Very rose tinted view.<p>I don't know where people get this meme of "do the job native people don't want to do". If a chain store that sells asian food (say, St. Pierres Sushi) only seems to have Asians (a minority) working for them, what's the more likely scenario? That there are no non-Asians willing to serve food for minimum wage, or that the people hiring are showing overwhelming discrimination and choosing people who look like them?<p>Illegally underpaid work in the immigrant community is huge in NZ. I don't think I've ever heard of an Asian restaurant or supermarket that actually paid minimum wage. An Asian friend of mine actually once tried to report an employee for hiring people illegally and not paying minimum wage. They told her that they <i>needed the employers passport number</i>. Without that, they'd do nothing. What was my friend supposed to do, steal it!? Hiring people illegally is simply not enforced.<p>Discrimination against non-Asians is prevalent too - it's very normal to see "prefer Asian" written <i>in English</i> on advertisements for flatmates, no one blinks an eye anymore. I distinctly recall trying to find a room, talking to a friendly guy who spoke fluent English with an NZ accent, and then having him ask me if I was Asian or not. Afterwards I got a gutless text with an excuse to save face.<p>I'll never forget the two days I attended Polyfest - a big 'multicultural' (ie, anything not European) event where school kids gave performances. I remember struggling to find a group of school kids walking around where the members had different skin colours. It was the exception rather than the rule. I was later informed by security guards that "the Samoans" had gotten into a fight with "the Indians". Wonderful.<p>The fact of the matter is where large enough groups of immigrants congregate there will be zero pressure for them to integrate. They will interact with their own, hire their own (ignoring local minimum wage laws), speak their own languages and live in their own bubbles. If that's what multiculturalism is - different groups of people with very little contact with each other sharing the same land - then count me (and my family) out of it.<p>PS: Also ignoring the practical matter that NZs population growth is developing-world high, primary fueled by high immigration. You might argue it's still a sparsely populated country, but the fact remains that once your skilled labour force is high-income, infrastructure simply cannot keep up with demand because it's too expensive. Not to mention the effect it has on house prices.