Yes, it is sobering that the regulatory authorities - in education and immigration - have not got a handle on these obvious scams that come up repeatedly. They sour the legitimate education sector and give the NZ image a bad name overseas. I just cannot understand why these obvious scams are allowed to survive.

Here are some comments that occur to me in reading this post and the responses.
(1) What has really changed on the migration stats? The key thing is people (rightly) mention "net migration". We are not necessarily getting a whole lot more people flooding in. The big change is that fewer NZers are leaving and many more are returning. So, the net figures are up. The target is therefore not necessarily those coming in (e.g. "foreigners"), but rather the fewer who are leaving (or returning).
(2) Working holidays visas. There are a lot of these, but I cannot see how these are anything more than tourist visas for young people who are allowed to work part of the time. These are not serious migrants in the sense of being "new settlers", although some may become so. This should not be part of the debate.
(3) To my mind the key thing is what proportion of the NZ population is foreign born, not necessarily the absolute numbers. It is currently about 20%. I think that is likely close to a tolerable threshold, particularly since it is 40% in Auckland, which is more metropolitan, and thus "shields" other parts of the country that could be more worried about large numbers of migrants. So, yes, let us be a larger population, but keep in mind that there is likely a social and cultural threshold in reaching it.
(4) International students. The number of scams in this area is embarrassing to NZ's integrity in education and immigration. Most students in my experience are not necessarily wishing to migrate or, if they do wish to get a job, it is often to get work experience before returning home or migrating to Australia. International students should not be used as a soft growth option or a veiled migration scheme. They should come in on their own merits, as they mostly do. This should not be part of the debate. Just maintain professional standards, and we will be fine.
(5) Role of the state. Part of the "problem" we are having is a much more laissez-faire attitude to the role of the state under this government (although this is generally a more benign one than most conservative administrations). This means that we are getting less money in health, a less active approach to social housing and the whole housing sector etc etc. This is more than a legacy of the GFC but rather also the (quite legitimate) workings of a right-of-centre government intent on reducing the role of the state. But it is arguable that this laissez-faire attitude to the various pressures on our social fabric which has exacerbated the impact of more migration. Again, yes, we should seriously be addressing migration issues, but also we should be attending to fundamental social infrastructure issues rather than just letting them slide and leaving it to the most disadvantaged to carry the adjustment costs.

There are two design flaws with National Super. First, it is not contribution-based, which means that it is not related to the size of the incoming cohorts, and it is in constant competition with other applications for tax revenues. The schemes elsewhere in the world I am aware of that are most financially sustainable and do not require constant political tweaks are contribution-based. Sweden switched from a benefit-based scheme to a contribution-based one using something like the Cullen scheme to do it. Secondly, it is not grounded in actuarial principles. Hence, the arbitrary age of entitlement. Some other schemes internationally are not based on such a universal age setting. Instead, they work out how many years you are likely to live and your contributions and years of entitlement are based on that. Both these design features can also be proofed for social equity. So, some people find it hard to get the contributions up to their required minimum (say, the current National Super level). These could be migrants, low-income and unemployed, or home-makers. Their contributions would be topped up from taxes. Similarly, the actuarial base would help people who have tough jobs or poor life expectancies. They can retire "early" and enjoy a reasonable number of years in retirement (say, 20-25).

And what is the solution? Is this a case of a grave injustice (which is the general tenor of the critique), or a difficult clinical/human case that is not straightforward to solve to everybody's satisfaction? Are there other countries/systems that deal with cases of this kind in a better way and, if so, can we hear about them?

Hi folks. Could we have some examples of where a UBI has been tried in a "developed" country like ours? I cannot think of a single one, and I do not know of any mainstream social policy people supporting a UBI (not that this is the only criterion). The Brits have introduced a Universal Credit that, if properly and fully implemented, could iron out a lot of wrinkles in a horrendously complex benefit system (at least as I understand it). And it is pretty optimistic to talk of rafts of new taxes to support this system, with current government dangling tax cuts in front of the NZ public and appreciating how susceptible they are to such blandishments. Frankly, I think we will be doing well to protect current social programmes, such as health and superannuation (at least, over the long haul). My own feeling is that it is easiest to sell taxes to voting publics if they can see the connection to public goods they receive; a classic in this country would be ACC. So, if I was looking at tax reform, I would be looking at health funding look more like ACC (merge the two), and future-proofing superannuation by linking it to a similar contributory scheme (which is what the Cullen Fund in some ways is). A low land tax would tackle asset price inflation, tax wealth, and allow us to reduce income tax rates (while maintaining their progressivity). I just don't know how ambitious we can be and how many "hostages to fortune" we can give to a fickle electorate looking for any excuse to give the current administration a fourth term in power.

What I find most upsetting about this whole episode is that we have to rely on a journalist to bring to our attention a fundamental feature of our public policy - namely, a revenue base being eroded in clear view by some very visible actors. We have fully-staffed Treasury and IRD with the requisite analytical skills, public duty and powers to address these issues, and yet we are reliant on a single journalist to bring this to our attention in what is otherwise a much touted failing "mainstream media" (declining ad revenues, digital incursion etc). I can understand how state fiscal custodians might miss this in a developing country or one racked by corruption, but how did they miss it in New Zealand?

I must say I am not aware of the kiwimeter and I am generally pretty unhappy with the way in which the media are using so-called surveys (particularly those that are just write-in and online). But ... There is a problem if ethics committees start saying that you cannot ask questions about controversial and/or sensitive issues. You immediately get a whole lot of subjects taken off the agenda, and of course a respondent can always refuse to answer a particular question (which they often do) and refuse the survey (which over 50 per cent routinely do). This is not necessarily to defend the methodology used here. But to give you an example of a very useful item in a sensitive area, a polling organisation in the US (or maybe UK - sorry to be vague) - reputable and cited, cannot recall which one - has over the years asked a question along the lines of whether the respondent would be happy if their daughter/son married a person of another race (or maybe they specified black). On the face of it, that is racist. However, over the years this polling organisation has shown that public attitudes have changed and that an increasing proportion of people asked this question say that they would be quite happy for their son/daughter to marry a person of a different race. Now that tells you something about changing social norms, and is a thoroughly reassuring statistic about greater racial intolerance - worth knowing. And we would not want a busy-body ethics committee disallowing a question of this kind or requiring the interviewers to put up all sorts of caveats and spoiler alerts to their respondents. This is not to defend poor pilot testing and lack of cognitive interviewing or shoddy survey practice, of course!