Darren Gibbs, Deutsche Bank's chief economist, said the latest real estate
data showed an incredibly strong house sales market and he predicted the
Reserve Bank would tighten monetary control in the next few months.
The Real Estate Institute yesterday released its sales figures for last
month showing prices had risen from a national median of $327,000 in
January. Auckland house prices were up in every area except Papakura and
Franklin where a drop in sales volumes was blamed for a decrease.
The rising prices are good news for the owners of the country's 1.4 million
houses because they all got a little richer - on paper at least.
Institute vice-president Mike Elford said people should not ignore that
point, adding that the latest figures had exceeded expectations. "The market
in February was even stronger than first thought and is not the news the
Reserve Bank was wanting to hear, but it's great for homeowners in terms of
growing the equity in their primary savings vehicle," Mr Elford said.
Last week's interest rate rise came too late to deter people and would
ultimately have little effect. Volumes were well up, from 7566 sales in the
traditionally slow January to 9357 sales last month. It took 38 days on
average to sell in January but just 32 days last month.
Mr Gibbs said houses were selling at the fastest pace since 2005.
"The housing market was strong in February. It's little wonder that the
median price rose 2.4 per cent month-on-month to a new record high and is
now up 13.6 per cent year on year."
Shamubeel Eaqub, Goldman Sachs JBWere's investment research director, said:
"We remain of the view that the housing market needs to cool, but the ease
of access to relatively cheap credit and home buyer confidence means the
tipping point is not clearly apparent."
The Reserve Bank had already signalled its desire to rein in the housing
market. In the next few months changing tax rules on investment properties
and introducing capital adequacy ratios of banks may be introduced.
"We believe another [rate] increase on April 26 is most likely, with a small
risk of another hike beyond that."
But Nick Tuffley, ASB's chief economist, is not picking an interest rate
rise next month, saying the Reserve Bank will wait a little longer before it
moves.
Quotable Value said on Monday that housing prices rose 9.3 per cent in the
year to February compared with the year before. That pushed the
average sale price for a property to $363,017.
Housing bubble that just won't burst
New Zealand's bloated
homes market, fueled by a labour shortage, is holding us back
NZ HERALD
Tuesday November 28,
2006
By Brian Fallow
In the second part of our special, the Herald examines how housing and the
labour market can restore balance to the economy.
For businesses seeking relief from high interest and exchange rates, the
continuing strength of the housing market can seem like the oppressive heat
before an electrical storm.
The Reserve Bank is counting on the housing market to weaken in order to turn
off the wealth effect, whereby home owners increase their debt to spend a few
cents in every dollar of their increasing housing equity. That has seen consumer
spending grow faster than incomes for several years.
The bank is counting on a couple of years in which consumer spending - about 60
per cent of economic activity - goes sideways in real terms, in order to vent
inflation pressures.
Its problem is that inflation in the non-tradeables side of the economy, where
prices are not affected by the exchange rate or disciplined by international
competition, has been stuck around 4 per cent for the past couple of years. As
long as that remains true, headline inflation - now falling - could swiftly
climb again should international oil prices rise or the New Zealand dollar fall
sharply.
Although the Reserve Bank continues to forecast that house price inflation will
decline, and even dip into negative territory, it admits in its September
monetary policy statement that the slowdown has been more gradual than it had
expected. So monetary conditions - interest rates and the exchange rate - remain
tight.
The Real Estate Institute reported a jump in the median national sales price
last month to $324,000 after four months in a tight range of $310,000 to
$313,000. The median price has climbed 72 per cent over the past five years,
compared with just 14 per cent over the five years before that.
Quotable Value says the average house price over the three months to October was
9.6 per cent higher than in the same period last year. While that is down from
the 2004 peak of house price inflation at nearly 25 per cent, it is still a far
cry from zero or a negative figure.
Although a correction in the housing market is a risk, it is not a particularly
large risk, says Bank of New Zealand chief economist Tony Alexander.
"This is because the labour market remains tight, net migration inflows are
running above average and even if the Reserve Bank raises its nearly meaningless
official cash rate again we still expect mild downward movement in fixed
mortgage rates next year as monetary policy is eased in the United States," he
said.
Even though the economy has been growing at a well-below-par average rate of 0.5
per cent a quarter for two years, the unemployment rate is only 3.8 per cent and
wage inflation is high.
"We never reached critical mass in the slowdown," Alexander said. "You get
unemployment shooting up when businesses lose hope and act on that."
Business confidence fell sharply in the second half of last year but businesses
did not act on that by shedding labour. "They were hoping everybody else would
lay off employees so they could hire them. The downward spiral simply hasn't got
going this cycle."
Westpac chief economist Brendan O'Donovan said firms had gone into the slowdown
with a shortage of skilled labour, so in its early phase continued to hire. Job
security had helped underpin the housing market.
"But when the housing market does run out of steam the economy will be in for a
tough transition period," he said.
"We have seen corrections in the housing markets in Australia, the United
Kingdom and the United States over the past 2 1/2 years. I'm not sure why New
Zealand would be immune."
When that would happen was impossible to predict, because the market was being
driven by sentiment.
ANZ National Bank chief economist Cameron Bagrie said he did not expect to see a
substantial turn in the housing market until the labour market turned. Other
gauges of the property market gave a picture of a market that remained brisk but
vulnerable.
House prices continued to grow faster than household incomes, leading to
declining affordability.
The average house price was eight times the average income, compared with six
times in Australia.
Household debt was rising and interest rates too, as a surge of two-year
fixed-rate lending taken out during the "mortgage wars" in late 2004 came up for
repricing.
But Bagrie said housing market turnover and the number of building consent
issues showed a pick-up in activity consistent with rising net inflows of
migrants.
Alexander said he expected slowing growth in the US to lead to falling interest
rates over the year ahead, which would translate into slowly falling fixed-term
rates in New Zealand.
"Even as the floating interest rate remains high along with one-year and
possibly two-year rates, fixed rates for three years and beyond will decline."
MIXED SIGNALS CONFUSE PICTURE
Talk of a hard landing for the economy has so far come to nothing. Indeed, over
the past month there have been signs that the economy may be picking up speed
again. But there are also reasons to believe this may be a blip and not a
longer-term trend.
Signs of an upswing
* Business confidence is the highest for two years and firms' views of their own
outlook is at levels not seen since early last year.
* Retail sales in the September quarter were up 1 per cent on June in real
terms.
* Imports hit a record of $3.9 billion last month as the country pulled in $1.43
of imports for every $1 of exports.
* House prices jumped last month, rising 3.5 per cent to an average $324,000, a
record.
* Net immigration remains well ahead of long-term average rates for New Zealand.
Reasons for caution
* Pessimists still outnumber optimists among businesses.
* Retail sales in the September quarter were up only 1 per cent on a year
earlier in real terms.
* The trade and current account deficits are at unsustainable levels and testify
to unbalanced growth concentrated in spending, rather than earning.
* The jump in house prices followed a poor four months and house price inflation
is dipping.
* Immigration tends to boost the demand supply of the economy sooner than the
supply side, adding to inflation pressures.
Bosses leave migrants to flounder
NZ Herald
Friday July 21, 2006
By Brian Fallow
Most employers agree there are barriers to migrants participating in the
workforce but are doing nothing about them, a survey shows.
Recruitment firm Hudson asked 1705 employers whether barriers existed for
migrants working or seeking work, and found those saying yes outnumbered those
saying no four to one.
Most - 78 per cent - cited non-technical skills, especially communication, as
the biggest problem.
Only in professional services and, to a lesser extent, utilities, were technical
skills cited as an issue, and then only by one in five or one in six firms
respectively.
"To be granted work or residency permits, skilled immigrants must have achieved
minimum language and professional qualification standards, and are mostly from
jobs identified as long- or medium-terms shortages," the Hudson survey says.
"Yet many people who are doing the hiring do not consider these candidates as
ready to fit into their New Zealand organisations."
Hudson's staff find employers more open to using foreigners in back-office
roles. But it is a different story when people interact with customers. The
accent matters.
Hudson's survey found fewer than a quarter of employers had formal integration
or settlement programmes for migrant employees. About the same proportion gave
informal support.
New migrants in small companies - those with fewer than 20 staff - are unlikely
to get formal or informal support. Seven out of 10 such companies told the
survey they did nothing specific.
The Hudson survey cites Labour Department projections that in 15 years, a
quarter of the workforce will have been born outside New Zealand.
"But migrants still find it difficult to find work in New Zealand and those who
do are often placed in jobs well below their skill level," it says.
This is despite a labour market which, despite an economic downturn, remains
tight and is expected by the Department of Labour to stay that way.
The net inflow of permanent and long-term, migrants bottomed out in October last
year, and is now back in line with its long-term average of 10,000 a year.
Hudson says employers are in a bind.
Many young New Zealanders are going overseas, growth is constrained by a
shortage of skilled workers and unemployment is close to a record low.
"Unless employers find ways of accessing the skills of non-traditional talent
pools such as new migrants, the problem will show no signs of diminishing."
Most migrants in its experience were prepared to learn new skills or acclimatise
to the New Zealand way of doing things and made it through recruiter screening
only to fall at the final, hiring step.
"While many migrants are satisfied eventually with their work and lifestyle in
New Zealand, some 22,000 a year are leaving the country because their
expectations were not met," the survey said.
Property price growth still slowing
Monday September 11, 2006
The growth in residential property values continues to slow, Quotable Value said
yesterday.
New figures show property values were up 10.5 per cent from a year ago,
calculated over the three months to August.
But this was a drop from the 11.1 per cent growth reported in July, a trend
noted since March.
The average sale price was $340,473.
"Across the country, there is a gradual easing in the property market," QV
spokeswoman Glenda Whitehead said.
"Prices, and hence property values, are still higher year on year, with no signs
of any dramatic falls, but conversely the demand that was pushing values up
faster and faster over the past three years has definitely eased back."
Auckland city property values were stable, up 7.6 per cent in August, while
Dunedin was up slightly to 6.2 per cent.
Other main centres saw growth rates slow. Hamilton grew 16.2 per cent, down from
17.5 per cent in July, Wellington City rose 9.5 per cent (from 9.9 per cent),
and Christchurch was up 9.4 per cent (10.4 per cent).
Provincial cities also showed signs of slowing growth, including Gisborne, up
18.2 per cent, Palmerston North 15.8 per cent, Invercargill 11.2 per cent,
Napier 6.2 per cent and Nelson 2.4 per cent.
The only provincial centre still growing above 20 per cent is Rotorua, at 24.9
per cent. QV said it was a late starter in catch-up mode.
- NZPA
NZ residential property market risky, says OECD
report
Monday June 26, 2006
By Anne Gibson
New Zealand's residential property market is one of the world's most risky and
second only to Denmark in the likelihood of a serious price correction, says the
OECD.
The organisation studied 17 countries and found New Zealand one of the most
hazardous markets - the single most volatile country in which to own a house
because it had more booms and busts than the others.
The report - "Are House Prices Nearing a Peak?" - found that since the 1970s,
New Zealand has had more housing peaks than any other country.
The duration of our housing cycles have been shorter and more cyclical, the
report said.
Peaks were invariably followed by a downturn and a price drop.
New Zealand was at extreme risk of a real estate downturn, particularly if
interest rates rose by only 1 per cent when the country would have an 83 per
cent chance of a big price correction, the OECD found.
Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard is not expected to push up rates further this
year.
The OECD said Denmark's chances of a house price crash were the highest at 95
per cent and Japan's the lowest at 0 per cent. New Zealand was one of the
world's most vulnerable housing markets. But Denmark and New Zealand had also
consistently topped world house price charts in the last two years, having
experienced the steepest value increases.
The OECD report by Paul van den Noord shows that if prices were to continue
rising this year at the same rate as in 2005 and if interest rates rose by a
percentage point, Denmark, New Zealand, France and Sweden would be almost
certain to suffer a crash. The Danes are most vulnerable, followed by the Kiwis
then the French.
Real Estate Institute data this year shows the market plateauing and prices
staying stable rather than rising fast as they did last year.
"A rise in interest rates by 100 to 200 basis points would suffice to raise the
probability of a peak in the United States, France, Denmark, Ireland, New
Zealand, Spain and Sweden," the report said. The report follows rankings from
Britain's Economist that put New Zealand at the top of the world for the
steepest price rises. In June 2004, New Zealand topped a chart of house price
rises in the world's developed countries.
In an article headlined "Hair-raising", the magazine added New Zealand, Denmark
and Switzerland to a list of countries tracked since 1975.
Shamubeel Eaqub, an economist with Goldman Sachs JBWere in Auckland, said the
OECD report might prompt homeowners to question how much money they had tied up
in the residential market.
It was also a warning for New Zealanders not to rely on housing's good fortunes
continuing, he said.
"This should be good reminder for households to diversify their portfolio
because 77 per cent of gross assets are in housing," he said.
A spokesman for Finance Minister Michael Cullen dismissed the report, saying any
crash was extremely unlikely to occur and was an emotive concept. But the
Government was also being careful not to encourage the housing market, he said.
"The Government is well aware of inflationary pressures in the economy and
that's why it is maintaining a disciplined fiscal policy. Any further fiscal
stimulus at this time would add to inflation and increase the risk of interest
rate rises which in turn would hurt homeowners.
"That's why we regard National's multibillion-dollar tax cuts as reckless.
"Had they been introduced, inflation would have risen, as would interest rates
and that would have impacted on the housing market," the spokesman said.
BNZ economist Tony Alexander also dismissed the OECD report.
"They use the last quarter of 2005 when New Zealand house prices on average were
15.3 per cent ahead of a year earlier using Real Estate Institute data.
"Annual increases have already slowed substantially so the scenario they posit
is unlikely for New Zealand," Mr Alexander said.
John McDermott, Victoria University associate professor of economics and
finance, also doubted the chances of the OECD report's predictions being
fulfilled.
