If Donald Trump were seeking election in New Zealand, he’d have no need to promise a fence to keep out migrants. Nature has given us our own moat.  
 
Sadly, our island state is not enough to stop a vocal minority chanting their own exaggerated anti-immigration claims. In recent times, calls to halt immigration have focused on Auckland’s overheated housing market. But, as economic conditions softened last year, back came the protectionist clichés about immigrants stealing Kiwi jobs.
 
Chief among the cheerleaders was Winston Peters and his internal affairs spokesman, Clayton Mitchell. They started 2015 berating the government for allowing record immigration while “309,145 New Zealanders are stuck on benefits” – and they did not relent. 
 
The results of the latest Household Labour Force survey from Statistics New Zealand should now silence New Zealand First and its followers.
 
With the media’s attention focused last week on the circus at Waitangi, you could be forgiven for having missed it. But the survey suggests the New Zealand economy notched up record levels of employment in the final quarter of 2015.  
 
The results are remarkable. They indicate the rate of unemployment fell from 6% in the previous quarter, to 5.3%. That is its lowest point this decade. 
 
If these figures came as a surprise to economic forecasters, they no doubt confounded Mr Peters. They should not have. It is true that last year New Zealand’s 120,000 immigrants outpaced emigrants by two to one. But while it may have needed a miracle to feed the multitude, it does not need a miracle to employ them. 
 
In a market economy, the number of jobs is not static. More migrants create more jobs. They mean more teachers, more retail staff, more factory workers, and more managers. In fact, more of almost everything.
 
And that is not the end to the good news. Countless international studies have shown that increases in immigration not only tend to increase jobs, but also to increase the prosperity of the host nation. We benefit from their productive endeavours, their ingenuity and their diversity. And the more skilled the migrants, the greater the benefits. 
 
That there are gains from immigration has received cross-party support in New Zealand since at least the 4th Labour Government. Let us hope the anti-immigration demagoguery falls on deaf ears. Going down that path we all lose. 
 
The challenge is not keeping out the migrants; it is keeping out the bad ideas. Luckily, that does not need a wall, just clear thinking.