Also, their Taskmaster host is one of the most off-puttingly smug, unfunny, and all-round repellent people on television anywhere in the world. Which is too bad, because the NZ Taskmaster’s Assistant is hilarious and a terrific task writer and supervisor.
@Richard_Pearse is a Kiwi who’s also spent a couple decades living and working in Oz. IIRC he’s got teen & younger kids. He might have something interesting to say on all these points.
Partly because the American rules are so discriminatory. For example, Canada admitted substantially more Syrian refugees during the Syrian refugee crisis in absolute numbers than the US did, despite having one-tenth of the population. The USA was failing its humanitarian obligations by more than an order of magnitude. And now it’s deporting the immigrants it does have like they had no more value than rabid animals.
That’s why.
Ok. Thank you. Finally a clear answer on this.
Occasionally, I’m obtuse.
Because we’re fucking America.
We’ve told the world for two centuries that they should all come to the best country on Earth. Tens of millions believed that. Tens of millions of refugees, too, because this was the safe harbor of the world.
Underneath the gaudy patter lies a history of bias, fear and hatred. Asian immigration bans began in the 19th century. The Immigration Act of 1924 virtually cut off immigration from non-nordic European countries. Operation Wetback - real name - was a low point in the 1950s.
Other than a few on the fringe, completely ignored, nobody is calling for totally open borders. Nobody should be calling for ending immigration or limiting it to a few favored skin colors either. Of course we have rules and regulations about immigration. We also have student visas, work visas, permanent residency, and all the other ways people can come to the country and look it over. Additionally, we once had a policy that making life better in others countries would encourage people to stay in their homes. Times change.
We live in a global society that will be increasingly mobile with every year’s passing. Immigration will be exponentially important both to make up for the lack of replacement rate births in virtually every western country and climate change making huge swathes of the world unlivable. Any solution to those crises will be painful to many. Any attempt to close off borders will be global genocide.
America First, my ass.
Discussion has mostly focused on the obstacles to immigration to NZ, maybe especially for Americans.
Let’s accept that it is difficult, even for young well educated American to become permanent residents there.
So how screwed is NZ? Their birth rate isn’t down at South Korea levels, and they do have some net migration in, but their baseline economy isn’t where South Korea is either. Is their economy circling the drain due to demographics?
We’ve had “brain drain” in New Zealand for as long as i can remember… dating back to the 80s or earlier.
Education is the path to citizenship, particularly in the targeted industries, or investment in a job creating business.
Yes, thing
Isn’t @GuanoLad also from NZ and living now in Oz?
I was in Australia a few times back in the 1990s, for at least a month each time, and got to know the local lingo. So I knew what a “seppo” was.
Anyway, I walk into a bar, and take a barstool. Barman asks what I want, I say, “VB off the tap, thanks,” and another barstool hears my accent and says, “Fuck, we’ve got a seppo.”
I just looked at him and said, “Not a seppo. I’m Canadian.”
His jaw dropped. Turned out to be a nice guy. He’d met many Americans, and didn’t think much of them, but he had never met a Canadian, so he had lots of questions. No, we don’t live in a land of perpetual ice and snow, and polar bears don’t wander the streets of Toronto. Dumb questions to us, but he was a friendly enough guy that as a Canadian, I got a nice welcome at that pub for the next few weeks, when I left.
So yeah, Americans, if you visit Australia—“seppo” is not a compliment.
And it’s not just that there are rules, it’s that the rules are being changed retroactively, so that hundreds of thousands of people who did it “The right way” are now being told they have no right to be in the US, and are now considered to be absolute scum who can be detained by masked thugs, stuck in dehumanizing detention centers, and deported to wherever the thugs decide to send them.
Yes, but I don’t know anything about this subject, so I’m no help.
I thought Kiwis called Australia West Island.
Thanks. I’m probably a bit out of touch from how the country Is really going though. Like @bengangmo said, the “brain drain” has been a thing for what seems like forever. If you give people a good education but pay them less than what they could earn elsewhere, they will invariably go elsewhere. Initially at least. Then they get homesick later in life and come home to retire. Ideally they bring money with them, but they don’t have to and are entitled to a pension like every other citizen.
There was a relatively recent change in Australian policy, in response to our previous Labour government’s lobbying, to make it easier for New Zealanders to become Australian citizens. This has prompted some to leave the country. I don’t know if the numbers are significant or not.
As for Americans coming to NZ and saving the day, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have more workers here but it would have other effects such as driving house prices up and, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems this country has is the idea that property is there for well off people to invest in rather than to be affordable homes for everyone else.
Do we like Americans? I think the majority of us aren’t big fans of American politics and the effect it has on the rest of the world and so we might treat Americans with some suspicion initially until we’ve decided the specific American in question is a good person and not like all those other Americans, the loud obnoxious ones who love guns more than anything except God. We are like little terrier dogs who simultaneously want you to love us and our country and also mock you for being big and influential with funny spelling.
If you want any sort of a professional career, you’re fishing in a small pond, and most people end up packing their bags and heading for their nearest large neighbour - or for England, where we have many of them, ostensibly here for the short term. Many go back eventually, some stay.
What I can find.
hidden as continuing off-topic digression
What requirement do you believe is being cheated or defeated by being able to pay for it? As far as I know, nobody’s being allowed to skirt basic requirements by having money. It shouldn’t be a virtue contest or endless waiting game. If you’re not a criminal, and you pass the citizenship test, and you have enough money or skills that you won’t end up on welfare, come on in!
Societies benefit from increasing the population of non-criminal people who consume, sell, and invest. There’s no good reason to reject law-abiding self-supporting individuals or make them jump through hoops. Citizenship is just a status, not a private club.
Moderating:
Enough with the Beck side-topic. If anyone wants to continue, start a new thread please. We hoped it ended yesterday, but apparently not. So now all are being instructed to not reply to @Beckdawrek post.
If you are responding to something in a thread that is basically off-topic or likely to lead to a hijack, try this:
How to Reply as a linked Topic:
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
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A couple I know went to NZ to raise their kids. She was from there, he was raised in a rich community here in the US that was fraught with drugs and other problems even the filthy (or just moderately) rich can’t avoid. Their kids are grown now, both should be US citizens, they visited here yearly, and id assume would think about living here now as adults.