WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Only 33 per cent of births in New Zealand in 2023 were NZ European.
OUR VERDICT
False. In that year, 60 per cent of those born were registered as European.
AAP FACTCHECK - The number of newborns registered as being "European" is far more than a third of total births in New Zealand, despite claims on social media.
About 60 per cent of births were registered as "European" in 2023, according to official data.
The claim appears in a Facebook post featuring an image of a leaflet allegedly handed out at an anti-immigration protest in Auckland on January 31, 2026.
"IN 2023, ONLY 33% OF TOTAL BIRTHS IN NEW ZEALAND WERE NZ EUROPEAN," the flyer reads.
"Not one more Third World immigrant," the text in the flyer continues. "REMIGRATION NOW!"
The caption states: "These statistics are horrifying. When did Kiwis ever vote for this?"
Some 34,335 of the 56,955 babies born in NZ - or 60.2 per cent - in 2023 were registered as being European, according to StatsNZ figures.
StatsNZ notes that each live birth can be registered under multiple ethnicities.
The latest figures, for 2024, showed 57.4 per cent of newborns were registered as European.
The leaflet appears to have been produced by a group called 'Remigration New Zealand'.
The group identifies the source of the birth figures at the bottom right of the flyer as the "White Population 0-4, 2023" dataset from the 2023 Census, with the identifier "ECL008".
However, this StatsNZ dataset doesn't show the ethnicity of newborns; it shows the ethnicity of the total population aged four years and under in 2023.
There was no data for the "white population".
Instead, some 112,740 out of 288,387 people aged 0-4 in NZ - or 39 per cent - were identified as "European only".
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