Annual Review Debate — Immigration

Thank you, Madam Chair. Indeed, I am very eager to get up and make my contribution to this part of our process in terms of reviewing our Budget and our whole entire scrutiny over the finances of our Government. Can I start by once again thanking all the officials that have worked with the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. It gives me great pride to once again take a call in this House as the deputy chair of that select committee. I know we’ve just recently had some changes in personnel, so I do want to say thank you to Glen Bennett as well for his contribution to this select committee.

But the immigration portfolio is a very interesting portfolio, whereby the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee oversees MBIE—so the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, so hence we get to scrutinise over the Vote of business, science, and innovation. However, our colleagues who sit on the Education and Workforce Committee also have oversight in this matter as well. So I do want to thank that select committee as well for the other piece of work that you’ll be doing at the beginning of the Budget cycle in terms of the appropriations reviews, so we do kind of do a bit of a tag team in this sense.

So we heard from the officials from MBIE, and recognising that they too have had a really, really tough time during COVID—so we thank them here in the House and we thank them for their contributions and for their persistence through all of this as well. During the select committee process, we had heard—obviously, I think, to no surprise of anyone—a lot and we asked a lot of questions on the resident 2021 visa (R21). We had been really cognisant of the full effect that COVID had had on this whole entire immigration application process, and knowing that this visa means a lot to many people in our community, especially many who have weathered COVID with us—many of our essential workers as well who have really been at the front line. And I think that is a real chance for us to thank them for their contribution and to, I think, permanently welcome them to the Aotearoa family. So I think this is a very important time for us to make sure that we roll out R21 visas and the whole entire application and the grant process in the most efficient way possible.

When we did the review with MBIE that was at the beginning of seeing a couple of cases in the community for Omicron, and we knew that Delta had been really disruptive for the Immigration office. So we had asked a lot of questions about whether this time Omicron would be any different, whether it would be any different in terms of the delay in processing times, whether it would be any different from the way that the officials worked in terms of immigration officers, and whether they would be able to work from home. And I think we were really, really happy to hear about the digitalisation of this whole entire process, and that most of the applications can now be all done online, so that if our immigration officers had to work from home, then they would be able to access most of this information from online and from the safety of their own home, instead of having to worry about taking confidential information home in a paper based form, or when back in Delta they weren’t able to basically take much home, and many of our Immigration officers actually had to go into the office to work on essential and very urgent applications. So we thank them for their continued revamps and continued innovation in this area to make sure that we are able to serve our applicants in the most timely way possible.

Obviously, we had a few concerns around the target of meeting 80 percent of the applications by the end of 2022—so December in 2022. And we had a lot of assurances from the officials in that they have now allocated 105 staff members to processing the phase 1 applications, and then they were also training 100 additional staff for processing phase 2 of those applications. So that’s really reassuring to be able to hear that from all the officials.

Also we note that there’s the working holidays that Immigration New Zealand has been working on, and all of the other broader phases, including for our international students as well. So on that note, I’d like to thank the officials once again, and I’d really like to thank all my colleagues on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for working with us through this process.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. It’s really nice to be joining you in the House, rushing in from the launch of a report, actually, called Safe Start. Fair Future. Refugee Equality, which outlines some of the barriers that asylum seekers and conventional refugees face. I was really struck by a line from the Associate Minister, from that event, who talked about how everybody should have equal access to human rights.

So I wanted to ask about the acceptable standard of health policy, which discriminates towards disabled people, and ask about the application under the period that we’ve reviewed. I wanted to get an understanding from the Minister whether that policy has been applied to convention refugees; if so, how? I wanted to also understand whether trans people are being subjected to this policy and potentially facing barriers to access their visa due to, perhaps, immigration officials assuming that they may want specific medical procedures which may have a cost. I wanted to also understand what barriers asylum seekers may currently be facing, or what feedback the Minister’s received from asylum seekers around the challenges they may face in accessing Government support. Because one of the things that we heard during this launch is that, for example, people are struggling to access adequate support from Work and Income that they’re legally entitled to.

So in light of the comments by the Associate Minister, I’d be keen to understand, as well, whether he’s got any intentions in the current review of the acceptable standard of health policy to ensure that disabled people are part of that review.

