Immigration challenges and changes in New Zealand: Contemporary policy issues

Abstract

Immigration has become a key policy response to labour and skills supply in New Zealand, especially in the wake of the Global Financial Crises (GFC). But it also has become the default and largely unintended population policy as the increasingly critical factor in determining whether there is population growth for the country or regions and centres. However, there are tensions, especially given the rhetoric that erupts periodically around the number of arrivals – and sometimes, where they come from.  It does not help that governments struggle to manage the volatility that occurs in relation to arrival numbers and the net gain, often invoking the need for targets or sustainability when neither is specified in detail or as part of an overall policy of managing the population[1]. It is therefore interesting to see how policies have evolved under a Coalition Government that was elected in 2023, especially given the presence of one party that has major reservations about immigration and immigrants. This article seeks to describe both recent policy adjustments and the tensions/gaps that continue to be associated with immigration.

Immigration issues were specified in the coalition agreements between the National Party, and its coalition partners, New Zealand First and ACT, although the issues and tone were different in each case. Through the early years of the Coalition Government, the Minister of Immigration has made a number of changes but, on the whole, these can be generally classified as adjustments rather than major policy shifts.  Immigration numbers have dropped significantly from an all-time high in 2023 and early 2024 to modest arrival numbers and a net gain that is a fraction of what it was two years earlier. This drop might help depoliticise the issues and moderate the size of the constituency that is anxious or opposed to immigration or immigrants. It will not resolve, however, the economic and social impacts of the unprecedented exodus of New Zealand citizens since 2023.

[1] There are caps on various visa categories which do represent a target of sorts, but they tend to operate as limits for specific categories (such as Parent Resident Visa) which has a quota.