Estimates Debate — Immigration

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wanted to kick this off in the absence of our chair, Marja Lubeck. I’m the only person who’s available from the Education and Workforce Committee, which Immigration lies under.

I first wanted to start off by acknowledging the challenges that COVID-19 has brought to us as a nation, but also the extra challenges for our migrant community and also our businesses. This is the reality that COVID-19 has created for us—it’s not something that we wanted. So we acknowledge the burden of the suppression of the families, and the lack of our businesses to bring skilled labour from overseas has created extra challenges for us as well.

With that, considering time constraints, I just want to go straight into the question. But first I want to acknowledge the Minister of Immigration for his constant engagement with the committee, constructively. He constantly came in front of the committee and answered questions. There was no reservation and he generously gave up his time. So I commend him for that.

With that, I go to my question. My question is, we are aware that the Government is considering measures to rebalance New Zealand’s immigration policy settings, as we look to reconnect with the world. What can the Minister tell us about the principles that will underpin this work?

Thank you. I’ll start with a few questions around the Government’s Afghanistan response, and I’ll ask why were Afghan nationals who supported the New Zealand Defence Force, including interpreters, only granted critical purpose visitor visas—and here is one of them—valid for six months, and not residency; and, further, what will happen to those visitor visa holders who are stuck in Afghanistan when their visas expire, and will they be given residency?

Mr Chair, thank you. And can I thank Mr McDowall for the question. The critical purpose visas were issued to the people he has spoken about because it was the most effective and efficient and quickest way in order to get those people to New Zealand. A check of the residency process will be undertaken now. I think—if I recall, and it may have been at last Friday’s select committee meeting—Mr McDowall asked me about the letter that was sent, or, essentially, the communication that was sent to those people around the critical purpose visa. I think I said I’d go away and get a response for him—the form letter is the form letter that is usually sent out for a critical purpose visa, which I understand—he said at the meeting—may have sounded a little harsh. I think officials acknowledge that and have made moves to amend that. Everyone was working at pace, but that is the form letter that is sent to people who are granted critical purpose visas. So I think that may answer that question.

To answer, I think, the second question that the member asked: we are doing everything that is possible to make sure that people who do have valid visas, who are either in Afghanistan or have made their way outside of Afghanistan, are able to make their way to New Zealand. We’re doing that in a number of ways—obviously, in the first phase, the evacuations that were taking place and ceased about a week and a half ago; but also, Cabinet will soon consider what other options in terms of our refugee programme we may be able to extend, as well as any humanitarian efforts that we may be able to make to welcome more people from Afghanistan here. The criteria for that, and some of the logistics behind that in a time of COVID, and also some of the challenges of making sure we can settle some of these people here are being worked through for officials, and, hopefully, we’ll be able to make some decisions about that soon.

Why were 24 women who were supporting the New Zealand Defence Force as paramedics, teachers, and even clearing landmines and improvised explosive devices in Bamiyan Province declined emergency visas?

There were very clear criteria that were made by Cabinet as to those who would be eligible, certainly in the first tranche of applications that have come through. I have not seen each of those individually, but the Defence Force, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Police were responsible for triaging those applications, as to whether they met the strict criteria that Cabinet had made. If the member has some of those cases that he believes did meet the criteria, or maybe haven’t been through the process with either the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade or Defence or Police, then I would like to see those.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I note from the Budget documents that there has been no reduction—in fact, a small increase—in Vote Immigration for this year. Not surprising—that’s normally what happens in normal circumstances. But these are anything but normal times. Can he confirm data from the Immigration New Zealand website that in the past year, and despite the retention of all of the staff and all of the costs, more than 700,000 fewer visas have been processed in just three categories: international students, temporary work, and visitor visas? And if that’s the case, to what work have those staff been put if they weren’t processing those 700,000 visas?

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Pre-COVID, as the former Minister of Immigration will know, usually—I think in the year between June 2018 and June 2019, there were 1.3 million visa applications, and that, during COVID, has dropped to about a half a million visa applications. So that one example reflects the change of volume that Immigration New Zealand has had in processing certainly visa applications.

The member will also know that when the border closed, we also set up a border exception process in order to allow those businesses who needed critical workers to come into New Zealand to be able to do that. There are very strict criteria for that, in the two ranges that we have. There are also the likes of class exceptions and also the likes of family reunification applications that need to be looked at. None of these application processes were needed before the border was closed, so Immigration New Zealand has had to reorient a number of its processing staff into the likes of making sure it can process the likes of border exceptions. I’ll get the number soon, but it is a rather large number that we’ve been able to bring through of both workers and also their partners and families in order to make sure that those critical businesses can have the labour that they dearly need.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ve got a range of questions for the Minister, and he might want to get a pen ready. I’ll go through all of them now on behalf of my colleague, the portfolio holder.

