The trouble with having two small fringe right wing parties as part of the ruling coalition is that they are each cultivating the racist stupid vote. This is quite a small part of the electorate but given the dynamics of MMP it attracts a great deal of attention from Act and from NZ First. This sector of the electorate offers them a lifeline.
Immigration is one of those issues that is guaranteed to get people with the potential of frothing in the mouth to froth at the mouth.
It does not matter that currently in Aotearoa departures are surging, arrivals plummeting and net immigration is barely positive, NZ First and Act will want to present it as a problem and a threat. And they will be aided and abetted by overseas campaigns where their right wing soul mates use the same sort of calculated hate to engender support.
And Winston has chosen to buddy up to his soul mate and fellow racist Nigel Farage to mount a local campaign about the perils of immigration. Despite our local circumstances having no resemblance to that is happening on the opposite side of the world.
From Jamie Endsor at the Herald:
“People are concerned as to where their countries are going, and New Zealanders are no different. They are more acutely aware of the problem we’re dealing with here than the politicians are.
“They have seen the international circumstances of careless immigration policies transforming cities, changing cities, changing centuries of development and social life, and people feel at risk because of it.”
He pointed to several European countries, including England, where he said there were concerns about “people who have come there who don’t salute the flag, don’t salute the values of the country, don’t salute the people who were there before them, don’t respect the right to have your own religion”.
“These sorts of things are values that we need to stress. If you don’t subscribe to that, don’t come here.”
In the article Peters admitted to the Herald that he is “friends” with Farage and that they communicate.
His comments are multilayered bollocks. Immigrants to New Zealand make full contributions to our society. Our diversity is a strength.
And a Nigel Farage style circus during the next election campaign is the last thing that we need.
Peters would be better off concentrating on the big issues like current threats to world peace, the Government’s failure to comply with international obligations relating to climate change, the poisoning of our waterways and the unacceptable levels of child poverty that we have.
Instead of that he will clearly be focussing on racist dog whistling over immigration leading up to the next election. And calculating that a small part of the electorate will continue to provide him with a career and privilege.
Net migration may be small, but if 100,000 native kiwis are leaving and being replaced by 50,000 from Europe and 50,000 from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, then yes of course there's going to be cultural upheaval. To use Keir Starmer's phrase, we will become an island of strangers.
If 1 million Europeans flooded any country in Africa, they would rightly protest with signs saying "Keep Africa African" and enact immigration restrictions.
China, Japan, and countries all over the world have race-based immigration quotas to preserve the culture and ethnic make up of their populations.
Instead of hypotheticals you could have done 1 minute of research facilitated by the link in the Post and used actual numbers & facts to construct and support your argument.
For the Year ended May 2025:
Net migration of NZ citizens −46,300
Net migration of non-NZ citizens 61,100
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/international-migration-may-2025/
Thank you for the precise confirmation of my general point. 46,000 native kiwis have left. 61,000 non kiwis have taken their place.
That is a significant demographic change in just one year. We are becoming an island of strangers.
Your comment is steeped in the language of culture wars.
My posts are steeped in the language of Keir Starmer and in the data you’ve pointed me to.
Immigration restrictions are not right wing only. Denmark is progressive. But it has one of the most hardline Immigration policies in the world.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mgkd93r4yo
We are not strangers. We are a melting pot of people from diverse parts of the world enjoying a multitide of cultures and we are all the better for this.
Really? Is NZ special and going to avoid the problems that countries like the UK and Australia have with the kind of rapid change Joshua is naming?
is there ever a point where its too much? The idea of a melting pot suggests that we can just swap out the local population with as many new people as we like and all will be fine. But we have culture here that matters and I'm willing to bet if NZers were polled on whether they thought such rapid change was desirable, most would say no.
I’m certain Maori would be concerned with immigration especially if it means that they must adapt to the new immigrants way of life. The Palestinians certainly are unhappy about excessive numbers of immigrants coming into Palestine over 100 years ago, now their country is called Israel. So yeah we, as in New Zealanders have every right to discuss these issues and to come to a solution that works for us. Winston Peters was talking about this in the’90’s, pretty much pointing out that the increased population from immigrants will put extra strain on our country’s infrastructure that we will have trouble paying for.
