The Press TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1968. Immigration—Fact And Fantasy

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31786, 17 September 1968, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1968. Immigration—Fact And Fantasy

Two years ago the Monetary and Economic Council, at the request of the Minister of Labour and Immigration (Mr Shand), produced a report on “ Increased “ Immigration and the New Zealand Economy ”. The council’s conclusion that the main remedy for the 1966 labour shortage would be a reduction of the “ excessive rise of expenditure in the economy ” rather than higher rates of general immigration was politically unpalatable. Within six months, however, the Government found itself obliged to introduce deflationary measures. Since then, reversing the logic of the Economic Council’s advice, the Government’s programme of assisted immigration has been severely curtailed; and the number of emigrants, for the first time since the war, has exceeded the number of immigrants.

“If New Zealand were suffering from a level of “ spending inadequate to employ resources reasonably “ fully ”, said the council two years ago, in a passage which now has a prophetic quality, “the expansionary net effects of extra immigrants would be “beneficial”. But if the Government’s policy on immigration in the last two years can be described as perverse, the Labour Party’s latest pronouncement can only be described as fanciful. “I hope that at “ the end of three years [after the return of a Labour “ Government] we would be bringing in 10,000 assisted “immigrants a year”, said the party’s spokesman on industry (Mr W. W. Freer) recently. Assisted immigrants averaged 4200 a year in the five years to 1966. Assisted migration is only one contributor—and a comparatively minor one—to population growth, and should be considered in relation to the general trend in migration flows. In the same period New Zealand’s average annual gain from migration was 15,000. Assisted migration may therefore be said to have contributed less than 30 per cent to the population growth through immigration. The more ambitious Australian immigration programme is often cited as an example to New Zealand; but the comparison needs to be carefully interpreted. Over the same period, 74,200 immigrants a year were assisted by the Australian Government to migrate to Australia. But Australia’s net gain from immigration averaged only 85,100, so that assisted migration represented 87 per cent of the net gain. New Zealand’s population increased 11 per cent, Australia’s 10 per cent, in the five years to 1966, New Zealand's lower rate of immigration being offset by a higher rate of natural increase. Australia’s greater need for immigrants may justify the much higher expenditure on assisted immigrants: sAust27 million a year compared with New Zealand’s $1.5 million (in post-devaluation currency). The average cost of each assisted immigrant was $364 to the Australian Government, $407 to the New Zealand Government; but the average cost of all net immigrants to the Australian Government was $3lB compared with only $ll3 to the New Zealand Government If New Zealand increased its assisted migration from 4000 to 10,000 a year it might gain little more than 6000 in net immigration and merely enable 6000 immigrants who would otherwise have paid their own fares to travel here at the New Zealand Government’s expense. Until the Labour Party can produce some evidence that the expenditure of an extra s3} million to $4 million a year on assisted immigration would add appreciably to net immigration, the party’s talk of 10,000 assisted immigrants deserves to be treated as irresponsible nonsense.