Oh so now NZ wants to talk about about immigration!

Its a 6.4 on the sarcasto-meter(TM)!

Its funny isn't it that the immigration debate in New Zealand can limp along with barely any discussion on exactly how problematic the situation is for years until a Czech drug smuggler gets permanent residence then people loose their minds.

There has been some good coverage over time, such as Steve Kilgallon and Dileepa Fonseka's excellent series of articles on Stuff about exactly how widespread migrant exploitation in NZ is and how badly our immigration system is being rorted, but I have not herd the words "migrant exploitation" or "immigration rort" in the last six months as much as I have herd the words "Czech drug-smuggler" in the last week.

And perhaps its because there did not seem to be an obvious and easy way for the media or the desperately sinking National party to make a political football out the issue with those other two where as its been incredibly easy for people to focus down on the who and how of the recent decision rather than look at the bigger picture and ask exactly whats going on with immigration in this country.

Can we say dog whistle politics here. Yes we can.

Ian Lees-Galloway, as Minister of Immigration, made his decision about Karel Sroubek in one of the three following contexts:

1. Lees-Galloway (or one of his minions*) did not actually read past the cover sheet and just made their decision on the easy (but incorrect) emotion angle of the case,
2. Lees-Galloway read the file but the file the file did not have all the info so the decision was made with incomplete information, or
3. Sroubek was given residency as part of some deal with the Police, or some other agency, as part of his connection to the Hell's Angels and drugs smuggling in NZ.

Any of the above could be true but since we are listing facts about this case then lets list a few more.

4. Immigration NZ is run like a fast food franchise with lowly paid employees, quantity over quality decision making, outsourced  and offshore functions** and a risk adverse senior management which knows the problems exist but will not face them,
5. Appeals to the Minister of Immigration only make it to their desk when ALL other avenues are closed and things are looking BAD (as in nobody wanted to approve your application), and
6. Its a total crap shoot when your case is gone to the minister for appeal, anything could happen.

In my five years at Immigration NZ I watched all sorts of cases get declined at every single other level and then go to the minister for final judgement and in some cases people that should definitely not be allowed into the country got to stay while those who had cases with the most compassionate grounds ever get rejected outright with no reason or explanation, because at that level the Ministers power is effectively absolute and there is no appeal if you loose (or in the case of those highly questionable individuals who got in: won).

That said the Minister can also make the right decision and one of the most heart wrenching cases of my career, that I was unable to approve despite it being a obvious "yes", finally got approved later by the Minister; to my utter happiness, and relief.

And for the record the Minister that I, and most of my fellow Immigration officers, felt made the best decisions was Michael Woodhouse.

For whatever reason when it usually needed to be declined he did and when it needed an approved he approved while, in my time at least, the worst  Minister was Jonathan Coleman who we could only believe was deliberately doing the opposite of what should be done, every single time, as there seemed to be no other rational explanation for the atrocious range of appalling decisions he made (including allowing such a group of obviously questionable individuals to remain in NZ that I can only assume he had an obvious agenda to give residency to human rights abusing monsters over genuine cases***).

So the real questions in these circumstances is not "why did the minister approve Sroubek" but how can Peter Thiel get the red carpet treatment but Karel Sroubek cannot?

Or was he in the process of getting such treatment before the media turned it into a cheap morality play?

I'm not arguing for Sroubek to stay, I'm in the kick him out camp but I am also for stripping Mr Theil of his citizenship and that of anyone else who lies about their history and background (like National MP and Chinese Spy Jin Yang) because whats the bigger threat to the integrity of Aotearoa's immigration system and its democracy: a Czech drug smuggler or a Billionaire with a political view that lies somewhere to the right of Ann Rand and an intelligence agent of a foreign power with dictatorial political system and notorious human rights record as a sitting MP?

Hmmmmmm. Gee, I wonder what the answer could be?

But I have blogged about issues with Immigration in NZ before (here, here and here) and as easy it is to cry for the head of the current minister the reality is that we (or more correctly successive left and right governments) have decided that cheap labor is the key when we have an economic system which wants to keep wages low no matter the cost and that the only way to offset Kiwis heading across the Tasman, for better wages and living standards, is to over-inflate and over hype our international education system and ignore scams like getting married (and residency) for money on a large scale.

Yet the likely outcome is Sroubek will go while Theil and Yang get to stay because apparently Kiwis can only get outraged about immigration issues when its drugs and not abuses by the wealthy,  obvious cases of espionage, migrant exploitation or marriage-for-residency scams which makes this less a genuine issue and more the most recent round of "wont someone think of the children!".

So lets not turn the issue into another round of political point scoring or as an obvious distraction from a genuine high crime, like National selling slots in their party to the highest foreign bidder, but instead say "yes" to kicking Sroubek out but lets also get rid of that billionaire guy who got citizenship only because he's filthy rich and that lying intelligence operative for a hostile power who is also, mysteriously, still roaming the halls of parliment.

