It wasn't quite Hurricane Irma, but I was caught up in the big snow storm that came through the Central Plateau on Saturday. 

I was at Whakapapa with my family hoping to ski, but we didn't get up the mountain all weekend. 

In fact, we didn't even see the mountain all weekend. 

But there are worse things in life then being holed up in the historic Chateau, sitting by the fire and only venturing outside very now and then to make a snowman. 

And so because we spent two days inside, we got to know quite a few of the staff at the Chateau. 

If you're not familiar with the Chateau or where it is, it's the famous hotel that was built in the 1920s in the Tongariro National Park.  It's in a beautiful part of the country, but it's remote and I've always thought it would be a tough place to work because there's not a lot that's nearby. 

If you go outside of Whakapapa village, there's nothing really. Just a great volcanic expanse. There's National Park at one end of state highway 47, and the closest major town in the other direction is Turangi. So it would be a challenging place to work, I would have thought. 

And so I talked to some of the staff who were working there and they said they loved it. They loved it, but except for the maitre d, everyone I spoke to was foreign. 

The chambermaids, one was British and I couldn't pick the accent of the other woman I met, she was Eastern Bloc I think but I'm not sure from where.

Another woman I spoke to was German. She'd been there three years.  I met a Canadian too. There were a lot of Indians working both front of house and in the restaurants. And I met a Polish man as well. 

The service was impeccable.  And clearly so was the work ethic. One of the waiters who I saw at breakfast also took my wine order that night. He must have been working a split shift. Perhaps his plan had been to get some skiing in during the day. 

But I watched how they dealt with everything that was thrown at them. Two busloads of Chinese tourists who arrived in the midst of the snow-storm.....and who looked slightly alarmed at my mum outside, poor old granny getting pelted with snowballs by the grand-kids. The 70 year old getting taken out by a 7 and 8 year old. 

And while we know our tourism and hospitality sectors rely heavily on immigrants to staff them, and to keep servicing the demands of our hotels and restaurants, it's useful to witness it firsthand. 

I had the same experience in Queenstown a couple of months ago. 

You cannot shut down immigration to the degree that New Zealand First wants to. Even labour, with its plans to reduce immigration by 30,000 would be a step too far I think. Labour says it would look at who we're bringing in and make sure we're still meeting the needs of certain industries....but find me a few hundred New Zealanders who want to work at Whakapapa village on the remote Central Plateau, and who have the skills and the work ethic to do so. 

You'd be hard-pressed I think. 

The team at the Chateau gave tourists, myself included, a very warm, welcoming kiwi experience, albeit it with an accent. 

The Chateau is an example of how important immigration is to us, for tourism, for hospitality, for the regions and for our economy. 

And it's why New Zealand First and its push for a drastic reduction in immigration is both ill-thought through, and makes that party an economically dangerous beast in any coalition. 

(And before you ask, no, I paid the full price to stay at the chateau. It wasn't a freebee)