Immigration has hit another record high, despite more Kiwis leaving than arriving.
A net 72,300 migrants made their home in New Zealand in the year to June. It's up 3000 on the previous 12 months. In all, there were 131,400 arrivals and 59,100 departures.
"Annual net migration has been steadily increasing since late 2012 when we had more departures than arrivals," says Statistics NZ population statistics senior manager Peter Dolan.
"Over the past three years, annual net migration has been consistently hitting record levels due to an increasing number of non-New Zealand citizen arrivals."
Over the past 12 months, Statistics NZ says the growth has been driven by non-New Zealand citizens - a net 73,600. As for New Zealanders, there was a net loss of 1300. Around 61 percent of Kiwis leaving departed for Australia.
Visitor arrivals numbered 3.6 million, up 10 percent on the year to June 2016.
Labour, NZ First and the Greens have proposed tightening immigration if they are elected in September.
Newshub.