Just moving on to a separate topic, I would be interested in understanding what he expects the future to be for people who have missed out on the resident 2021 visa (R21) visa. Currently, we do have a large number of Indian and Filipino nationals who are earning below 200 percent of the median wage, and 150 percent of the median wage. So while we have heard, time and time again, that people will have a pathway outside of the R21 visa, currently it feels like many people will not have any pathways. In light of the well-reported wage gap amongst our different ethnic communities, I am particularly concerned that the current processes that have been put in place with the accreditation scheme may end up disadvantaging groups that are already affected by a wage gap. So I would be keen to understand: what are his plans to ensure that migrants have realistic pathways to residency?

I’m also interested in his views around the fate of migrants who have been stuck offshore throughout the pandemic. We heard from officials that some of these workers could end up having a pathway to come back if they find employment. But the reality is that many of these groups who are stuck offshore because of the border closures currently have no job—some of them, their visas have expired. So I would be keen to understand what he sees the futures for these migrants to be. Should they just go on another pathway that has no guarantee? I’m also interested to get a sense of whether the prospect of replacement visas were ever considered, particularly in light of the fact that visas for almost 20,000 working holiday visa holders were renewed. I’m interested to know what levers were used to activate that renewal, and whether there would be more consistency in ensuring that people who previously held a visa and were affected by the border closure have a pathway to come back.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask the Minister some questions around the very slow border reopening that we have this year and also the wait times for all visa categories that have blown out. I want in particular to draw the Minister’s attention to some of the written questions that I asked and the answers indicating that his spend in Immigration has increased by 50 percent since 2017. He’s spending an extra $150 million more. He’s employed 500 more staff, yet 100 fewer staff are processing visas than there were in 2017 and only processing a third of what they were pre-pandemic, yet visa processing times have increased. A permanent resident visa took 20 days. It’s now taking 180 days. A visitor visa, 21 days; now five months—just to give you two examples.

How can it be that a Minister is spending 50 percent more, $150 million more, has 500 more staff, only processing a third of what we were doing pre-pandemic, and yet we still have to wait till October because the Prime Minister has again, yesterday, said in her post-Cabinet stand up that the reason for the slow border opening is the fact that Immigration is unable to process visas? How can it be that he’s doing all of these things and yet we’re still not able to open our borders until October and our wait times have blown out so significantly?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I’ll just get straight to it. Starting with the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme, can the Minister say with absolute certainty that the scheme will launch on 4 July 2022? Furthermore, does the Minister think that the scheme will help fill staff shortages in hospitality and tourism, with reports that it could take at least 18 months to make up for the jobs lost during the pandemic and that 60,000 New Zealanders could be heading offshore, and with one employer stating, “Filling those roles with New Zealanders is absolutely great; there’s just not the interest.”?

Thank you. Can I thank the members for their questions. As I did with Justice, I might start with the last questions first. To the first question, from Mr McDowall, yes. Despite attempts to try and get us to bring the time frames for the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) forward, we can say that that will happen on 4 July. I think employers needed to have certainty about that, and I think it’s also a very useful tool for them to be able to bring migrant workers in with accreditation of an employer, with a job check to make sure that the domestic labour market is tested, and to make sure that there is a job check for potential migrants to come into New Zealand. They will still have a very structured and efficient means of being able to bring skilled workers to the country. So, absolutely.

I do note some of the challenges that the hospitality and tourism sector have faced because of traditionally low wages for some of their workers, and we’ve certainly had some discussions and feedback on that, especially in relation to a transition to a world of the AEWV, and we’re mindful of that and having further discussions with them on how that might work.

I might move to some of the questions that were posed by Mr Ricardo Menéndez March. Obviously, the event that you’ve just been to and the release of a report that we undertook into asylum seekers I think shows that there is definitely some legislative work and policy work that needed to be done in those areas. The likes of Amnesty International raised with us about a year ago particular concerns that they’ve had with the detention of asylum seekers, and we undertook to make sure that those issues were looked into. Minister Twyford, who is taking the lead on that given his interest in that area, will make sure that those particular issues are addressed by the Government.

I know that there’s been a common theme from the member who posed the question about acceptable standards of health levels. We are working with the Ministry of Health on a review of those levels. I would like to move that faster than under the current time frames, and I asked the questions to be able to move that work along earlier this week, because for some time I think there’s been some frustration at the way that that has been assessed. I think the member himself has expressed that, and a lot of the pressure that we’ve had because of the COVID outbreak and dealing with that has meant that not all agencies had been able to forward us sufficient bandwidth and resources to that, but I have asked for that to be moved faster in order to address some of the longstanding issues there.

