How many people do you want to share NZ with

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#2680252 25-Mar-2021 11:25

MikeB4:

The UK has a population circa 65 million and has a similar amount of roads, main trunk rail, back bone power reticulation etc to Aotearoa. We are trying to fund this with a earning population of circa 2 million. Our low population has been holding back our GDP and infrastructure development and maintenance for decades. Managed immigration growth greatly improve our GDP and infrastructure investment. If we want to stay a small population nation then we will have to accept higher and increasing taxation.

I'm ok with that. Id rather live here than in an apartment lifestyle or a Coronation St house scenario. There is more to life than GDP. As far as infrastructure is concerned thats more a case of lacklustre vote driven local and central governments than can we do it. We govern based on the term, not on a long term plan. We cant make a long term plan as the other party will say its wrong so we fuddle around instead. GFC, it was less bad here, covid was less bad here.

alasta

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#2680275 25-Mar-2021 11:45

GV27:

MikeB4:

The current birth rate is not sufficient for population growth so in order to attain a sustainable population growth immigration of those in the earning years needs to be sustained or increased.

The question no one wants to ask is "Are people having fewer kids because they legitimately want to, or are they having fewer kids because we've made things like housing and other living costs so prohibitive that they don't feel they can afford to have more?"

There was a really fascinating episode of The Detail earlier this month about the declining birth rate, and I was disappointed that it didn't really cover this aspect. I think both the "don't want" and "can't afford" reasons are both prevalent, but I also wonder if there are some social drivers. I know a number of people who tried and failed to find a stable partner in their 20s and 30s, so they never really had the opportunity to have children regardless of whether they wanted them or could afford them.

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#2680303 25-Mar-2021 12:00

alasta:

There was a really fascinating episode of The Detail earlier this month about the declining birth rate, and I was disappointed that it didn't really cover this aspect. I think both the "don't want" and "can't afford" reasons are both prevalent, but I also wonder if there are some social drivers. I know a number of people who tried and failed to find a stable partner in their 20s and 30s, so they never really had the opportunity to have children regardless of whether they wanted them or could afford them.

Speaking from personal experience, room rents exceeded the living allowance for student loans by about $100 when I was a student, which I suspect put an end to some young couples who would otherwise have moved in together in previous years actually living together. Little things like that change what would have been a relatively benign step for previous generations into an almost impractical once, and the things that flow from it get further delayed or fall apart altogether.

As a country we are very poor at seeing the flow on effects from the little nibbles at our standard of living that we accept as normal; student loans are another example of this, as our rarely-adjusted tax brackets - can you say your living costs haven't increased in the last nine years or so since they were last adjusted? It's easy to see the consequences of this when you look at our migration numbers - if you get away with adding 20,000 in one year without provisioning extra infrastructure, then 30,000 isn't so hard to imagine. By the time you actually get around to doing something, you're at 70,000+ p.a.

And as you say, the social drivers of this - you suddenly need two working parents to pay a mortgage, but that means childcare costs, etc - so you have to live near family if you can, but that means paying over the odds for a house in Auckland, etc.

If only there was some over-arching national body responsible for providing the infrastructure and resources to meaningfully support the population!

neb

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#2680346 25-Mar-2021 13:02

SJB:
I was a little surprised that both contributors, neither of which I knew, thought that we should have a much larger population citing the UK and Japan as countries with roughly the same land mass but with much larger populations.

The UK and Japan both have a massive industrial base, rely on massive imports of food and materials to keep going, and easy export markets. We have none of the above.

We do apparently have plenty of TV talking heads who live in la-la-land. Not sure how to exploit that as a resource though.

Dingbatt

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#2680349 25-Mar-2021 13:04

MikeB4:. Climate change may force us to increase immigration to much higher levels than we have now.

Why?

What will force us?

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

neb

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#2680355 25-Mar-2021 13:13

Dingbatt:
MikeB4:. Climate change may force us to increase immigration to much higher levels than we have now.

Why?

What will force us?

Everyone who's fleeing the effects of climate change.

