Dr Strangelove immigration policies

Michael Bassett writes:

Have you noticed recently how many shops have signs wanting staff? How many tradesmen are hard to hire because they can’t find enough skilled workers? How many hospitals are bursting at the seams because they lack sufficient nurses and doctors? How many buses and trains aren’t running because there aren’t enough drivers? And how slow the government is to open up the borders to skilled migrants who could help? …

Why then are our shortages currently so dramatic? I’m convinced that the borders are deliberately being kept closed because Jacinda Ardern’s so-called Labour government believes it can force employers to lift wages for workers by maintaining a super-tight labour market. Some of this is the belief of a few mad scientists like Immigration Minister Michael Wood who seems convinced that pushing wages up for low-skilled jobs will benefit our society in general, and not accelerate inflation.

Our hospitals have a staffing crisis, and the Government maintains it hostility to making it easy for skilled migrants to reside in NZ.

Neither Jacinda, nor Carmel Sepuloni seems to care a fig about the consequences of the mad scientists in their ranks who keep the borders closed but then refuse to restore meaningful incentives to find jobs. The rest of us suffer because services that society needs – plumbers, electricians, builders and odd-job people – can’t be found for love nor money.

It is happening everywhere. Takes two months to get an electrician in. No doctors appointments available for three weeks. The first appointment for the panel beater is in three months time. This must be what like in the USSR was like!