Will they stay or will they go? Immigration promotion, immigrant retention, and contestation over the changing profile of the ‘desirable’ migrant in Aotearoa New Zealand

In settler colonial countries, immigration promotion has always been present; active promotion – even subsidisation – of permanent migration formed a central part of settler state efforts to build populations, economies, and institutions. As traditional source country preferences gave way to neoliberal models that construed the ‘desirable’ migrant as one who would deliver an economic ‘return’ (Simon-Kumar 2015), immigration promotion policies and practices took a different form, and these societies became models for selective high-skilled migration recruitment. By the early 21st Century, however, the conditions for immigration recruitment had changed in multiple ways. First, many other states, including across Europe (Cerna 2014; 2016), had begun participating actively in the ‘global race for talent’ (Shachar 2006). As a result, attracting ‘desirable’ migrants became a more complex and competitive endeavour. Second, as economic and demographic conditions changed, designating the ‘desirable’ migrant had the potential to become a more contested and politicised process. Drawing on a case study of Aotearoa New Zealand grounded in tracing of party positions, political discourse and political and bureaucratic decision making, this paper aims to contribute to theorising of how conditions for immigration promotion change over time, and with what consequences for construction of the ‘desirable migrant’. Traditionally an active state in immigration recruitment and promotion, New Zealand has faced growing constraints and headwinds in its efforts. Several factors combined to alter the stakes of immigration recruitment—a smaller and lower wage economy than comparable countries, geographic isolation, substantial onward migration, and high emigration rates of New Zealanders that led the national Productivity Commission (2022) to describe the country as ‘more like Poland ... than Australia’. Increasingly, governments had to ask not only ‘who do we want?’, but also ‘who will stay?’. This influenced how 'desirability’ was construed and how the state sought to attract immigrants. Adding further complexity was political contestation over what or who constitutes the ‘desirable’ migrant. Scholars have long documented how governments face competing economic interests and claims of employers, sectoral leaders and labour in formulating policies to attract migrants. Yet, governments must also balance competing visions of the ‘desirable’ migrant from within different parts of the bureaucracy (eg trade, foreign affairs, employment, ethnic affairs). Electoral interests matter too. Recent survey data has shown divergence in which immigration categories (e.g. investor, high-skill, regional/Pacific, and family) are prioritised by New Zealand’s political parties, on one hand, and voters, on the other (Barker & McMillan forthcoming; Liu & Ran 2023), which may disrupt previously broad societal consensus about immigration recruitment efforts. In addition to the noted structural ‘headwinds’, therefore, I argue that societal change over time challenges contemporary policy choices around the ‘desirable’ migrant. Notably, as the size and composition of the migrant-origin electorate changed due to earlier immigration recruitment choices, ethnic communities placed new pressures on political parties regarding what and who is a desirable migrant. Such pressures have consequences for how political elites weigh up economic and electoral considerations in immigration promotion.