I used the phrase "melting pot" in an essay at university. The professor said to replace it with "tossed salad." Ethnic and cultural differences should be preserved and celebrated, not fused into one and lost.
To preserve them, people need their own spaces. That's why we have Maori only spaces in our schools.
Immigration policy has to distinguish between what ought to be vs. what is. You are stating what ought to be.
Asia, the Middle East and Africa all have social policies that recognise what is. If you are predominantly Maori, your friends are predominantly Maori, and you socialize with them in predominantly Maori spaces. Same for paheka, Asians, etc. Political views do not significantly affect this social instinct.
When immigration policies ignore this or try to suppress it by force, tension rises. This has been extensively studied by sociologists. When diversity in a neighborhood increases, social interaction and trust declines.
If you want links to academic papers I can provide them. We absolutely must have a rational discussion about this to prevent the kind of social conflict we are seeing in other parts of the world.
seem to remember when the When the Cat’s Away cover of Melting Pot came out in the 90s there was criticism because of the implication that cultural identity would be lost as immigrants were pressured to assimilate.
'Melting Pot' reached #2 in the NZ charts for three weeks early in 1970. I've always enjoyed listening to it, especially the 1988 'When the Cat's Away' cover (#1 in the NZ charts for the week of 11 Dec 1988), and still do. One term in the lyrics is now a 'yellow flag', although it doesn't compromise my enjoyment – one of the dubious benefits of old age is that the 'flag' is over faster than I can comprehend it.
What's acceptable often changes over time – abrupt changes sometimes create the greatest risks, and opportunities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melting_Pot_(song)#Language_and_legacy
There's celebrated, and then there's celebrated – motivation is key.
Otoh, voluntary ethnic and cultural fusions can lead to wonderful new creations – almost all humans begin with a fusion.
https://www.chorus.co.nz/cabinet-art-project/cultural-fusions
every time someone starts to talk about NZ culture, and a liberal says 'but fascists!' someone votes for NZF.
lol, I would say best not to say it now if the left wants to win the next election.
Link?
Ethnic Diversity, Economic and Cultural Contexts, and Social Trust: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence from European Regions, 2002–2010
"The results show that across European regions, different aspects of immigration-related diversity are negatively related to social trust. In longitudinal perspective, an increase in immigration is related to a decrease in social trust."
https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/93/3/1211/2332107
Not saying it being one way to (continue to) marginalise it? Hope so.
Please re-read my comment; it is about your language of your comment.
Immigration restriction is not right wing. Denmark is progressive but it has one of the most hardline Immigration policies in the world.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mgkd93r4yo
Immigration settings ≠ RW politics. Your reading comprehension is severely lacking. The OP is about imported culture wars – you seem to be a recent ‘import’.
the post is talking about imported culture war, but it's also talking about homegrown ones.
Sure, but that distinction is largely irrelevant, as they use the same language and they influence each other, mostly via the internet and SM.
the distinction matters because people across the political spectrum can share values and policies superficially but for different reasons.
The left has this annoying and self defeating habit of calling anyone who tries to talk about limiting immigration a racist or fascist. There's nothing inherently 'imported culture war' about Joshua's opening comment, it probably just looks like that because the left continually suppressed debate and we're not used to the debate.
Link? And "The left" is this again some blanket, one size description ? Or?
it's a common dynamic underpinning the whole immigration topic in NZ and other English speaking countries.
I've discussed this more in depth here,
https://thestandard.org.nz/imported-culture-wars/#comment-2039926
I'm with you on the Lefts approach to so many issues.
I love the colour, flavour and richness that our cousins provide.
I deeply resent that they are here because lazy, selfish politicians don't choose a sustainable, creative path to grow the economy.
It's just migration on full, keeping wages and conditions down while maintaining high rents.
Anyone knows, keeping something going with sugar hits will cause rot.
I also think Joshua raised good points intelligently.