And for those who think this is just some rant against foreigners let me add in that I am all for citizenship to those who genuinely want to be here or have no other place to go (like most refugees), who come to NZ because its a better place than where they come from or because they have a brighter future here than back in their homeland (read your average economic migrant).

NZ is built on the successive waves of immigration that have come to our shores but the current one has become less about genuine immigrants adding to the New Zealand experience and more about selling citizenship which opens us up to looking less like a functioning democracy and open society and more like a sleazy tax haven or banana republic.

I could go on here and write about how most immigration advisers (espically the prominent ones) are more part of the problem than a solution or how INZ has stripped staff and resource from its compliance arm to to such an extent that only the most brazen crimes get investigated even while staff and managers know exactly how bad things are, but those are posts for another day.

Suffice to say that Labour did not do itself any favors when Jacinda told people to "read between the lines" but the narrative in much of the media that Iain Lees-Galloway should be shaved and sterilized lest he escape, mate with Clare Curran and thus further dilute Labours political gene-pool with drooling mongoloids is overblown media focus at best (and as someone who like hyperbolic statements I know what that looks like) and desperate false flagging by National at worst because one crappy decision by the Minister of Immigration is just the tip (and not the summit) of the mess that immigration in this country has become.

If Sroubek goes so should Thiel, Yang and all those other "economic citizens" who will have the dollars to buy a seat in Parliament because its just not right.

Vootie!



*-Because, if my memory serves me correctly, the ministers private secretary can decide or advise on immigration appeals to the minister as much or the minister.
**-Immigration's document collecting functions are outsourced and many decisions are made in offshore branches by locally engaged employees working to fill what is effectively a quota
***-Id love to say more but all IOs agree not to disclose what they know when they leave INZ so thats as much as I can say without getting  my "hands smacked".

To deport, or not to deport: Is that the Question?

Question: when is a citizen of a country not a citizen of said country?

Answer: When you’re a criminal deportee.

It seems that New Zealand’s immigration and citizenship policies are coming back to bite it in the behind, or are they?

The recent attempt by the media to manufacture some outrage over “those bloody Australians” and their “evil” immigration policy regarding their plans to deport NZ passport holders Alex Viane or Jacob Symonds to New Zealand misses the real issues around how Kiwis are treated in Ozzie and how we hand out kiwi citizenship on rather loose grounds.

Firstly, yes Australia is treating some Kiwis living in Oz like crap by cancelling/changing their visa conditions and attempting to raise university fees in what should been seen as a blatant attempt to abuse the reciprocal relationship that we currently have.

And yes, Australia’s treatment of refugees in places like Manus Island and their policy or turning back the boats of people trying to cross over to Australia from Indonesia is draconian and cruel.

And yes, the deportation of some Kiwis from OZ for very minor matters is pretty rank stuff.

However, both Symonds and Viane are not your average deportees and are, in fact being deported due to their criminal records, to the country that they have citizenship in: namely New Zealand, and criminal deportation is not the same as normal deportation. If you are a criminal deportee (in either NZ or OZ) the means by which you can be removed are much shorter and sharper.

The fact that New Zealand has had to resort to diplomatic measures to try and stop this indicates how weak our position is because at the end of the day, regardless of why they are actually being deported, they hold citizenship in NZ and that makes them citizens of NZ and thus are fit to be deported back here.

And we can’t refuse to take them because in doing so we would be behaving like places such as Zimbabwe or one of those other fun countries which don’t accept people being deported back there and that would make just as bad as them or worse, as we would be seen as hypocrites.

We might not like Australia deporting Kiwis with criminal convictions but NZ has similar legislation in place to do just the same thing and can and has done such things in the past and that what things like sovereignty and citizenship are all about.

Also statements by PM Jacinda Ardern that Australia should only be deporting those who have “roots” in New Zealand is just her flapping her rather considerable gums, and she knows this, because once you give someone citizenship it does not lapse simply because you haven't lived in New Zealand since or don’t have any “roots” here, it remains until the day you die.

The real issue here is that getting a New Zealand passport has become a matter of convenience for many people and we give them away like candy so the potential for abuse or unintended consequences exists.

We gave one to creepy billionaire Peter Theil with no questions asked when he had barely spent any time here and was essentially in the same boat as Viane: an individual who gained an NZ passport (and therefore citizenship) with no real “roots” here nor any clear motive other than wanting to have one.

In Viane’s case it may have been because his parents wanted to live in Australia and therefore made use of the reciprocal relationship agreements in place between us and them (as NZ passports are historically easier to get), he got his papers and went off to live in Oz and there is nothing particularly wrong with that unless we want to radically reshape how we grant citizenship. 

And for Symonds his parents may have just left NZ when he was very young (such as my daughter who was born in NZ but lived in Singapore from the age of six months to eight years old) and lived in OZ ever since, nothing there takes away his right to be a Kiwi.

But in Theil’s case he got to become a Kiwi by being immensely rich and then ripping off the NZ government for even more money and probably laughed all the way back to his platinum plated private jet before zooming back to the US; and at the end of the day that is far worse than Viane or Symonds as we can only assume that Viane had to meet some actual criteria while Theil was well below the requirements and got in anyway because he* had “friends” in the right place.

None of these men have clear roots in NZ and none of them have contributed anything positive to NZ yet we gave all of them the go ahead because?

In many ways this is the chickens coming home to roost for our immigration and citizenship policy’s while average Kiwis in Oz still get short shirt from the Australian govt and a little support from their own.

In reality the only defense is to be a lot more careful when granting citizenship and (my personal preference) not giving out dual citizenship (ie if you want to be a Kiwi you have to renounce any other citizenship you hold). It would not solve all the issues but it would put the kibosh on people backdooring Australia and then getting deported back to NZ when they become criminals there and make us less attractive to those who want to use NZ as some sort of bolthole for the ultra-rich.

And then there is the issue of these people being criminals: is that why the media is making such a stink about this? What has their being a criminal got to do with NZ wanting to use diplomatic means to prevent their return or Jacinda saying that they don't have "roots" here? Obviously it does or it would not be mentioned so prominently and especially when the media is usually on the side of people who are fighting deportation from NZ.

I would love to see Jacinda Ardern going on TV and denouncing Peter Theil as having no “roots’ in NZ and saying that NZ will be using "all diplomatic means" to get his creepy ass out of NZ but I am not holding my breath.

There is a lot more in the NZ/OZ immigration and citizenship debate than just a few crims being sent back to where their passport says they are from but you would not know that form the way the media has spun this out.

Kiwis love to talk about how great being a Kiwi is but we often undervalue it when we make citizenship such any easy deal and the cases of Theil, Viane and (possibly) Symonds demonstrate that. 

*-Or in reality, his money because if some other gay libertarian German with a taste for human blood (but a whole lot less money) rocked up and asked for citizenship his welcome would have been far less accommodating methinks.

Jian Yang: A spy in the Beehive?

Oblique strategy tip of the week: Try reading the sections of this post from back to front.

So the Jian Yang as a Chinese spy story keeps on getting more interesting the further we dig and kudos to Matt Nippert and the New Zealand Herald for continuing to run the story while the only other mainstream media outlet (Stuff) remains conspicuously silent* on what should be a red hot story.

And Nippert’s most recent update makes it clear why it’s not a red hot story: “closer engagement with China”.

However just because we do a lot of business with China does not mean that we should ignore what is clearly a potentially serious security risk or believe the ridiculous claim made by Yang that this is racially motivated just because he is Chinese as there are a few extra threads to this story which need to be pulled before we might actually get an answer to our question: Is Yang a spy?

What is a spy?

Thanks to James Bond films and TV shows like Homeland many people have the picture of spys to be tuxedo wearing, martini swigging (shaken not stirred!), STD infected men, engaging in an ongoing series of high adrenaline stunts in an attempt to stave of midlife crisis or blonde haired, neurotic and mentally unstable women who get to wear hijabs and constantly worry if their co-worker is secretly working for Al-Qaeda**.

However the reality is a lot more prosaic as most spies could be simply defined as “government workers with high security clearances”*** who sit at their desks, work through files and cases, work on policy and spend more time sitting in meetings than is good for them. In short the same kind of work that most people in government do, albeit under the shroud of secrecy.

A spy can also be someone who is in a position to pass on information and documents to another party in a clandestine manner, usually to a foreign power (although industrial spies do exist) which is far closer to what Yang might be than having to drive an Aston Martin backwards down a snow covered slope while fending off masked attackers on skis with your bullet firing umbrella.

What is spying?

Again as with Bond and Homeland the idea of what spies actually do is usually very far from the truth. Spies collect information, do research/analysis and deal with issues of security risk, which usually comes in the form of a security vet or assessment (of a person, group or situation), which will be familiar to anyone who has ever had to get a security clearance.

There are some in the trade who do engage in things more traditionally seen as spying such as surveillance (both physical and signals), black bag (B&Es and various other genuinely covert activities like wet work) however these are a small minority compared to most who work from desks in offices like other government employees.

And like the wider definition of a spy noted above, spies can also be people in far more prosaic roles such as a student or a business person who just happens to have access to the source of information that an intelligence agency wants.

This often plays out as an intelligence service going to see a particular person who is going to travel to the country of interest and either asking that person to gather some information for them; for example if the person was a student going to study at a particular overseas university they might be asked to gather information on a particular topic taught by a particular professor, enrol in that course or simply attend a lecture by that person.

Then when said person gets back to NZ they might be asked to come in for an interview or simply write a report on what they saw and learnt which means that the person who gathered the information is never in the employ of any intelligence agency (and may never fully know the extent of what they have done) and the level of plausible deniability can be maintained.

And while some staff in foreign embassies (such as a military attaché) may be spies (or at least reporting to a second agency other than their own) spies can also (as seen above) exist well outside of any official channel and are simply doing their job of gathering information quietly and surreptitiously without attracting attention.

This makes Yang’s claim that the people he taught were not spies but “simply collecting information” seem unknowingly self-incriminating and duplicitous as Yang appears to be deliberately trying to paint a “spy” as the Hollywood trope rather than the reality he would know by having taught them.

So Yang in his role as both student in Australia and MP in NZ could quite easily be a spy without having to be a card carrying member of some secretive organisation as both his positions both here and in Oz would have given him access to a high level of information which would be exactly the stuff that a foreign intelligence agency would seek to obtain.

Just looking through the list of things the select committee he sat on saw is enough to raise a few eyebrows let alone consider that if Yang had been under orders to influence a certain bill or piece of legislation to favor Chinese interests.

None of this actually means that Yang is a spy but it does dispel the image that Yang is trying to paint with his denials that he is not a spy because he only taught people who “collect information” because that is exactly what spies do.

So why Yang?

In short the following facts apply to Jian Yang as has been listed in the media:

·         Was a member of the Chinese communist party

·         Attended and taught at a school for spies in China

·         Was told not to reveal his true educational/employment background when leaving China

·         Would not say who told him not to reveal this

·         Failed to fully declare this background when coming to NZ (and possibly in Oz)

·         Has never been given a security vet by the NZSIS or any other NZ agency

·         Was directly courted by National to join the party

·         Sat on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee for three years

·         Was removed from the above committee once his background was known

Yang is probably now under severe scrutiny by the NZSIS and other members of the Five Eyes, as international media interest in this story has been high (with the Financial Times in Hong Kong work with Newsroom NZ to first break the story, which is definitely worth the read), and while both National and Labour would probably hope this would go away its likely to not go away as there are far too many questions in this story and Yang’s background to just sweep it under the rug.

What questions?

In my previous work at Immigration NZ, dealing with things high risk, the main tool when deciding how to deal with any potential risk was to look over the individuals background and history, check their motivations for coming to NZ (and to go back to their home country) as well as any other clear links or issues which might arise before making a decision.

And in Yang’s case, doing things like failing to fully disclose his work and study history and the nature of his background are automatic concerns right off the bat. The fact that he appears to have knowingly withheld this information (because he was told by unknown persons not to) makes this omission even worse and makes his claim of being loyal to NZ a lot less credible.

It also raises the exact type of questions that have been raised; of exactly what he did hide; why did he hide it; who told him to hide it; how strong his links to those organisations still are, what, if any, information did he have access to which if passed to China would be of concern (possibly most if not all) and how much National knew when seeking him out to join the party.

Did anyone check Yang’s background prior to joining the National Party?

Both Immigration NZ and Citizenship would have checked Yang when he applied for a visa and to be a NZ citizen but unless there is something obvious (like a warning from a third party about the candidate) both agencies rely on the applicant to be honest in the information they provide and for that information to be in full and with sufficient detail to do the basic checks needed to process these types of applications.

So when Yang failed to declare his full background there was a big hole in his history and while it would be nice to imagine that an eagle eyed person working on those files might have noticed that and bothered to follow it up, it’s clear that they did not*4 and accepted Yang at his word.

Then there is the issue of the statement made by National Party President Peter Goodfellow (an incredibly rich man with a background worth Googling) that while Yang has not had a security vet he was vetted by the NZ political lobbying firm Saunders Unsworth.

Who is Saunders Unsworth?

On first hearing this, my ears pricked up as the idea of a bunch of lobbyists doing a security vet seemed stupid at best and majorly concerning at worst.

And upon checking out their website stupid went out the window and in waltzed concerning with a big grin on its face.

Seems that Saunders Unsworth, apart from shilling for a lot of large NZ business and overseas multinationals (because that’s what a lobbyist is), has a very obvious connections to China as a link (in Chinese on its main page) leads to a page which contains the following information in Mandarin:

The Company may arrange to introduce you to key decision makers within the Government of New Zealand and to assist you in obtaining regulatory approvals. It is also possible to provide your organization with advice on New Zealand government or public relations decision making.

Leaders of our Chinese team are trade experts Charles Finny. Charles has served as a deputy director of the New Zealand Embassy in Beijing for four years, proficient in Mandarin, and has served as director of the New Zealand Business Office for three and a half years in Taipei. Before taking over the post of Chief Executive Officer of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce, Charles has been the chief executive officer of the New Zealand Foreign Affairs Trade Department during the signing of the China and New Zealand Free Trade Agreements.

Apart from the fact that the company seems to be actively courting business in China and China only (as there were no other foreign language links on the site), its staffed and run by Ex national Party members or those favorable to the party as this rather bitchy little snippet from their profile of Steven Joyce shows:

His involvement with the Exclusive Brethren led to him being named as one of the ‘Hollow Men’ in Nicky Hager’s pathetic beat-up publication.

So a National party aligned bunch of lobbyists with clear links to China did the security vet on Jian Yang and declared him safe to bring into the National party and subsequently get access to all sorts of classified information and documents as a MP sitting on a select committee, it’s the kind of suggestion that ranks up there with vampires would be ok to run blood banks.

So is this more a problem with National?

Yes it is, yes indeed as National has been so far in bed with China and Chinese influences that it’s no surprise that someone like Yang has ended up where he is as why not, it’s business as usual for National.

So far the response of Bill English has been to do what he always does and simply say nothing of substance (truly he learnt well from John Key) and stall, delay and obfuscate as much as possible.

His comments directly pertaining to Yang simply sound like Sargent Shultz shouting "I know nothing!"  but whats new in Toy Town?

So what next?

With National out of government and Yang off the select committee for the moment we could all just pretend that the problem is dealt with but as a MP Yang still has potential to get access to documents and information and until properly vetted he remains a risk and as Nippert notes:

The New Zealand SIS are said to be "extraordinarily rigid" in its approach to foreign citizenship, to the extent that marrying a foreign national - or even being born in a friendly country such as Australia - raises significant hurdles for anyone attempting to secure clearance.

I can attest to that “rigidity” as I had to fight tooth and nail to get my clearance when I worked at Immigration simply due to having lived outside of a Five Eyes country for 10 years and that the NZSIS has no direct links to verify any information or documents I provided*5.

And this is not a racial or a “Chinese” thing. While not always happy with some of the behaviours of NZSIS or the GCSB (I remain a believer in intelligence reform) I don’t balk at the idea of national security or the need to ensure the security of New Zealand by doing checks on people in certain places and positions.

So that leaves me in the same position as the Daily Blog where I would not be surprised if Yang was found to be a severe risk or even if he stood up and announced he was passing information back to China as there is far more information to indicate that he is a risk than any possible bona fides he might have.

The problem, as Martyn Bradbury notes, is that National is so infested with this issue that Yang is really just the most obvious indication of how beholden National is to China (Judith Collins and Orivida or Maurice Williamson and Donghua Liu are the next the most obvious examples but as we know the rabbit hole goes a long way down for National and China) and in fact it would not even surprise me at this point that National was fully aware that Yang had intelligence links back to China and deliberately got him into the party and onto that select committee as part of a deal rather than any “accident” or “oversight”.

At a minimum Yang needs to be fully vetted by the SIS and NOT Saunders Unsworth.

What about Labour?

The incoming Labour government gets to make hay of any bad news that Yang generates for National but in the long run they too are keen to play with China but there just might be  more scruples in Labour than National, as well as less  links to China and Chinese businesses, to be able to moderate those influences down to things that are not outright espionage, spying or criminal behavior.

Perhaps not relying on Suanders Unsworth to do their security vetting is probably a good start.

Is this really that much of a risk?

China might be a major trading partner but they are not a democracy or a place which holds any political ideals to which Kiwis might aspire (unless you are a member of National then "all aboard!") and its human rights record and history make it a risk no matter how much milk product we sell there.

Also when you consider the Chinese use of cyber weapons and cyber warfare (defined as Advanced Persistent Threats or APTs) and things like the recent hack of Australian Defence secrets (not proven to be Chinese but it nicely illustrates the risk of how close to home these things can be) and the extent of Chinese influence in NZ (and how frantic National is to deny it) and in the Pacific (defined as soft power) Yang is just one person, but one person in a key position, with the perfect training and background to hoover up information or have a detrimental (or China flavored) effect on NZ laws and legislation, and in an environment of rising Chinese influence then the answer is YES!

And if there is a risk and it cant be mitigated then the natural response of the Squirrels (and any sane person) would be to cut Yang from seeing anything which would be of issue. The only other option is to court/allow political interference which given how this is possibly a Five Eyes issue may not be possible. This is not like an electoral secretary for an MP calling up to argue for a visa for the MP's "cousin" this is something which if allowed is a full blown risk with little to mitigate it.

So is Yang a spy?

We will probably never know for sure but you don’t need 100% certainty to have concerns about an area of risk and if the shoe fits then I reiterate my comment that if he was to be found a risk then I would not be surprised one bit.

*-another good example of why having the only two mainstream media outlets in NZ merge might not be a good idea.

**-because haven’t we all.

***-that’s a direct quote from one I know.

*4-Having seen how overstretched and often understaffed both INZ and DIA are in these roles I have some sympathy for the people completing these files

*5- To their satisfaction at least, I could prove my background but just not to their standards without going through a lot of extra hoops before I got my clearance

Why NZ is still not ready to talk about immigration but lets try anyway!

So, with the budget having dropped onto New Zealand’s collective political conscious (like a wet sack full of moldy vegetables) I think it’s safe to talk about immigration for a while.

Not that I want to talk about it (because as I noted in my post last year I don’t think NZ is ready to discuss it) but because my friend Hardly (who wrote a guest post for me on KP last year) asked (possibly dared) me to.

But I have not only been putting off writing this post for several weeks now I have also re-written this post several times before I just said to hell with it, made a nice cold jellybean*, put on some Neon Indian and decided to confront the writer’s block head on.

So, let’s not write about immigration lets write about why I cannot write about immigration and see if we can’t wring a few insights out of the subject in the process.

So, to start it’s not that this is not a topic I know nothing about, in fact it’s the opposite because apart from five years working for Immigration New Zealand (INZ), heading up various teams there dealing with cases deemed high risk, a decade living and traveling across Asia as well as working in international education (both onshore and off) I have experienced the immigration process from both sides of the line as well across a variety of formats and can not only relate cases, statistics and policy I can also speak from the direct experience of someone who has processed visa applications but also from that of someone who has had to wait in endless lines for one, never quite knowing what the outcome will be.

But if it’s not that then perhaps it’s the sheer complexity of the subject that is making me balk writing about it because when people talk about “immigration” they are usually referring to either one specific aspect of immigration (for example as how it might relate to rising house prices in NZ) or in rather nebulous terms (as in when people start to discuss the “immigration problem”) which lump a rather complex subject under one heading and damn those torpedoes!

Alas it’s not that either because as noted above previous work and life experience means I don’t usually let myself get side-tracked by interesting but related issues or revert back to some ginormous catchall (as the media often does).

Because while it’s tempting to blame the housing hernia on immigration (or immigrants or whatever related factor you want to ascribe) the reality is we have a government which has been aware of the problem and decided to do nothing about it rather address the fact that million dollar houses in Auckland (driven up by a wide variety of factors to which they have decided to do nothing about) might be the real problem.

Add to this that the usual reversion to the ideologically tempting (but ultimately pointless) knee-jerk arguments and positions (such as immigrants stealing jobs), as public discourse, as well as the media, is wont to do can easily be stifled by focusing on the actual issue at hand (again, for example, those insane house prices in Auckland), marshaling some basic facts and seeing that while immigration related aspects might contribute to the problem the afore mentioned knee-jerk reaction (such as saying that its all the fault of “those bloody immigrants” or (my favorite) “I’m not racists but…”) just makes one look like a jerk and does not help the debate one iota.

Then perhaps it’s the binary nature of the meta-argument which sees two equally viable but opposed arguments, those of Globalism vs Nationalism, locking up my synapses by both having positions to which I agree with.

One which posits the inevitable consolidation of smaller political units into larger as the world becomes more and more interconnected against the one thing which restrains and regulates those self-same forces from wrecking wholesale havoc by acting without limits and at speeds too fast for people and cultures to adjust to.

Sadly, again, it’s not too difficult to step back and see the validity of both arguments and to place oneself on one side of the line or other in relation to the forces at hand (for example being a globalist in regards to travel and security issues but a nationalist when it comes to protecting the citizens of your country first over those who would exploit your country) and work through the process rather than just say it’s one or the other.

Finally, is it the statistics of the matter which makes this such a difficult topic? Is it the fact that immigration stats can and are (as any stats can be) often twisted, taken out of context or simply not fully understood, leading to their use as ammunition in whatever argument happens to be cooking up (for example, say it with me this time, the housing crisis in NZ)?

Nope it’s not the numbers because while there are all sorts of stats which can be bandied about (the current flavour of the month is that we have 70,000 plus more arrivalsthan departures) a little further digging in the stats (and I have linked some of the better sources to dig into for your own enlightenment/enjoyment at the bottom) can provide some more solid statistics which, while not absolutes (because they are only numbers after all and immigration, in the end, is a very human topic), to break things down from some sort human tidal wave crashing onto our shores and destroying our nation to more meaningful metrics (such as related info about who these people are, where the come from and why they are coming here) showing that NZ is a nation of immigrants, always has been, and may always be so, and which like a beach, gets caressed by endless waves day after day without eroding.

So why is it that every time I approach a keyboard to try and write this post I end up going off to play games, read a book, listen to music or watch a movie; anything but write about a topic I feel I should be able to blog about?

The answer is sadly the same one which it always is when it comes to topics such as this: politics! Pure bloody politics.

Or more to the point: FukYoo politics in an age when we are on the cusp of one of the most major and dramatic shifts in human history as the politics of the national collide head on with those of the global in a free for all, battle to the death as the structure and organs of the nation state (atrophied and withered as they are) are pitted against the flexing muscle mass of globe that is rapidly becoming more unified than divided.

But if that description was a bit too vague for you then let’s break it down to brass tacks and say that this is the Ragnarok of things like racism, religion and class as they enact themselves though the political vehicle of the nation state in an argument which will see something very new come out of all the chaos and struggle.

And this is not the first time we have been at this point, we were here a few hundred years ago when the industrial revolution was kicking in and nation states were developing out of the decaying remains of feudalism, when the first global war (the Seven Years War) was being fought and new technologies and ways of thinking ( think steam power, the printing press and mass production) were displacing and replacing the old (the shift from the rural to urban) and social, economic and political change was generating such anger (the revolutions of 1848) that those days don’t seem so far removed from the mood of today with all that simmering populist sentiment.

Yet it’s not at these stratospheric heights that immigration in NZ as we know it exists yet these are the very threads which bind the topic into such a congealed mess as issues of employment, tourism, the environment, security, identity, health, human rights and simple nationality (as well as others) are drawn together and which lead to the sheer complexity of the topic often overwhelming people so that they do revert to knee-jerk positions and arguments or losing sight of the forest for the trees (as we focus too much on one tree to the detriment of the forest).

And that is how politics would have it, that is how politicians would have us discuss it; either as some rabid (and often racist) outburst or with an overly detailed focus on one aspect to distract us from all the others so they can make political capital off it.

STATISTICAL INTERLUDE

As anyone who has read this blog (or KP) for any period of time knows, I like stats, I like prying the buggers apart and seeing what can be drawn from them or, failing that, throwing them together and seeing what will stick.

But to do this for this post, I had to go and see what actual data was out there and removed from the kind of data I used to see when I was at INZ, this was from the publicly available data on the internet which is not as complete or comprehensive.

So, what stats there are available for NZ in regards to immigration are limited to things like Stats NZ, sites like Migrationstats.com, and whatever INZ itself has made available (like MBIEs Tourism Data Domain Plan) as well as any articles in NZ media which took the time to generate a bar or line graph (the best being the NZ Heralds Insights by Lincoln Tan and Harkanwal Singh).

And while I could do a whole post on the numbers the following stats stand out the most:

• Asian immigration makes up the bulk of people coming to NZ (both long term and short term)

• There were over 10,000 estimated** over-stayers in NZ for 2016 alone but just over 8000 people were deported, removed or voluntarily departed from NZ for the period 2006 to 2011***

• Fijians had over 120,000 visitor visas issued in the last six years yet the population of Fiji is just a shade over 900,000 people

• 81% of student visas issued are for fee paying students (45% of which are from India and China)

• The most popular occupation for employment conditions for work and residence visas is Tour Guide (at 30,380) followed by Chef (29,934), Retail manager (14,259 and up 10% from before), Café and Restaurant Manager (14,000 plus) and Dairy Farmer (11,000 plus)

• Visitor visas (tourists etc) jumped from 278,000 issued in 2010 to 631,440 issued in 2016

• 70% (34,000) of residency visas issued were under the Business/Skills category in 2016

Exiting stuff, I know but what are we to make of these numbers?

The correct answer is nothing, until we decide which side of the line our argument is likely to stand on each stat (globalist or nationalist) and until we have married the data to various issues (such as the large increase in tourism numbers with the issue of said tourists driving on the roads in NZ) and even then it’s easy to get lost in brainless platitudes (like our PMs amazingly stupid (and unsupported) anecdote about all the unemployed being too drugged out to work (hence why we need all those 11,000 plus dairy farmers).

As someone famous once said, stats are not truth, they just provide the clubs with which to beat one’s opponent, they are the tools to winning an argument**** and not the argument in itself.

STATISTICAL INTERLUDE ENDS

At this point I don’t think I am any closer to explaining why I am unable to write about immigration in NZ and having explored the basic themes I am still very hesitant to rip that juicy little scab off the wound no matter how much its begging for it (and with recent media coverage doing little more than presenting the hacks guide to immigration in NZ rather than actually discussing it the temptation has been down on its hands and knees pleading me).

And what holds me, and possibly others back, is that to enter this debate is that even just sticking one’s little toe into the waters can get one labelled a racist or worse because while race never comes into the making of any immigration decision made by INZ, nationality sure can due to the actions of a particular group or nationality.

Or the converse can apply and a single incident can get blown out of proportion and the actions of one can tar all others of that ilk with the stain of being too liberal, too harsh or just too ignorant and suddenly sweeping measures are being called for.

Go back for a moment and look at those statistics above.

What stands out for you, what catches your eye? Is it the numbers, is it the nationalities or is it the occupations? Or something else?

Or do those things boil away into a steamy vapor which clouds your judgement and leave you seeing nothing but shadowy indistinct figures because in an age where we no longer declare war on entities like nations but on vague and unsubstantial concepts like terror it’s easy for even recognized security experts (who should really know better) to start making calls for things like greater scrutiny of certaingroups or people (even when that level of scrutiny already exists or would not make any applicable difference) and for immigration issues to start becoming a shortcut to fear of anything that is not known or comfortably able to be assimilated.

Because in politics rational is a word you rarely encounter and it seems that in immigration the same can also apply.

So here we are nearly 3000 words in and no closer to getting to the bottom of the issue or even breaching any major layers of the debate having only just laid out some points on which to start building a foundation.

But I will say here that the reason why I approach the debate around this topic with hesitancy is not due to its complexity, or fear of being labelled or for any other of the barriers that can hold others back. No, what is holding me back is something else: empathy.

I have been on both sides of the line making (often difficult) decisions about people which could have life changing consequences for them as well as sitting or standing (sometimes in long lines while in a sweltering hot room full of nervous expectant people), waiting on a decision that could change my life; or experiencing situations, such as having a gun shoved in your face by overly aggressive border guards (of a nation I won’t mention here because I am a nice guy) who were convinced that having improper documentation meant I was “a spy” and ready to drag my ass off to some cell for however long it took to get “the truth” out of me until I was able to pay the US $200 as a special “processing fee”.

On the other hand, I have waved 10 US dollars to the little men in the hats at the immigration station and been whisked through to the “priority” queue while locals who could not afford such a fee watched with mute resentment in a certain country which I used to enjoy visiting for holidays*5.

And empathy here is the key. It has never stopped me from making a hard decision but it mean that any decision I made was made with care and consideration and with as much information as possible and in my time at INZ I declined plenty of visas (one of the side effects of dealing with anything that was high risk) but every single one of those was made with thought and deliberation and with principles like fairness and natural justice (even when I was grinding my teeth with fury at having to do so because an immigration lawyer in NZ was making me) presiding.

And that I think is why this is such a hard topic for me to write a post about and why in the wake of Brexit and Trump such a subject it’s become even harder to bring this up without ending up wrestling with some hideous political python (already stuffed full of a chicken and a village dog*6) which does nothing but twist the debate into knots.

Yet I do have opinions on the immigration debate but remain loath to bring them up here; but since the post that I agreed to write was to contain “My five policy changes to immigration” I will have to front up and present five, in no particular order, changes to the current system as it is in order to affect a better outcome in NZ.

There are no magic bullets here and I will not be providing any major explanation why, as I leave them to the reader to judge them through their own immigration filter until NZ is ready to have this debate for real.

But since I take requests for posts and one of those is to discuss how Peter Thiel got a NZ passport this debate may be starting sooner rather than later, for me at least.

So, with no further ado here they are (in no particular order):

1.       No offshore education agents for Student Visa applications (the only visa category in NZ where an unlicensed and offshore party is allowed to operate)

2.       No work rights on Student visas (currently they are allowed 20 hours a week)

3.       Doubling the number of Immigration compliance officers in NZ (the current numbers are scandalously low and they are mostly directed to dealing with employment cases which are time consuming and difficult to prosecute rather than dealing with quicker and easier cases like simple over-stayers)

4.       No million-dollar investor category for visas (ie no getting a visa because you are rich)

5.       No dual citizenship (this last one is technically a citizenship/DIA issue but as it’s a flow on and motivator for some of the worst immigration abuses in NZ (some publicly known some not) so I am letting this one slide)

And if you are reading through those and seeing a theme you would be right, there is, and its addressing the worst holes in the current immigration system NZ has (from a top five perspective). 

Recent government changes made a start on the matter but it’s the execution of those policies and any special exemptions that might be wrangled in (like how Queenstown basically gets a blanket exemption to having to prove the validity of needing to employ a foreign worker over a kiwi in a town where only the ultra-rich can afford to live) that worry me.

That’s right, it’s not terrorists, or rouge drivers hogging the road (although I now drive the Tekapo to Twizel highway with maximum alertness as tourists in white SUVs are hogging the road and driving dangerously like its Death Race 2000); or housing speculators of any particular nationality.

Have I addressed all the burning “immigration issues” in NZ (like foreign workers or said housing speculators), certainly not because as I have noted these are not really immigration issues they are employment and housing (what do you call a kiwi who owns more than one home?) issues respectively and not really the concern of immigration in NZ.

If we had a living wage and cheaper house prices we would not have those issues and no one would be claiming “they took our jobs!” or “planning to slash immigration numbers by the tens of thousands”.

And it’s now time to end this post as it started with us no closer to being actually able to talk about it but at least having got this off my chest I can now start on the other posts I have planned on topics such as the third installment of my semi-autobiographical series exploring my political views and psyche (called Plumbing the Depths) and more coverage on what is now passing for an election build up in this country (god help us!).

Until then I encourage all readers to try and wrestle with the python as best one can but take the time to consider the position they are truly coming from rather than clamping on some ill-fitting, and pre-made immigration viewpoint which either lionizes the Globalist/Nationalist debate without any real thought or even worse sets up voting for a party which has immigration policies which may not actually benefit you.

So Hardly, you have given me three weeks’ worth of writer’s block and made me drink far more Jellybeans than I intended in the same period while writing what has possibly the hardest post I have ever written, I hope it was worth it.

  

*-Ouzo and Raspberry cola, yummy!

**-estimated because INZ does not actually know how many people overstay but I can guarantee that those numbers are a conservative estimate

***-the best data I could get from stats NZ

****-I am paraphrasing very badly here and I do not recall exactly who so no speech marks

*5-Not the same country as the one with the armed and hyper tense border guards; I never even considered going back there after that little incident figuring that my next visit might be a lot like Hotel California (I could check in but would never leave)

*6-This was how my last weekend ever in Indonesia ended except with less actual wrestling and more of me shouting “what the f**k is that?” before bolting from my room at the village home-stay near Bandung in Java.