Estimates Debate — Immigration

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a privilege to take the first call as chair of the Education and Workforce Committee to look at the Estimates in relation to Immigration.

The Education and Workforce Committee did examine the Estimates in relation to Immigration at a hearing with the Minister of Immigration, and we have compiled a report as part of our Estimates for Vote Labour Market.

The Vote and the Estimates for Immigration are quite considerable, although a smaller percentage of the overall Vote. I think it’s about $542.5 million that is estimated for spending in relation to the Immigration space. This is actually a decrease from the appropriations from the previous 2022/23 year, when there was a slightly higher amount that was estimated to spend. So that’s an interesting observation for members to note.

We did cover a number of areas during our examination of the Estimates. The main areas that we looked at were assessment and processing services, which were about 68.9 percent of the appropriations; integrity and security of New Zealand’s immigration systems; settlement and integration of refugees and other migrants; services for the attraction of migrants; and regulation of immigration advisers.

Now, members will be aware that these are significant Estimates for Immigration, but additionally, the Immigration portfolio is also bolstered by fees and levies which are charged on visa applications. This was a slightly different type of revenue that came in during the COVID-19 process, but we were advised during the Estimates in this area that there was a slight deficit at the end of June 2023, but there is an expected surplus of just under $19 million at 30 June 2024. We were also informed that we expect to see these counts trend towards zero, which is in line with the Auditor-General’s guidelines on best practice in this area.

During our Estimates hearing, we covered a number of important matters that were significant to members of the committee within these Estimates, and a number of those were part of the pathways to residence that could allow migrants to stay in New Zealand.

We discussed a number of those important pathways. The first one is one that is active from October 2023, and that was the skilled migrant category pathway. This has been changed recently, in June 2023, and those announcements were made by the Minister of Immigration, and they include having an acceptable job offer and six points, and there’s details in the reports as to how that can be accrued.

Additionally, we looked at the Green List pathway. This is a pathway which will open on 29 September 2023, and that’s a list of in-demand jobs that it’s obviously important that we get people to come and perform in New Zealand.

Additionally, we looked at the care workforce and transport sector agreements pathway. Again, this is another pathway which is looking to have applications open on 29 September 2023.

We also had a look at amnesty for overstayers. This is an issue that was raised by members of the committee, and the Minister at the time, the Hon Michael Wood, stated that he considered the issue was “important” and said he was working towards reaching a decision “as soon as possible”.

We also looked at Pacific Island nations; obviously, a very important area for immigration in New Zealand—and, historically, with that special relationship. The Minister said the Government was paying “special attention” to the relationship with the Pacific Islands.

Another matter which I thought would be important to highlight, given the recent weather events, was the Immigration response to the severe weather that we have had recently. So we did ask the Minister during our Estimates hearing about how the Immigration system was helping those areas recover, and the Minister said that the Government had recognised the high labour needs within the areas affected by cyclones and so had introduced the cyclone Recovery Visa, which allowed employers to sponsor people to come into those areas and to assist with recovery. We understand 1,300 applications for this visa were received.

I look forward to hearing the questions from other members in relation to the Immigration Estimates—obviously, a really important part of our “building back better” for New Zealand—and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s responses to those questions.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am keen to explore the Minister’s views around the Accredited Employer Work Visa and the system that we’ve got at the moment and how well it’s working.

My first question is that, during this briefing process, our select committee learnt from immigration officials that only 25 percent of businesses seeking accreditation and then being accredited were going to be checked by a team working inside Immigration New Zealand. My first question is: does the Minister think that only 25 percent of businesses being checked for accreditation is acceptable? Does he think that that might lead to businesses exploiting the system and exploiting migrants? The reason that I ask that question is that we have seen, in recent times, an explosion of exploited migrants in New Zealand. In fact, there was a news item saying that there had been a sixfold increase in the number of people being exploited. Given this Government’s commitment to try and stamp out exploitation, it seemed that the opposite is happening when you get people like Anu Kaloti from the Migrant Workers Association saying that she has been inundated with migrants on both visitor and work visas coming to her because they had been exploited, scammed, and were desperate for help. So the question comes back to the system that we run in accrediting businesses, which was supposed to have the intention of stamping out migrant exploitation. But, when only 25 percent of those businesses are going to be checked, according to officials at the Education and Workforce Committee, that is potentially problematic.