"House prices, while still increasing, are doing so at a slower pace than 2005
and official cash rates are unlikely to increase this year and are likely to be
lowered in 2007 so the prospects of the OECD conditions being met seem very
low," he said.
Real Estate Institute data released this week showed national sales volumes down
17 per cent between May 2003 and last month.
Auckland volumes dropped 46 per cent from 4078 sales in May 2003 to 2981 sales
last month.
But prices were still rising steeply, up 36 per cent in three years in Auckland,
35 per cent in Wellington, 77 per cent in Christchurch and 96 per cent in
Dunedin.
Agents are reporting an increasingly stressed market. Anne Duncan Real Estate in
Mt Albert sent out a flyer this month saying the company was about to launch a
series of clearance sales to auction off houses that had been on the Auckland
market for a while.
The glossy flyer, headed "Clearance Sale Special", said the market had started
to settle and was moving into one of its quieter phases.
Howard Morley, the Real Estate Institute's president, said housing was proving
strong because the national median remained at
$305,000 between
April and May.
"The sales statistics show that the market has consolidated. Prices remain
strong with a good number of properties continuing to sell which shows a
resilient residential property market," Mr Morley said.
Price of houses will drop, says Reserve Bank head
Tuesday June 27, 2006
By Matthew Brockett
NZ Herald
Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard expects house prices to start falling by the
end of the year as higher interest rates begin to bite.
"We are seeing the rate of increase slowing a lot," Dr Bollard said in Basel,
Switzerland, where he is attending a meeting of central bankers.
By the end of the year the bank expected house prices to "go negative".
His remarks come after an OECD survey found New Zealand's residential property
market was one of the world's most risky and second only to Denmark in the
likelihood of a serious price correction.
The organisation studied 17 countries and found New Zealand one of the most
hazardous markets.
With more fixed mortgages coming up for renewal and interest rates rising
worldwide, Dr Bollard said, the property market was starting to cool.
House prices in May rose 12.4 per cent from a year earlier, the slowest annual
pace in 14 months.
"It takes longer for houses to come to market and longer for them to sell," Dr
Bollard said. "Monetary policy is now having an effect and we feel more
comfortable as a result of that."
The Reserve Bank raised borrowing costs nine times between January 2004 and
December last year, taking its key lending rate to a record 7.25 per cent.
Most economists do not expect it to increase rates further this year.
Dr Bollard said the lending rate increases were driven by the booming property
market, which fuelled inflation by boosting household wealth and consumption.
New Zealanders were wrong to think they could "overwhelmingly save through
housing".
The OECD report found that New Zealand house prices increased 69 per cent
between 2000 and 2005.
But there are signs that the bank's interest rate policy is having an effect.
The latest Real Estate Institute data showed national sales volumes down 17 per
cent between May 2003 and last month.
Auckland volumes dropped 46 per cent from 4078 sales in May 2003 to 2981 sales
last month.
Real Estate institute president Howard Morley said the property market was in
positive territory and was likely to remain there.
Economists had been predicting the demise of the market for four years but it
still performed strongly.
Mr Morley said a recent survey of property investors showed that 90 per cent
intended to increase their holdings over the next five years.
"This has shown real estate has been one of the better investments."
- BLOOMBERG
Cancer sufferer Anita
Lategan with her family, husband Ockert and children (from left) Alisha, 21,
Angelique, 15, Monique, 12, Andre, 19, and Sonay, 22. They immigrated from South
Africa last year and need to find $80,000 for Mrs Lategan's chemotherapy.
Migrant cancer mum's race against time
NZ HERALD
Saturday June 24, 2006
By Angela Gregory
A South African mother of five who is dying of cancer is pleading for the New
Zealand Government to part-fund her chemotherapy.
Anita Lategan, 40, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in April, a year after she
moved to New Zealand with her family.
Now the Flat Bush family are in a desperate race for time to find about $80,000
needed for her chemotherapy.
Mrs Lategan is not eligible for treatment under the public health system as her
work permit is 56 days short of the two-year requirement.
Chemotherapy could extend her life by a few years but without it she could die
within a few months.
Mrs Lategan said returning to South Africa was not really an option because her
illness was so fast moving she feared she might never see her children again.
The private medical insurance she had in Durban had lapsed and the public
service there was substandard and unlikely to help.
Mrs Lategan said that when her young and healthy family arrived in Auckland,
getting medical insurance was not an immediate priority.
"The first three months we were sleeping on mattresses to keep the costs down,"
she said.
Now three of her older children all had secure jobs, as well as herself and her
husband. The youngest two daughters, aged 12 and 15, were at school.
The family were committed to making a new life in New Zealand and were applying
for permanent residency.
The cancer has spread at an alarming rate. "It is in my stomach, pancreas,
everywhere," she said.
After her plight was raised on talkback radio yesterday the expatriate South
African community and sympathetic New Zealanders had rallied to offer help.
Mrs Lategan said she did not expect New Zealand taxpayers to pick up all her
costs, but pointed out five family members were paying taxes.
Her daughter Alisha, 21, said it would not be easy for the family to return to
South Africa, adding: "There is no future for us there."
The Ministry of Health said that when people came to New Zealand they were
clearly informed about their access to publicly funded health care.
Donations: ASB Bank 12-3042-0303345-00
Top state house income nearly $95,000
NZ Herald
26.03.06 5.00pm
The top five after-tax incomes of state house tenants range from $78,520 to
nearly $95,000, the National Party has revealed.
Housing spokesman Phil Heatley obtained the figures through written
parliamentary questions to Housing Minister Chris Carter.
"Fair-minded New Zealanders have no problem helping those who are struggling to
make ends meet, but that goodwill is likely to evaporate if Labour doesn't put
the checks in place to make sure taxpayer money is being spent wisely," Mr
Heatley said today.
"Labour should focus on moving those who are able to look after themselves into
their own homes, and free up Housing New Zealand properties for people in
genuine need."
The figures show the top five after-tax household incomes as $78,520, $80,588,
$82,240, $84,968 and $94,938.
Mr Heatley said Statistics New Zealand reported in June that the average
annual gross income for a household was $65,520.
The Government's routine answer to National's complaints about state housing is
that the previous National-led government sold thousands of homes and it has
been rebuilding up the stock since it came to power in 1999.
- NZPA
Christel and Kevin Broederlow brought their sons
back to Auckland but couldn't afford to live here on one income, so returned to
Australia. Christel and Kevin Broederlow brought their sons back to Auckland but
couldn't afford to live here on one income, so returned to Australia
It's so much easier to make ends meet in Ozzie
NZ Herald
22.03.06
By Simon Collins
When Christel Broederlow joined the crowds at Logan City's Waitangi Day
celebration south of Brisbane last month, she found it hard to believe that she
was in Australia.
She estimates that 10,000 people attended, 85 per cent of them Maori.
About the same number attended another Waitangi Day event a few kilometres away,
and 7000 turned out for one at Redcliffe, further north.
The Logan City event has been going for only three years.
"When we first arrived here nine years ago it was like 'spot the Maori' at the
shopping mall," Mrs Broederlow says.
"Now it's like one in every 100 people. You can tell when you go shopping, when
you go to the beach, you can see it everywhere you go."
In the past 40 years, the New Zealand-born population of Australia has grown
from 50,000 to 442,189 (as at 2004) - 12.8 per cent of all Kiwi-born people in
the world.
Maori in Australia have leapt from 4000 to well over 100,000 - around 13 per
cent of all Maori alive today.
In the 200-odd years since Europeans began settling on these islands,
transtasman migration has waxed and waned with the economic fortunes on each
side of the Ditch. There have been long periods of net inflows to New Zealand
when this country was wealthier, bringing in future leaders such as Prime
Ministers Ward and Savage.
But the last sustained inflow ended in 1967, when a collapse of New Zealand wool
prices allowed mineral-rich Australia to pull decisively ahead of us in average
incomes.
A net outflow began which reached 10,000 people in 1969, was staunched as our
economy picked up in the early 1970s, but then haemorrhaged to around 30,000 a
year at the end of each of the last three decades.
In between, the flood halted briefly when the Australian economy soured in the
early 80s and 90s, and after the New York terrorist attacks in 2001 and Bali in
2002 drove Kiwis of home.
But after each of these respites, the bleeding resumed. In the year to January
there was a net loss of 21,439 people across the Tasman - 412 a week.
Despite common impressions, this is still only 0.6 per cent of the population.
But over 40 years the continued drain has taken out a very significant part of
our working-age population. Just over one in six of all NZ-born people in
Australasia in all age groups from 20 to 60 now live in Australia.
Retiring to the Gold Coast is still fairly rare - only 9 per cent of NZ-borns in
the 65-plus age bracket live in Australia. As do only 6.5 per cent of the
under-20s, indicating that most migrants do not take children with them.
In contrast to New Zealand, where emigration has left a surplus of women in the
marriageable age groups, the NZ-born population in Australia has 2.6 per cent
more males than females.
Partly because they are mostly in the working-age groups, the NZ-born are more
likely than other Australians to be in paid work, and were more likely to earn
more than A$800 ($921) a week in 2001 (23.6 per cent of NZ-born, 19.1 per cent
of Australian-born).
They are more likely to have university qualifications (11 per cent vs 9.3 per
cent) and trade certificates (12.6 per cent vs 9.4 per cent).
They come from across the workforce, slightly weighted towards the low-paid end
where Kiwi wages are hardest to live on. Last year a net 0.7 per cent of
tradespeople, plant and machine operators and assemblers crossed the Tasman,
compared with 0.5 per cent of professionals.
Mrs Broederlow, whose husband Kevin was a builder and is now a draftsman, says
he worked 70 to 100 hours a week in New Zealand, and she worked 30 hours, to
make ends meet.
"We were sick of working round the clock with bills up to our head and never
really feeling we were getting ahead," she says.
In Australia, Mr Broederlow works Monday to Friday, and Mrs Broederlow can stay
home with their four sons. They receive A$400 a week in family payments from the
Government.
"We own our own house now," she says. "Here there's a A$7000 grant to first-home
buyers."
After five years in Australia, the family moved back to Auckland in 2001 and Mrs
Broederlow enrolled in fulltime study. But they couldn't afford to live on one
income.
"We came back," she says. "We know so many Maoris and Kiwis and Polynesians that
have lived here for a few years, gone home - and come back within the next 12
months."
Kiwis flocking to Oz yet again
NZ Herald
21.03.06
By Simon Collins
The flight of Kiwis to Australia is on the rise again - and this time it's
looking like a long-term exodus rather than another short-term migration.
The net outflow of people across the Tasman has doubled in the past two years to
21,439 in the year to January and is heading towards the peak losses of just
over 30,000 a year reached in the late 1980s and again five years ago.
National leader Don Brash highlighted the trend in his Orewa speech citing 600
people a week leaving for Australia, although the net effect - taking into
account New Zealanders who leave and Australians who come here - is 400 a week,
still enough to empty a city the size of Taupo every year.
But this exodus is different from previous migrations, which coincided with
economic slumps at home. New Zealand is losing people despite recent boom
conditions and the world's lowest unemployment.
The trend is also different because the exodus is led by people who have
immigrated here and can't get jobs in their professions, even though employers
are short of skilled labour.
Both native-born Kiwis and immigrants are leaving a country where unemployment
has fallen to just 3.6 per cent and are competing for jobs in a new land where
unemployment is still 5.2 per cent. But they are being lured by incomes which
are persistently higher even when the Australian economy, like ours, is slowing.
Electrician Grahame Boyd, made redundant by a former star of New Zealand
industry, Ion Automotive, has doubled his wages from $18 to A$33.70 ($38.70) an
hour by shifting to a mining construction site in Queensland.
Eileen Ruka earned $10.50 an hour at an Avondale plastics factory but expects to
earn A$19 an hour as a bar manager in Melbourne.
On average, after adjusting for prices and the exchange rate, real incomes in
Australia are now 32 per cent higher than here. The gap is widening with a 7.4
per cent drop in the kiwi dollar against the Australian dollar so far this year.
Migrant groups said the exodus of immigrants was no surprise given the number of
well-qualified migrants working at Auckland's petrol stations and supermarkets
because they can't get jobs in their own professions.
"An engineer working at a petrol station will get depressed. His self-esteem is
down in the dumps," said Shankar Nair, a retired major-general in the Indian
Army who chairs the Migrants Support Services centre in Onehunga.
Michene
(left), Gavin, Tristan and Lorinda Penfold face a forced return to South Africa.
Picture / Richard Robinson
Paperwork delay ends family's life in NZ
NZ Herald
09.03.06
By David Eames
Failure to notify immigration authorities about a job change has cost a South
African family the chance of a new life in New Zealand.
Gavin Penfold thought he was doing the right thing when he belatedly notified
immigration authorities of a change in his place of work. But his tardiness
resulted in his permit being revoked, his residency application rejected and his
family branded as overstayers.
Now Mr Penfold and his family wait - boxes of belongings at the ready - for
immigration authorities to come for them.
"It's scary," he said. "You almost feel like you are in trouble with the law.
"We have anxious moments every time there is a knock on the door. They can come
at any time and take us away."
A spokesman for Workforce - a branch of the Department of Labour - said Mr
Penfold was no longer welcome in this country and for the good of his family
should return to South Africa.
Service delivery group manager Graham Baker last night told the Herald Mr
Penfold waited too long before notifying the department of his work-permit
variation.
Mr Penfold - with wife Lorinda and children Tristan and Michene - arrived in
Whangarei in December 2004 to take up a position at a motor vehicle dealership.
He had a valid work permit, and after about six weeks moved to a position with
an Auckland car dealership.
But Mr Penfold later learned he should have notified immigration authorities of
the change to his working conditions.
After speaking with a consultant, Mr Penfold alerted immigration to his
predicament, and also applied for residency. But his application was rejected on
the grounds he had admitted a breach in his work conditions and was working in
New Zealand illegally.
