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New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says the border will reopen sooner than people think and that mass immigration should be left in the past.
Immigration Spokespersons in the 2020 Election Campaign (from left): Kris Faafoi from Labor; Stuart Smith of the National Party; Golriz Ghahraman of the Greens; ACT’s James McDowall and NZ First frontman Winston Peters. Source: rnz.co.nz
By Gill Bonnett for rnz.co.nz
Labor says there will be a new normal, while National wants to introduce a tech visa, making way for highly skilled foreign workers and entrepreneurs.
The closed border may not have killed the immigration debate in this election, but it has made it more complicated.
Labor said it was unrealistic to set numbers on new residents and temporary workers in the current climate.
Immigration spokesperson Kris Faafoi said Covid has forced the industry to reconsider where its workforce comes from.
“From the first moment I took office as the Minister of Immigration, a couple of months ago, we sent a strong message to the sectors that requested labor from abroad that they had to start rethinking things in the medium and long term. We started to see the effect Covid has on New Zealand workers, we started to prioritize them and the training opportunities and salary opportunities that will come from that as well.
“I think because of our success in fighting Covid compared to other countries, New Zealand will be an extremely attractive place for people to want to go. The challenge for New Zealand is how to use that increase in demand to make sure they get the appropriate types of skills and maximize the opportunity to recover economically, culturally and socially from the effects of Covid. “
Managed Isolation (MIQ) is predominantly for New Zealand residents and citizens, but Labor wants to open a quota for qualified workers and investors.
“We know that we have to make sure of our capacity for growth, using MIQ’s capacity for that and that looking at what kinds of skills and talents we want to bring to New Zealand is important so that we can bounce back from the economic effects of Covid.
“We are certainly interested in making sure we can bring talented people and companies to New Zealand for investment.”
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Massey University professor Paul Spoonley joined Breakfast to discuss the latest findings from TVNZ’s Vote Compass tool. Source: Breakfast
National Party immigration spokesman Stuart Smith said immigration figures should be based on business needs and not government goals.
The first priority was border security, he said, but foreign workers were needed to fill the gaps in the economy.
“I think that has been one of the main failures at this time: we have not fully used all the available capacity for quarantine. And we have companies crying out for specialists who cannot enter the country because it simply will not give them quarantine space. “.
National’s technology growth policy would see accelerated processes for foreign investors and entrepreneurs and technology visas for skilled workers.
Over time, the tech sector could catch up with dairy in terms of revenue, he said.
“We would relax the requirements for an investment class visa so that we could make it a lot less bureaucratic and make it a very attractive destination for high net worth investors and tech entrepreneurs coming in and that would really help our tech sector move to the next level. “.
National leader Judith Collins also announced yesterday her plans to allow skilled and seasonal workers to return to the country.
ACT immigration spokesman James McDowall said there was a massive immigration reset caused by Covid-19 and that the country would need to find a way to lure people back.
“The reality is that we’ve had a lot of migrants that left New Zealand, those on temporary visas. And at the same time, a lot of New Zealanders went back to New Zealand, so there will be a big change here. – Immigration will basically be has stalled.
“I think we have the opportunity to use our relatively Covid-free status, our ability to manage the virus well to attract extraordinarily skilled people, investors and other productive people to New Zealand. Immigration numbers have plummeted this year and with everyone. expatriates New Zealanders coming home, things have changed – the skills landscape has changed enormously. “
The immigration point system didn’t necessarily focus on the right things, McDowall said.
“Immigration today has become a complex and arbitrary point and score system when what we really need to do is see how we can better understand where the skills shortage is.”
Education providers would lose market share to other countries if a solution were not found to manage isolation.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has reversed the usual brain drain associated with NZ. Source: Seven Sharp
Britain reported a record influx of students from outside the EU this week, up 9 percent despite its handling of the coronavirus crisis.
He described the changes made to sponsor a parent as punitive: Immigrants must now earn at least $ 106,000 a year.
Green Party immigration spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said she also wanted the parenting category back on the table.
Equity should be the priority and the number of refugees should gradually increase to 4,000, which places New Zealand between Australia and Canada in the per capita number of refugees it accepts.
“Our approach has been to make the immigration system work on a principled basis where we do not necessarily, for example, delay residency visas to arbitrarily reduce the number. That we are providing avenues for migrant workers or students who They come here in good faith to be protected against exploitation, but also to apply for residency and to have those applications processed fairly.
“The residency program I think has been a source of real stress and anxiety for migrants and it has felt really exploitative for New Zealand to allow people to enter and integrate into our system, to give their work or their money in terms education and then I will not be able to reach an agreement. I think that the establishment of arbitrary numbers by the political parties has been the cause of that. “
New Zealand First wants to take over the immigration portfolio if it is part of the next government, but leader Winston Peters would not be attracted to whether he wanted to be immigration minister.
He said that wholesale and low-skilled immigration in the past three decades created dysfunctional supply and demand in housing, healthcare and infrastructure.
Global investors should also be able to enter only on New Zealand terms, he said.
“Immigration remains a serious issue for this election. And what we do after this, hopefully, is not learn anything from it and follow the same path as the previous Labor and National Party governments.”
“We can manage immigration properly in our interest, that is, bring here the people we desperately need, not the people who desperately need us. Let me tell you, I can’t find any other country in the free world that has taken the path that that we have inherited previously, that we are now trying to reverse. “
New Zealand First took credit for keeping Immigration New Zealand under control for the past three years.
“[There has been] a closer examination and inspection of what the immigration department is doing. Countless challenges for them, almost monthly, on how they prepare the information; the concern expressed to them about the way their information was so poorly gathered; and at the end saying that we want that portfolio after the next elections. Why? Because by no means should a system like that be allowed to work so badly. “
Among the parties not currently in Parliament, the Maori Party promised this week that it would halt all immigration until the supply of housing meets the demand.
The New Conservative Party also has a Net Zero immigration policy as the demand for housing declines, with student visas and temporary workers excluded.
The Opportunity Party would convene a Royal Commission on the needs and effects of immigration, and meanwhile restrict visas to jobs in skills shortages and graduate-level students.