The second question is: what number have been checked so far? Immigration said 25 percent. That’s their aim. Can I ask the Minister: how many have been checked so far? The reason that’s important is we know that businesses were supposed to ask for reaccreditation after a year; that’s been pushed out for another year, so now we have a 24-month period of businesses potentially not being checked and not having to reaccredit themselves, leaving a much wider scope for them to potentially work in cahoots with overseas operators to scam people into the country. The reports that we’re hearing, because of this lack of oversight, are that migrants overseas are paying upwards of $15,000—I’ve heard up to $40,000—for a “job token”, because that’s what they believe they have to do, then coming into New Zealand, finding that the job doesn’t exist, finding themselves in a pretty desperate situation, then working under the table or going on to a migrant exploitation visa, and then being exploited on that visa, which we found in a meeting last week. Many who were on migrant exploitation visas were actually working under the table. So the question is: is that a robust process?

The reason, again, I ask is because I met with 18 Chinese migrants last week who were in this very difficult situation, who had been scammed and are now being exploited. Every single one of the immigration documents they gave me with the company name that they were supposed to work for. I looked up; none of them, not a single one, had a website, had contact details that I could find online, or anything about their business other than being registered with the Companies Office. That’s all that existed online. I couldn’t find out anything about those businesses.

So my third question is: does the Minister find it acceptable that companies are being accredited in a number of days—without a website, without any contact details, without any company history, and without having to give any documentation to Immigration New Zealand—and then sitting there for two years without having to be reaccredited? And very unlikely will it be that they get checked by Immigration New Zealand, given that only 15 percent are being checked for accreditation by the Accredited Employer Risk Management and Review team. Then the follow-up question is: does the Minister believe that these holes in our system are leading to an explosion of migrants who are paying many, many thousands of dollars for visas to then be scammed and find themselves being exploited in this country—the very thing that this Government says they want to stamp out? Thank you.

Mr Chairman, thank you, and I thank the member for her question. I thank her for her recent interest in migrant exploitation, because it differs markedly from what she said just earlier this year in an interview with Newshub, when she said that “We need a [work] visa process that is streamlined, that cuts all the bureaucratic tape and the cost out.” So it’s good that that member has radically changed her position to accept now that, if we are to have good immigration processes and eliminate, or do our best to, eliminate migrant exploitation, what she preaches to the media and, for example, to outfits like The Platform, they’re actually not going to be good for people.

So the rules around the Accredited Employer Work Visa are that, first of all, the employer has to be accredited. They have to supply information to Immigration New Zealand. They have to demonstrate that they are in business and have been in business for at least a year. They have to provide information. The benefit of that is that, in a way that we didn’t have before, we now actually have source information to go to in relation to employers about whom complaints are made of migrant exploitation.

The regime in place at the moment is that a total of 15 percent of accredited employers are subject to various forms of audit or checking. It differs depending on the sector. So 100 percent of franchisees are examined or audited in some form or another in the court in a single year, and 30 percent of high-volume employers of migrants are also checked on each year, and then to make up the full 15 percent of all accredited employer visas, there’s a different cycle for others. That is a level of auditing and checking that we never had before; we were reliant almost entirely on a complaints process.

Even in spite of that, the other thing we’ve done is to radically improve and make more accessible the complaints process. And that explains, in the media report last night, which was factually incorrect in a number of respects but factually correct in others—but that’s Newshub these days, I guess. But it did note that, for example, in the 2021-2022 year slightly over 900 complaints had been made. The member in her dissertation just now talked to a sixfold increase in migrants being exploited. That’s not correct. It’s a significant increase in the number of complaints being laid and it’s not sixfold. And then in the 2022-23 year, again, just over 900 complaints being made. Of those, roughly half are processed through a website now that wasn’t in existence two years ago. Because in putting together a revamped immigration system and knowing (a) we need labour from overseas and we want to support employers who need labour from overseas, but (b) we want to do what we can to mitigate the risk of migrant exploitation, we put in place that mechanism.