Now he has no work permit, his wife and son's visitor's permits have been
revoked, and his daughter's student visa has been rescinded.
Mr Baker said the variation request was received about 10 months after the
Penfolds moved to Auckland. That was too long, for the department's liking, as
the permit only allowed him to work at the Whangarei dealership.
"[But] the reality here is that [Mr Penfold] then moved, of his own volition ...
then worked for what looks like 10 months without telling us.
"He applied for a work permit after the fact."
Mr Baker said it was up to the department's "border security group" whether the
Penfolds faced immediate, forced deportation.
The shadow of deportation has thrown the family into confusion.
Tristan, 5, has already started school in Auckland, but if forced to return to
South Africa will have to wait until he is 7 before he can continue his
education.
"Everything that we do, we are uncertain about it," Mr Penfold said.
"We try to keep the kids out of it, but they can obviously feel the tension of
the household."
Mr Baker said he appreciated the child's plight, but said it would be "much
better" for Mr Penfold and his family to return to South Africa, then reapply to
enter New Zealand.
"The reality is this man now really does need to go back to South Africa,
removing himself from the unlawful status that he has."
Bleak, moody, suicidal - that's NZ
19.10.05
By Angela Gregory
An early impression of New Zealand for Douglas Davis, writer for the
conservative current events magazine The Spectator, was the "chainsaw voice" at
Auckland Airport announcing that New Zealand's agricultural regulations
prohibited the import of "enumels".
Davis then escapes the terminal - and the banned animals - where he notes a
heavy grey sky overhanging Auckland which "offers a clue to the national mood".
In visiting the city for the first time in 30 years Davis reports an
"involuntary tightening of the sphincter" and finds Auckland even more dour and
dull than he could remember.
While friends rave about New Zealand as a Pacific paradise, all he sees is "a
relentless sprawl of clapboard houses which entomb the bleak moodiness of their
inhabitants".
While New Zealanders excel at rugby, in most other endeavours they barely
touched mediocrity, he says.
"New Zealand is everything that Australia is not.
"While Australia exhibits the characteristics of a thrusting alpha-male, New
Zealand remains stuck in sullen adolescence."
Davis, writing in the latest edition of the weekly magazine, says while both New
Zealanders and Australians derive from a common British ancestry, he is
surprised their world views and aspirations have diverged so radically.
Davis says our domestic policy appears to be informed by an overarching guilt
complex about "supposed" historic wrongs done to Maori.
Oblivious to the backlash attracted by Tariana Turia's holocaust remarks, he
claims the "chattering Pakeha classes" quickly lapse into bizarre jargon like
acculturative stress, material deprivation, colonial trauma and collective grief
to describe their angst.
Meanwhile, New Zealanders have acquired a passionate hatred for Americans,
Israelis, and anyone else who is not aware of nuclear issues, globalisation, the
environment, ecology, or animal rights.
Davis says alcoholism and drug abuse continue to take a crippling toll, suicide
is a significant cause of death, and the incidence of violence against children
is among the highest in the developed world.
"Not a very happy paradise."
|
Migrant
skills go begging |
 |
| Adon Kumar says skilled
migrants have much to offer but often feel duped because their
qualifications aren't recognised. Picture / Fotopress |
When university
graduate Adon Kumar came to New Zealand from Malaysia in the 70s, the only
job he could get was in a rubbish-bag factory. Today, Kumar, a tertiary Esol
lecturer, says little has changed for professional migrants - something
Government, employers and migrants are equally responsible for.
"The Government's policy in opening avenues for the migration of skilled
workers is laudable but many skilled migrants feel duped into coming here,"
says Kumar.
He says when skilled migrants qualify under the immigration system, have
their professional qualifications validated by NZQA, and their skills
matched to New Zealand's skills shortages list, they feel assured of being
able to continue their careers.
After arrival, some instead discover they need to gain New Zealand
registration or re-qualification, an expensive, time-consuming and stressful
process where migrants pay to study skills they know backwards.
This problem creates resentment and contributes to the infamous truth of
migrant nurses, teachers and engineers driving taxis or stacking supermarket
shelves.
"Wouldn't it be great if the Immigration Service highlighted the risks
migrants take by packing up and coming here? Then only the migrants would be
to blame for their decisions," says Kumar.
The Immigration Service would argue it does. And why can't migrants tell
each other about the realities? Kumar says it is possible they deliberately
gloss over the truth.
"I have a Malaysian Indian friend with a British accountancy qualification
who is driving a bus. Another is a parking warden. I am certain they don't
write home about it," says Kumar.
Now 55, Kumar has lived and worked in New Zealand for 32 years and moved
from the IT sector to Esol teaching through a desire to help. He learned
from his own experience that succeeding as a migrant means climbing down
from cloud nine to ground zero.
"Many professional migrants need to work harder at their English and develop
a Kiwi social network. You can adapt, adopt and assimilate into the New
Zealand culture while maintaining a unique ethnic identity," he says.
He says professional pride and the associated incredulity migrants feel when
they can't get work in their area of proficiency can be off-putting for New
Zealand employers, who tend to respect people for the way they present
themselves rather than for their career background.
"It is reasonable for New Zealand employers to worry a non-European migrant
might not fit in to their business culture. They know it's easy to hire and
hard to fire," says Kumar.
Although they are typically well qualified, loyal and hard working, skilled
migrants can lack an understanding of the inter-personal skills important to
an employer. "Most don't appreciate that it is not technical or professional
skills but networking, language, customer service, and the ability to write
reports and make oral and written presentations that helps secure a job,"
says Kumar.
While mixing with New Zealanders is important to employment success for a
skilled migrant, prejudicial attitudes can make that networking a nightmare.
"When certain MPs talk about what should be done about, and to, migrants,
migrants get upset and employers start prejudging on misconceptions and
ignorance. Often their perceptions are the result of hearing one negative
story," says Kumar.
He says language and accent differences are a further barrier to
migrant/employer relations, and this is exacerbated when the migrant thinks
their English is "hotter" than it is.
"When I came here I spoke English, had completed the Cambridge School
Certificate and had a university degree in English. But I found Kiwis
couldn't understand me and I couldn't understand them," says Kumar.
To help to maintain sanity during his $3-an-hour stint in the rubbish-bag
factory, Kumar took a night-school course in computer programming, then
progressed through the information technology services sector working for IT
firms Unisys, ComputerLand, Southmark and Fujitsu, at times for salaries in
excess of $100,000.
Kumar was often the only migrant and more often the only Asian to hold a
management position in the companies that employed him.
"Even today, an [Asian] migrant holding a senior position in the New Zealand
private sector is a rarity," he says.
It seems unlikely this will change - Asian migration to New Zealand is
dropping. Since 2001, the number of Chinese migrants has dropped from 8500
to 3455 for the year to mid April, a decrease of 40 per cent. In the same
period, Indian migrants dropped from 8430 to 2307, a decrease of around 27
per cent. While this may please those opposed to all migration Kumar says it
is a loss.
"Migrants bring diversity and a rich cultural heritage into the New Zealand
workforce. They work very hard, they are loyal. They can open up valuable
business network opportunities for their employers. Migrants show a lot of
respect for their employers."
Steps to finding employment for the skilled migrant
For migrants
* New Zealand employers expect people to be competitive, friendly, relaxed,
confident, and assertive. Learn what this means. Practise the necessary
communication skills.
* Employers want to know about you . Talk about your hobbies and interests,
what you enjoy about life, your family.
* Be prepared to take a lower position in a related field. This may help you
to gain work soon after arriving. For example, if you are a doctor and find
you can't work try a related medical field, or medical sales.
* Don't run away from language problems. Push through any prejudice and do
everything you can to build networks with English-speaking New Zealanders.
Join a church or a sports club and talk to New Zealanders.
* When you arrive , you don't have to change your God but you must face
reality. If religious beliefs require you to wear clothing that is
unfamiliar to New Zealanders, it may help to briefly refer to your
appearance in an interview and explain what you are wearing and why.
* You may be desperate, but don't lose your dignity and plead for a job. It
won't work and will diminish your confidence
* Formal professional qualifications from your home country are not a
guarantee of professional employment at the same level in New Zealand.
Spread the word.
For employers
* Try to look beyond cultural differences. Realise that a quiet, shy
personality does not necessarily equate to a person who will not be diligent
and determined at work.
* Look beyond any physical, language and clothing differences and you may
find the best employee you will ever hire. If qualifications and many other
factors stack up, be prepared to take a risk.
* Talk to your staff. How do they feel about migrants to New Zealand? Are
they comfortable working alongside people from different cultures? Often,
the fears of a CEO or senior manager are not borne out by the wider
organisation. |
Jobs that shut out migrants
NZ Herald
17.05.05
by Julie Middleton
For many job-seeking skilled migrants, there is nothing more frustrating,
humiliating and esteem-sapping than the words "no New Zealand experience".
It's a vicious circle. "It twists you and then it destroys you," says PD, a
30-year-old software programmer born in India.
PD, and others like him, flourish their evidence of top-class qualifications and
experience and argue: "How am I expected to get that New Zealand experience if
you don't give me a job?"
Like many skilled migrants interviewed for this series, PD is not willing to
identify himself because he fears publicity will make his job search even
harder.
He has a Bachelor of Arts degree and his skills lie in IT - mainly internet
banking, content management and travel industry applications.
His resume bears names with worldwide currency, such as the bank Credit Suisse
and consultants Arthur Andersen Worldwide. His industry is crying out for
people.
Within a week of migrating from India to Singapore in 2000, PD had three job
offers: "It was mind-boggling trying to pick one."
In New Zealand since November with his Kiwi wife, he has been careful to target
relevant jobs rather than scatter CVs round like confetti. But he says the 100
or so he sent out resulted in 15 interviews and a dispiriting number of
suspiciously swift, automatic responses by email saying that no New Zealand
experience equals no job.
PD's English is near-perfect, his accent no hindrance to communication. He's
articulate and personable. So what's the problem?
"I don't talk like you. I don't look like you," he says bluntly, sitting at the
cluttered table of his Morningside flat. "All they're looking at is cultural
differences."
New Zealand employers, he says, are not racist as much as clueless with people
from other cultures, and avoid dealing with their inadequacies by pushing people
aside with an ambiguous, catch-all phrase.
PD knows this is penalising him - not that it is ever said out loud. For one
job, he was the sole applicant out of 20 to reach the shortlist. He and the
recruitment consultant thought he was in.
But nothing happened for three weeks. When he pushed for a response, he learned
that the client felt he was lacking a particular skill - one that had not been
mentioned in the interview.
The actual reason, PD suspects, was a boss uncomfortable with the idea of an
Indian worker.
To discriminate in employment on racial grounds is against the Human Rights Act,
but PD feels challenging the decision will complicate his job hunt.
A Herald report last month about the "ethnic penalties" employers impose on CVs
bearing Chinese and Indian names brought PD both despair and some cheer: despair
because the story confirmed his suspicions, and some relief to see the issue
aired openly.
In that report, Auckland University academic Marie Wilson castigated employers
for "shutting out a huge resource ... If you want to be internationally
competitive, you can't be provincial in your hiring".
Although PD says he's not too bitter - yet - he is increasingly uncomfortable
being dependent on his wife. He will give the job hunt three more weeks before
giving up and returning to India with her.
New Zealand's first equal employment opportunities commissioner, Judy McGregor,
agrees with PD's assessment of New Zealand bosses as ignorant rather than
rampantly racist.
The phrase "lack of New Zealand experience" is "in some cases ... blatant
discrimination", she says. But more often, it is "code for a number of
uncertainties".
"One, it's about fit - about social acceptance in smaller organisations. If you
employ five people and they all have to work together every day, as opposed to
50 where there would be less bonding, they want to know workers can get along."
But says Dr McGregor, who works for the Human Rights Commission, fit is "a
completely nebulous concept and hides a whole lot of prejudices and stereotypes.
But we wouldn't be human if we didn't do it, and it's silly not to acknowledge
it exists".
"We need to ... think of ways through those prejudices and stereotypes.
"Secondly, many employers are completely unsure because they have never hired
anyone different from themselves. They don't know if it's going to work for
them."
Thirdly, says Dr McGregor, there might be, in some jobs, a genuine need for
local knowledge, but she calls it "a marginal factor".
Leah Gates, special projects manager for Auckland Chamber of Commerce, agrees:
"I honestly believe [employers] are risk-averse, and see the migrant as being
more work, or more concern, or more costs, than somebody who has been here for a
while."
Everyone has tales of migrant taxi drivers (or pizza delivery people, or
supermarket checkout operators) invited here under our skilled migrant category
but woefully underemployed.
"There's a lot of frustration," says Asoka Basnayake, the settlement services
co-ordinator for the Auckland Regional Migrant Resource Centre.
"I heard about one person who attempted suicide. Lots of them get depressed, and
I've come across people who have got into gambling or have suffered mental
health problems. It is really tough."
Chemical engineer Praveen Bhagat, 54, is still riding the emotional
rollercoaster. With his post-graduate skills given the tick by the
Qualifications Authority, Mr Bhagat arrived five months ago from India with his
tertiary-trained psychologist wife Jyoti and their 15-year-old son, Shikhar.
His early elation at finding a better place to educate his son was replaced by
anger and depression as he struck what he calls "roadblocks". Some suggested he
should work in a service station.
He refuses to do that, and is cold-calling in the evenings for a market research
company while watching his savings dwindle.
"I have been very, very angry sometimes," he admits. About a month ago, acute
frustration led to a sudden loss of confidence.
"I wasn't able to talk to people, and I was going down and down ... I was
depressed," says Mr Bhagat.
Although the family remain close-knit and he has made some Kiwi friends, "I feel
I'm all alone here in New Zealand".
Are migrants arriving with realistic job-search expectations? "It varies," says
Mary Dawson, executive director of the migrant resource centre.
