October 22, 2013 9:00am by David Farrar

A 10 year high for migration

Migration to New Zealand hit a 10-year high in September, as fewer Kiwis left for Australia and more new migrants arrived, adding more support for the housing market.

New Zealand saw a net gain of 2700 people in September as more people arrived than left, Statistics New Zealand said.

That was the highest monthly net gain since the middle of 2003 and stronger than economists had expected.

Westpac Bank senior economist Felix Delbruck said the surprise gain was largely due to fewer New Zealanders leaving for Australia, though arrivals of non-New Zealand immigrants continued at above-average levels.

The annual net gain was more than 15,000 for the year to September, which reversed the small net loss in the previous year.

If the recent trends continued annual net migration would easily surpass 20,000 by the end of this year, Delbruck said.

“With unemployment in Australia expected to hit around 6.5 per cent next year, we expect net immigration to rise even further in 2014, which would make this New Zealand’s biggest migration cycle since the early 2000s.”

There seems to be a trend here.

Labour declares a crisis in manufacturing and all the manufacturing indicators reach record levels.

Labour declares an economic crisis and the economy looks on track to have one of the highest growths in the developed world.

Labour declares a migration crisis with far too many Kiwis leaving, and we have a ten year record for net migration.

We should encourage Labour to declare more things to be in crisis.