New Zealand's migration influx continues to rise as more Indian and Chinese students flock to courses in the country and more Kiwis give up on their overseas dreams and come home.

Migrant arrivals rose 13 percent to a record 117,900. Departures fell 5 percent to 57,600. What that means is a record net gain of 60,300 migrants in the August year, the 13th straight month a record has been set.

Now let's put that in context. That means the number of new New Zealanders or old New Zealanders coming home that came here this year, looking for houses and looking for jobs, is equivalent to the population of Napier.

Imagine that. A whole Napier arriving on your door wanting somewhere to stay and something to do.

What's worse is that half of all migrants to state an address on their arrival card were moving to the Auckland region. 27,900, followed by Canterbury on 6700 and Waikato at 2300. That’s equivalent of a full Wellington Cake Tin or a Blenheim moving to Auckland every year. And all those bodies need a bedroom.

So that's all the houses in the special housing accords swallowed up without even taking into account internal migration and natural population growth.

For more context our immigration is the highest in the OECD and it’s the same as America accepting 8 million immigrants when they currently accept a quarter of that.

And what's worse again is that it's not a rich cross section of people. Half the migrants are students so there's bubble of 20 somethings all fighting for the shoebox apartments that are spreading like wildfire. And it's certainly not all East Asian students. India contributed most to the gain in migrant arrivals, at 12,700 in the year, followed by 8400 from China, 4500 from the Philippines and 3800 from the UK.

These people all need jobs to get by and it's clear they taking up all the low paid ones as the recent Masala case plainly shows.

Meanwhile nearly 36,000 work visas were issued, the most to people from the UK, but that's 36,000 jobs taken from kiwis who are already here and waiting

Now I'm no xenophobe, I have no problem with immigration. 50 years ago I immigrated from the UK. But I do have a problem when we import people without having the infrastructure to absorb them.

I am increasingly getting the feeling that the government is allowing this unfettered growth in immigration to artificially boost the economy. These 60,000 people buy goods and services and educations and they bring money into the country. But the costs are insidious and we're kicking the problem down the road for another government to wrestle with.

It's time for a cup of tea. We don't have to shut the door completely but we certainly shouldn't be leaving it unlocked for all and sundry to waltz on in.