"The majority recognise that there is more adjustment involved in being a really
viable employee, more than they anticipated before they arrived here."
This is a country founded on immigration - and at present, nearly one New
Zealander in five was born overseas.
Our population is ageing and people are having fewer children. With fewer people
going straight from school to work, the labour pool has shrunk and employers
need to exploit less "traditional" sources of skilled staff.
They are struggling to find staff with unemployment at its lowest in 19 years,
according to the Department of Labour, and skill shortages exist everywhere.
Those shortages reached 30-year highs by the end of last year, with 61 per cent
of firms saying they were having more difficulty finding skilled staff compared
with the previous year.
But it seems that when immigration rules were changed in 1987 to rank skills
over Anglo-Saxon heritage, both employers and migrants were ill-prepared.
Migrants in general were left to fend for themselves.
Labour Department spokeswoman Michelle Williams says the Government aims to
attract between 45,000 and 50,000 migrants a year, with about 60 per cent of
those skilled - that is, aged under 55, with a certain points "score" for their
education, skills and experience.
Last year's Budget heralded the New Zealand Settlement Strategy, a work in
progress that aims to better co-ordinate all the services that support migrants.
"New Zealand benefits from the skills and resources that refugees and migrants
bring," says Judi Altinkaya, national co-ordinator for a new programme that aims
to better link migrants to information sources.
"It's in everyone's best interests to have them settled successfully."
At various meetings last year, migrants relayed clear messages to the policy
wonks. Settlement information was fragmented, they said. Lack of New Zealand
experience and having a foreign name was a serious barrier to landing work, and
many migrants felt forced to change their names to escape prejudice.
Migrants believed that many employers were reluctant to give them jobs because
they were perceived as high-maintenance. Many were vulnerable to exploitation at
work as they tended to put up with poor pay and conditions, fearing another job
would be impossible to find.
Language and cultural conflicts with employers were cited as a reason for
migrants' high levels of self-employment.
The Government, ran one thread, had an obligation to do more to help people into
a first job.
Also underpinning planning is a longitudinal study that will survey 5000
migrants' experiences until 2010.
The pilot, called Migrants' Experiences of New Zealand and released in March
last year, canvassed 1240 people.
It found that employment rates improved for all migrants between six months
after arriving (53 per cent) and 18 months after (62 per cent). That leaves many
still searching.
People from England, South Africa and North America do better in the job market
than those from Asia or elsewhere, says Department of Labour research manager
Stephen Dunstan.
But being from one of these countries does not immunise migrants against
discrimination, and those interviewed say it is most likely to happen at work.
The fact that many jobs are filled by word of mouth rather than through
advertising works against recent arrivals, Dunstan says.
Some migrants realise that they might need to study locally to get a
qualification that bosses will recognise. But employers, they say, need more
education about what migrants can offer.
Amen to that, says PD. The day after meeting the Herald, he was off to
Wellington for an interview. He had already done well during a half-hour phone
interview and had high hopes of getting a better hearing than usual.
Why? He was to be interviewed by another migrant.
Prospective immigrants can now apply online
26.01.2004 5.01 pm
Prospective immigrants to New Zealand can now begin the process online, the Immigration Service (NZIS) says.
Skilled migrants can now lodge expressions of interest in moving to New Zealand through the NZIS website, NZIS electronic services manager Arron Baker said in a statement.
"Before completing the expression of interest prospective migrants are encouraged to score themselves on the online points indicator facility," he said.
Prospective migrants would also be able to track the progress of their immigration applications through the site, Mr Baker said.
- NZPA
|
Government shuts door on migrants
02.07.2003
By HELEN TUNNAH deputy political editor
Sweeping changes to immigration rules will shut the door to tens of thousands of people already in the queue to come to New Zealand.
The overhaul of immigration policy announced yesterday is also expected to mean some people already living here, but still seeking residency, will be forced to leave.
The scheme will reward potential migrants with "bonus" points if they have an offer for a skilled job anywhere outside Auckland.
The policy outlined by Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel scraps the general skills category for migrants, under which people who get enough points according to set criteria must automatically be granted residency.
The new rules mean most migration will now be "invitation only". The Immigration Service will prioritise applicants, and its decisions cannot be appealed against.
There will be a strong requirement that migrants not only have jobs, but also prove they will be able to settle and contribute to society.
Ms Dalziel said the new scheme was the most significant overhaul in immigration policy in a decade.
It was designed to avoid the problem of highly qualified people ending up in New Zealand in low-skilled jobs because they could not find suitable work.
She did not think it would leave New Zealand with a migrant shortage.
"New Zealanders do not want to see skilled migrants driving taxis, cleaning offices and cooking hamburgers."
Ms Dalziel conceded yesterday that some problems rested with the unwillingness of New Zealand employers to hire workers from a different ethnic or cultural background.
She rejected any suggestion the changes were "anti-Asian".
About 24,000 people come into New Zealand each year under the general skills category criteria.
At the moment there is a backlog of 20,000 applications involving 46,000 people.
Ms Dalziel said about half of those applications, each of which could involve a person and their dependants, would fail to meet the new entry criteria.
About 3800 applications involved people already in New Zealand. Though these applicants would be given priority, some may have to leave.
Ms Dalziel said the policy change meant New Zealand would be able to select people who had the most to offer the country.
"People are still coming to New Zealand with inflated expectations of their prospects here."
She said people wanting to come to New Zealand would first have to register their interest, but would have to meet health, character and English language requirements.
People likely to be offered residency quickly were those with job offers, who had shown they could settle here, or had studied or worked here in the past.
Others might be given up to two years to show they could live here and get relevant jobs.
Applicants would get bonus points if they had sought-after skills, or a skilled job offer outside Auckland.
The policy changes begin to take effect immediately. Only people with current job offers will be able to apply under an interim general skills category.
That will be replaced by the new skilled migrant category, expected to come into force late this year or early next year.
National immigration spokesman Murray McCully said policy should be transparent and fair, and these sudden changes were not.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the changes would do nothing to slow the "flood" of migrants here.
New rules
* System for assessing skilled migrants' applications for permanent residency to go.
* Present points system allows any applicant who reaches the passmark to be approved. Passmarks were adjusted to change numbers qualifying.
* New system allows more discretion and is invitation not application-based.
* Prospective migrants, subject to current language, character and health tests and a fixed points threshold, to be assessed, ranked.
* If no invitation to apply for residency has been made after three months, applications lapse.
* People with relevant job offers may be fast-tracked for residency.
* Others may be invited to apply for residency under a two-year work to residency scheme.
In transition
* Applications made before November 20 last year and undecided yesterday lapse unless the principal applicant had points for a relevant job offer; claimed 28 points or more; had been invited to apply for a permit or job search visa; met Immigration Service requirements for approval.
* From today and until the new system takes effect, general skills applicants for residency must have a full-time job offer.
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Ham roll lands Springbok manager in a pickle
16 March 2003
|
 By Melanie Peters |
|
|
Springbok rugby communications manager Mark Keohane is in hot water with New Zealand customs officials - over a half-eaten ham roll in his three-year-old son's backpack.
Keohane took little Oliver to Auckland to visit his sick granny last weekend, only to be faced with the customs officials from hell.
They cleared Keohane and then searched Oliver's backpack. Shock, horror, they found his lunch box with the roll the boy had been unable to finish.
The lunch box was confiscated and Keohane was slapped with a NZ$200 (abour R900) fine for failure to declare the leftover snack.
After travelling for an exhausting 30 hours, with stopovers in Johannesburg and Singapore and a son who was sick along the way, Keohane was held up at customs for another hour while officials investigated, discussed, took pictures and debated the weight of the ham roll. |
How Government policy changes will affect your firm
23.12.2002
Government policies already in the pipeline will load an extra $43,877 on to the costs of a medium-sized business in the coming year, says a study by Business New Zealand.
A similar study done at the start of this year concluded that policies implemented by the Labour-led Government would have cost a medium-sized firm an extra $26,000 over its three-year first term.
But the latest study shows that three months into the Government's second term, the burden on business has increased sharply.
Business NZ chief executive Simon Carlaw said the study - suggested by the Business Herald - showed that the impact of Government policies on business was gathering pace.
"An extra $26,000 over a three-year period is bad enough. But more than $43,000 a year in extra costs - with even more signalled - shows why business has every reason to feel concerned."
The object of the exercise, he said, was to show that while many Government measures might at first glance appear to have little impact, the cumulative effect was significant.
How much have Government policy changes cost business?
To answer that question, Business New Zealand calculated the impact of those policies on a medium-sized company, with a staff of 20, representative of the 18,000 businesses with 10 to 49 staff.
The study was done in consultation with relevant professional advisers and with real businesses of a similar size.
Carlaw said costs were calculated conservatively and some real business would doubtless feel an even heavier impact.
The results are recorded in an exchange of memos between the chief executive of a fictional company, The Great NZ 7-Day Service Company, and the company's accountant.
The company is asking its external accountant to identify costs that will be incurred or saved next year as a result of Government decisions.
Memo to: Steve, Accountancy Services Ltd
From: Managing Director, The Great NZ 7-Day Service Co Ltd
Steve, Thanks for the cost estimates you prepared earlier this year. Now I'd like to know the extra costs we'll be hit with during 2003. Please give me specifics where you have them and reasonable estimates otherwise, Mike.
Memo to: Managing Director, Great NZ 7-Day Service Co. Ltd
From: Steve, Accountancy Services Ltd
Mike, Here are the actual and estimated Government-generated costs for the calendar year 2003. I've put tax-related costs first, followed by transport, power, environment and labour costs. From the notes you'll see there are also more costs on the horizon that can't yet be quantified, Steve.
Government-generated costs for 2003
Local government rates
Rates are still going up at twice the rate of inflation, as they have for the past 10 years. I expect your rates bill to increase by around 6 per cent in 2003, an increase of $900. The just-passed Local Government Act is expected to bring even higher rates. I've heard our local council is thinking of opening a similar service in competition with you. You will need to get more active in the council's consultation process, including making written and oral submissions on their plans. Allow for 30 hours of your time (@$48 an hour = $1440) next year. Total additional costs: $2340.
Import fees
There's now a fee of $18 (GST inclusive) payable on every commercial import entity and import declaration for goods with a duty and/or GST liability of $50 or more. The amount of commercial goods you import each year would be around the average for a NZ company; the average extra cost has been estimated at: $500.
Note: There are a number of proposals circulating regarding tax, both good and bad. A health tax paid for by employers has been suggested. But there's also to be a review of FBT which could cut down the time costs, a bill before Parliament that might improve PAYE processes, and some work being done on tax simplification.
Transport
The petrol excise tax rose by 4c a litre this year, putting up your company car's running costs by $80 a year.
Because of increased demand, you ended up having to buy that diesel van, despite my concerns over the predicted increase in road-user charges.
Those concerns were well founded: road user charges for three-tonne light commercial vehicles increased by 23 per cent, or around $5 per 1000km travelled. Your new van travels about 20,000km a year so you have an additional $100 cost per year. Total cost increase for 2003: $180.
ACC Motor Vehicles
For diesel-powered vehicles, the ACC component of the licence fee will increase $44 from $176 to $220 a year. Costs for your company car will also rise: petrol vehicles will have a petrol tax increase from 2.3c to 5.1c a litre, giving a cost increase of around $56 a year (20,000km @ 10km per litre of petrol). Total cost increase for 2003: $100.
ACC Employer Levy
Next year the ACC employers' levy will again be 90c per $100 payroll (though it shouldn't be this high, given the large Employers' Account surplus). It's unfortunate that as a small/medium business the discounts available for bigger businesses under the ACC Partnership Programme are not available to you. On the positive side, the average residual levy will reduce by 4c per $100 payroll, saving you in 2003: $290.
Power
Remember your last electricity contract was 50 per cent dearer than the previous one. I've tried to get a firm figure from your supplier for the next contract period but they are not prepared to quote because of uncertainty over gas supply for new thermal generation. Shortage of power means higher power costs. It would be prudent to budget for a 10 per cent increase in 2003: $6000.
Note: The Kyoto Protocol is on the horizon now, so there'll be carbon taxes within five years. This will add a couple of thousand a year given your moderate use of coal for your boiler, plus higher transport and electricity costs.
Resource Management Act
Uncertainty is still the order of the day. We still don't know how the council will treat your resource consent application to expand your premises and we still have no hearing date. There are now several objections to your proposal, your competition included. You will need to keep an eye on the process and keep in touch with the consultant who prepared your application. I estimate 40 hours of your manager's time to keep a handle on things, @ $33 per hour: $1320.
Hazardous substances
The Government has announced an inquiry into hazardous substances in the workplace. I've been advised they want you involved even though we paid $1400 last year for Joe to be trained as a certified handler under the HSNO Act. I will allow 8 hours of your manager's time, @ $33 per hour, to run them through your processes, an extra: $264.
Health and safety training
The Health & Safety in Employment Amendment Act should become law in May. Training for its requirements needs to begin as soon as possible. Approximate cost of health & safety consultant to advise on required policies and procedures and to train supervisors and staff: $2000.
Contingent liability
The Health & Safety in Employment Amendment Act will stop you insuring against any fines arising from a workplace accident. I recommend a contingency provision of 1 per cent of your current wage bill to self-insure against contingent liability arising in relation to health and safety claims, stress and fatigue in particular: $7279.
Safety rep training
Under the Health & Safety in Employment Amendment Act, you must appoint a health and safety representative if an employee asks you to. Such representatives must have two days' paid leave each year to attend approved training courses. You will need to make provision for temping costs for two days for an employee (salary $33,000) at $127 per day along with $60 to the temp agency: $314.
Union negotiations
You will be aware that the Employment Relations Act has increased union involvement in bargaining for collective agreements. You should allow for an extra 10 hours of your time @ $48 per hour plus five hours' consultancy work by your employers' association @ $150 per hour): $1230.
