Set another place at the table for New Zealand's multicultural potluck says Dawn Picken. Photo/File
Our family was recently invited to a feast. Actually, we were asked to share in a casual dinner at the home of an acquaintance near Bayfair. "Bring dessert," said our host.
I stood in a Lilliputian kitchen as the resident chef pulled tray after tray from a seemingly bottomless oven tied shut with green string ("It's lost its seal," she explained). Piles of chicken, beef, ribs, lamb, pork, potatoes and carrots appeared alongside a rainbow of roast veges.
It was American Thanksgiving without the turkey or pumpkin pie. Only our hosts were Kiwi and South African. Add my Scottish-born husband, our hosts' Korean student, plus Chinese guest and we became a mini United Nations.
In this bring-a-plate society, we migrants - the 25 per cent not born in New Zealand - add our touch to the potluck. 'Fush and chups' is fine, but throw in boerewors, enchiladas, tiramisu, pad Thai, yum cha, lamb curry and sushi, and suddenly, it's more banquet than meal.
The daily multicultural nosh happens in nearly every nook of the Bay. Whether it's your British-born butcher, third-generation Chinese neighbours, second-generation Indian shop keeper or other cultural combination of newcomer/old-timer, we don't need statistics to prove we're becoming more diverse.
The recent announcement by Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse outlining immigration changes, including requiring migrants to earn more than $49,000 to qualify for a highly-skilled worker visa hardly slams the door on new arrivals. Critics call that and other measures "tinkering". They say record migration, while driving economic growth, has strained infrastructure like schools and roads and pushed up home prices.
Yet statistics show about a third of new arrivals last year were a mix of returning Kiwis and Aussies. They're your friends and family who earned good coin in London and Sydney before deciding the Bay of Plenty is a nicer place to raise kids.
Non-partisan think tank the New Zealand Initiative this January released a report entitled, The New Zealanders: Why Migrants Make Good Kiwis.
In it, researchers said of 125,000 permanent and long-term arrivals in the June 2016 year, 29 per cent were New Zealand and Australian citizens. "A further 55 per cent comprised of people on temporary student and work visas. Official figures show less than a fifth of these temporary visa holders gain permanent residency."
Economists say temporary visa holders tend not to buy homes, which makes pinning higher home prices on foreigners a dubious argument.
Some people distressed at the fact Aucklanders have honed in on the Bay imply they're not "real" Kiwis - they're Indians or Chinese who started in the Big Smoke. Nearly all AKL refugees I've met look pretty darned white and sound pretty darned Kiwi. Also, which Asians pass muster, and which don't? Do we distinguish between a third-generation Chinese woman and an adopted Chinese-born child whose parents are Kiwi? Is a specialist doctor from Malaysia okay, but not an electrician from that same country? I need to know where to draw the colour lines.
We continue allowing people like me (expat American married to a New Zealand citizen) work visas or residency because the country needs our skills or our partner needs us. Or both. I'm not arguing take all comers. Instead, I believe law-abiding people able and willing to contribute to this rich societal stew -not just financially, but culturally and relationally, too - should get the chance to stay.
The Government could take measures to further dampen property speculation while providing a pathway to home ownership for non-native Kiwis. Requiring prospective home buyers to have permanent residency (as the Labour Party has proposed) would be a start, though outrage about foreign home ownership may be overblown. A report last year quoted preliminary Government figures stating just 3 per cent of New Zealand home sales during a three-month period were to non-resident buyers. The Labour party put the number at 13 per cent.
Regardless of percentage, scapegoating migrants and threatening to pull up the drawbridge are tactics not only xenophobic, they're also likely to hurt us economically and culturally. Who will diagnosis disease, cook cafe meals, design roads, build homes and wire buildings if jobs on the long-term skills list go unfilled? Kiwis haven't yet managed to procreate their way into a 21st century economy.
We've needed and will likely continue needing new migrants while realising our capacity to house, educate and transport everyone is limited. The Government last year said it was reducing targets for residency by as many as 15,000 people a year. All well to turn down the tap; few people are advocating we turn it off altogether.
The answer is not to cancel the multicultural potluck; rather it's to set another place at the table to welcome the stranger who might someday build your house or become your friend.
Dawn Picken also writes for the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend and tutors at Toi Ohomai. She's a former TV journalist and marketing director who lives in Papamoa with her husband, two school-aged children and a dog named Ally.