The South Island’s beautiful and desolate west coast region suffers from a severe lack of jobs and people

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Driving up the west coast of the South Island, it’s possible to have the road to yourself; kilometre after kilometre of black-sand beaches, snow-covered southern Alps and towns that have barely changed since the gold rush.

The quiet, traditional lifestyle of the coast is prized by residents, many of whom say they are unfazed by decades of stagnant or declining growth – in fact, they prefer it that way.

As 5 million approaches, it’s thanks to the Treaty of Waitangi, that multiculturalism will succeed

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In April 2003, the year New Zealand’s population hit 4 million, statisticians were predicting the country would hit at 4.8 million people in 2046. As in Europe and North America the country’s birth rate was falling, and no one quite knew whether mass immigration would – or even could – continue at pace. Instead, the pressing concern at the time was how to reverse the brain drain.

In the mid-2000s almost 40,000 New Zealanders were upping sticks each year. Miners and truck drivers were packing their bags for Queensland’s mining boom. Bankers and lawyers were taking up plum jobs in London. Teachers, nurses, and other public servants were comparing what they made in Wellington with what they might make in Washington or Ottawa.