Union training
The Employment Relations Act grants five days' paid leave to union members for "employment relations" training. You can expect two days' leave by a staff member on salary of $33,000 incurring temping costs of $254, and three days' leave by a staff member on salary of $30,000 incurring temping costs of $346, along with a $60 fee to temp agency; total cost: $660.
Increased holiday pay
The new holidays legislation is expected shortly. You are likely to have to pay time and a half for staff working statutory holidays and give them a paid day's leave. You should make provision for an extra 1 per cent on your wages bill: $7279.
Extended holidays
There's a proposal before Parliament to increase the statutory annual holiday allowance from three to four weeks. The current makeup of Parliament makes it reasonably likely that this will be accepted. If so, those on four weeks' leave are likely to claim for five weeks to maintain relativities. That would mean an extra 2 per cent per year on your wage bill: $14,558.
Minimum wage
Minimum wages will rise in March, increasing payroll cost for your unskilled packer by $820 and for your apprentice by $656 in 2003: $1476.
Apprenticeship
This is not a cost but a benefit. Your apprentice has already started adding value to the firm. You might like to consider taking on another apprentice or putting an existing staff member on a training programme once your existing apprentice has finished her qualification, given the available subsidy which amounts to a gain of: $1833.
Going on your past average of one staff pregnancy a year and with no likelihood now that anyone becoming pregnant will resign (that would cost them their parental leave payment), you will need to continue to budget for greater recruitment and training costs for 2003: $500.
Note: Other labour-related policies could affect your budget in 2003.
(1) The training provider you used last year may go out of business because of new funding restrictions on private providers; using another provider is likely to be more expensive.
(2) The new tertiary education legislation makes provision for an industry training tax. You would have to pay that if enough firms in our industry supported it, even though we already pay half the cost of training our apprentice.
(3) The Government has said it will impose restrictions on selling a business or contracting out part of it - giving employees the choice of transferring to the new employer on existing pay, or getting a stated amount of redundancy compensation. If you decided to contract out part of the business you would have to make contingency provision for substantial redundancy payouts.
(4) The Government has indicated it will introduce pay equity policies. I have not attempted to cost this because not enough is known about the proposal.
So Mike, my conservative estimate of additional costs you will face during 2003 is: $43,877. Unfortunately there are not many avenues for reducing these costs, other than laying off staff and reducing the size of your operation. Perhaps you could apply for an Industry NZ grant to offset some of the cost.
Shifting migrant goalposts
09.11.2002
By GEOFF CUMMING
The gates open slowly but they slam shut fast, dashing the hopes of thousands for a new life in New Zealand. In Britain, the United States, South Africa, India, China and Korea, would-be migrants are tearing up application forms. Many will have spent their savings on the paperwork, obtaining medical clearances and English language certificates, or have risked careers by declaring their intention to leave.
Suddenly, New Zealand no longer wants them. Three times since June, the pass mark for general skills applicants has been ratcheted up, ruling out our biggest migration category for all but the most highly skilled who already have a job to come to.
Business and investor categories are also under review and immigration consultants expect criteria to be tightened. They report anecdotal evidence of a crackdown since June on temporary work visas for applicants from non-English speaking countries.
After letting in more than 120,000 in two years, the Government seems to be shutting the doors, as happened in 1995 after a public outcry over similar immigration levels.
The policy flipflops of that era were seen as a response to Winston Peters' abrasive airing of those public concerns. Consultants warn that if the clampdown proceeds, perception overseas will be that Peters is again influencing policy after capturing 12 per cent of the vote in the last election.
Association of Migration and Investment chairman Bill Milnes says any return to the "tap on, tap off" approach to immigration will do lasting damage.
The 2001-02 financial year was the first since 1996 when more people entered the country than left, says Milnes. It has taken this long to overcome the inconsistencies of the 1990s, which at one stage included a $20,000 bond for applicants who failed an English test.
"Once the numbers drop, unless there's a lot of proactive work going on, we'll suddenly find there's no one there when we want them."
Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel says the points system was raised solely to cope with a surge in applications. By September, officials were predicting another blowout of 68,000 approvals this financial year against the Government's desired level of around 45,000 a year.
The backlog is such that it may be two years before numbers fall, causing speculation that the timing is as much about taking the heat out of immigration before the next election as about easing concerns at our ability to cope with the numbers.
But can a country which, most years, loses as many as it gains afford to be this choosy? Employers desperate for skilled labour to maintain business growth say we must keep up the momentum.
"We mustn't take fright or think that the tide has turned," says Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive Alasdair Thompson. "The demand is there - let's meet the demand."
The net migration gain of 37,000 in the year ended September 30 results from an increase in New Zealanders returning home (+3500), a big drop in New Zealanders going overseas (-17,700), and an equivalent rise in immigration approvals (+17,200). All three trends are attributed to our growing economy and the fallout from September 11. With Canada and Australia tightening up and the US considered less safe, New Zealand has become the favoured destination for migrants with children creates uncertainty looking to improve their living standards. But our sudden popularity and the degree of public support for Peters' taunts threaten to unravel Dalziel's efforts to lend consistency and coherence to immigration policy.
The challenge comes amid signs that the policy is finally bringing the kind of benefits which New Zealand has sought since the mid-1980s, when immigration was first tied explicitly to economic growth.
Migrant unemployment and welfare dependency are falling. The Immigration Service is doing better at matching migrants to available jobs and there is more support to help them to adjust to New Zealand workplaces.
Importantly, employers are overcoming their reluctance to hire skilled migrants on the grounds of language barriers and cultural differences.
Thompson says economic conditions and our newfound popularity with migrants provide a rare opportunity to boost business growth.
"We have to take the view that anybody who's willing to come to New Zealand that fits our needs should get rapid acceptance."
Policy tweaks are needed to match applicants to the skills which are in demand and "we have to know they can communicate."
Most agree we have come a long way from the mid-1990s when an influx of thousands of Asian, Middle-Eastern and African migrants to Auckland brought inflationary pressure and swamped schools and health services in suburbs where they congregated.
Large numbers - including doctors, lawyers and accountants - could not get work in their professions and ended up on benefits or driving taxis.
These developments provided ammunition for Peters but raised legitimate concerns about immigration policy and the impacts of growing diversity on New Zealand society.
These issues have yet to be fully debated, says sociologist Paul Spoonley.
"Immigration flow is really part of a more complex picture about what this society is going to become by mid-century," says Spoonley, professor of humanities and social sciences at Massey University.
He says legitimate questions remain about the numbers New Zealand can accept over a five to 10-year period, the ability of infrastructure to cope and the extent to which they might change society.
Unless the host community is engaged in these debates, we risk the type of violent anti-immigrant backlash seen in Europe.
New Zealand still does too little to support migrants once they step off the plane, Spoonley says. In Australia, Canada and Israel the state finances language and cultural programmes and on-the-job training.
Our efforts are more rhetorical than real.
"We lack any official policy on multiculturalism, particularly immigrant multiculturalism, which effectively puts us 30 years behind."
Professor Richard Bedford, convenor of migration research at Waikato University, says there's a need for more discussion about sustainable population levels, although there is no optimum number.
"We need to have a sensible debate about cultural diversity and what [size] are sustainable migrant communities.
"It's an important question for Maori who don't want to be subjected to another swamping by people of different cultural values. There's a lingering perception that immigration is simply designed to bring lots more people into New Zealand and this may make our population grow too fast."
But he says the net migration gain over the past 40 years has averaged 5000 a year. Falling birthrates mean we could double that figure for the next 50 years and still only just pass the five million mark.
The use of immigration to help raise living standards stems from the 1980s when the Labour Government was confronted with declining birthrates, an ageing population and skill shortages as it tried to open up our economy.
The Europeans-only approach to sourcing skilled labour was abandoned. In the early-1990s, the National Government looked to forge closer links with Asia and make up for demographic trends.
But the subsequent influxes of "new" migrants exposed glaring weaknesses in the policy mechanisms - and improvements have come only slowly.
The investor category has long been open to abuse, with many taking advantage of our free education system without any commitment to settling.
An English language requirement for general skills migrants was not introduced until 1995, and some business categories still lack the requirement.
Increased emphasis on job offers fueled corruption, while many bought businesses based on misleading financial statements.
In Dalziel's time, observers say progress has been made. As a new minister, she distanced herself from the policy swings of the past 10 years, and the confusion created for would-be migrants.
"There has been a 'tap on, tap off' approach to immigration that has not only hurt individuals, but also damaged New Zealand's international reputation," she told the Association of Migration and Investment conference in 2000. The new Government was committed to stable immigration policy.
She is adamant that the recent points system changes do not represent a return to the reversals of the past. Nor are they an attempt to remove one leg of Winston Peters' election campaign tripod. The general skills pass mark was raised only because of the backlog of applications already in the system, she says.
Cabinet papers in May and June noted the financial strain which increasing demand was placing on the Immigration Service and the risks posed for infrastructure including housing, education and transport. It could also lead to unemployment for new migrants.
Dalziel says the review of the business categories was signalled three years ago and will include examination of whether people should continue to gain residency simply by buying existing businesses, such as dairies, which they do little to develop.
Dalziel says immigration policy is focused on meeting labour market needs and is not designed to make up for falling birthrates. Sixty per cent of migrants are admitted under the general skills and business categories, and family ties criteria have been tightened.
The new Talent Visa, in which accredited employers can bring in migrants who might not otherwise qualify to fill skill shortages, is gaining acceptance. Those selected are paid $45,000 and gain residency after working for two years.
The points system used for general skills and some business categories is now more sophisticated, with greater emphasis on genuine job offers.
Dalziel agrees that the impacts of immigration and increasing diversity need to be debated. But the benefits of migration are explicit and clear, she says.
"We have spent the past three years getting rid of some of the loopholes that enable people to undermine those benefits such as people claiming welfare within three months of getting here. We are starting to get a handle on what produces good settlement outcomes and part of that is the English language requirement. We are beginning to shift from a country that simply receives applications to one that actively recruits the people we need."
Seven years' delay to find the right job
When naval architect Mark Lu arrived in Auckland from the harbour city of Xiamen, in southeast China, he never thought it would take seven years to find work in his profession.
With eight years as a ship surveyor for the Chinese Government on his CV, he was confident his skills were in demand, despite his limited English.
Instead, Lu, 37, found himself pumping gas and working as a part-time cleaner, while taking polytech courses in computing and boatbuilding.
"It was very difficult to get work," says Lu, who now works for a cutting-edge marine engineering consortium opposite the Team New Zealand base at Viaduct Harbour.
"I guess the language problem was the biggest issue. I found [employers] only needed the best people they could get. Obviously if English is not your first language you aren't their choice."
The turning point came in May when Network Marine Group gave him eight weeks' work experience under a programme for migrants launched by the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and Winz. The New Kiwis programme gives firms a no-obligation chance to fill vacancies with migrants.
Over 370 people have found work since the scheme started last year. But another 3600 are registered.
Network Marine Group director Wayne Shaw says the scheme allows employers to "try before you buy" and overcome any doubts about migrants' capabilities.
Lu is already helping the firm to expand its business in China but has no plans to return.
"New Zealand has a great future," he says.
New Kiwis is one of several programmes started in recent years as Government agencies and employers belatedly try to improve migrant "settlement outcomes".
Chamber chief executive Michael Barnett says employer resistance to taking on migrants is not just down to language barriers and cultural differences. Some migrants, used to specialised roles with large firms, have attitude problems and find it hard to adapt to the generalised requirements of small New Zealand firms, such as doing their own photocopying.
On the other hand, employers should not expect to "sit down and discuss cricket and rugby scores on a Monday morning" with new migrants, he says. Employers need to show tolerance and patience and the rewards can include new ways of doing things and improved access to foreign markets.
Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive Alasdair Thompson says 39 per cent of member firms say labour shortages are a significant constraint on growing their businesses.
"If they can overcome them with skilled migrants they can greatly expand productivity and help to grow the economy to achieve the sort of wage rates we would like to have in New Zealand."
Further reading
Feature: Immigration
Long wait at NZ gates
17.08.2002
By ALAN PERROTT
It's cold, wet and 5am as a group of people hoping to stay in New Zealand grimace outside the Queen St branch of the Immigration Service.
The doors won't open for three hours, but they know that if you don't arrive before 7am your chances of getting inside are slim at best.
A Weekend Herald investigation has found a system struggling to deal with the numbers turning up at Immigration Service offices in Auckland.
The service admitted yesterday that it was struggling to cope with the number of people coming into its two Auckland branches.
"There has been a big increase in demand in the past 12 months," said chief operating officer Andrew Lockhart.
He said the service was going to open a new branch and encourage people to use phone, internet and mail for queries and applications.
Korean Christina Yoo is an old hand at queuing. "Everything is very slow and I have to wait a long time. We are foreigners so we can't complain, but I think you should be more concerned about visitors who come into the country."
Many prospective immigrants enter the country through the Queen St office, yet it has limited cover from the rain and only one toilet - and that is guarded by a coded keypad.
An immigration officer arrives about 7am. He rearranges the growing queue so most get out of the rain and begins assigning numbers from front to back.
The 5am shift get the first 30 or so and begin to wait again.
Peter Krsicka, 21, stands out in his suit. It is the Czech's third attempt to discuss his work permit application.
Yesterday he arrived to find the queue running out of the building, across the small courtyard, down the steps and along the road.
"I was told I was number 200, but by the time I got to the front I was 250. Then they wouldn't give me a number because they wouldn't get to me before they closed."
A Malaysian woman is angry that there is no public toilet. She said that the day before one person was so desperate he soiled his trousers before leaving his place in line.
Joseph Tupa, a 40-year-old Fijian, is also unhappy. He thought arriving at 7.40am would mean plain sailing. Instead, he has to stand on tiptoes to even see the entrance.
His comments about the behaviour of the students clogging the line are greeted with nodding heads.
In the hierarchy of queuers for a visa, overseas students are bottom.