Can I also move to some of the comments made by Erica Stanford. We don’t have $150 million more. The Government, at the last Budget, made up for a deficit because of the revenue that we could not get because of the border closure in order to make sure we could continue to shore up and have an immigration processing system. So I just want to put the record straight there. At the same time, there’s been significant work done on the processing of the likes of critical purpose visas in order to allow 23,000 people into the country via that process, the border exceptions process, where we have let thousands of targeted workers into the country, and all of that work needs to get done by processing staff here in New Zealand.

I’d also note that we’ve obviously had to take decisions with our offshore processing officers during that time too, and in order to deal with the closure of some of our offshore posts, we’ve invested in technology, which is the Immigration Online system, which is in its very early stages. But also, in order to make sure that we’re processing the likes of the 2021 resident visa, we’ve been able to bring more staff on to replace the offshore processing capacity. As we continue to open the border, it’s obvious that we’re going to need to continue to build up capacity in terms of the resources.

So I just want to set the record straight there: that we’ve got the same amount of funding going into immigration. What the Government did at the last Budget was make sure it continued to have a constant level of funding so we could keep the capacity there and make sure that we’ve got the likes of critical purpose visa applications being processed.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask the Minister why it feels like he’s playing catch up. Suddenly we are hiring and training more staff, when it was obvious to everyone that we were going to need to process visas this year to get our borders open. The fact that the Minister for COVID-19 Response and the Prime Minister have consistently said the only reason for our slow border reopening is the fact that we are unable to process visas. It is the Minister’s job to make sure that we have staff to process visas. We are processing two-thirds fewer visas than we were pre-pandemic. How can it be that we are unable to process visitor visas to get those people who are in stage 5 processed earlier in the year?

The biggest handbrake on our economy right now is his department’s inability to process visas. We can’t get the tourists in until the end of the year. We can’t get split families together till the end of the year. I want the Minister to explain why it was that he hasn’t increased the capacity of Immigration New Zealand to be able to do these simple things so that we can actually truly be open to the world, like the Prime Minister says, and not actually wait until October till they can apply. And goodness knows how long it will be till they actually get their visas—probably not until early next year. As I said, this is the single biggest handbrake on our economy right now, and I want to know why these steps weren’t put in place earlier to make sure we had the resources we needed to open the borders fully.

Madam Chair, I know there were some questions I didn’t address in the first round, and I just wanted to make sure I came back to members. In terms of refugee health, they are screened for travel offshore before they get to New Zealand and, once they arrive, they are obviously put in touch with healthcare here in New Zealand. The discussions that we’re having with health around the acceptable standard of health review does include disabilities and, while we haven’t come to final decisions on that yet, I hope it’s heartening for the member to know that that is certainly a consideration.

Again, just pushing back on some of the assertions made by the National Party member of Parliament. If we had a crystal ball, then we would have been able to make sure we’re preparing for time frames to make sure we have processing capacity. Again, I push back on some of the assertions in terms of the time frames of visa processing, but we have invested quite heavily in the Immigration Online system. When that comes to full fruition, I think people will find the likes of applying for a visitor visa offshore will become a lot more efficient, and they’ll understand exactly where their visa application is—not just for visitor visas but all types of visas. I think one of the perceptions or customer frustrations we’ve certainly had in the past is that when an application goes in—because a lot of applications are very much paper based—it’s difficult for applicants to know exactly where things are. The new Immigration Online system that we’ve invested in will help there.

I’d just like to reiterate to the member that, in early February, the Government outlined its five-step plan to reconnecting and, at that stage, the Government said, “This is the worst-case scenario but we are committed to reopening the borders”. To date, every step has happened ahead of schedule, because, I think, of the Government’s focus on reopening the border in a managed and safe way. I think New Zealanders appreciate that. We saw scenes of joy at the airport yesterday morning, as those from visa waiver countries and others could arrive in the country, and we are looking forward to being fully open and, if you look at the track record of all the five steps that we announced in February, we’re ahead of schedule. Hopefully, we can commit to that for the final step, and, hopefully, that isn’t too far away.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate the Minister Kris Faafoi’s comments regarding wanting to push forward the review of the acceptable standards of health. I’d be keen to seek just clarification on the answer he gave regarding convention refugees, and just more specifically whether the acceptable standards of health policy is applied to convention refugees to screen them from potentially accessing any type of visa. I also would like clarification as to how trans people are impacted by the acceptable standards of health policy, if he’s got any insights on that.

