Immigrant & refugee capacity

I for one expect the next 35 years to witness the largest transnational migration in the history of mankind, I'd be happy to simply close NZ to new immigrants/refugees altogether, alas I don't think that would be either fair or practical. We will in all fairness, have to allow refugees from Pacific Island nations escaping from rising sea levels, and based on our increase carbon emissions since the last COP, have a moral obligation to do so.

Yep, over the next decade or two we will be looking at closing our borders simply because we won't be able to support any more people in Aotearoa. We're pretty close to max now.

While we have unemployment we should be stopping immigration anyway. If we can't look after the people already here then we certainly can't look after any more.

Refugees we should probably increase to about 10,000 per year - until we close the borders.

I like the idea of keeping borders always open, but sustainably controlled - quota etc.

It's always great to have international exchanges, sharing and transfer of skills and new kinds of expertise, continually striving to diversify our population, develop our capacity for empowered multicultural integration and build international networks and relationships of reciprocity in a sustainable manner.

I like the idea of keeping borders always open, but sustainably controlled

It's an attractive idea but the question we need to ask and answer is: How many people can Aotearoa support at a reasonable living standard without importing resources?

That is the answer to an ever increasing population - it can't happen.

It's always great to have international exchanges, sharing and transfer of skills and new kinds of expertise…
…and build international networks and relationships of reciprocity in a sustainable manner.

We can do that via the internet.

continually striving to diversify our population

That's a good idea by itself and probably warrants continual immigration to some degree - inbreeding isn't pretty.

develop our capacity for empowered multicultural integration

Multicultural societies really don't work. What happens is that the two or more cultures merge to become a new culture. If they don't merge than strife is pretty much guaranteed.

Two or more cultures merge to become a new culture - I guess that's what I meant by "empowered integration" - an ability that can be developed

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/04/climate-change-population-crisis-paris-summit

Colin, what resources does NZ have to import that it can't find, or develop right here? If we know what those are then we can plan. For example we no longer have much manufacturing here, but we still have some mothballed facilities and some expertise.

We only have four million people. England, is 'full' but has 53 million, 63 million in the whole of Great Britain ... which is roughly the same size as us. It seems that we have PLENTY of room.

Some big challenges that I see are:

1. our remote-ness (for getting stuff that we might need) ... but this can also be an advantage.
2. our larger companies are owned and managed off shore which means that they do not operate for the good of New Zealand
3. many of our brightest people are overseas so we do actually need to import some brains. (by the way, the education system in Syria was pretty good, as is the Middle Eastern attitude towards education)

I am somewhat shocked to hear parochial, fear driven views ... Let's be positive and look upon this as a challenge, as an opportunity ... not a threat/

Colin, what resources does NZ have to import that it can't find, or develop right here?

From my own, admittedly limited research, none. We can, as a matter of fact, support our present living standard with what we have in NZ.

For example we no longer have much manufacturing here, but we still have some mothballed facilities and some expertise.

We actually have a credible amount of manufacturing here. What we lack is the high tech manufacturing and we could, with our present base, build that up. It would mean shifting some people out of some industries such as farming.

My essay on How an Economy Works

England, is 'full' but has 53 million, 63 million in the whole of Great Britain ... which is roughly the same size as us. It seems that we have PLENTY of room.

That's up for debate:

The National Farmers Union is expected to forecast a sharp rise in the amount of imported food as British farms convert into renewable energy sites and tourist attractions to stay afloat.

It's estimated that NZ could feed ~20 million people with our present farming practices on the present amount of land farmed (~54% of the country). We could, of course, increase the amount of land farmed but we wouldn't have environment left and it's the environment that keeps life going on this world.

many of our brightest people are overseas so we do actually need to import some brains.

Although the former is correct, IMO, we actually have many of our brightest still here. The problem is that our present system has thrown them on the scrap heap. We need to change that.

I am somewhat shocked to hear parochial, fear driven views

Obviously not talking about me. I only ever work with the physical facts and not emotion. As I say, once you start looking at the economy in physical terms things change remarkably over what we're taught in school and through the MSM.

@williamasiata ... indeed, the NZ culture (in a simplistic view) takes the best of British with the overlay of Maori values.

I think that the government has a large part to play in culture, just as the Management team in corporations do. So, if the Internet party were to have a policy on CULTURE (as opposed to immigration) .. what would it be? what would we want to encourage and preserve, what would we want to discourage and erradicate, and how would we achieve this?

Refugees are a special case as they are fleeing to somwhere safe
and it would be inhumane to refuse, how many ?
We have pacific islands in or teritory / juristiction to give priority to from sea level rise.
War, politcal and religious refugees are a global issue
some sort of proportionality based on capacity needs working out, we cant just absorb endlessly
but we do have capacity.
Unemployment is going to increase as a proportion of the population in the future and so far the nation( &world) are in denial of this reality. Thats part of the widening gap, automation and inovations happen at the labour end of the market mostly.
Curently unemplyment suffers a bigetry and resentment even persecution and yet the majority of workers will complain about the lack of time. A livable wage for everyone would facilitate both those in and out of work to share the work and the time more evenly. Not exactly compatable with winz near punishment mindset. Nor with competitive,
grab as much as you can, im all right jack dredominate culture.
Long way to go here.
Im advocating that farms reject mono culture and return to mixed crop stock and tree units, abandon agrichemicals as far as possible. Somerimes the way forward is back. This is also counter to the current way which is extreme efficiency, minimal man power, speed and automation driven by debt slavery and profit seeking.
Farming as per an accountants point of view almost exclusivley.