Welcome crackdown on courses

Labour’s immigration policy is not racist or xenophobic. It is a careful and moderate policy designed to deal with several serious problems at once.

Net immigration is at unprecedented levels and is causing serious economic trouble. It is helping stoke the fires of house prices. It is helping clog the alreadyclogged roads of Auckland. It is putting a strain on schools, transport services, even on the decaying water pipes. Nobody disputes that these problems are real or that they will cost a fortune to fix.

The notably liberal commentator and immigration expert Paul Spoonley says this level of immigration is ‘‘unsustainable’’. Nobody has ever accused Spoonley of being racist or xenophobic.

Labour’s policy would crack down on poor-quality education courses which do not bring scarce or valuable skills to New Zealand but do bring many hopeful immigrants wanting to use the courses as a way to get residence. Bill English and others say Labour would harm a multi-billion export industry, as though the industry was sacrosanct and exempt from even minor change.

But there are parts of this industry, which has grown enormously in a short time and which clearly has not been controlled carefully, which are not serving the country’s interests.

Too many students are going to poorly-run courses which will not benefit New Zealand or even the students themselves if they end up returning to their country. The recent and justified crackdown on these courses, meanwhile, undoubtedly damages New Zealand’s overseas reputation.

Clearly too many unskilled foreign workers are being allowed into New Zealand, allowing the Government and employers to avoid the thorny problem of training New Zealanders to do this work. Bill English’s attempts to paint Kiwi workers as drugged-out and useless back-fired disastrously when the evidence showed that drugged-up workers are not a major problem.

There certainly are problems with unemployed people lacking skills, and this won’t be easily fixed. It raises serious issues about underprivilege and a hardcore of intergenerational unemployed. But this is a problem that must be faced and fixed.

Hiring foreigners to stack shelves and serve in shops is daft.

Labour’s policy would allow a more regional approach to deciding skill shortages and needs and would also require foreign workers to stay in the particular region. It would also put greater pressure on employers to find local workers before reaching for the immigration solution. That is as it should be. Immigration has always been meant to run in tandem with a local labour market policy, not as a substitute for it.

There might be problems with Labour’s proposals. It might take longer to develop local skills than Labour believes.

But the attempt to control immigration for economic reasons is not xenophobic, although Labour regrettably opened itself up to this charge with its foolishness about immigrants with ‘‘foreign-sounding surnames’’.

"Too many students are going to poorly-run courses which will not benefit New Zealand or even the students themselves."