Of course, they may or may not share values or policies and for different reasons but I was talking about the language they share & import. This, in turn, refers to my comment that Joshua’s comments @ 1 and 1.1.1 were steeped in the language of culture wars (also my comment @ 1.1.1.1.1.2). His “opening comment” (I assume you mean @ 1) already raised a flag but @ 1.1.1 it became quite clear, hence my reply @ 1.1.1.1 to that comment of his (1.1.1). His later comments supported my initial judgement, as they contained questionable statements and particular wording. If you’re genuinely interested, I can explain my reply @ 1.1.1.1 in detail.
Your second paragraph is mostly a broad generalisation and accusations that have no bearing on any of my comments in this thread. By the language you can tell if someone is genuinely interested in robust debate or not and/or if they’re biased. If the former, there’s no point wasting your time. If the latter, it changes the starting point of a debate, unless you’re willing to go along with their bias and associated language, framing, and narrative, which could also be a waste of time. Your choice may well differ from mine but both our reasons/reasoning are valid nonetheless.
For example, you slapped down Joshua immediately for dealing in hypotheticals rather than having done "one minute of research," when the link you referred him to shows net immigration in the high tens of thousands for much of the last 15 years. His hypothetical was exaggerated but the data suggests his point is valid.
For some reason you seem to struggle with my meta comments.
Joshua is a new commenter here, apparently. I’ve already explained that his first comments raised flags and it’s my job to confirm my gut feeling, so I did. Joshua promptly twisted the stats and framed his reply in language of culture wars – QED. Mickysavage (Author of Post) also picked up on that (https://thestandard.org.nz/imported-culture-wars/#comment-2039907).
BTW, his points were not all valid and relevant.
I don't actually know what you mean, so yes, clarification would be good.
You say he's using language from imported culture war, but haven't said how or why that matters. Inherent in that is the idea that the politics are wrong somehow, or not valid politics, because 'culture war'. Is culture not a valid political issue?
You also said there is a red flag, but I don't know what you think that is.
I took the first post's numbers as being a language device to convey a point more clearly than focusing on detail would. I certainly go the point much better than if I've had to parse the numbers you provided. There is criticism to be made that his post might be taken as literal and thus was misleading, but it's also true he was making a broader point, which as far as I can tell hasn't been addressed.
One question I have is how is the language used that of a culture war? Then, how does one make the same point without using that language? Then, how does one differentiate critique of the language from marginalisation of the comment/commenter because of political disagreement?
Everyone has bias. I don't know what bias Joshua is meant to have had. I'm also unconvinced that his intent here is to not engage in robust debate. He brought a number of coherently argued points to the table. I found it refreshing, we need new blood and new ways of thinking about things.
You are right, we only need to see what is happening in the UK, & some other countries in Europe. There are always going to be tensions between immigrants and the original inhabitants. Unfortunately this just becomes a political football, with the protagonists on either side only interested in tearing down the other side, and to hell will the consequences.
I wonder what Sunny Kushal thinks about it.
How is it an "imported culture war" for Winston Peters to promote an opinion on mass immigration that has been consistent within his party pretty much since its inception?
Winston Peters has supported the RS legislation and the Overseas Investment legislation being pushed through through ACT.
Our coastal land, riverside and lakeside land up for sale to foreigners without any oversight.
He has not obstructed business migrant labour policy of NACT.
He is in a government with minimal MW increases which is cutting back on income related rent housing (he was a government 1996-1998 which had market rents for state housing).
Now in a government that has blocked pay equity. A coalition that ended FPA/Industry Awards for better worker pay.
Man of the people myth.
Carbon smokestack. Slash forestry (makes the provinces flood disaster prone).
20th C relic.
Will he support Bishop's plan to have foreigners build rental accommodation so that workers wages rent goes offshore?
Like bank profits and retirement village profits etc.
His clinging on to the Farangism of a latter day Oswald, all to appear part of some international fascist/populist/cultural war.
Go Winston, win another public commons bathroom (drunk carrying a cigar – don't slip on the mat) war.
Vanity of vanities.
Someone should tell South Park.