In addition to that, for those who do suffer exploitation in work, we have a number of other visas they can very quickly move on to, which Newshub failed to report last night—in fact, erroneously reported last night. They can move on to the migrant exploitation protection visa or, if they are dismissed, particularly under the 90-day rule, which some have been, they can go instantly onto the dismissed worker visa. That gives workers in those situations an extra few months with the support of Government agencies to secure new work and it doesn’t have to be in the original sector that they were employed into. So those measures are in place, and that is starting to make a big difference.

In terms of their numbers, 516 post-accreditation checks of employers have taken place. There’s just under 1,500 currently in progress. This is across a total of 27,000 accredited employers and that is the way that the system works. But I’m confident that the way the system is set up—it’s in its second year—the processes are being tested and the ability for Immigration New Zealand to respond to complaints of exploitation is now better and more effective. And we’re providing support to those who, unfortunately, find themselves a victim of that type of approach from rogue employers.

Thank you, Mr Chair. On that same vein regarding migrant exploitation and the Accredited Employer Work Visa, I’d just like to get the Minister’s reaction in response to a question I made in June 2021. I asked the Hon Kris Faafoi: how can he be certain that the new scheme will not increase migrant exploitation—over two years ago—and the response was, from the previous previous Minister, “Because the new system will prevent migrant exploitation happening.” So, in light of that, does he think now, with two years of hindsight, the system has worked as intended given the media reports and the increases in migrant exploitation, and, if not, will he consider removing wage rules that drive inflation and wage recycling and also the tying of visas to employers, which ACT at the time two years ago called to be dropped?

In that question, that member has exposed ACT’s core philosophy, which is that they don’t actually care about exploitation; they want labour as cheaply as possible. The system we have in place is to ensure a level of pay for overseas workers that creates an incentive for New Zealand employers to make sure that they have exhausted the domestic market for that labour and ensures that workers who come from overseas can be sure of an income that allows them to live with some sort of dignity.

So, going back to the question that the member posed more than two years ago about how certain the Minister at the time could be that there won’t be an increase in exploitation, I think, even if the Minister didn’t state it at the time, what was understood is we expected that reported migrant exploitation at that time was hugely understated. There was a huge under-reporting of migrant exploitation because a lot of migrant workers, particularly when English is a second language, find it difficult to find a place to go and raise a complaint. They are somewhat diffident or they lack the confidence to do so or they are simply fearful about the consequences. That’s why part of the new regime is a system that makes it easier to make complaints about exploitation—that not only makes it easier to make complaints but has a kind of safe harbour for those workers to go to, with those two other visas that can apply that they can be put on to very swiftly so that they can then, with support, get under way the process of finding alternative employment.

So I think, to respond to the member, what we are seeing now is reported levels of migrant exploitation that are, in fact, what they always were; it is just now more transparent because of the system that we’ve put in place, and we now have more effective ways of dealing with it.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would remind the Minister that it is possible to have a streamlined system with a lack of bureaucracy and red tape and still reduce migrant exploitation. Despite what he says, we can have the best of both worlds. In fact, migrant exploitation prior to the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV), as most people in the industry and the sector agree, if you’d listen to them, is far worse now than it has ever been. But my question to the Minister is—he made the claim that businesses who are applying to be accredited must supply information. They must provide information that they have been in business for a year and have good financials. People inside Immigration New Zealand have been stating very clearly that of the people that they have been checking—this is the Accredited Employer Risk Management and Review (AERMR) team, which I’m sure the Minister’s aware of, that have done these 516 post-accreditation checks out of 27,000. They have found that most of them have not provided any details, have not provided financials, have not provided any evidence that they have been working for 12 months.

So while the Minister says it should happen, the point is that because Immigration New Zealand has been under so much pressure to get things done so quickly, they have not been following those rules—if they are rules. I know, and the Minister may know well, that most of these businesses are getting their accreditation through in just a number of days, which looks good for the Government, but, in fact, when you delve down into it, they are not providing the information that they’re supposed to. And now, for two years they have licence to bring in migrants at the cost for the migrant of tens of thousands of dollars. When they arrive here, they say, “I’m sorry; there’s no job for you.”, or employ them for a week or two and then say, “Your job is over.”, and then bring in more migrants. Has the Minister been contacted by any immigration lawyers from big immigration law firms in the last few weeks who have made these claims and advised him of exactly this, and has he responded to them? So that’s a question.

