Sir Fresh3001 tries to convince New Zealand First voters to not be racist

This afternoon Sir Fresh3001 visited a retirement village in Tauranga to talk to New Zealand First voters with one special goal in mind: convince them to not be racist. After selecting a portion of admitted New Zealand First voters, Sir Fresh3001 got to work. Standing before a semicircle of chairs occupied by fairly bigoted superannuitants, Sir Fresh began to ask the pensioners a series of questions.

Sir Fresh3001: “Now, how many of you want to curtail immigration? Let’s have a show of hands. Can one of you explain to me why you feel the way you do?”

Every single hand went up. One elderly gentleman spoke up. “I don’t like immigrants because they take jobs from real Kiwis and they lower our wages.”

Fresh: “Well, the fact is that on the whole that isn’t true. There’s a broad economic consensus that immigration is incredibly beneficial for economies the world over. Simply put, labour mobility allows for people to move to where they are the most productive and that can’t be a bad thing. Numerous studies have also shown that large amounts of migration have done little to depress native wages; migrant labour typically complements local jobs, it’s not a substitute for them. Migrants are willing to do the jobs that Kiwis aren’t willing to, and that’s how our immigration system is geared. We issue more visas to migrants who occupy in demand professions, like builders and tradies. And let’s be real, if you’re so terrible at your job that you lose it to a harder-working Indian who can hardly speak English, you probably deserved it. Besides all this, immigrants are typically net tax contributors and aren’t dole bludgers like you probably think. They work to increase productivity which drives up wages, and they spend those wages in the economy which in turn stimulates more job growth. It’s a win-win.”

The superannuitant grumbled and shook his head before speaking once again. “Well, that’s all fine but New Zealand simply can’t handle more people. Look at the housing crisis. Look at our living costs. New Zealanders should come first!”

Fresh: “Well, it’s true an influx of people can put strain on local infrastructure and housing availability. But that’s not an issue with immigrants, it’s an issue with poor governance. New Zealand has strict resource consent regulations which artificially stifle the supply of housing. That’s a much larger culprit in the present housing crisis than immigrants will ever be. Why should we block immigration and lose all of the associated benefits when we can reform the Resource Management Act and be no worse off?”

Again the pensioner grumbled, before sitting back down in his seat. This time an older woman spoke up. “Who cares about economic mumbo jumbo and the housing crisis? Migrants are bad because they don’t assimilate! I want New Zealanders in New Zealand, not Asians. This place is turning into Chinatown or downtown Mumbai by the second and it’s got to stop!”

Fresh: “Well, uh, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting this sort of comment. To begin with, immigrants to New Zealand have a high assimilation rate and begin to consider themselves New Zealanders fairly quickly. The only time this doesn’t often occur is in the case of “expats” a.k.a white immigrants. But really I’d have to wonder whether assimilation should be considered a red line at all. Pakeha New Zealanders have hardly assimilated since we started coming here in the 1800s. If we were really concerned about assimilation, we’d all be speaking Maori. This isn’t a European nation, it’s been a nation of immigrants from the beginning and I think we’d all be better off if we recognised that.”