Winston seems to be getting on the front foot to gather up that 'certain demographic' which may be considering jumping ship from National with only ACT and NZFirst to make the jump to. Crafty politics?
Yes. And if the left's primary response is:
then he will most likely succeed.
I'd like someone who believes in that approach to play it out so we can see how it might work. Because to me it looks like the left once again relying on purity and not presenting any genuine alternative that people can rally around.
If there's anything to be learned from the UK right now, it's how not to ignore people disenfranchised by the neoliberal capture of liberal social values and using them to cement in capitalism that doesn't give a fuck about actual people.
Brexit happened because of people like Farage, but it didn't happen in a vacuum. Voters were fucked off about the degradation of life under successive Tory and Labour governments, and they wanted a change. At the same time they saw issues with jobs and security, they also saw rapid changes in their communities especially cultural. Faced with the choice between two pro cheap labour governments, of course they're going to choose the one that at least gave them some reprieve and sense of control in their lives.
Fast forward, they're now rioting in the streets and threatening to burn immigrants in their hostels.
The UK doesn't set its immigration policy because it wants to be a dynamic pluralistic society, it does it for the cheap labour to keep the perpetual growth machine fueled. NZ is the same. Which is why we ended up with the housing crisis and infrastructure deficit and the backlash against the left at the last election.
The only way to win here is to offer something that isn't about mass immigration along with more neoliberal fuckery. This doesn't mean anti-immigrant positions and policy, it's about immigration that works for NZ not just the neoliberal economy.
But if you think it's only a tiny proportion of the population that is worried about health services and jobs, you're not paying attentions. Can't do anything about the hardcore racists but at the least we can encourage people with genuine concerns to consider voting for the left, assuming we can offer them something.
ACT and NZF got 15% of the vote in 2023, about the same as GP and TPM. So when you frame ACT/NZF as small fringe parties, you're setting the same framing for the left.
Peters only needs to get 5% to monkey wrench a progressive government, either by enabling NACT to govern again, or by choosing Labour and sidelining the pull to the left.
The people that can garner NZF votes are Labour. But not like this.
FWIW, I think immigration should prioritise refugees, family from the Pacific, people with skills we urgently need, and do so alongside building long term work/job stability for people who are committed to their communities (bring in doctors and nurses, but prioritise training for those that already live here into those jobs). Those communities when they are strong will welcome in new people from overseas. But if we continue to say there's no problem, so shut up racists, that won't happen.
To coin a phrase, ha, ha.
Wot Weka said.
Many of our communities are not 'strong' at the moment. Many lack proper housing, access to meaningful jobs and the inability, for many reasons, to participate in our society.
Agree with Weka, NZ Labour imported the neoliberal values and have never really let them go: they kind of follow an incrementalist line that really surfs on top of a soft neoliberalism.
The line that all the things NACTFirst embrace are "imported culture wars" is a cop-out. eg Labour & the GP imported the current transgenderist lines ( from US: self ID, pronoun enforcement, opposition to misgendering & dead-naming, and proclaiming it 'progressive', & from UK: no-debate).
The current dissatisfaction from the impacts of imported and continuing soft neoliberalism that Labour disavows, and NACTFirst extreme capitalist exploitation, leave an opening for opportunists like Peters, and other racist right wingers to point at immigration.
In Auckland we have a massive infrastructure, and affordable housing problem that has not kept up with immigration into the city. We need to look at the causes of a lot of people’s dissatisfaction.
Infrastructure, employment, housing, health and education settings need to support the level and type of immigration we have.
To Get back to the original point, Peters and Farage, Especially Peters considering his position should be reminded that the way to pevent 'unwanted' migration is to provide aid to countries in need. Instead of the popular alternative, bombing counries to teach them a lesson. After all stable and socially secure societies dont need to go anywhere. A point that seems to escape most right wing pollies these days. IMHO
that would explode WP's anti-woke brain though 😉
(and I agree, although I'm not sure that it would solve NZ's immigration settings issue, which isn't driven by people arriving at our shores, so much as NZ governments using immigration for cheap labour to run the economy)
Well said weka, way more patient and pertinent than I can manage.