So starting with the assessment and processing services, the Green Party is interested in whether the Government has set any new residency targets that will aim to clear the assessment and processing backlog. Particularly mindful of some of the context of migrants having paid visa fees and their visa applications sitting unprocessed for months, and recognising and being interested in hearing more about the process to digitise that process. So acknowledging that in the first lockdown there were thousands of applications that just got stuck, and I understand that in this situation during this level 4, another 27,000 visas have been unable to be processed, and really keen to see that we’re future-proofing that to avoid that kind of problem in the future.

Also interested in, and acknowledging that, immigration is really important for us as a country. It’s about how we get skilled workers to fill the gaps that we have here. It’s about family connections. It’s about actually telling people and communities who have played a really important role in our country that, actually, we recognise that history of closeness between us as people.

So we’re interested in wanting to hear about the plans for family reunification and how he will retain workers that are from non-visa waiver countries and are unable currently to be reunited with their families because they don’t meet the living together criteria. When does he expect to have a pathway for family reunification? That’s on the top of a lot of people’s minds and their hearts at the moment. Does he think the current settings that create barriers for visa holders from non-visa waiver countries is fair? Linking to that, in its review of immigration settings, will the Government be considering an amnesty for overstayers; particularly in light of the Dawn Raids apology, the COVID outbreak, and labour shortages—feels like a pretty compelling argument for an amnesty to us.

Then, also looking at some of those barriers, that inbuilt discrimination in the system. We’ve been raising the concern, and there’s a petition in front of Parliament around the ableist settings within our legislation. Just on one aspect of that, we understand that the Minister’s indicated that he’s expecting to receive advice on recommendations of a review of the health requirement in relation to HIV and we’re wondering when we might expect to hear more about that; hoping to see that gone.

Then—you might be pleased—the final set of questions is around addressing the temporary migrant worker exploitation. We’re just wondering if the Minister is confident that all investigations into exploitation are being done with the full participation of the exploited workers. We’re wanting to make sure that it’s a real investigation informed by their experience and, with a concern we had about the migrant exploitation protection visa only lasting for one month, whether it’s meaningful, whether workers are able to transition to meaningful employment when it’s such a short period of time, and how does the Minister expect to use the employment relations services Budget allocation to address migrant exploitation in light of the recent allocation increase? Done.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’ll try and address most of those questions if that’s okay.

In terms of the migrant exploitation, there’s a new visa available for workers who believe they may have been exploited. There’s also an investment of $50 million that I think we announced about halfway through last year in order to increase resources to ensure that those migrants who believe they are being exploited have a safe way in order to bring that to the attention of the authorities and also to make sure that there’s the resources to make sure that any allegations of exploitation are properly investigated.

To the point that I believe she has been making on—that she made for her colleague around the status of HIV status with immigration settings, the latest information I have there is the regular review of the health conditions that are looked at when we assess visa applications is very soon, I believe, going to be delivered to myself and the Minister of Health, and we can make decisions there. I won’t pre-empt anything, but as part of that regular review, we will look at those kinds of issues.

In terms of family reunification, I understand the difficulties and the pain that that has caused to many migrant families as a result of us closing the border. What I would say is the same messages: we are always looking at those settings, and our availability of being able to reunite people in New Zealand with their partners and their children offshore. We understand the pain but we are very much constricted by the capacity of the managed isolation system to be able to make commitments to bring cohorts of people through to New Zealand and to reunite with their families, and—as you would imagine—that is difficult with the current situation with managed isolation, especially at this time of this Delta outbreak.

Just quickly, because I want to make sure that other people get an opportunity to ask questions as well, is very recently we said we were looking at the issue of residency. Obviously, the alert level 4 situation has put some of those opportunities to have those discussions on hold to some degree, but we hope very shortly to have a message for those people who are waiting and also some certainty for people who would like to see a pathway to residence because of their time here in New Zealand.

Why has Residence from Work been put into the general residence processing queue when it should be a priority? And the reason I ask that is that Residence from Work is supposed to be a reward for having a particularly skilled job that can’t easily be filled locally, and applicants have to wait two years to apply for residency anyway. Now that this category has stalled, their visas are expiring and they have to renew them. Residency through this route can take four years. It never used to be like this. My question to the Minister is: why has Residence from Work become such a mess, and what is he going to do about it?

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to follow up on the answers to Jan Logie’s questions around family reunification.

