Not referring to population growth, taking about economic and opportunity growth.
What she did was she locked out foreign investors (minus Aus/Singapore) from buying houses in NZ. It made no difference to the housing prices, they still went up dramatically. For some reason, that wasn't "racist" however if that was ever proposed by a right wing politician it would be.
She has political cover due to her being a leftist.
NZ is a very insular country that thi k they matter more in the world than they actually do. Outdoors, NZ beer and there are a lot of good people but politics wise - no good.