Dare I say it… the response to those that question migration is akin to those that question the veracity of a trans woman = a woman. Shriek it loud and often doesn't make it so.
Ahh also what Karolyn says too.
In my opinion, a society can have as much or as little immigration as infrastructure and public services allow (what the Productivity Commission called 'absorptive capacity') which largely goes back willingness to resource them in line with population increases and changes in demographics e.g. an aging population has a higher need for health services.
Having opted for a neoliberal model of low spending on both of those, absorptive capacity is low, particularly for immigrants since any increases in resourcing necessarily starts with NZ-born population increases.
Given that, it is not surprising in the slightest that public opinion does not favour large-scale immigration and that will continue while the underfunding continues.
One of the policy challenges is finding which categories to cut/reduce – partners and children of NZers are basically untouchable as a category and there were 17,070 partnership residence approvals and 2,808 dependent children residence approvals in the year ended 30 June 2025 (used Migration Data Explorer to get that number) out of 22,692 family residence approvals, so quite a large proportion (19,878/22,692 = 88%). Of the 53,685 residence visa approvals in that time, family was 42%, international/humanitarian (refugees and Pacific quotas mostly) was 11% and skilled/business was 46%.
The problem with this thinking is that it assumes money alone achieves social cohesion. The waves of European immigration in 1800s and 1900s may have helped raise the standard of living for some of the Maori, but it also created social problems that still need to be resolved. It's hard to see how waves of immigration from Africa, Middle East and Asia will help, even if it does result in more prosperity for everyone.
If neighbours (due to language or cultural barriers and differing values), don't understand or communicate well with each other, they won't enjoy living in the same neighborhood together – no matter how wealthy they all are.
Those concepts aren't mutually exclusive –
even if we don't accept more long-term migration than our absorptive capacity allows for, if migrants settle poorly, immigration will not be popular with the public.
It's why English language skills are among the criteria of some visas e.g. Skilled Migrant Category residence (SMC), and why, in the past, settlement factors like NZ qualifications, work experience and family were bonus criteria for SMC, and were replaced by an offer of employment as MBIE research had shown that having a job was the biggest success factor in post-settlement life for residents via SMC.
thanks for the absorptive capacity framing. I'm writing a post about Queenstown atm, so that was helpful.
In addition to infrastructure/services there are (at least) two other important factors: the ecological carrying capacity of the landbase, and the cultural absorptive capacity of the existing population (values but also things like what kind of built landscape or population density they want to live in)
I hadn't thought about how to change immigration settings, so thanks for that last para too.
Good points from you and others on other items that would be part of absorptive capacity. Also a good reminder that immigration policy tends to look at national themes more than local, so a town's ability to welcome and integrate migrants is not necessarily taken into account in the wider settings or analysis, but will obviously inform the public views far more than the national impacts.
I think one of the struggles the political left faces is that we want to be both principled and inclusive. We champion multiculturalism, tolerance, and open border. Not because it’s fashionable, but because we believe in dignity and fairness for all.
And we know that, on balance, immigration brings economic and social benefits.
But let’s be honest: there are tensions we don’t like to talk about. When we start asking whether we should limit numbers, or focus on the “right sort” of immigrants, it starts to sound uncomfortably like the language of exclusion.
And yet, if we ignore the real pressures: on housing, infrastructure, wages, or cultural cohesion, we come off as naive or out of touch. Especially when the right is prepared to offer simple, obvious sounding answers.
There’s also the uncomfortable truth that not all immigrants are welcomed (or scrutinised) equally. If thousands of Australians or Brits or Americans arrived tomorrow, most people wouldn’t bat an eyelid, even if they had zero understanding of our values, history, or te ao Māori.
Meanwhile, immigrants from the Pacific, many of whom have deep ancestral and cultural ties to this land, still face far greater scrutiny and disadvantage as
indentured servants*ahem* guest workersI work alongside a recent UK migrant. I respect his professional skills, but he’s an unapologetic Tory who still sees New Zealand as some dim colonial outpost lucky to have him. He sneers at Māori initiatives, loves Donald Trump, and complains endlessly about “wokeness.”