I heard the Minister say that he was “always looking”. Frankly, what those people want isn’t looking; it’s acting, and for him to say in respect of residence that COVID lockdown has affected his ability to make decisions around residence and, particularly, the expression of interest pool, which has been suspended now for 19 months is, I think, a bit of a cop-out. The Minister said that he reoriented some of the staffing resources, and, indeed, that would have been the case, but he didn’t reorient them to the residency pool. He was reported as saying in April this year that the decisions around the reopening of that pool were soon, and we’ve heard the words “soon” and “very soon” quite a bit lately, including in the select committee last week.

So I would like the Minister to provide those applicants with much more certainty about what “very soon” means and to inform the committee about when he intends to make those decisions. Has he taken a Cabinet paper already and was it deferred for more work, but, firstly, when are we going to hear?

To Mr McDowall’s question, they can still be prioritised. I think if they’re earning twice the median wage and are a registered occupation, then those people who have applied for residency can have their application brought up out of the queue and prioritised, and that is happening.

To Mr Woodhouse’s first point, around family reunification, I would stress the difficulty of being able to give what I think most families want: some certainty around when their family members can be reunited with their loved ones here in New Zealand. It very much depends on our ability to bring those people through our managed isolation system. The former Minister will know that there is huge demand from New Zealanders, who have a right to come back to New Zealand. There is huge demand from sectors who would like to bring critical workers into the country, and also there are families who want to be reunified too. All of those groups have to bring people through 14 days of managed isolation in order to keep the country safe. That is a non-negotiable. Unfortunately, in those difficult situations, the Government has had to make some difficult decisions. We don’t enjoy making those decisions, but we have to make them in order to make sure that our managed isolation capacity is manageable, to give certainty to people across the board, and that is, again, a difficult decision to make.

One of the other things I think we also have to do is, when we make these decisions, we have to be mindful of the numbers of people that will be eligible for those spots, and manage that across a period of time. As the member has seen, especially with the last outbreak, that is very difficult when you don’t necessarily know all the inputs.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would point out to the Minister of Immigration that, actually, families are being reunified. They’re being reunified because the individuals who are already here onshore are leaving the country. So my first question is: does he have any data on the number of highly skilled workers who have left New Zealand because the Government’s policy prevented their family members from joining them?

The second questions are around, effectively, the reset speech that the Minister gave—or Minister Nash did on his behalf in April—putting an emphasis on skilled migrants, but since then, there are over 3,000 doctors and nurses and 600 teachers stuck in the queue. Many of those have given up on New Zealand and gone to places like Canada and Australia because of the Government’s inertia. Does he agree the speech and that inertia are not only highly inconsistent but actually hurting New Zealand?

My third question is: has he had a discussion with the Minister of Health about the calls by intensive care clinical leaders, including Dr Carr, that says that bed capacity in our ICUs on a day-to-day basis, including trained staff, hasn’t increased in the past 18 months, and the degree to which immigration policy and that inertia might be a driver of it?

Can the Minister explain the delays in the skilled migrant category processing, given that no expressions of interest have been selected since April 2020, and tell us what plans there are, if any, for Immigration New Zealand to address these delays in this category and return to, say, 90 percent completed within six months, as opposed to the 27 months at present? Secondly, does Immigration New Zealand think it is feasible to invite the more than 11,000 expressions of interest to apply for residence when selection resumes, and how long will it take to process those applications? My final question on residency is: is the Minister considering shifting the skilled migrant category application process to being online-based, given the sophistication in document verification technology that is available today?

To address the last question, eventually yes. I think the immigration system, as many in this hall will know, has been paper-based for some time, and that has caused logistical issues even experienced during the latest lockdown, around the processing of residency visas under alert level 4. So moves are afoot, under the debt programme, to make sure that much more of the visa process, or application process, can be moved online to make that a much more streamlined process. And in the age of COVID, making sure that we can continue to do that processing work when people are working at home.

To try and address a number of the questions that have been asked by both Mr Woodhouse and Mr McDowall, at the risk of agreeing with Mr Woodhouse about some of the statements I have made, I think the demand for the likes of the retention of workers has increased over many months. And to the question that his colleague Erica Stanford asked at the select committee last week about what we could do about particular cohorts of people who might be looking for residence, my response to her was there is more than one cohort or sector that would like to have a clearer pathway to residence, because of the situation that we’re in now, and also, I think, for the long-term stability of the workforce in the future. The Government is looking at that as a wide and broad issue as opposed to an issue just about a particular sector.

