It may be an uncomfortable truth, but there are some of us who enjoy rights and privileges above others, simply by virtue of being born. Not by talent, hard work, or any other factor reflecting merit, these people enjoy a privileged status in New Zealand.
 
I am, of course, talking about being born a New Zealander.
 
Unlike their immigrant counter-parts, native-born New Zealanders enjoy automatic rights to jobs, residence and access to public services. The value of their contribution to New Zealand’s economic and social fabric is never questioned, unlike the value of potential immigrants.
 
In this election campaign there have been calls to restrict immigration, based on allegations that immigrants put pressure on our housing, schools and hospitals. And, of course, there are already policies that require employers in certain industries to prove there were no able New Zealanders that could have filled a job offered to an immigrant.
 
The alleged smoking gun to consolidate such thinking is Treasury’s recent report: Migration and Macroeconomic Performance in New Zealand: Theory and Evidence. It claims that meeting the infrastructure needs of immigrants – including housing – is difficult given New Zealand’s low savings rate, and diverts resources from productive tradeable activities, with negative macroeconomic impacts.
 
The report is supposedly damning evidence to justify limiting migration. Actually, all it really exposes is that our current infrastructure policies cannot sufficiently cope with population increases. But why deal with our own shortcomings, when it is so much easier to blame a scape-goat?
 
Unfortunately, such an attitude towards immigrants is widespread. People complain when immigrants do not contribute to the economy (“They live at our expense!”), and then complain when they do (“They steal our jobs!”).
 
In a 2010 Department of Labour survey, 35 per cent of respondants believed immigrants take jobs away from other New Zealanders. New Zealand First have been particularly vocal on this issue, sending out not so much a dog-whistle to those susceptible to scaremongering, but a fog-horn. 
 
But what would those calling for immigration limitations prefer? To settle for a less skilled or experienced workforce, just to avoid making native New Zealanders feel inferior? That surely would be easier than examining why New Zealanders do not have the skills, experience or productivity to meet the needs of employers.
 
Should we say ‘No, thanks’ to highly-skilled immigrants wishing to make a new life in New Zealand just so we do not have to build any more houses?
 
Immigration is not a zero-sum game, where the gains of one group automatically implicate the losses to another. There are positive gains to the economy through returns to human capital, contribution to innovation, and the influence of new skills and ways of doing things.
 
Negative attitudes towards immigrants are a true anathema of traditional Kiwi egalitarianism. We should not become a country where, upon recognising our own failures, we blame someone else.