So when people talk about “cultural integration,” I can’t help but ask: whose culture are we integrating into?
So yes, we do need to talk about immigration. But we need to do it in a way that’s disentangled from racial bias, yet still grounded in our national values: fairness, manaakitanga, partnership, respect for tangata whenua, and a shared sense of responsibility.
If anyone can design a policy that truly balances our economic needs, ecological and infrastructural limits, and cultural cohesion—without defaulting to a “white New Zealand” framework or unfairly disadvantaging our Pacific neighbours—be my guest.
But let’s not pretend that avoiding the conversation makes us better. We owe it to each other to get this right.
I think of the immigration question foremost as one of environmental carrying capacity cf. cultural carrying capacity. Whether human inhabitants of NZ Aotearoa have breached cultural capacity limits is arguable, but they continue to overspend Aotearoa NZ’s biocapacity budget.
Is growth in the number of consumers, or the amount consumed, a good solution?
Australia’s overall biocapacity overshoot is even more problematic than NZ's.
http://www.overshootday.org – http://www.footprintnetwork.org
Exactly this.
Once we understand and accept that premise, the conversation becomes about two things. First is how to assist and then work within the natural limits of the land base, the second is how that sits in the context of the whole planet.
Regenerative models inherently start with the first, because that’s how nature works, but also because humans have a propensity to ignore nature and if we don’t centre at right at the start then it just gets treated as an add-on and that doesn’t work. One of the simplest ways to understand this is grow in your lettuce in your backyard or neighbour rather than importing it from overseas.
But this doesn’t mean everything has to be done locally (it’s a principal right?), we have responsibilities to the whole planet. Not only because our local ecological systems sit within much bigger regional and global systems, but also because human society only works when we care and share. Rather than doing BAU globally economy supply lines, we should be urgently assisting all countries to do the land based audit and transitions, and that will include helping some places restore their ecology enough so that they can grow their own food. Once those systems are prioritised, we can also look at the surplus and where they can be distributed, for instance to places where people are desperately in need of food.
The biggest challenge the year is helping people understand that there are other ways running economies and countries, then the perpetual growth machine.
One thing I think we need to address head-on in that case: what happens if immigration drops off, and most of our population growth comes from natural increase?
Do we then start talking about one-child policies? Do we start rationing healthcare for the elderly once they hit a certain age?
Yes, respecting biophysical and ecological limits is absolutely vital. But at the end of the day, we’re still talking about people: real communities, families, lives.
These aren’t just numbers in a footprint model or variables in a resource equation. They're our fellow citizens and human beings.
We need an approach that honours the ecological realities and our ethical responsibilities. Because once we frame people (whether born here or not) as the “problem,” we risk losing the very values we claim to uphold.
I’m sorted and won't be around 20 years from now, so I'm personally fine with that – but I have concrete fears for future generations.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth
I'm curious how you got 'people as the problem' from my comment?
Everything I am arguing for is about nature, of which people are a part. All I'm saying is that there is no human wellbeing without ecological wellbeing. The only reason this isn't more obvious to everyone is because collapse is happening on a timescale we can't easily see (thus far).
I find the 'you'll just end up with lots of people having to die' stuff odd. The whole point is to create new ways of running the show, and rejections of ecofascism when ecofascism wasn't even mentioned keep us stuck in neoliberalism which will most definitely take us over the die off cliff.
Afaik no-one has done the audits on carrying capacity of NZ. Robert Guyton, food forester and with a long eye on sustainability used to argue that NZ has the capacity to easily support our current population. Maybe we will be able to increase it 🤷♀️ The point is we don't currently know.
Population within carrying capacity and footprinting are different things. We will have to give some stuff up, making changes to our lifestyles, that bring us back within one planet's worth of resources.
Maybe it's a messaging thing. My perspectives are grounded in the various movements that all inherently include human well being: transition town, permaculture, doughnut economics, What if…? and so on. These are highly ethical movements (and like everything else, not without their limitations and shortcomings). I've written a fair amount about that, and just assume that people know that's the background, but maybe I need to make it more obvious.