I think I may have answered some of those questions. I think I may have forgotten one of the ones that Mr McDowall has asked. I might let him ask it again.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, while our borders continue to be closed, business have expressed more than a time that they are affected by worker shortages. What are some of the measures you are implementing to take the pressure off and help them to make the most of the onshore workforce?

Just to clarify the questions that I asked, since requested, it was regarding processing times for the Skilled Migrant Category and getting back to 90 percent completed by six months as opposed to 27 months at present. Furthermore, is it feasible that they’re going to be able to say to 11,000 Expression of Interest (EOI) people—people that have lodged EOIs—that you can apply for residence?

The reason why the wait times have increased are a number, and the first one is that in terms of what the forecast was for applications for residency, that was well above what was forecast. So the ability to process an increased demand, or a higher than expected demand, has meant that people have had to wait later. Also, to a degree, as I mentioned to Mr Woodhouse, there has been a reorientation of some processing staff and the ability for us to process those residency applications, because of that, has also been affected.

I think another question he asked, also, is: is there a way to make sure we can expedite the processing of residence applications? My understanding is that over time, the criteria or the checks that have to be done to pass the muster for residency have grown considerably, and I have asked to find out if there are ways to streamline that process but also to make sure that we keep the robustness of that process within the system in order to make sure that we can give people the level of service that I think they would like.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to ask the Minister three final questions. I think they’re very important. In the basket of things he is looking at but so far not acting on is this very concerning issue of the children of temporary migrants who have completed their secondary education but can’t go on to tertiary study without paying extortionate fees—well, not extortionate, but they’re very high—and can I implore him to act on that in the same “very soon” time parameters? In fact, could he give the committee an update on that?

Secondly, I note from the Budget documents that the memorandum account, which was severely overdrawn, effectively, was topped up, effectively, with a nearly quarter of a billion dollar transfer in the 2020 Budget—we’re at the end of that—but the projections are still for that to be back in the red by over $200 million by the end of this year. I’m in possession of the letter that the Hon Grant Robertson sent to the Minister, basically saying, “Don’t come back for more.” He says—I quote—“I consider that the decision not to cost recover these deficits from future fee payers is a significant policy matter that should be considered at Cabinet.” Now, the issue with that is that if it’s not going to be funded by the taxpayer, then future fee payers will have to pay a significant sum more than they currently are to top that up. It’s unfair to them. It’s unfair to the taxpayer to once again have to pay for a service that the overseas applicants should be paying for. How will the Minister reconcile that?

My third question is around satisfaction. The Budget documents show that, last year, one in four—according to page 147 of the Budget document—visa applicants was not satisfied with the overall experience of applying for a visa. That’s a big, big jump in what it had previously been. Is he concerned about that, and what is he doing about it?

In answer to his first question, yes, we’re all wanting to make sure that we take care of the issue around people who have young children or young adults as part of their residency application. As the member will know, as part of that letter, I think, the Minister of Finance also asked us to undertake a cost review of the immigration system, and that is currently being done. And, in terms of the survey that the member said about the visa-processing system, I think moves are afoot to make that much more streamlined by moving more to a digital platform, away from the paper-based system that has predominantly existed up until recently. And, without knowing the particulars of that survey, that was the year when quite an increase of people who were applying for visas were being declined because of the border closure. So I’m not necessarily sure that the customer service, because of the border closure, was up to the standards that they would have hoped.

Dr James McDowall—final question.

Will the Minister consider enabling family members of our managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) workers who are on visas to have their visas processed offshore if necessary and get a border exemption? And another policy question: COVID has made it difficult for many couples to meet the living together requirement; will the Minister consider waiving that requirement for applicants who haven’t met that as a direct result of COVID? And, finally: why does the Minister wait until a sector is in a dire state regarding its workforce shortages before allowing workers—most recently, teachers—to bring in family? How bad does it need to get before the Minister decides to use family border exemptions as a carrot for workers to stay in New Zealand, and who does he want to give the stick to, and which sector is going to get the next carrot?

I disagree with the framing that the member used for the last question. I will reiterate: the ability to bring people through the border isn’t stick and carrot; it’s availability of managed isolation capacity, and if the member wants to increase that and then put the robustness of the border protection of MIQ at risk, then he and his party should go out and talk about that policy a little more. So I think in terms of the first question—no, the second question, you mentioned MIQ workers, is that right? So I’m not sure what you’re talking in terms of that—are you talking about those who are on temporary work visas?

💬 Dr James McDowall: Temporary work visa holders working in our MIQ facilities, who are split families—bringing their family members in.

Then, again, that policy decision very much rests on the capacity of managed isolation.

That concludes this part of the debate. We now move on to the justice portfolio.

Justice