That’s despite Luxon pledging before October’s election to boost migration – saying his National Party wanted “the world’s best talent to be able to come here to New Zealand”.  

In the year to October, Statistics NZ’s net migration figure of 128,900 was up from 125,222 in September.

Stats NZ said the majority of immigration was from India, the Philippines, China, Fiji and South Africa.

Luxon said on Monday the Government was walking into an immigration system “that’s been a complete hash”.

“It’s gone from being way too restrictive to being way too loose and we’ve got to find that balance,” he told RNZ’s Morning Report.

The high levels of migration – more than double October 2017 levels – illustrated the challenge Luxon faced given the labour shortages New Zealand suffered post-COVID.

“We’ve never seen these sort of level of arrivals and net migration gain ever in our history, and it is contributing significantly to our population growth,” Massey University sociologist Paul Spoonley told RNZ last week. “My calculation is that we will grow by around 2.5 percent this year, which is really high… the problem is, how do we provide the services and infrastructure when our population continues to grow?”

Stats NZ said the number of non-New Zealand citizens who arrived in the past year was 173,400.

Opposition Immigration spokesperson Phil Twyford said the former Government loosened settings due to labour shortages and noted National was “incessantly calling on Labour to loosen the rules” before the party entered office.

However, Twyford acknowledged on Monday the tightening of settings may now be required.