The other question is: is he aware of the fact that the AERMR team are now finding that most of the businesses that they are checking have not provided that information at all? And is he concerned that the 99 percent of businesses who have not been checked at all yet may be in this very same boat—or many of them may be—where they have not provided any financial information or any documentation, and they’re now given a licence for two years before they have to be reaccredited to bring in migrants, make a whole lot of money, dismiss them, and then bring in new migrants? It just goes round and round and round—tens of thousands of dollars for each migrant, like I say.

The second question to the Minister is around the new visas that have been set up to help migrant exploitation. So the migrant exploitation visa, which many migrants who I spoke to are on—and they say to me that the problem with that visa is they can’t find work. They are forced to work under the table. They are, effectively, being exploited on an exploitation visa, and then it is very difficult for them, in the current circumstances—and there are thousands of these people in the country who have been bought in and been exploited—to find a job for $29.66, the median wage which they’re required to do to get themselves back on an AEWV visa. Many of these migrants I spoke to are having their migrant exploitation visas run out in the next month or two. What is going to happen to them, Mr Little? Because they have spent and have huge debts overseas for tens of thousands of dollars. Migrants from all over the world have these huge debts. They’re trapped here. They’re on a migrant exploitation visa. They can’t get themselves onto an AEWV because no one will employ them at $29.66, or they were brought in with no skills anyway, so they’ve got nothing to do. They are going to become illegal, and then they’re going to be ripe for even more exploitation.

They are in very, very dire circumstances. The Minister needs to take this seriously. It’s been reported every single day. It is worse than we have ever seen. All of the big law firms, all of the immigration agents, Anu Kaloti, the whole of the Opposition know that this is as bad as it has ever been—much, much worse. The Minister just doesn’t seem to be understanding the problem and taking it seriously.

What I struggle to take seriously is that member Erica Stanford’s hyperbole and exaggeration, and she has a strong track record of saying things that just turn out not to be factually correct. She did it last week, and she’s doing again.

This Government takes very seriously the need for an immigration policy that achieves a number of critical objectives. One is to meet the labour market gaps that we have. A year ago, that member was haranguing the Government for not moving fast enough to get more workers in the country to fill the gaps; indeed, her colleagues were doing the same. They did not care. They did not care about processes that were about checking and auditing, and her claims about wanting streamlined processes with no bureaucracy are just cant—that is all they are. It is meaningless waffle from people who do not understand and do not care about exploited workers. So we focus on systems that give us the best chance of giving us not only good information but the processes to respond effectively to it.

The other thing that member is doing is conflating two things. She’s conflating the exploitative and horrific behaviour of the dreadful, parasitic people offshore who entice tens of thousands of dollars out of people to get work in New Zealand with what happens in New Zealand. We don’t get to control what happens offshore with those exploitative, parasitic agents who are doing that sort of thing. Now, you know, we could work with good information and work through authorities here to work with countermand authorities in other countries, but we don’t get to regulate what happens there. What we do is we regulate what happens here, and what we do for those who do suffer the ignominy and the horror of exploitative behaviour from employers here is have means to respond, including, for those accredited employers who behave in that way, removing their accreditation and striking them off.

The member, again, comes back to “We must have streamlined processes, but not cause any inconvenience to employers.” So we have an auditing process because, out of 27,000 accredited employers, not every employer is exploitative. There are some pretty darned good employers who follow the system and follow the rules, including public sector employers and plenty of private sector employers too. The biggest complaint I get—and I heard a very wealthy immigration consultant on Newstalk ZB last week saying, “What is the matter? Doesn’t the Government want migrant workers to come here?”, because he also was very ignorant about what’s happening too, but Newstalk ZB doesn’t care about that, necessarily.

