Analysis: Immigration officials will no longer measure whether migrants feel like New Zealand is their home when evaluating how effective their policies are.

The measure was simple. Migrants were asked, through a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) survey, whether New Zealand felt like home.

Until now, that answer was one of the ways the government judged whether its migrant settlement work was succeeding. That is changing now.

The change appears in the government’s budget papers. Each year, the budget sets out how much money government agencies receive, what that money is meant to achieve, and how their performance will be measured.

All those details are contained in a paper titled 'Vote Labour Market', which was presented to a parliamentary select committee on Tuesday. It includes Immigration New Zealand's (INZ) funding for 2026-27.

Within that paper is a funding category for the settlement and integration of refugees and other migrants. This is the pot of money used for services that help migrants and refugees settle into life in New Zealand.

That papers also lists performance measures used to judge whether the money is achieving its purpose.

Until now, one of those measures was the percentage of recent migrants who feel New Zealand is their home. In this year’s immigration funding documents, that measure has been removed.

The government says the reason is that MBIE has limited control over the result.

Officials told MPs yesterday whether migrants feel at home depends not only on government services, but also on how other New Zealanders treat them.

The issue was raised at the select committee on June 16, 2026, by Green MP Ricardo Menendez March, who asked associate minister for immigration Casey Castello and MBIE chief executive Nic Blakeley why the measure had been removed.

He asked whether it was being replaced with something else. Blakeley said he did not have the answer immediately and would come back to the committee in writing.

“My guess will be when you look at these measures, it’s always a trade-off between the end outcome that you’re trying to achieve and the thing that you can actually influence,” he said.

Blakeley explained the measure had been removed because MBIE had “low influence” over the result.

“It’s low influence because it’s really about how other New Zealanders will end up treating them as well,” he said.

Castello suggested the use of the word 'influence' was in the context of what levers MBIE can pull to make migrants integrate better with society.

"Because the response is about whether they have made friends or those sort of things..." she said.

"So there is influence around housing, there is influence around access to employment...and because English language was one of those considerations."

For many migrant families, the distinction may sound technical. But the question behind it is not.

Settlement is not only about getting a visa, finding work or learning English. It is also about whether people feel accepted enough to call New Zealand home.

That is what the removed measure tried to capture. It came from MBIE’s Migrant Survey, an annual survey that asks recent migrants about their experience of life in New Zealand.

The survey covers practical issues such as work, housing and English language; but also social questions such as whether migrants have friends, whether they feel they belong, and whether they have experienced discrimination.

The government has not said it is scrapping the survey itself. Instead, it plans to stop using one answer from that survey – whether New Zealand feels like home – as an official measure for judging migrant settlement work.

Migrants may still be asked whether New Zealand feels like home, but the answer will no longer be one of the public measures used to assess whether government settlement spending is working.

The question has a longer history.

In 2014, the government approved the New Zealand Migrant Settlement and Integration Strategy. The aim was to help migrants settle and take part in New Zealand life.

That same year, MBIE began asking recent migrants whether New Zealand felt like home.

From 2020-21, that question became more than just a survey result. It was turned into a formal performance measure for migrant settlement work, replacing an older measure that looked at whether migrants were satisfied with settlement services.

The change moved the focus from services to outcomes. Instead of only asking whether migrants liked the help they received, the fovernment was also asking whether migrants actually felt settled here.

The target in recent years was 85 per cent. MBIE’s latest Migrant Survey shows the question is still being asked.

The explanation for removing the measure is that it cannot fully control whether migrants feel at home. But that is also why the measure matters.

If migrants do not feel accepted, the problem may not sit neatly inside one government department. It may involve housing, work, language, racism, friendship, community connection and how welcoming wider society is.