The 2026 Election campaign has well and truly kicked off. In the last month, there has been a flurry of party-political announcements. Yet we’re disappointed to see little regard already for actual fact, with NZ First Leader Winston Peters trying to remake history on the migration data front, and so we are using our Chart of the Month this month to set the record straight on migration trends.
Migration trends virtually unchanged in 2017
During NZ First Leader Winston Peters’ speech on 17 May 2026, entitled "By Their Deeds You Will Know Them", Mr Peters asserted that “In 2017 when we [NZ First] became part of the Government, immigration was dramatically cut back.”
Except, that’s simply not true.
As our Chart of the Month shows, non-NZ citizen migrant arrivals into New Zealand were virtually unchanged in 2018 and into 2019, when any change in immigration policy in 2017 would have had an effect. The annual running totals of non-NZ migrant arrivals ranged between 102,000 and 106,000 between the start of 2018 and May 2019, as it had done since February 2016. In fact, it never went below 100,000pa until the COVID-19 lockdown saw borders closed in 2020.
We have focused on non-NZ citizen migration because NZ citizen migration is not something government can effectively regulate. You can’t limit the number of New Zealanders entering or leaving the country on a permanent basis, but the government does control levels around non-NZ citizen migration, through visa settings and more.
Annual net migration of non-NZ citizens reduced slightly, down 14% between the start of 2017 when net migration of non-NZ citizens stood at 64,900, and mid-2018 when a near-term low of 55,800 was reached. However, much of this decline would have occurred before any policy change from Mr Peters. And even then, as outlined above, arrivals were unchanged, with a slightly higher level of non-NZ citizen departures seeing the annual net figure reducing. Importantly, even at the mid-2018 “low”, net migration of non-NZ citizens was higher than at any point between 2004 and 2015. That’s hardly a dramatic “cut back”.
In fact, current non-NZ migrant arrivals at present are still slightly higher levels that prevailed over 2015-2019.
It’s disappointing to see politicians resort to making up views on topics that are quite clear and objective. There was no period in 2017 where “immigration was dramatically cut back.”
Politics should be a contest of ideas. Mr Peters’ recent speech raised the idea of compulsory KiwiSaver enrolment at birth, alongside a Crown contribution of $1,000 to kick things off. We think that policy idea has merits. Another idea was to buy BNZ, and amalgamate it with KiwiBank. We think the figures Mr Peters is quoting to buy the bank are far too low, but again, maybe there’s merit in the policy conversation – with the right figures.
But there is simply no data that backs up the view that immigration was dramatically cut back in 2017. There’s no opinion to that, just figures. Mr Peters is welcome to debate topics like migration. But he should really check his facts before he tries to tell the public what he did, when he clearly did nothing of the sort.