They are accused of queue jumping and brattiness. Most in line see them as the children of well-off parents who don't care whom they offend when they are overseas.
"They should have their own queue, then they would only [anger] other students," says Mr Tupa.
While the Queen St office can deal with about 250 people a day, the smaller Manukau City branch will struggle to get through 75.
The office is on the third floor of the Westfield Shopping Centre, so the queue forms outside the doors of the locked mall entrance.
By 8am, 20 people, including several small children, are standing in the small hallway between the lift and office door. By 8.25am, there are 40 and the corridor is getting stuffy.
Each chime of the approaching lift promises more people, but also a welcome blast of cool air.
Several are here for the second day running. The office was short staffed because of sickness and managed only 45 cases.
Alison is almost in tears. She has been trying to see someone for three weeks, but the newly separated parent has not been able to get to the office before they stop giving out appointment numbers.
She came from England on her mother's passport 32 years ago and needs to prove her residency before she can enrol in a business course.
"I was told I had to get here before 7am, but I have to get my children off to school and then catch a bus. It's very upsetting. I was going to write to my MP if I didn't get in today."
Immigration struggles to cope
17.08.2002
By ALAN PERROTT
The Immigration Service admits it is struggling to cope with the flood of foreigners seeking residency or visas.
"We've already opened longer hours and opened Saturdays so we've extended most of the things we can," says operating officer Andrew Lockhart.
"There is just no more ability to cope with the numbers coming in at [Queen St,] Auckland and Manukau."
Mr Lockhart says a third branch will open within six months.
"The numbers have gone up quite dramatically."
The service is working with universities, schools and polytechnics to streamline student visa applications. One option is to give visas for the entire length of a student's course rather than the six and 12-month permits now issued.
It is also about to introduce an online service for tourists to extend their visitors' permits.
Mr Lockhart says a surge in permanent-residency applications has also put pressure on staff.
In the New Delhi office, 1500 applications landed in one week at the end of June when the Government said it was about to increase the points required for permanent residency.
"The wait for general skills applicants [from New Delhi] is likely to be up to two years," says Mr Lockhart.
"It's quite a bit longer than it has been previously."
The chairman of the Association of Migration and Investment, Bill Milnes, says the delays in places such as New Delhi and at the Auckland offices are unprecedented.
"It makes it horrendously difficult for people and, of course, it makes it not the most pleasant place to work [for service staff]."
An immigration consultant and former Immigration Minister, Tuariki John Delamere, says there are justifiable criticisms but his former department has a difficult task.
Budget limitations mean fewer people are doing the bulk of the work behind the scenes.
Mr Delamere believes the long queues consist mostly of those who left the paperwork to the last minute.
But another immigration consultant, Gene Leckey, says the system is badly designed and treats people "atrociously".
"I keep telling my clients that the average New Zealander is not like that and they will give you a fair go, but there is no service in the New Zealand Immigration Service. They are only there to find reasons not to let people in."
Brian Gaynor: Air NZ: have we learned nothing?
NZ Stock Exchange has gone nowhere in 15yrs
03.08.2002
The proposed sale of a major stake in Air New Zealand to Qantas is bizarre and irrational. The carriers have been fierce competitors for decades, and their relationship has been even frostier than that between John O'Neill and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union.
A sale to Qantas would be a further step in our compulsion to sell strategic stakes in our largest companies to foreign interests. We continue to adopt this flawed policy despite clear evidence that these sales have resulted in a huge transfer in wealth to overseas interests.
Why are we looking to sell a strategic stake in Air New Zealand to Qantas? Why have we been selling our largest companies to foreign investors?
New Zealand has a number of serious economic problems, including the low level of savings and the lack of investment in the productive sector. These problems have been covered many times in the Weekend Herald, but no emphasis was placed on them during the election campaign.
The New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZSE), which should be the primary source of equity for the productive sector, has gone nowhere in the past 15 years. When the market closed on July 31, its total value was just $42.4 billion, the same as it was at the end of 1986. In the same period, the value of the Australian Stock Exchange grew from A$137 billion to A$670 billion.
The NZSE's value is equal to just 35 per cent of GDP, whereas the ASX represents 95 per cent of Australia's GDP. Because of the small size of the New Zealand sharemarket - the market's value-to-GDP ratio should be at least 60 per cent - there is a limited pool of local equity to fund the productive sector.
As the sharemarket is now only 53 per cent domestically owned, compared with almost 100 per cent 16 years ago, New Zealanders have reduced their investment in the NZSE by almost $20 billion since December 1986.
In the same period, they have increased their residential mortgage borrowings from less than $10 billion to $68 billion.
This is a major problem, because we don't have a large pool of equity available to purchase assets from the public sector or rescue companies when they get into trouble.
As a result, we rely heavily on overseas capital. We have become weak sellers of our strategic assets and overseas investors have taken more than their fair share of the spoils.
Our asset sales policies of the late 80s and early 90s were hopelessly flawed. The main emphasis should have been to restore confidence in the sharemarket and privatise state-owned assets through public floats once that confidence had been restored.
Instead, politicians sold Crown assets at low prices to offshore interests and implemented none of the sharemarket reforms recommended by the Securities Commission, Russell Report and Roach Report.
The poor performance of our sharemarket has had a big impact on Air New Zealand in the past 14 years.
When the Government offered 25 per cent of Air New Zealand for sale in 1988, Qantas and British Airways bid $165 million each.
The Treasury recommended British Airways because it believed that Qantas wanted only to stop British Airways acquiring a cornerstone in its transtasman rival.
Air New Zealand's management was also opposed to Qantas and saw far greater benefits from British Airways' involvement.
But the budget deficit was spiralling out of control after the October 1987 sharemarket crash, and Finance Minister Roger Douglas wanted to accelerate the privatisation programme.
After acrimonious debate among senior Cabinet ministers it was decided to sell 100 per cent of the national carrier, but the NZSE was far too small to accommodate a capital raising of this magnitude. The Crown proceeded with a trade sale and a Qantas consortium (Qantas 20 per cent, Brierley Investments 65 per cent, American Airlines and Japan Air Lines 7.5 per cent each) made the highest bid at $660 million or $2.36 a share.
In October 1989, BIL sold a 25 per cent shareholding to the public at $2.40 a share and 5 per cent to staff at $2.16.
American Airlines and Japan Air Lines didn't stay long. Qantas sold its 20 per cent stake in March 1997 and took a profit in excess of $120 million. Australia's national carrier achieved its aim of keeping British Airways out of Air New Zealand and the London-based company subsequently became Qantas' highly successful cornerstone shareholder.
The poor state of the New Zealand sharemarket also contributed to Air New Zealand's heavy reliance on debt when it bought into Ansett.
The initial 50 per cent of Ansett, which cost $540 million in October 1996, was 44 per cent financed by new equity from shareholders and the remaining 50 per cent, acquired for $744 million in June 2000, was 38 per cent funded by new capital.
This was a low level of equity funding, particularly as Ansett itself was hopelessly undercapitalised.
When Air New Zealand ran into trouble last year, the New Zealand sharemarket was far too small to fund its recapitalisation and the Government had to inject $885 million of new capital, $225 million more than it received for the 1989 sale.
The national carrier still needs more capital and the Government is reluctant to make a further contribution. Consequently it wants to sell a proportion of its 82 per cent shareholding to Qantas or have the company offer new shares to the Australian carrier.
But Qantas' interests are purely defensive: it wants to dampen Air New Zealand's competitiveness in Australasia and doesn't want a strong international carrier to take a cornerstone shareholding in Air NZ.
Qantas, along with all overseas companies that invest in New Zealand, has its self-interest clearly to the fore. These are just a few examples of the massive transfer in wealth that has occurred through the sale of strategic shareholdings to overseas investors:
* The Bank of New Zealand was sold for $850 million in 1992. Based on its current profitability and the market value of Australian banks, it is now worth in excess of $5 billion.
* Telecom was sold to a consortium of foreign-dominated interests for $4.25 billion in 1990. When Ameritech sold its 25 per cent shareholding at $8.85 a share in 1999 it made a profit of $6.1 billion and left our largest listed company with a relatively weak balance sheet.
* The consortium that acquired New Zealand Rail had an effective purchase price of just 20c a share after a capital restructuring and repayment. Shortly afterwards, new shares were sold to the New Zealand public at $6.19 each and the consortium members sold all their holdings at $3.60 a share or above. They have left Tranz Rail in a weak operating and financial position.
Finance Minister Dr Michael Cullen would be extremely foolish to allow Qantas to take a strategic stake in the national carrier. His first priority should be to find ways to encourage New Zealanders to invest in Air New Zealand and the sharemarket.
This requires innovative thinking. Air New Zealand could raise new capital through a convertible note issue aimed at institutional investors and a new type of security - called "shareholder partnership shares" by a Weekend Herald reader - for the public.
These partnership shares, which would convert into ordinary shares after three years, could have $3000 worth of travel coupons attached to every $10,000 worth of shares.
No interest or dividends would be paid on these shares and the coupons, which would be transferable, could be used to pay for travel on Air New Zealand's domestic and international routes.
The New Zealand investment community has to start developing new and exciting securities to attract investors back to the sharemarket. Unless this occurs we will have little option but to continue to sell strategic stakes to offshore interests and suffer major transfers in wealth out of New Zealand as a result
Overseas investment at its lowest for eight years
27.05.2002
By BRIAN FALLOW
The Overseas Investment Commission approved $1.2 billion of net foreign direct investment last year, the lowest level since 1993.
It also approved the sale of 37,000ha of land, the lowest level for eight years.
It is not that the commission has become harder to satisfy; of the 326 applications, 81 per cent of which related to land, just two were refused.
In 2000, it approved $5.3 billion of net investment, but that was boosted by the sale of Fletcher Paper to Norske Skog and Fletcher Energy to Shell.
Over the past five years the average level of net investment approved was $3.8 billion.
The commission's approval is required when an overseas investor is acquiring at least 25 per cent of a company or asset worth more than $50 million.
The net investment figure reflects only that proportion of the value of the company or asset which is acquired by non-residents from New Zealanders.
The gross figure, which includes transfers of New Zealand assets from one foreign owner to another, was $4.3 billion last year and $14.7 billion in 2000.
The three largest applications last year were Allied Domecq's purchase of the shares in Montana it did not already own, worth $1 billion gross and $623 million net, TelstraSaturn's purchase of Clear for $435 million and NRMA's purchase of Norwich Union for $405 million.
The latter two transactions involved no net inward investment as Clear and Norwich were already wholly foreign-owned.
The $1.2 billion of net investment is consistent with Statistics NZ figures on the stock of foreign equity holdings in New Zealand, which increased from $47.5 billion at the end of 2000 to $48.7 billion by the end of last year.
National Party finance spokesman David Carter said the figure was a vote of no confidence.
"New Zealand is simply off the radar screen of investors," he said. "In order to attract foreign investment New Zealand needs to have a business environment better than anywhere else in the world. This means dealing to regulation, compliance costs and high tax rates."
But Finance Minister Michael Cullen said: "Too much of the foreign investment in New Zealand in recent years has been acquiring existing assets and capacity. The real value to the New Zealand economy comes when investors bring greenfields investment here, creating new jobs and expanding our productive base."
The Budget set aside $14.5 million for an agency to encourage foreign investment.
Immigrants looking for a licence to thrive
16.07.2002
By ALAN PERROTT, CATHY ARONSON and AINSLEY THOMSON
On any given night, queues of bored university graduates are engaged in multilingual conversations throughout the inner-city as they wait to ferry Aucklanders home.
The city's taxi drivers, almost exclusively male immigrants, have a surprising amount in common.
A Herald random survey of 10 taxi drivers found that nine had tertiary qualifications and previous professional jobs, were not born in New Zealand, and told similar stories in heavily accented English.
First cab on the rank belongs to Dimitris Mazi, an Iranian civil engineer.
He has lived in New Zealand for 10 years.
As his Iranian qualifications are not recognised here, Mr Mazi took science and engineering at Auckland University.
But then the bills began to mount.
"I had to sacrifice [studying] to earn money for my family," he said.
He would love to return to his profession, but time is passing and his hopes are fading.
Abdullah Alizai said: "Driving a taxi must be an important job in the country. You need many qualifications to get a job."
The former engineer in Pakistan gets little joy from driving but has to earn a living somehow.
Harbreet Singh left India a year ago looking for a better life.
He was a quality food technician for four years after graduating from Punjab University and also has a postgraduate degree in computer applications.
After taking his CV from employer to employer for three months, he landed a day job at a pie factory and drives taxis at night.
"I had nothing left to do. I had to be a taxi driver, but I get no sleep."
Another Indian, Sukhpeb Singh, also has a degree and is an electrician by trade. He struggled to find work here until he found a temporary job labouring on a farm.
A Pakistani computer programmer who did not want to be named said he was embarrassed to be driving a taxi, but had been unable to even get a job on a help desk.
"You have to do it; you have to make money."
When not driving he is studying programming at AUT and is confident of getting a job after graduating next year.
These stories are nothing unusual, but Government initiatives are intended to make them less common in future.
In June 2000, the Immigration Service allocated $1.2 million to establish three two-year pilot programmes, marking a policy change away from regulating entry into New Zealand and towards helping migrants settle as best as possible.
The programmes assist support groups working with refugee claimants as well as funding orientation courses for families of refugees and services for new migrants.
Three websites (www.newkiwis.co.nz, www.intonz.com and www.hi-q.org.nz) are now available to help migrants into jobs.
Auckland Ventures has set up the Hi-Q website, which is aimed at highly qualified graduates.
Spokeswoman Mary Bhalla said that while some New Zealand qualification requirements prevented many from working in their chosen professions, the site aimed to match a migrant's skills with other positions.
Among those welcoming the change is Rolf Bertschi, executive officer of the Auckland Refugee Council, who holds three professional degrees but had to pick courgettes after arriving from Switzerland five years ago.
