’s border, security and intelligence apparatus are corrected.

And, what of New Zealand’s social culture? How will it be affected? That will be determined by the actions of each individual person, each community, town and city and how as a nation New Zealand redefines “The Kiwi Way”.

Members of New Zealand’s media will also need to act responsibly. It is fair to say some have a reputation for argument that verges on alt-right intolerance, for example, on Twitter only two days after the mass murders, a prominent radio journalist, who is employed by one of New Zealand’s largest networks, tweeted: “28 years on an [sic] we still haven’t stopped madmen getting guns. #ChChMosque… [Replying to @Politikwebsite] And the neo nationalist right are the result of the virtue signaling exclusionary left.”

Perhaps such examples are out of step with New Zealand’s population. But such attitudes do create a dialogue of justification for those who harbour intolerance. However, if the outpouring of love and compassion continues to bind rather than divide, then perhaps New Zealand has received, as they say, ‘a wake-up call’, where racial intolerance and extreme ideologies have no place among peoples of all kinds, Maori and Pakeha, of all religions, political persuasions and creeds.

One thing is certain; to stamp out the evil of hate extremism, New Zealanders will pay a price that will be charged against the Kiwi lifestyle. Personal liberties of freedom, of expression and privacy will certainly be eroded further as this nation of the South Pacific grapples with how to keep its peoples safe. The means of how to achieve relative safety will be hotly debated, but it is a necessary juncture in this nation’s history, a moment when we all must confront and challenge ourselves so that people of innocence, people like little three year old Mucaad Ibrahim, can go about their days in trust, in peace, in joyful purpose and achieve their deserved potential. Anything less is a second killing for the victims of Friday 15, New Zealand’s darkest hour.

According to the most recent ‘International Travel and Migration’ statistics, New Zealand has had a net outflow of 16,716 overseas visitors in the year ended July 1918. People leaving who arrived the year before, we might think. Not so.

From a decadal perspective, we should expect a small and increasing net annual inflow of overseas visitors, as we understand that tourism to New Zealand has generally been on the increase. (When tourism is showing a trend increase, there should be growing numbers of tourists who arrive in one year, and leave the following year.)

This month’s chart shows the actual recorded net inflow of overseas visitors. The numbers have been negative (ie a net outflow of visitors) for the entirety of the last 120 months. Indeed 304,859 more overseas visitors allegedly departed New Zealand than arrived in New Zealand over the past decade. We desperately need alternative facts. I do not believe that we clone and deport foreigners.

Some officially-published statistics are not damned lies; they are simply nonsense. Fortunately, Statistics New Zealand is now aware of this, and is embarking on an extensive program to collect more reliable data; data that does more than record ‘information’ on international departure and arrival cards. In the year to July 2016, net inflow of people into New Zealand peaked at 68,631. (It’s now down to 43,348.) Over the same period, as shown in the chart, net inflow of “overseas visitors” troughed at -66,081.

The commentariat barely noticed. What appears to have been happening is that, while large numbers of people travelling on overseas passports arrived with the intention of staying in New Zealand for at least a year, many left less than a year after they arrived. These were counted on the way in as immigrants, and then counted on the way out as visitors.

Additionally, there appears to be a significant floating population of people who move with relative ease in and out of New Zealand. Our arrival and departure statistics do not allow for these semi-attached ‘floaters’, for want of a better name to give them. (These people – as speculators and multiple property-owners – are likely to have had somewhat more influence on house prices than have genuine immigrants.)

Our demographers need to be following recent trends much more closely; twentieth century data classifications do not help us to understand human movement in the twenty-first century. Issues around immigration drive much of our public policy.

It is crucial to have accurate and well-nuanced demographic statistics; statistics that include migrant and tourism flows within New Zealand as well as flows without New Zealand.

We continue to blame immigration for both low wages and absurdly high house prices. In all that time, we have been counting many of our overseas visitors (especially students and guest-workers) as immigrants.

Additionally, many of our immigrants appear to have been so disappointed with their kiwi experience, that they chose to shuffle off too soon to be classified as permanent residents. The good news is that there are now many fewer immigrants flying out within 12 months of their arrival than there were from 2014 to 2016.

By RNZ Pacific

An indigenous activist on Chile’s Rapa Nui says new rules restricting internal migration to the island need to be rigorously enforced.

Non-Rapa Nui Chileans now need to have Rapa Nui spouses or children to migrate to the island without a work contract.

