I have a confession to make…I may be an illegal alien in Wellington.

I never got official permission to move here. I never went through customs at the port. It can’t be long until I am discovered by the Wellington immigration officers and promptly deported back to Christchurch.

Calls for the government to curb immigration are getting louder. But everyone is ignoring the much bigger migration issue: the uncontrolled flood of South Islanders into our beautiful capital.

The post-quake exodus of Garden City residents will have changed the face of Wellington irreparably. Why weren’t urgent procedures put in place to check the criminal backgrounds, language abilities, and qualifications of the Christchurchians before they breached the North Island shores?

We hear that immigrants steal jobs, drive down wages, bid up house prices, and ruin the very fabric of our society with their incompatible cultures. Am I not causing similar difficulties in my new city? How could I possibly be of benefit to Wellington if I never had to prove myself to a bureaucrat?

When The New Zealand Initiative hired me, they possibly could have found a local instead. It’s disgraceful that the council did nothing to stop me from stealing this job from a proper Wellingtonian. A ‘Wellingtonians first’ policy requiring employers to give priority to locals would have prevented this travesty.

I can say from first-hand experience that the supply of houses in Wellington is tight. My presence here has surely displaced a hapless Wellingtonian. The council could look into stamp duties for non-locals purchasing houses.

As a native English speaker I wasn’t anticipating language difficulties. However, I have had trouble translating the alphabet soup of initialisms in the Wellington dialect. Screening tests for incomers on their ability to differentiate between ministry names and medical conditions should be enacted immediately.

Cultural integration with the public servants and hipsters (not necessarily mutually exclusive) is another hurdle. Perhaps I should have been made to sign a values statement swearing allegiance to craft beer and political discussions.

I could understand my new fellow city-zens being fed up with this rampant invasion. Those calling for more restrictive immigration policy should set their sights higher. Why stop at foreigners when we could control internal migration too?

But as a recent migrant I should be careful what I say. I wouldn’t dare rock the boat that I am stowing away on.