"It's about time. It would have helped when I arrived," said Mr Bertschi.
"People only do things when they have to and there's a need.
"We need highly qualified people working to their ability."
He said the websites would assist those with language problems who became flustered trying to find the right words.
Mr Bertschi said about 70 per cent of refugees had tertiary qualifications.
"These are the people who get out and try to help themselves.
"They deserve more help."
Qualified but rejected
Abdullah Alizai shifted to New Zealand for a better life but has found that the system works against him.
"When I left Pakistan and moved to New Zealand in March I imagined it wouldn't be long until I found a job.
"After all, I have a masters degree in electrical power engineering from Manchester University, 16 years' experience in the electrical power industry, and in Pakistan I was a manager at a substation.
"I easily passed the immigration requirements to gain New Zealand residence. I thought I had nothing to worry about. I was wrong.
"Four months and many job applications later I find myself not working in a job I was trained for, but working as a taxi driver.
"When I talk to other immigrants I hear their stories about how hard it is for them to find professional work. Many of them also drive taxis. Some have been doing it for a long time.
"I uprooted my wife and four children from their home in Punjab so they would be safe; so we would not have to worry about the violence there.
"We love our new country and our life here. My children have started school and we are settling into our home in Mt Roskill. But we worry. We worry that I will not find a job and we will have to survive on my small wage.
"I am not sure why I am having difficulty finding employment. Maybe it is my accent? Sometimes I get interviews, usually I don't.
"I have been told that I need New Zealand experience but how can I get this experience when the only job I can get is driving a taxi?
"I was told to apply for lower-level jobs. I took this advice, but I did not get those jobs either.
"I have done a course to improve my CV and interview skills. Hopefully this will help.
"For the past month I have stopped driving taxis so I can concentrate on job-hunting.
"If New Zealand wants taxi drivers, shop workers and petrol station workers it should change its immigration criteria and adopt a lottery system like the United States.
"There are many unqualified people in the Third World, who, given the chance, would like to come here."
- as told to AINSLEY THOMSON
Alien feelings rise in Godzone
13.07.2002
This Letter to the Editor (below) encapsulated the sentiments of unease that are providing political fodder in an election campaign in which immigration is an issue. PETER CALDER talked to its author to tap into the feelings that are fuelling the debate.
Sir,
Today I waited in a queue at a Howick bank. There were five people ahead of me. Three were Asiam, Two were Indian, both the tellers were Asian and the manager sat in her office - an Asian.
The sixth person in the queue was me - a third generation (New Zealander) of English descent, with blue eyes and blond hair.
Nobody was speaking English and I just wanted to cry. Today i felt like an alien in my own country.
J Wilson, Howick
Waiting in a queue at her local bank, she noticed that everybody else in the building was Asian.
She felt like a stranger in a land she had always called home and, she writes, she wanted to cry.
In the midst of an election campaign in which immigration is emerging as an issue, the letter struck a chord.
Its writer was giving clear voice to an idea often grumbled in undertones.
It seemed worth putting a human face to the words, worth asking what would move someone to write in such anguished tones.
The letter-writer, Janice Wilson, seems stunned when I call. Plainly leery of attention, she reluctantly agrees to meet for coffee during her lunch hour.
On a wet Thursday, Howick village, where she works behind a retail counter, looks pretty pakeha.
A pair of youngsters, walking hand in hand and chattering gaily and a busking teenage violinist are the only Asian faces.
Even in a food hall, the only diner enthusiastically piling sushi on her plate is a stern-faced, blue-rinsed pensioner.
Elsewhere, except for a Chinese-language notice outside a bank inviting customers to address inquiries to Janetta Kwan, the street looks conspicuously occidental. The sign on Muzza's Pies implores us to "buy one or we'll both starve".
Janice Wilson's bank, it turns out, is down the hill a bit at Meadowlands where I will later see a far higher proportion of Asian faces.
The bank will explain that most of its customers are Asian, that customers like discussing sensitive financial matters in a native language with bankers who speak it too.
In that sense, they say, their staffing policy is deliberate, though it is not deliberately exclusive. On another day, Mrs Wilson would have seen European staff members.
Mrs Wilson has lived in Howick for the best part of 30 years. She came when the phones were party lines, raised her family here.
She and her husband, a painter and decorator, flirted with the idea of living in Queensland, but settled for staying home.
But, she says, it's all changed. "There isn't a suburb you can go to that isn't absolutely inundated with immigrants."
One of the more vexed sentences in the English language begins with the words "I'm not a racist, but ... "
Mrs Wilson never uses that phrase and it is worth noting that she enjoys working for a business that is owned by a man of Asian extraction.
Nursing a cup of hot chocolate in her favourite cafe, she insists she has nothing against Asians in particular.
The scene in the bank, she says, is "just symptomatic of what the community is now like".
"I felt like crying," she explains, "because I didn't feel at home."
Where we're having lunch is Winston Peters country.
He addressed a packed and enthusiastic meeting there in the 1999 campaign and there's no reason to doubt that his message on immigration is ringing bells out there this time round.
Mrs Wilson, who, incidentally, says she is not a New Zealand First voter, laments the changing face of Auckland.
"I don't think anyone in Wellington knows what we're talking about," she says.
"Everyone here talks about it. It's a major topic. We go somewhere and say: 'We're the only whites here'."
Mrs Wilson's experience will be familiar to plenty of other pakeha New Zealanders.
Who, in Auckland at least, hasn't stood at a crowded city intersection or taken a city bus only to notice that every other face was visibly foreign, usually Asiatic?
In the 1996 census, 83 per cent of the population identified as European but official statistics show that only 70 per cent of births in 1999 were of children whose parents would call them European.
The face of the country is changing and white-skinned New Zealanders of British ancestry are finding the adjustment hard.
It's worth noting that it's not the first time the country's natives have been shocked by an upsurge in immigrant numbers.
Maori in the late 19th century must have felt profound unease as they slowly realised that newer settlers were beginning to outnumber them, though they didn't tend to write to the paper about it.
There's a visibility question as well. Our largest immigrant numbers have always come from Britain and Europe and don't stand out in a crowd.
Many immigrants now are as conspicuous as ... well, as pakeha settlers must have looked in the King Country in 1850.
The numbers don't offer Mrs Wilson much comfort either.
The Asian population is expected to double to 370,000 by 2016 - with a disproportionate number settling in Greater Auckland which bears the brunt of immigration growth.
But, says Associate Professor Cluny Macpherson, an Auckland University sociologist who has long studied the effects of immigration, New Zealanders need to be changing the image they have of themselves.
"The message has been there for a long time," he says.
"We have always thought our distance would protect us but the very lifestyle, the cleanness and greenness that we use to advertise ourselves, is what attracts people here.
"We cannot expect them not to want a piece of it."
Dr Macpherson is not without sympathy for the feelings of people like Mrs Wilson. But she wrote to the paper because she found her situation in the bank remarkable.
"It's going to get less remarkable. People need to get used to the fact that they are not going to understand everything that's going on around them as well as they did in the past."
Mrs Wilson remains uneasy.
"You've got to change, I know that," she says.
"But I still think it's happening too fast."
One man's poll: Debt, poverty and the brain drain
11.07.2002
By SIMON COLLINS
Amid the neoclassical glory of Tim Shadbolt's remarkable renovated Invercargill, radio marketer Mark McCarron worries about the brain drain.
Despite the no-fees policy of the local Southern Institute of Technology, backed by Shadbolt's city council and local trusts to attract students to the city, the chilly winter streets of Invercargill are almost deserted.
Young Southlanders who have gone to university or to do other training outside the province have had to pay fees and take out student loans to pay for them.
"We are losing a whole generation of people flying off to pay off their debt," McCarron said. "We can't afford that. We are isolated. The ones we do have need to stay here.
"If we are losing them overseas, we'll be like a second-division rugby union, a feeder to the big players in the world markets."
At the other end of the country in Auckland's Aotea Square, psychology student Laura Sheppard is worried too.
"I don't think things are going as well as they could," she said. "The Government is not spending enough on things that are important, like hospitals and education. They could do a lot better."
Even at this time of relative economic prosperity, many of the 600 New Zealanders interviewed for this series are concerned about deeper underlying trends.
Education, the basic entry ticket to participation in the modern world, is becoming a mounting financial burden to families forced to fork out for school fees and save for university, and then to young people who enter adulthood with debts averaging $12,831.
Then, once they embark on their careers, many can earn more in Australia, East Asia, America or even Europe, where real incomes have grown faster than in New Zealand for 40 years now.
Politically, no one seems to be successfully capitalising on this unease to win votes in this month's election. That is perhaps because there are no pat answers.
Most of the people who mentioned education in the survey were thinking first of all about the teachers' pay dispute. Almost all thought the Government should pay teachers more.
The next biggest concern was about the costs of tertiary education. In students' minds, debt worries often crowded out all other issues.
"I'm going to end up with a massive student debt. That's such a huge thing on my mind at the moment," said Renee Menzies, an 18-year-old arts and law student from Torbay.
Adrian Downey, studying business at the Universal College of Learning in Wanganui, said: "I think something could be done for student loans. I have a $12,000 loan and it's increasing."
Naomi, a 36-year-old English language school worker eating her lunch beside the Avon in Christchurch, is thinking of taking her family to Australia because her daughter is coming up to university age.
"The student loan thing is a real worry. My daughter is going to need one in three to five years," she said.
"I've been in Australia. No one there gets less than $15 an hour. Here people come out with degrees and can't get work for more than $10 an hour."
Terry Tyler, a 47-year-old electronic serviceman from Napier, said: "I do feel that we can do something more to make it easier for students. We don't ask the unemployed to pay back their benefits."
The next most common concern was a general lack of finance for schools. There is still a widespread view that education should be totally taxpayer-funded.
"Why shouldn't education be free again? Where has all the money gone that used to be there for it?" asked Hamilton photographer Rob Carter, 50.
A Kumeu farm labourer who gave his name as Chris said education was free up to and including university in his home country, Croatia.
"Included in the taxes which you pay is education, and still you could survive. An ordinary factory worker could afford every year two months' holiday."
Perhaps surprisingly, only 15 people mentioned concerns about the actual quality of education, including large classes, declining discipline and a loss of values.
Deon and Stefanie Thuynsma, a couple in their 40s who came from South Africa to Howick two years ago, said discipline was not strong here.
Stefanie, a social worker, said it was "a disgrace" that New Zealand schools were recruiting students from overseas without organising local families to look after them.
"Small kids are allowed to come here without supervision, and it's all for money."
Napier secretary Lenore Johnson, 55, said the education system was not working. "There are too many kids who can't speak properly and can't write."
Bert De Jong, a high school teacher in central Hawkes Bay, said the system was "not up to teaching all New Zealanders - still teaching just the top layer of society".
But Papatoetoe mother R. Harris, 41, disagreed: "Things are okay. My kids are being educated well."
Five people urged more apprenticeships. Mark, a primary schoolteacher from Hobsonville, said the Labour Government's "modern apprenticeships" were "not as practical as they have been in the past".
But he said the real problem was that "for those who go out and seek employment, there's no jobs there".
"We are getting a group of people coming through, rightly or wrongly, who have been inducted into the unemployment syndrome.
"In my opinion there should be one-eighth unemployment. It's damn near a quarter in my opinion at the moment, and by that I mean meaningful employment, not just putting them into any job that is going."
Although the official unemployment rate is only 5.3 per cent, the total of people aged 20 to 64 who were on unemployment, sickness, invalid or domestic purposes benefits, accident compensation or pensions at the time of last year's census came to 22.4 per cent of the age group. Many of them would work if they could.
Even though most people who mentioned the economy in this survey regarded it as positive, a significant minority were still struggling to find work.
Darrin Tawharu, 33, a Palmerston North jobseeker who has spent 16 years in jail, said he was going to Work and Income NZ (Winz) looking for work nearly every day.
"They just write me out an appointment: 'Fill this out and come back in two weeks'," he said. "I took it back yesterday and they said, 'Come back in two weeks again. I think they just sit there and do nothing."
Graham Coffey, 42, worked in an Invercargill woolstore for 10 years until it closed down. He went to Wellington looking for work, but has returned to Invercargill and has a gardening job for just three days a week.
"It's getting worse. All the jobs are getting lost," he said. "You could walk into a job years ago."
Duce August of Rotorua's Pl@net4 cafe said: "A lot of my mates worked in forestry; there were jobs there. Now there is nothing, they are unemployed. Most of them are trying to live off the land."
Once on benefits, many people feel trapped. If they get work, it can cost them so much in taxes, reduced benefits and the costs of clothing and commuting that they end up no better off.
Mandy, a 29-year-old working solo mum in Tauranga, said that after allowing for petrol and parking, she was just $15 a week better off than on the DPB.
"I do it because I want to," she said.
Monika Maynard, who has a computer business in Manukau, said a friend of hers was better off staying on a benefit than she would have been taking a part-time job.
"She would have to get a fulltime job, and even then she wouldn't get enough," Maynard said. "It's unfortunate. Who wants to live in a social welfare state?"
Tauranga computer consultant James Igglesden, 21, said his partner and her child could not afford to move in with him because, with a new business, he could not give Winz a proof of his low income that would let his partner get a partial benefit.
"I have a very small business. The system doesn't allow me to use it for a year or two until the business becomes stable."
Wanganui nurse Celia Holm, 50, said beneficiaries should be allowed to earn a lot more before losing the benefit.
"I don't think we really need higher wages, but we do need commensurately lower tax for lower income earners."
Some people agreed with Finance Minister Michael Cullen in placing the blame for unemployment on the Reserve Bank.
"We just start to look like we are picking up, and interest rates rise," said Tauranga pulp mill operator M. Brott, 30.
Retired Southland farmer John Morrison, a former Act candidate who is voting Labour this year to stop the Greens getting the balance of power, said National list candidate Don Brash had been "the arch-interventionist" during his term as Reserve Bank Governor.