The three ethics of permaculture: earth care, people care, fair share. It's not an earth vs people thing, people care is baked in.
Permaculturist Heather Jo Flores, writing about the third permaculture ethic,
https://cooperationhumboldt.com/permacultures-third-ethic/
Holmgren (who along with Mollison was the co-creator of permaculture) was raised as a political anarchist. The above quote screams of socialism.
As for how to limit population, we have imperfect but functional contraception. Ideas about one child policy or letting the elderly die early are steeped in authoritarian ideology. Think about a society that where people might collectively choose to share the mahi of childbearing and rearing, where children were seen as a gift not just to family but to society, where mothers are centred and fully supported, where women have sovereignty over their bodies and thus actual choice. What if people recognised the value in living within our limits and made choices about family in that context?
That's all idealistic. I have no idea how to make that work, other than we have to be able to imagine collective solutions based in ethics of care if we have any chance. Holmgren has said of other aspects of transition that it's not up to us to solve everything, we just need to be doing the things we can now, working in the right direction, and each generation will come up with the next lot of solutions. Our challenge atm, is to shift the paradigm from perpetual growth to natural cycles again.
The great thing about being an NZ politician is when you've finished kicking Maori you've still got immigrants to pick on. Double bubble racism.
Pretty much CS.
I work alongside a lot of migrants, a lot of recent ones, some who came here as students then decided to live here, all want their kids to be "kiwi kids" as they see NZ is a multi culturally diverse country.
Anecdote from today on the bus, young high school kids talking about their mates "Mohamed & Sayid" getting new bikes & the kids couldn't wait to go see them. The kids are growing up with this stuff & it's us oldies dragging this shit down.
Also, wait til Australia starts blaming & kicking out NZrs, lol.
I played First XI football in high school with a pretty diverse group: two Korean exchange students, a second-gen Sri Lankan Kiwi, a couple of Māori boys, and a handful of us Pākehā.
One match, our captain got a straight red for breaking an opponent’s nose after the guy called our Korean teammates a bunch of “gooks.” His reasoning? One punch for the racism, and another for making the rest of us look bad.
And he was about as rural, conservative, and white as they come.
And that is why team sports are brilliant at breaking down barriers.
Just imagine how utterly bollocks the All Blacks would be without first, or even second-generation immigrants?
The recruiting pool would comprise of basically the Turbos. And as much as I love being from Palmy, the thought of that makes me wince.
Not that their issues with overseas recruitment have anything to do with principle: they’re just too shit and too poor for anyone to want to play for them.
You can accuse Peters of dog whistling as much as you like. There are any number of people who have been watching the uncontrolled flood of migrants into Europe over the last few years who are now going "Thank god we are a long way away from that".
NZ should be watching these developments and learning from them.
Even trying to discuss this now instantly brings down a shit storm of racism accusations and the endless parroting of the benefits of multiculturalism mantras.
Yeah, same here. I get blase about it mostly but good to see all engaging with this topic intelligently anyway. It's a major group psychodynamic for any culture – tolerance of infusion of foreigners. I look back on the innate sceptical view of foreigners I was encultured into as a child in the 1950s, as empire was fading out.
Emerging via adolescence into a global view then made me multicultural by nature as a '60s rebel. So the shit happening now pushes both buttons and pulls me in opposite directions simultaneously. Fortunately a history of psychedelic exploring renders the problem null and void! So I do pragmatism with others in the center ground of politics and arrive at a sensible rate of infusion instead of chronic addiction by left and right.
Obviously leftists have been slow learners, as evidenced by the essay above. Britain's third of the electorate that opposes excess foreigner importation is something to learn from. If Winston tries to get his support base up to a third of Aotearoa to copy the Brits, who cares? Good luck with that, I'd tell him with a smile! Talk about pushing shit uphill!! Any the bottom line is that National and Labour have always been too stupid to get the job done properly, and all the other nutters are irrelevant until they stop being partisans and focus on our common interests instead.
No. We are not!
Noting that the people benifiting from high immigration, the usual suspects, using immigration to keep house prices high and wages low, are not the ones paying the price.