Shonky Aussie advice

My BS detector has just gone off. I was reading Muriel Newman's weekly column in which she quotes Helen Hughes from the Australian Centre for Independent Studies;

Professor Helen Hughes, a senior fellow at the Australian based Centre for Independent Studies has looked at the question, “Should Australia and New Zealand open their doors to guest workers from the Pacific” and co-authored a report which is featured as our NZCPD guest commentary this week (click the sidebar link to view). Helen’s conclusion is that such a scheme is not only ill advised for Australia and New Zealand, but for the Pacific Islands as well. With 1.5 million people unemployed and underemployed in the region, a migrant worker scheme for 10,000 to 38,000 would be a ‘cruel deception’, which would shield Pacific governments from need to pursue economic reforms.

In her report she provides an interesting comparison between Australia and New Zealand’s approach to Pacific immigration, noting that while 24 percent of Australian residents were born overseas, only 2.4 percent were born in the Pacific, whereas of the 19 percent of New Zealand residents who were born overseas, 34 percent were born in the Pacific. She states that too great a reliance on immigration from the Pacific has given rise to serious social problems:

“Many Pacific islanders in New Zealand are less well integrated into the economy and society than Pacific islanders in Australia . In New Zealand, they remain geographically segregated into the second and third generations. Most live in highly concentrated communities in Auckland. Welfare dependence contributes to young Pacific Islander gangs, notably in Auckland. Compared with 16% of the total population, 26% of Pacific islanders receive some form of government benefit in New Zealand. The experience of Pacific migrants in New Zealand diverges from that in Australia because Australia has preserved selectivity of its migrant intake”.

The 2006 Census data is not yet available but official estimates for the Pacific people population for NZ in 2006 range from 7.1 to 7.4 percent. Across all main benefits Pacific Islanders make-up 7.5 percent of working-age beneficiaries, being under-represented in SB and IB and over-represented in DPB and dole.(By way of contrast Maori make-up 31.5 percent of working age beneficiaries.)

So in order to claim Pacific people are receiving significantly more government benefits than the general population she must have included children (Pacific families being larger). The creates an unfair impression.

Pacific people make a valuable contribution to the economy and it irks that an Aussie think-tank is trying to discourage New Zealand from allowing willing and able workers to come here.