I owe the inspiration for this article to an industry colleague, who discussed this same topic on LinkedIn recently and it really did get me thinking. There is something wonderfully predictable about immigration becoming a political talking point in an election year and there is enormous entertainment value in watching all of our political leaders suddenly realising they have the “secrete sauce” that will make our immigration system better, faster, and more valuable.
Suddenly, everyone has an opinion about who should be allowed into New Zealand, how long they should stay, what they should earn, and how much commitment they should demonstrate before we allow them to call this country home, and just when you think we might have exhausted every possible immigration policy announcement, along comes another idea.
New Zealand First, a party that has traditionally been very conservative in terms of immigration, has floated the idea of requiring new migrants to sign a statement agreeing to New Zealand values. Winston Peters raised the proposal a year ago, in September 2025, and his party's more recent immigration announcements have continued to emphasise integration, social cohesion and a shared national identity. achieved with caps, restrictions and a rather oddly framed commitment to some sort of shared values statement that we all share.
On the face of it, this sounds somewhat reasonable. After all, why wouldn't we want people coming to New Zealand to respect our laws, understand our society and share some appreciation for the country they've chosen to make their home?
But there's an interesting question in behind all of this, and one that my very learned colleague raised - what exactly are New Zealand values and more importantly who gets to decide.
We do some wonderful things in this country and I think we all do have a shared vision of what we want the country to look like, but I am not convinced that you can wrap that up in a leaflet for someone to sign. I am also not sure that Winston has read the room quite as well as he could have on this particular idea, given the flows of people both in and out of New Zealand.
Welcome to New Zealand. Please agree with us.
Imagine arriving in New Zealand, having navigated the immigration process, demonstrated your qualifications, secured employment and made the considerable personal and financial commitment involved in relocating halfway around the world. Then someone hands you a document asking whether you agree with New Zealand values.
Naturally, you ask what those values are.
The immigration officer consults a colleague. The colleague consults a manager. By lunchtime, a working group has been established, and everyone agrees that further consultation would be helpful. Welcome to New Zealand. We're very good at consultation and we are also becoming experts at waiting for someone else to give us the answer.
Of course, that's an imaginary (but not entirely impossible) scenario, and there is no such immigration requirement currently in force, however it illustrates something important. We often talk about New Zealand values as though they represent a universally understood and agreed set of principles. I'm not entirely convinced that's the case.
Ask a group of New Zealanders what makes this country special, and you'll probably receive a reasonably consistent collection of ideas about fairness, freedom, opportunity, community and treating people with respect. Ask that same group what those principles should mean in practice, and things become considerably more interesting.
For some, being a New Zealander means hard work, self-reliance and individual responsibility. For others, it's about collective responsibility, social equality and making sure nobody gets left behind. Some might point to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and our obligations arising from New Zealand's history. Others will have quite different interpretations of what those obligations should look like today.
We have passionate disagreements about the economy, education, the Treaty, immigration, the role of government and almost everything else. And yet, despite all those differences, we're all New Zealanders.
Perhaps one of our most important national values is the freedom to disagree with each other - a concept we seem to be missing more often than not. A healthy contest of ideas and opinions where we all aim to achieve something better is far more useful in the modern world, to a list of things we all think we should do.
There's a difference between understanding and agreeing.
Now, before anyone suggests I'm advocating for completely unrestricted immigration, I'm not. New Zealand has every right to determine who enters the country, what conditions they must satisfy and what obligations come with living here.
There is nothing unreasonable about expecting migrants to respect New Zealand law, understand our democratic institutions, recognise the rights of others and make a genuine effort to integrate into the society they've chosen to join. In fact I spend a fair bit of time encouraging my clients to “get amongst it” and to integrate by adapting to the way we do things.
Interestingly, New Zealand is already preparing to introduce a citizenship knowledge test from late 2027. That test, which is separate from New Zealand First's proposed migrant values statement, will assess applicants' understanding of matters such as democratic principles, human rights, the legal system and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. There is however a meaningful distinction between testing someone's understanding of their civic responsibilities and asking them to subscribe to a particular interpretation of national identity.
One is relatively straightforward to define and assess, whereas the other requires us to decide what constitutes an acceptable opinion.
Would a migrant who disagrees with a particular government policy be considered inconsistent with New Zealand values? What about someone whose religious or cultural beliefs differ from those commonly held here, but who respects the law and the rights of others? Or someone who embraces the freedoms of New Zealand precisely because they want to express opinions that other people find uncomfortable?
