Estimates Debate — Vote Immigration

Vote Immigration is $197 million and is part of the Department of Labour’s vote. Immigration is obviously a very important contributor to the New Zealand economy. One in five New Zealanders is born overseas. Sixty percent of the growth of the New Zealand workforce between 2001 and 2006 was a direct result of immigration. Immigration has been a very important building block for the economy, and it will continue to be so in the future. But there is no doubt that the previous Government left us with some considerable challenges, not the least of which has been the performance of the New Zealand Immigration Service.

There have been some very highly publicised inquiries into Immigration New Zealand. We have had the review of the Pacific division, the various inquiries around the Mary Anne Thompson affair, and most recently the Auditor-General’s review, which I have to say was quite damning of various aspects of the service. I emphasise that we certainly have very dedicated staff working at Immigration New Zealand, but the issue we have had is that the current chief executive has inherited a dysfunctional organisation, which has meant that it is very difficult for Immigration New Zealand to deliver the services we need so that it can contribute to long-term economic growth. Turning round the performance of the service is a major focus for the current Government.

There are a number of elements to turning round the service’s performance. The first is implementing the changes that were recommended in the Auditor-General’s report. The Auditor-General made, I think, 20 recommendations. He painted a picture of a service in which the decision-making quality was extremely variable. On any given day a customer could go into an Immigration New Zealand office and receive a different decision, depending on whom he or she saw, which day he or she went in there, and which office he or she went into. Clearly, that is not acceptable. One in five Immigration New Zealand decisions was not up to scratch. In the Pacific division 40 percent of the decisions were not up to scratch. Immigration cannot contribute to the economy in the way that we need it to if we do not have a service that meets the requirements, so the first thing we need to do is to implement the Auditor-General’s recommendations.

The second aspect of turning the service’s performance round is to pull apart all the processes at Immigration New Zealand, look at what they actually do, and put them back together in a functional way that delivers the outcomes we desire from the service. That is a big project.

When we found out what we had inherited from the previous Labour Government, after its 9 years in office, the question was why that Government never did anything about the situation. And why has the Oppositon asked only two questions on immigration in the whole term of this current Government? Both those questions were asked last week. I think the reason for that is quite obvious. The reality is that the previous Government left a huge amount of rubbish behind it. The previous Labour Government left us a real hospital pass. People in the Labour caucus are telling Pete Hodgson he should not ask about immigration. They say there is stuff there that they just do not want to come out, so they ask him not to bring the issue to a head. They do not want immigration to be talked about. That is the other thing we really have to deal with.

On the plus side, we really have to make sure that immigration contributes to economic outcomes for New Zealand. Recently we announced our business migration policy. The previous Government had a business migration scheme—[Interruption] Labour members like to yawn, but they know that this is the truth. In the last 3 years, two of the three business migration categories attracted two applicants in total. Clearly, under the previous Government, the business migration policy did not achieve the aims that it was meant to. We looked at the policy very practically.

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: How many are you predicting? How many?

We listened to the ethnic communities, I tell Mr Prasad. We looked at the language requirements and the capital requirements. We asked what we had to do in order to make the policy work. We have come up with a formula for the Investor Plus category: $10 million, no English language requirement, and after 3 years investors will gain residency. It will be a small group of investors, but they will be able to bring serious capital into New Zealand to add to the economy. Mr Prasad asked how many of those immigrants there will be. I can tell him it will be far more than the two whom his Government brought in. We have looked at the language requirements and the capital requirements, and have come up with a realistic solution.

But we also want to make sure that we can get more New Zealanders to come back here, so we are streamlining the processes for them. We are making it easier for employers to get the labour that they need.

There is a lot to do in immigration. We have the policies and the approach that will turn the service round. The service’s future is good.

Vote agreed to.

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