Additionally, I’d be keen to also get an understanding of what he perceives to be the outcome of people coming in who were on post-study work visas who were kept away because of the pandemic, and they understood the sacrifice they had to make. But now that they’re coming here—the ones who have managed to come and whose visas haven’t expired—some of them have given feedback to me that, for example, they only have a couple of months left on their visa. And again, considering that almost 20,000 visas were replaced, those working holiday visa holders, I would want to know whether any consideration has been given, or is going to be given, around extending the visas of those people on post-study work visas so that they’re able to set foot back in Aotearoa and to find employment in a way that is safe for them, and also that works for employers as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to ask the Minister, when people from non - visa waiver countries can in theory re-enter the country, how long will it actually take for their visas to be processed, and will people in New Zealand with family members offshore in this situation see their loved ones before Christmas? Furthermore, the Government has often spoken about the need to focus on “high-quality tourists”, and given the staged reopening of the border, does that mean that non - visa waiver people—does the Minister believe that those people are low-quality?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to just go down a slightly different route and ask the Minister some questions around the 2021 resident visa. In the paper he took to Cabinet, the figures that he used—that Cabinet eventually settled on—were 110,000 applications representing 165,000 people. That’s a multiplier of 1.5. There isn’t a single person in Immigration New Zealand who will tell you that a resident application represents 1.5 people. In the history of this country, it’s always been around 2.2, 2.3. I want to know why the Minister didn’t use that multiplier.

Because what’s happened is, as predicted, the numbers have blown out. We are already well over the 165,000 that he took to Cabinet—we’re at 187,500 people included. And by the time you extrapolate that out, we’re going to have an extra 60,000 people getting their residence. Now, the reason that this is important is that this represents, obviously, a lot more than the Cabinet signed off, even though it was an approximate figure. But I’d say approximate doesn’t account for an extra 60,000 people.

I want to know where the Minister got the advice to use 1.5, given that that has never been an indicator of people to applications in the past. I want to know what work he did in that, because there are a lot of people who are now including their partners and dependents, offshore, who—especially in terms of those dependents, what work did he do in terms of finding out how many dependents offshore would likely be included in this? Because they’re all going to have to go to school.

And I want to know what work the Minister did in figuring out the amount of people that are going to be able to get this visa and then potentially how many offshore will be using our school system. That matters because there are so many more people included than the Minister ever took to Cabinet, ever talked publicly about. I want to know the reasons for not using a multiplier that Immigration New Zealand has traditionally always used in the past, and I want to know what work he’s done on those offshore children who are now going to be turning up to our schools.

Quick-fire answers to those, first to Mr Menéndez March. In terms of convention refugees, the acceptable standard of health process isn’t applied, and in terms of post-study work visa holders that have expired since the border’s been closed, no, there hasn’t been any consideration with that. In terms of why we looked at working holiday visas, if you look at the kind of sectors that we wanted to assist first, the likes of horticulture and hospitality and tourism, they’ve traditionally hired a large number of working holiday visas. The profile of working holiday visas are kind of obviously younger people, which we believed were more likely to travel, as opposed to any other cohort other than working holiday visas.

To Mr McDowall, we hope that once we open up to non - visa waiver countries, we’ll be able to process those visa applications in under 20 days. And to Erica Stanford, when we took that Cabinet paper through, the multiplier of 1.5 was based on what we knew, and that was on those people who would be eligible and in the country, and that’s why that multiplier was used.

I think, as I’ve said in this House during question time, it’s very difficult to understand exactly the number of dependants or a partner for someone who has applied as an individual for a temporary work visa, because obviously they’re not putting that on the application for a temporary work visa. That was something that was made clear by the officials when we put that piece of advice to Cabinet together. The best estimate we had at the time in terms of a lockdown number was what we knew was in country for eligible temporary work visa. We’ve obviously been watching that closely, because it is nigh on impossible to go through the number of people who are eligible—110,000 in total—and understand what dependants or what partnership status they may have.

What we knew at the time was that we wanted to make sure we were supporting those temporary work visa holders in New Zealand who were either skilled, scarce, or settled, and also making a commitment to them, and also guaranteeing for the employers that are hiring those workers, who, obviously, were feeling the pressure of the borders being closed, that things would not get worse and that we would secure the workforce of those temporary work visa holders who were eligible. Again, we believe 110,000 eligible work visa holders onshore, but a lot of those applicants had partners and dependants offshore that we had almost no information on because they obviously weren’t part of an application when that individual first put their temporary work visa application in.

Order! Members, our time with the Minister of Immigration has ended. Members, the Minister of Health is now available for one hour to respond to members’ questions.

Health