Imagine being born in a country that you were desperate to get away from.

The most obvious places right now would be Syria and Iraq, but there are plenty of other places where people, just like you and I with the same expectations, feel unsafe for themselves and their families.

It's not just the refugees. It's people genuinely looking for a better life, the sort of life that we're used to in this country, that at times we can take for granted.

For those of us who have travelled, and in my case to some of the poorest countries in the world, it's easy to understand why people become desperate to escape the misery.

Now, this isn't an argument about New Zealand suddenly opening the floodgates to migrants. The policy hasn't changed so people aren't getting in any easier, but this country's become more attractive to Kiwis who've been living abroad. They're coming home.

It's a fact, though, that an influx, like we've seen over the past year where the population's grown by around 70,000 does bring pressure on essential services, like hospitals, schools, and of course housing.

This is a argument about the motives of the politician who's made a career out of removing the welcome mat: Winston Peters. He knows beating the immigration drum resonates with a large chunk of the electorate who like to blame someone for their woes.

Peters wants to cap the numbers coming here to between seven and 15 thousand, providing they're seriously qualified.

That is unrealistic. You only have to talk to the seasonal horticultural industry to understand that. Last year 38,000 immigrant work permits were issued, many of them for fruit pickers and the like. There are currently around 15,000 immigrants helping with the Christchurch rebuild.

They're not taking the jobs from Kiwis. Many of them are doing the jobs that Kiwis would sniff their noses at, but that's another argument.

But Peters isn't just satisfied with severely curtailing the number of people coming to live here. He wants to see them interviewed at the border to see if their attitude's right, especially those who come from countries that "treat their women like cattle."

And he says to build a sense of nationhood they should be required to salute the flag, that almost half of the country wanted to change just a few months back.

It's a drum that he's familiar with, but is it the sound of patriotism, or politics?