People are leaving New Zealand in record numbers as unemployment rises, interest rates remain high and economic growth is anaemic, government statistics show.
Data released by Statistics New Zealand on Tuesday showed that 131,200 people departed New Zealand in the year ended June 2024, provisionally the highest on record for an annual period. Around a third of these were headed to Australia.
While net migration, the number of those arriving minus those leaving, remains at high levels, economists also expect this to wane as the number of foreign nationals wanting to move to New Zealand falls due to the softer economy.
The data showed of those departing 80,174 were citizens, which was almost double the numbers seen leaving prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I want you to say it. There are two possibilities, and the conversation can’t move forward until I know which one you think it is. Quit dancing around the issue.
Why you think I have any reason to do what you demand is beyond me.
Believe it or not, I’m not actually trying to troll you here – despite, at this point, you pissing me off with your cutesy obstinance.
You know what? Fuck it. I’ll just get to the point despite your refusal to cooperate:
I can only assume you’re thinking, but refusing to answer, “no, the European-descended people on the Falkland Islands don’t count as indigenous (definition 2) because they were ‘colonists’ and didn’t arrive before themselves.”
In that case, here’s the real point I was trying to get at: what definition of “colonist” applies to those Europeans but not also the Polynesians, without relying on some kind of European exceptionalism? In what way was the Polynesian expansion across the Pacific not an act of colonization, just like what the Europeans were doing in the Falklands? If the implication is that the ability to “colonize” is exclusively an Age-of-Discovery-European thing, or that Polynesians somehow lacked the capacity to “colonize” places because of some “noble savage” bullshit, I’m not buying it!
In other words, I object to that line of thinking not because I’m trying to diminish the Maori’s claim to Aotearoa, but because making Europeans exceptional sells the Polynesians short.
Now, there is another connotation of “colonist:” the kind that is starkly contrasted with “indigenous” in the sense that they’re newcomers who arrive at a place that already has people living there and subjugate them while claiming the “new” territory for the country they came from. In that context, we can definitely talk about how the Europeans who showed up in Aotearoa were “colonists” and the existing Maori population were their “indigenous” victims. That’s definitely a definition that differentiates between the two groups!
…Except that going by that meaning, the Europeans who settled the Falklands couldn’t have been “colonists” because there wasn’t anybody there to subjugate before they showed up. So does that mean European-descended Falkland Islanders do count as “indigenous” (definition 2) after all, since they were the ones who inhabited the place from the earliest times?
The conclusion I have to draw is this: either both the Polynesian-descended Maori in Aotearoa and the European-descended Falkland Islanders are “indigenous,” or neither of them are.
If you disagree, I would – genuinely! – love to know why.
Well that’s a silly assumption since it literally goes against the definition.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. That’s it? That’s all you’re gonna say? After dicking me around and forcing me to spend a bunch of time trying to anticipate your half of the conversation (at least if I wanted to get a conclusion to it), you’re just going to mock me for guessing wrong?!
Goddamnit, this is why I wanted you to just give me a straight answer in the first place!
You’re a mod – ban yourself for violating rule 5 or 6 or something! Fuck!
Removed by mod
I didn’t force you to do anything. I simply refused to do what you demanded.
You baited me by engaging in less-than-good faith. If you didn’t want to have a conversation, you could’ve just not replied!
I did nothing of the sort. I gave you a definition. I never said or even implied anything other than what the definition said. I cannot help what you assume just because I refuse to do what you order me to do.
What’s your goal here? What are you trying to accomplish right now?