New Zealand is getting older, and not in the “we all need a stronger coffee and a better mattress” sense, but in the very real and slightly alarming demographic sense, that will shape our workforce, tax base, health system, regional growth and national economy for decades to come.

A recent and report by Sir Peter Gluckman and emeritus professor Paul Spoonley, highlighted what many policymakers already know but few seem willing to confront with any real gusto - New Zealand’s population is ageing, birth rates are falling, and the number of working-age people available to support the wider population is coming under significant pressure. This is not simply a pensions issue, or how many gold cards we might need to dish out in the next decade or two, and it is not just a health-sector issue either. It is certainly not just an immigration issue. It is a much bigger and much more pressing national planning issue.

You might be wondering what the connection between visas, politics and butter chicken could possibly be, although if you are already in New Zealand, those dots might join up a little quicker. For those of you who aren’t or at least don’t follow our mainstream media here, the link is all thanks to one of our more vocal politicians - the Honourable Shane Jones.

Known for his ability to provoke and to deliver his opinions fairly bluntly, Mr. Jones recently compared our soon to be signed, free-trade deal with India, as a "butter chicken tsunami" making its way to New Zealand. The provocative imagery being his rather creative (and poorly chosen) way of raising concerns around the visa and immigration components of that free-trade deal. Like most free trade deals we sign, the movement of people and access to visas, for the partner country, is a part of the negotiations.

Scroll through Facebook, YouTube or Instagram for long enough and you will find someone confidently explaining how to get a New Zealand visa. Often it is delivered in 60 seconds, wrapped in certainty, covered in shiny badges, and backed by a comment section full of people saying “this worked for me”.

There might even be some pretty credible claims of “expertise”, a selfie or two with a politician or even some fancy badges or self-ordained titles. It is quick, accessible and, on the surface, incredibly reassuring - particularly when you are considering how to map out your future life in a new country.

We are receiving a growing number of requests from applicants already in New Zealand, holding Work Visas who are now approaching their timeline to apply for residence. Many of these are people with degrees, looking to now apply under the points system, having accumulated three years of experience or those, gearing up to apply under the new work experience pathway being introduced in August 2026.

These applicants are moving ahead, based on the assumption that the role they hold, as it was assessed for their Work Visa is sufficiently skilled to qualify for residence. That is a pretty logical assumption for most applicants to make. It the position was assessed at a particularly skill level for the Work Visa, which in turn enabled them to bring their family and to secure five year long visas, then surely that same assessment of skill will apply when they submit their application for residence.

I often explain to the many potential migrants that I speak with, that our immigration system, whilst it might look complex from the outside, can be easily broken down in to three separate “streams” - one for family, one for business and the one for skills. Those three rivers of eligibility flow into a small ocean of residence pathways and while there are different categories within each pathway, they all add up to achieving the same end goal for New Zealand as a country.

We have a social obligation to grant visas to family members (in various forms), we want to attract investment and entrepreneurial skills, and then we want to bring in skills that will supplement and also reinforce our labour market. Over time we have adjusted how each of these three streams flows in to that ocean, more specifically in terms of the investment and skills pathways, with a view to securing the right mix, of the right people.

For years, New Zealand has traded on our success with the Lord of the Rings and then The Hobbit movie franchises, in many ways, because what we had to offer in terms of scenery and landscapes was depicted (fairly accurately) in those films.

Okay, we don’t have hobbits or dragons, but there was a certain romanticism behind a far away land, with snow covered mountains, dense, rich forests and unchartered landscapes. Ironically however our location is quite a few leagues away from “Middle Earth” and the matter of geography can be a pretty important part of a potential migrants decision to move.

Migrants move for so many different reasons - some come in search of safety and security, others move to be close to family and some head in our direction for the lifestyle we can offer. Among all of those motivations comes a degree of expectation - New Zealand will hopefully offer the prospective migrant something better than they have or perhaps something different.

I was reminded of how important those expectations can be, through a thoughtful piece provided to me by someone who is also considering the move here from the United States. Having travelled here for a short visit, to get a feel for the country, on his return he provided me with a very balanced appraisal of both the good and the bad that New Zealand might have to offer. As a local, it was initially confronting, but in that, it was also very fair, balanced and accurate.

When the Auckland Harbour Bridge opened in 1959, it had four lanes, servicing a population of around 430,000 people. Vehicle ownership was vastly different to what it is now and at the time, four lanes seemed to make sense. Within a decade of the bridge opening it became very obvious that it was already under strain. Traffic volumes had increased dramatically and the original design simply wasn’t enough to cope with that increasing demand.

So engineers did what engineers often do when faced with a practical problem. Instead of replacing the structure entirely which would have come at huge expense or adding a second crossing (something being heavily debated and discussed now), they bolted additional lanes onto the sides in the late 1960s. These became known as the “clip-ons”. These additional lanes, doubled the capacity from four lanes to eight.

The bridge worked again. At least for a while.