If a values statement is simply an acknowledgement of existing legal and civic obligations, then we should be clear about that. If it's intended to achieve something more, we should be equally clear about what that something is, how it would be assessed and what consequences would follow.
Because the moment we turn an abstract concept like national values into an immigration requirement, somebody has to decide where the boundaries sit and I am not convinced that our political leaders, particularly those proposing the test itself are in any position to define what our shared values might be.
While we're debating who gets in...
There's another aspect of this proposal and the surrounding immigration debate, that I find particularly interesting. We spend considerable political energy discussing the people who want to come to New Zealand. Who should qualify? What should they contribute? How long should they wait for residence? And now, potentially, what values should they be expected to demonstrate?
Meanwhile, New Zealanders themselves continue to head overseas. According to Statistics New Zealand's provisional figures for the year ended August 2026, New Zealand recorded a net migration loss of approximately 38,200 New Zealand citizens. At the same time, the country recorded an overall net migration gain of around 20,500 people.
New Zealanders have always travelled overseas, pursued international careers and taken advantage of opportunities elsewhere. That's not necessarily a reflection of dissatisfaction with New Zealand, and we shouldn't pretend migration statistics alone explain people's decisions. Equally, many people continue to choose New Zealand as somewhere to live, work, invest and raise families.
However we are contemplating asking people arriving here to demonstrate that they understand and share the values that make New Zealand special, while thousands of people who already have New Zealand citizenship are choosing to build at least part of their lives somewhere else. Do those departing New Zealanders suddenly stop sharing Kiwi values when they board an aircraft?
The decision about where someone chooses to live involves employment, family, opportunity, lifestyle and a whole collection of considerations that cannot be neatly reduced to national identity. Which is really the point. If we want people to choose New Zealand, contribute to our economy and build their futures here, then surely we need to think about more than whether they can correctly articulate what we believe makes us New Zealanders.
We also need to think about whether we're creating the conditions that make people want to stay.
Perhaps we're asking the wrong question.
In my work advising people on New Zealand immigration, one thing becomes very clear in almost every one of those discussions. For most migrants, moving to New Zealand isn't simply an exercise in obtaining a visa, it is a rather more complicated decision about their future. They're considering opportunities for their careers, education for their children, the ability to establish themselves financially and the prospect of becoming part of a community.
They want to know whether New Zealand offers a place where they and their families can build meaningful lives, and for many, it does. New Zealand has an enormous amount to offer, from its democratic freedoms and natural environment to the opportunities available in our economy and communities.
Those qualities are worth protecting. However protecting them doesn't necessarily require everyone to hold identical beliefs. There is a legitimate argument that immigration policy should encourage integration and reinforce a common understanding of our laws and democratic institutions. There is also a legitimate concern that loosely defined values requirements could create uncertainty about what is actually expected of applicants.
Unfortunately, nuanced discussions don't always translate particularly well into election campaign announcements. It's much easier for someone like Winston Peters to announce that migrants should share our values, than to explain exactly what those values are, how they would be measured and whether such a requirement would achieve anything that our existing immigration and citizenship systems don't already address.
That is where I think the real debate should be - not whether New Zealand should have values, because of course it should, but whether we're talking about principles that unite us, or opinions that happen to be popular with whichever political party is proposing the test.
So, would you pass?
Perhaps before we start asking new migrants to demonstrate their commitment to New Zealand values, we should consider what that commitment actually looks like. Is it respecting the law? Treating others fairly? Participating in the community? Contributing through employment, business, education or raising a family? Is it respecting the rights of people whose opinions, beliefs and backgrounds are different from our own?
And if those are the things that matter, shouldn't we expect them of everyone living here, regardless of whether they were born in New Zealand or arrived last Tuesday? I don't have any objection to a serious conversation about the values that underpin New Zealand society, but whether that becomes some sort of eligibility commitment is something else entirely.
I also question whether our current (or even future) political leaders are really in the best position to determine what our values are or whether those should become a part of our immigration process.
However if we are going to turn those values into an immigration requirement (and only the polls will determine that), we owe prospective migrants something more substantial than a phrase that sounds good on an election billboard.
We owe them clarity, consistency and a system that treats people fairly. After all, a values statement might tell us what someone is prepared to sign to get a visa, but it tells us rather less about how they will actually add value to New Zealand more generally - and really that is the key values test we should be thinking about.
And perhaps the biggest values test of all, isn't the one we're proposing for migrants, it's whether New Zealand is living up to the values we claim make this amazing little country worth calling home.
Until next week.
