{"id":426041,"date":"2026-05-13T19:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/426041\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T19:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:01:12","slug":"pm-promising-solution-to-immigration-problem-that-doesnt-exist-demographer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/426041\/","title":{"rendered":"PM promising solution to immigration problem that doesn’t exist, demographer says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A demographer believes the prime minister is promising a solution to an immigration problem that does not exist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Christopher Luxon has told business leaders immigration was an emerging political issue and to expect “careful” immigration policy from National<\/a> – and that the party would put social cohesion ahead of businesses’ profits.<\/p>\n

Independent think tank Koi T\u016b senior fellow and distinguished professor emeritus Paul Spoonley said while immigration had become a polarising globally, that was not necessarily the case in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

He said immigration had risen a bit as an issue, but it was not a top 10 concern for New Zealanders – as identified in the latest Ipsos issues monitor. He said polling showed the majority of New Zealanders viewed immigration positively.<\/p>\n

“I can only assume that the prime minister is beginning to react to his two coalition partners both of whom seem to want to make immigration a central issue for the coming election, but also to see immigration as somehow being divisive and an issue for New Zealanders – I don’t think it is.”<\/p>\n

Spoonley said New Zealand’s points-based system was strict compared to many other OECD countries where immigration had become polarising.<\/p>\n

\"Christopher<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Louis Dunham\n<\/p>\n

“They’re dealing with high numbers of refugees and asylum seekers. We are not. We [have] an economically-focused skills-based system, so we are very selective.”<\/p>\n

He wanted to see more extensive programmes to help immigrants better settle and said such work was important for social cohesion.<\/p>\n

“We are one of the most super-diverse countries in the world – 30 percent of us are born overseas, in Auckland 43 percent are born overseas.<\/p>\n

“By and large, it works really well. So what is the problem, or what is the issue here that the prime minister thinks we need to address?”<\/p>\n

Spoonley said while New Zealand did a “pretty good job” with recruiting and selecting migrants, that did not mean there should not be debates about immigration, particularly around net migration numbers which had been volatile in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"Sociologist<\/p>\n

\nSociologist Paul Spoonley
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Cole Eastham-Farrelly\n<\/p>\n

Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Kristy Phillips said the devil would be in the detail of National’s immigration policy and businesses were keen to know what “careful” meant.<\/p>\n

“Does careful equal workforce enabling policy and operational survival for our members?”<\/p>\n

She said while effort was going into training local talent, the industry relied on skilled migrants to fill gaps in the workforce.<\/p>\n

“It’s already difficult for workers to maintain roles and gain pathways to residency within the hospitality industry in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

“We would be hoping that this ‘careful’ plan does not make that any harder.”<\/p>\n

Phillips said residency pathways were integral to the sector’s long-term workforce stability.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A demographer believes the prime minister is promising a solution to an immigration problem that does not exist.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-426041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}