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2680358 25-Mar-2021 13:16

I would like to see the population under 3 million. Everyone should understand what basic growth figures actually mean... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O133ppiVnWY

Geektastic

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#2680367 25-Mar-2021 13:27

I’d say about 15 million as long as they’re carefully chosen for the education, experience and skills they have so that they enhance the economy rather than becoming yet another drag on it.

networkn

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#2680368 25-Mar-2021 13:28

MikeB4:

networkn:

I am happy with continued growth in theory, but no in our major cities which are already broken due to lack of infrastructure. I'd like to see a significant drop in new people entering the country for a few years, to allow time for our infrastructure to catch up, or prioritize those people incoming, who can contribute to it's deployment. It's a tricky subject.

The issues in major cities is more a result in poor management and planning. Local bodies can only see as far as the next election and even screw up that short term management. To sustain population growth there needs to be a review of local government and a quantum change in how we manage out cities. This in my very humble opinion needs to be migrated to central government and write enterprise.

I'm afraid I don't really trust our current government to undertake this work. They seem more or less lost in taking care of what they are already supposed to be doing.

Not sure what the answer is really.

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#2680369 25-Mar-2021 13:28

neb: [

Everyone who's fleeing the effects of climate change.

How will that force us? We can control who comes in - as we’ve just proven.

Geektastic

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#2680370 25-Mar-2021 13:34

MikeB4:
tdgeek:

Lower growth suits me. But we need to stop complaining over expensive goods, such as drywall was the other day. We have no economy of scale here, thats why, the benefit to that is we are not sardines. We should actually shut the border to immigration (apart from that, that suits us, skills etc) and sort out our own house before we consider an ideal population.

The UK has a population circa 65 million and has a similar amount of roads, main trunk rail, back bone power reticulation etc to Aotearoa. We are trying to fund this with a earning population of circa 2 million. Our low population has been holding back our GDP and infrastructure development and maintenance for decades. Managed immigration growth greatly improve our GDP and infrastructure investment. If we want to stay a small population nation then we will have to accept higher and increasing taxation.

We’d also have to increase the tax base. A tiny percentage pay the majority of the income tax and 50% pay none after transfers. That’s not sustainable if you need to get more money.

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MikeB4

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#2680385 25-Mar-2021 14:00

@Dingbatt climate change and rising sea levels will impact our Island neighbours and territories. In many cases the Islands will need to be abandoned due to inundation and inability to produce food both land based and marine sources. We will need to open our entry to them to move here.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

MikeB4

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#2680392 25-Mar-2021 14:03

Geektastic:

How will that force us? We can control who comes in - as we’ve just proven.

1. Some are citizens of Aotearoa.

2. Caring for our neighbours.

Their homes will become uninhabitable and not of their doing. We have an obligation to assist.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

neb

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#2680393 25-Mar-2021 14:04

Geektastic:
neb: Everyone who's fleeing the effects of climate change.

How will that force us? We can control who comes in - as we’ve just proven.

So when a bunch of PLAN aircraft carriers and accompanying combat vessels turn up we'll refuse to stamp their passports and they'll all go back home again?

Edited to add: Not saying in any way that that will happen, but if chunks of the planet become more or less uninhabitable and there's military-level competition for the bits that are left, we're not in a position to say no.

frankv

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#2680406 25-Mar-2021 14:22

MikeB4:

@Dingbatt climate change and rising sea levels will impact our Island neighbours and territories. In many cases the Islands will need to be abandoned due to inundation and inability to produce food both land based and marine sources. We will need to open our entry to them to move here.

The Pacific Islands are fairly sparsely populated, and not all of their inhabitants will want to come to NZ, so I don't see them as a major source of immigrants. Although some atolls are low-lying, there are also many that are quite mountainous, so rising sea levels won't inundate all of them, and then not for a hundred years or more (e.g. 30cm rise by 2050, 1m by 2100). The effect of climate change on fisheries is pretty uncertain -- it may well be that the food supply increases for some islands. Quite possibly climate change (e.g. many more tropical cyclones) might make them impractical to inhabit though.

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