Right wing parties sweep EU polls

Far-right and anti-European Union parties have made sweeping gains in the European Parliament elections [Aljazeera]; Marine Le Pen's The National Front in France, Nigel Farage's UKIP in Britain, the Danish People's Party, Austria's Freedom Party, all made significant gains. The exception is the Netherlands Freedom Party. These parties are united in their opposition to immigration. Nigel Farage said that he wouldn't want to live next to a Romanian family. We don't really have a right wing party in New Zealand. Yet the parties on the left, Labour, Green, Mana-Internet, and New Zealand First who for the time being threw their hat in with Labour, all agree on limiting immigration. They blame immigrants for the great increase in house prices, even though it is clear that immigrants had virtually no influence on property values. True that Auckland house prices are some of the most expensive in the world, but this is not the result of immigration, but of generations of bad planning, inadequate infrastructure, and unreasonably high building costs, due almost certainly to inefficiency  While politicians blame immigrants, there is a critical skills shortage in New Zealand. There are 10,000 IT jobs that cannot be filled. The hospitals are staffed by highly skilled Philippine nurses, Polynesian cleaning staff who are prepared to work for the ridiculously low minimal wage, and doctors from all corners of the world. The whole health system, but probably much else, would come to a complete stand still without immigrants, but xenophobia is good politics. Politicians, who in other areas show a good deal of common sense, are prepared to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to immigration policy. Shame on them.