"Every time he opened his mouth the dollar went up, and of course the exporters paid for it," Morrison said.
"He believes that he knows what is right for our dollar and for interest rates. I always maintain the interest rates should be sorted out between the borrower and the lender."
His successor as president of Southland Federated Farmers, Don Nicolson, said the biggest barrier to growth was the cost imposed on farmers and other employers by the renationalised accident compensation scheme, local body rates and Government spending.
"People need to learn to value what we've got left of the productive economy."
Several recent immigrants from Asia suggested that New Zealand could learn from countries such as Singapore, which has achieved one of the world's fastest economic growth rates by attracting foreign investment with measures such as five-year company tax holidays and low tax for expatriate workers.
"Your tax system is too high. The Government is not pro-business," said a former Singaporean executive.
An engineer from India, Mr Rojya, said New Zealand should attract jobs by adopting Act's policy of cutting taxes to 18 per cent.
"There is ample land. Why don't you want to bring in the information technology industries, where there is no pollution?
"Let the big companies come and invest here with lower amounts of tax. All the big companies are ready to come here."
The problem for any Government after the election, of course, is that all these ideas are contradictory. It is hard to see how we can spend more on education and cut student fees, while at the same time cutting taxes and being more generous towards beneficiaries who get low-paid work.
Teacher Bert De Jong said every New Zealander needed to take responsibility for finding the right answers.
"This is not a country of revolution," he said. "This is a country of, 'Let others do the job, we will wait and see and criticise.'
"New Zealand needs to wake up and say, 'Hell, we are still so far behind people in Western Europe in terms of economic development, technology, educational development.'
"It's taking responsibility. Each individual should take responsibility for the goals which he or she commits to achieve, and have more national thinking."
One man's poll: New life as a second-class citizen
10.07.2002
By SIMON COLLINS
It was the year 2000. The number of ethnic Asians in New Zealand had just exceeded the number of Pacific Islanders.
At James Cook High School in Manurewa, a group of Indian students asked the school for financial support to take part in that year's Auckland Secondary Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, which had become the world's biggest Polynesian event.
"The Maori cultural groups were funded," said one of those Indian students, Vikash Naidu.
"We asked the school to support us. It didn't."
Last month - two years later - that decision still burned in Naidu's memory when he was interviewed near the Auckland University of Technology, where he is studying business and computing.
He is not alone. Many of the 78 Asians, Africans and Pacific Islanders among the 600 New Zealanders interviewed for this series feel they are still not being treated on a par with other Kiwis.
Most of them are glad to be here. As reported on Monday, much higher proportions of Asians and Africans (76 per cent) and Pacific Islanders (56 per cent) rated the state of the country as "good" or better than did Europeans (49 per cent) or Maori (33 per cent).
That was not just because of our relatively unspoilt environment and our democratic freedoms, although these remain our most powerful beacons to people fleeing Fiji, China and other overcrowded autocracies.
A surprising number of immigrants also rated New Zealanders as more welcoming and less racist than people in other places they have lived in, such as Australia and even Canada.
But there are serious tensions, especially in Auckland, which is home to two-thirds of the country's immigrants. In this respect two quite different countries emerge from this survey: Auckland and the rest.
The Maori and Pacific Islands Festival is a microcosm of the conflicting pressures as the new Asian migrants look for a place in a predominantly European society still struggling to come to terms with its growing Polynesian element.
The teacher in charge of the Indian cultural group at James Cook High School, Rosalind Daniel, said at least 30 Indian groups from various schools took part in this year's festival at the Manukau Sports Bowl in March.
James Cook paid its students' fees, but the Indian performers were consigned to the Niuean/Cook Islands stage on the Thursday, the day before the main event.
"We are not given our own stage, so while it's still under construction getting ready for the festival on Friday, we are allowed to use it - while the carpenters and all the other people are still tinkering with it," she said.
"To be honest with you, we are not integrated into the festival. We have to push ourselves to get any registration or any time to perform."
Daniel, who came to New Zealand from India 25 years ago, said the Asian groups met two weeks ago and discussed the possibility of a separate Asian cultural festival. But it would be a divisive plan and they don't want to do it.
"I can understand that the name is the Polynesian Festival," she said.
"So maybe we should have a multicultural festival rather than just a Polynesian Festival, because Asian students are coming into this country and we are not recognising their presence at all.
"I wish they would recognise that we are part of New Zealand too."
Highly qualified adult immigrants find the same kind of resistance among Kiwi employers.
A Singaporean who travelled the world nine times as international marketing manager in his home country could not find anyone interested in his contacts and skills here and has ended up buying a Lotto outlet in a suburban mall.
"I have a doctor friend, a cancer specialist who graduated from a British university. He is not recognised as a doctor here," he said.
"The country is short of cancer specialists. Immigrants go and apply for a job. Sometimes employers look at the names and they don't even get a reply. Or they say, 'Do you have Kiwi experience?"'
A 45-year-old Iraqi engineer with years of experience overseas said he had gone back to university to do a local master's degree after trying for three years to get a job.
Georgia Molia, a Solomon Islands hairdresser who came here via Australia two years ago, said Australia made sure its immigrants found jobs.
"Last night, I saw a doctor - an immigrant - working in a supermarket. Why don't you make use of people like that?" she asked.
Elizabeth Tuanai, 31, a senior secretary in Samoa, has been unable to get a job since she arrived in Auckland six months ago.
Her friend Anita Auai, 32, a clerical worker at the Starship hospital for 10 years, has been looking for a new job for a year. "I think there is discrimination by employers. They discriminate by what race you are."
Another Pacific Islander who is studying at the Auckland College of Education feels it is also harder for immigrants to get public funding for projects.
"If an association of Pakeha apply for money, they get it," she said.
"If an association of Pacific Islanders apply for it, they don't.
"I am so angry with the way the Government treats us."
Many migrants resent - in terms which most Pakeha would shrink from expressing - the scholarships, preferential entry quotas and Treaty of Waitangi settlements which they see Maori people getting.
"The Maoris don't work," said 20-year-old communications student Cici Zhang, a recent arrival from China.
"They don't have ... very good qualifications but they get money from the Government. I think it's unfair. They just sit there and the Government will give them money.
"The Maoris often do some very bad things," she said. "I don't like it. Maybe sometimes I hate them. Sometimes they are very rude."
Even Pacific Islanders such as Cara Santos, another AUT student, are trying to understand Maori treaty claims with virtually no knowledge of New Zealand history.
"The people who tried to sign the treaty really have no claim on it because they chose to sign. It's not the Government's fault, it's their fault," she said.
Many have no wish to learn more.
"The Maori thing is not going to apply for me, I'm a Muslim," said Adil Balizi, a Moroccan working for Air New Zealand at Auckland Airport.
A Chinese real estate agent in Howick said: "I'm not voting. I can't be bothered. I don't know how many years we'll be here."
Yet despite all this, there is room for hope. For one thing, the immigrants appreciate even the kind of democracy that we are experiencing this month.
"We feel if we live here the Government will listen to us," said Howick College student Gevin Yang, from China.
The Singaporean executive who ended up in a Lotto shop said: "You've got a democracy which is a real democracy."
He later emailed asking the Herald not to use his name with his comments about Singapore because "I have family living on that island and they may be persecuted because of my open comments".
Georgia Molia said: "There is racism here in New Zealand, but it's not as bad as in Australia. I can walk down the street in Australia and people can throw words at me just because I'm black."
A Fiji Indian student echoed her: "I have lived in Australia as well. There is more equal opportunity here. The economy isn't that great but it is improving. There is more opportunity here in work and lifestyle."
Alvin Woon and Mary-Ann Hong, both young Malaysians who have grown up on the North Shore, said: "The economy is pretty good compared with a few years ago and we haven't got many complaints about anything else."
Tamea Vaisima, an Otara mother who came from Tonga in 1974, said things had improved. "New Zealand has got better since 1974. They got used to the Island people being here and other nationalities.
"It's got better for all of us."
In last year's census, 29 per cent of Aucklanders claimed Pacific Island, Asian or other ethnicity apart from European and Maori.
For comparison, only 11.6 per cent were Maori. (Some claimed more than one ethnicity, so the figures have some overlap.)
Ethnic groups other than Europeans and Maori made up only 8.1 per cent of the people in the rest of the North Island, and only 5.2 per cent in the South Island. Maori easily outnumbered them everywhere except Auckland.
This geographical split has created a potential for misunderstanding. Many migrants believe, as a Samoan/Chinese student in Manukau put it, that "there are just as many Samoans as there are Maori". Or Chinese, or Indians.
In Auckland, that is almost true - last year's census showed it had 154,680 Pacific Islanders and 127,629 Maori. There were also 165,264 Asians and other non-Europeans with 754,749 Europeans, giving Auckland increasingly the flavour of a true international city - and a completely different feel from, say, Hastings or Wanganui.
Many Pacific Island families have been in NZ for a generation, yet 67 per cent of their people are still concentrated in Auckland.
By comparison, the city has 64 per cent of New Zealand's Asians.
So it is primarily Auckland which is going to have to find a more secure place for the newcomers in its schools, workplaces and communities if the new groups are to contribute their full potential.
The rest of NZ can do its bit with those who find their way there. But for the most part, immigration is a challenge for Auckland.
Pundits forecast migration loss
24.05.2002
Migrants have been flowing into New Zealand thick and fast but the rate of gain is easing and pundits are forecasting that a net loss looms.
Bank of New Zealand chief economist Tony Alexander said the net gain of people coming in over those leaving, 1740 last month, "underpins housing, retailing and labour force growth".
But "come 2004 we may face a net loss again as overseas economies perform better", he said.
April's gain was a 2430-person turnaround on April last year when there was a net outflow, and takes the inflow for the past 12 months to 28,060 from a loss of 11,400 a year ago, he said.
"This is good as the 28,060 people have boosted our population by 0.7 per cent."
However, April's 2430 improvement over the previous year was the weakest turnaround figure since August, Alexander said.
It was down on March's 3640 and a peak of 6610 in January, so the rate of gain was easing.
Reasons behind the migration inflow include a "September 11" effect which has led to a 16 per cent rise in New Zealanders returning home.
But Alexander said annual migration flow had averaged minus-2100 since 1972, so the boom would not hold beyond the middle of next year, especially as the rate of gain was already easing.
- NZPA
Prebble slams immigration policy
09.05.2002
By AUDREY YOUNG
Act leader Richard Prebble last night attacked immigration policies and accused Helen Clark of "creating the conditions for a New Zealand Le Pen".
"I accuse the Prime Minister of trading in people to make political capital," he said in a speech to the Dunedin Club.
"The Prime Minister has no right to give away future New Zealand citizenship just to have some good foreign press."
He attacked her decision to allow 140 refugees into New Zealand this week from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. He said the genuine Afghani refugees were in Iran and Pakistan - countries which border Afghanistan.
"New Zealand is rewarding those who pay people smugglers and queue- jump by offering them places here."
And judging by the Tampa refugees - brought to New Zealand last year after being rescued at sea by a container ship - they would be "unqualified, uneducated and unemployable".
Mr Prebble said the Government had been reckless in its immigration policies. It had "created all the conditions for a New Zealand Le Pen", he said in reference to the anti-immigration French politician Jean Marie Le Pen who polled second in France's presidential ballot.
"Ordinary people have been ignored. Now immigration is putting up their mortgages."
Mr Prebble predicted that within five years this week's 140 refugees would "become 300" because of family reunification entitlements.
He said former foreign minister Don McKinnon had let 50 Somali refugees into New Zealand to help win a place on the UN Security Council.
"The 50 original refugees have grown to a community of 500. Most of the adult Somalis are still unemployed."
The consequences of the policies were that Australia ended the "Anzac birthright", the right of New Zealanders to live in Australia and receive all the benefits of citizenship.
He said Australia did it because 90 per cent of all refugees let into New Zealand from Vietnam and Cambodia were now living in Sydney and Melbourne.
Immigrants' fake qualifications foiled
05.05.2002 7.00 am
More than 120 immigrants have been caught using fake qualifications to pretty up their backgrounds in the past 18 months.
Figures obtained under the Official Information Act from New Zealand Qualifications Authority show 42 applications were found to be forged, false or altered in the six months to January.
From July 2000 to June 2001, 80 applications were turned down for being false.
The authority has a specialist unit of 70 people dedicated to cross-checking qualifications.
Most problem documents come from India, Bangladesh, China and South Africa.
The authenticity of immigrant qualifications has been thrown into the spotlight after the sacking of Maori Television Service boss Canadian John Davy.
Police have been called into investigate Mr Davy for alleged fraud after he falsified his credentials which included a MBA degree from the Ashland School of Business at Denver State University - it doesn't exist except as a name used on counterfeit credentials sold over the internet.
In the six months to January NZQA checked and verified the backgrounds of more than 4000 people. Figures show the authority had another 2600 applications waiting verification of one or more qualifications in the middle of February. The authority doesn't keep records of the average time it takes to check an application, but it will try for 10 months and make up to three requests from education institutions to verify them.
NZQA qualifications evaluation manager Mary Neazor said yesterday the level of forgery was getting very sophisticated thanks to improving technology and internet use. She couldn't comment on specific cases of forgery because it would identify the practices.
NZQA communications manager Bill Lennox said it had a three-step system for checking qualifications which included making sure the institution existed, checking the qualification existed within that institution and then whether the qualification had actually been awarded to the person concerned.
"For example sometimes someone might have a qualification from a university that exists, but the qualification hasn't been offered for 20 years and they say they got it just a year ago."
Ms Neazor said staff regularly attended seminars overseas on the most up to date forgery techniques and the authority was hooked into a number of international networks. She believed its checks operated well and identified false credentials. The authority would notify police and other agencies if a problem was found.
"For us the quality of checks is the most important thing to ensure New Zealand's interests are protected."
- NZPA