The activist, Santi Hitorangi, said the rule requiring a contract has previously been flouted.

READ MORE: Rapa Nui limiting visitor time to stop overcrowding

“The authorities are saying that once in action there’s going to be rigorous enforcement. So far we haven’t experienced that.

“What we have experienced is the ability of the Chilean authority in collusion with business people on the island, be it Rapa Nui or Chileans, they are keen to find creative ways to jump over those so called provisions.”

-Partners-

Santi Hitorangi said Chileans moving from the mainland had overwhelmed Rapa Nui’s infrastructure and warped its culture.

“The Chileans who come from the marginalised neighbourhoods of Chile and have brought crime, degenerating the culture. They are doing taxi tours and the problem with that is the information they give to those tourists. They are a warped perspective of who we are,” Hitorangi said.

Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, had become overcrowded during 130 years of colonial rule and its environment was suffering with the water no longer being safe to drink, the activist said.

“Many of the underground wells are polluted because as long as we have had Chile on the island the waste has been dug in pits, plastics, chemicals what have you all covered over with dirt,” he said.

The Pacific Media Centre has a content sharing partnership with RNZ Pacific.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Rahul Bhattarai

Author and researcher David Hall has criticised anti-immigration rhetoric in New Zealand’s housing crisis, saying a more serious problem is “Pākehā leaders … failing to take action”.

Speaking at a panel discussion at Auckland University of Technology last night, Dr Hall, editor of the book Fair Borders: Migration Policy in the 21st Century, said harm and hurt from such rhetoric created side effects impacting on migrants.

Negativity directed towards home buyers with Chinese sounding surnames diverted attention from “long lines of people with British sounding surnames” that held and continued to hold powerful and influential positions over the housing issue.

Although there is an ethnic dimension to housing crises, he said that the most significant issue was that “Pākehā leaders supported by electorates with Pākehā majorities [were] failing to take action.”

Dr Hall, senior researcher of AUT’s Policy Observatory, was joined by three of the book’s contributors, Andrew Chen, Dr Arama Rata and Dr Evelyn Masters, to discuss how New Zealand’s borders impacted on its citizens, recent immigrants, and on people barred from the country.

Dr Hall said that over emphasis and over simplification of the role of immigration was not just a way of avoiding taking action, it was a way of avoiding responsibility for taking action and that helped nobody – “not even Pākehā and I say that as a Pākehā myself”.

-Partners-

He pointed out that one continuous theme was the failure of successful decision makers to make the tough decision that might have made a difference, such as the mayors of Auckland going back to the 1990s or the housing ministers.

“There is bit of pattern here,” he said.

‘Tricky’ issues
Dr Hall said that house prices had been rising since 1990s and only eight years ago there were more people leaving the country than were arriving, yet the house prices rose during the negative migration period.

The issue was “very tricky” with some of the genuine social strains such as housing affordability and policy and its relationship to migration.

The debate treated “immigration as an economic medicine that might taste a little bad and people just need to put up with which also doesn’t do anything to address peoples’ genuine worries”.

This was not his story to tell as no one ever challenged him based on the colour of his skin.
“As a Pākehā this isn’t really my story to tell because no one ever challenges me on whether I belong here, no one ever suggests to me that I shouldn’t be speaking English in public and no one tells me to leave by virtue of my appearance but this happens all the time to people,” he said.

Dr Arama Rata, a research officer at the University of Waikato, said that in New Zealand there was a border in place which was established by the invaders.

Māori border ignored
But the “Māori border has been ignored, a new imposition of state authority is being imposed, borders have been closed around the nation state to allow certain desirable white migrants in and to exclude others, and now we have a very secure racist structure in place”.

She said borders needed to be in place but, “it should be controlled more by our values rather than just purely economic incentives and the way I think we need to stop framing immigration as a problem”.

Dr Evelyn Masters, with Pākehā lineage and Cook Islands heritage that she is really proud of, said she struggled in explaining her New Zealand identity because people judged her based on her appearance.

Dr Masters, research manager of NZ Institute for Pacific Research, said people struggled to understand that she had multiple lineage in her blood line and wanted to be known as a New Zealander.

She did not have to be just one race because she looked brown, she said.

“I just want to say that I am a New Zealander, because my experience is I am multiple – I have brown people and white people in my family, why do I have to be just one as you see me.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz