Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Eric Crampton: NZ Initiative Senior Economist on Luxon's pre-Budget speech about immigration

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Eric Crampton: NZ Initiative Senior Economist on Luxon's pre-Budget speech about immigration · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: PM's pre budget speech operating allowance cut from two point
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: four to two point one billion, wants cooler heads on
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: immigration too.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Failed immigration policies in Europe and North America have also
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: stoked to politics of division online. Immigration now seems to
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: be an emerging political issue in New Zealand. Two. Holding
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: our society together under all of those pressures will be challenging.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Doctor Eric Crampton, chief economist at the New Zealand Initiative
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: with me this morning, Good morning, good morning. We'll start
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: with migration. We don't have both people. We have plain
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: people and they contribute over and above their fair shire,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: don't they.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: That's the New Zealand data. Yeah, so when the Prime
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Minister is talking about importing narratives from Europe and North
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: America and they'm not really applying here, please write about that.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: We don't really have any good data yet. On the
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: other assertions on social cohesion, I expect that they're looking
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: at their on polling data. Unfortunately, MB puts out a
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: survey on this every two years, so in alternate years
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: they survey migrants and they serve a key we around
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: how immigration is going. They've been doing this for a
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  Speaker 3: long time. The most recent survey was put out last
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: year twenty twenty five, on twenty twenty four on twenty
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: twenty three data, so the twenty twenty five data will
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: come out probably in August twenty six. As of the
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty three data, New Zealanders were pretty positive about migration,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: so seventy two percent said they felt quite or very
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: positive about migrants, and that was a record high proportion.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Twenty one percent were neutral and five percent had negative views.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: There's also being a significant increase in the proportion of
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: people saying migrants making New Zealand a better place to live.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: That rose from forty five percent in twenty seventeen to
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: fifty seven percent in twenty twenty three, and the proportion
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: saying that migrants make it a worse place to live
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: dropped from sixteen percent to thirteen percent. So I'm not
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: quite sure where this is coming from. We do see
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: a lot of online action people, some of them from
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: New Zealand, some of them not from New Zealand, asserting
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: all kinds of harms from migration. Europe has had some
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: substantial problems, but Europe has really messed up labor markets.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: So to take an example in Sweden, the unemployment rate
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: for immigrants is about double the overall immigration rate the
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: unemployment rate in New Zealand. It's not like that. It's
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: slightly blow.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 1: The only thing, the only issue that I see with
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: immigration is some of the jobs that we are bringing
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: people in to do. I note that the ACT Party
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: had to release the other day saying that two and
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a half thousand fast food workers have been brought and
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: there's some thousand beauty therapists. And yet we have almost,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: according to the number out the other day, fifteen percent
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: of young people in this country doing nothing with their lives.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Why are we not getting those young people to do
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: those jobs instead of bringing labor in.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Well, it's consider from an employer's perspective, if you've got
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: someone who's well experienced in the area, and you've got
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: your facing a minimum weight, you can choose to hire
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: someone who's not New Zealand experienced but has a lot
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: of overseas experience, or someone who has no New Zealand
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: experience or anywhere else experience. You'll probably go for someone
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: who's got a bit more experienced with the minimum.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Wage, but in fast food, you know what I mean.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: But sure, yeah, that it is disappointing. Yes, the Act
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: has been talking about revisiting the the categories for work
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: shortages more regularly. I'm not quite sure on some of
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: the mechanics on being able to do this annually because
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: you'll end up inevitably hitting people who are mid process
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: in getting employment.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: There were also a few prompt Sorry, there are always
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: niggles in immigration policy and a few swings in roundabouts.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: So one of the ways that the last government found
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: it easier to a more migration after the borders had
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: been closed for a really long time was by broadening
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: access to the Accredited employer program. So more traditionally large
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: employers with big reputations and a lot at stake had
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: a pathway for as an accredited employer to bring workers
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: through when people were screaming out for workers because of
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: desperate labor shortages when the economy is overheated. They extended
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: that to a lot of employers that possibly shouldn't have
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: gotten that. So that's one of the things that could
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: have been fixed.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Doctor Eric Crampton, appreciate you Tom this morning, Chief economist
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: at the New Zealand Initiative for.
• 4:37
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• 4:40
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• 4:43
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