So we’re dealing with a whole bunch of people making wild, extravagant claims about the system when, actually, the system is responding. We have a system that gathers complaints, and it is gathering those complaints. We have a number of Immigration New Zealand personnel whose job is to make sure that accredited employers comply with the rules, that those who don’t have their accreditation taken off them, and that those who are the victims of that exploitation get visas to stay in the country and they’re assisted to get other work.

So these big, powerful lawyers that the member talks about—I’ve heard what they’ve been saying publicly. But it’s not what she’s saying, and I’m confident that the teams that we have in place in Immigration New Zealand, not just to respond to complaints, but to do the checking of accredited employers are doing that work and doing it effectively.

Thank you, I’d like to turn my attention to the issue of an amnesty for overstayers, which the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee talked about. The previous Minister of Immigration, when we were quizzing him about this, talked about having news soon. So I wanted to ask: when are we expecting news around whether the Government will do an amnesty for overstayers? Is the Minister expecting to announce something before the election? And if the Government is actively considering an amnesty for overstayers, whether any consideration has been given to pausing deportations of overstayers who do not pose a risk to public safety, or a national security risk? Otherwise we risk announcing an amnesty, with a whole cohort of overstayers who then would have been deported with no ability to access it. So I’m hoping for some answers into when we are expecting news, whether it’s before the election, and then any other considerations that have been given.

On the issue of exploitation, I wanted to ask about the Minister’s confidence around increasing the numbers of completed investigations for migrant exploitation. We’ve seen a huge number of increase, and yet over the years the completed number of investigations per year has actually stayed the same, meaning that, actually, as a proportion of the cases that are now being reported, we’re having less and less investigations being completed. So what confidence can the Minister give migrants and members of the public that there will be greater capacity to complete investigations of migrant exploitation?

Thank you, Mr Chairman, and thank you to that member for those questions. Firstly, on the point about an amnesty for overstayers—I note that member and his party have raised that—I can say that it is a question that is under active consideration by the Government. I can also say it’s highly unlikely that there will be a decision or any action before the election. I do just want to make this point about amnesties—and the reason why there is a very careful balancing exercise required is that thousands of people come to New Zealand every year under the immigration system that we’ve got, they come under the rules that we’ve got, and they adhere to those rules. There are some who come here, they come under the system, and, for a range of reasons, often quite innocent, they find themselves outside of those rules. We have to make sure that the system that we’ve got and the system rules that we’ve got have integrity. The reason for that is that we are a small country, and the reality is that we cannot absorb everybody who would like to come here and stay here. So we have to have a set of rules, we have to manage it, and we have to make sure everybody adheres to those rules. So when we think about an amnesty, we have to think about the signal that we’re giving to people if they think, “Oh, gee, this is a Government that just routinely gives amnesties; if we stick around long enough, we’ll be OK.”

So we take some time and consider very carefully issues of immigration amnesties for those who find themselves irregular or irregularised because of either the passage of time or the expiry of their visa and the fact that they haven’t sorted that out, or, as in some cases too, particularly if they’re children of those who have come here under visas originally, visas have expired, the family is still here, and that person who was a child at the time they came here, they’ve done nothing wrong, they’ve lived their life, they’ve relied on their parents and caregivers to comply with the rules but haven’t necessarily done so. So we have to think carefully about all those sorts of things. We don’t like the fact that there are some in this situation where they have the sword of Damocles hanging over them, there’s uncertainty about their immigration status, and we think very carefully about that.

In relation to the threat of deportations, I think I can assure the member that the advice I’ve had from immigration officials is that they do think very carefully about enforcement in those circumstances and think very carefully about the justice of the particular case.

So, on the issue of an amnesty, as I say, it is under active consideration, but don’t expect anything before the general election.

On the issue of exploitation and completed investigations, I repeat—sorry, the figure I gave before was post-accreditation checks—the number of completed investigations down to the end of the most recent financial year, so 30 June 2023, was 145 completed immigration investigation on exploitation. That compares with 93 the previous financial year, 71 the previous financial year, and then much smaller numbers for the kind of two years of COVID. But those numbers are getting up. We now have about 300 people in Immigration New Zealand responsible for the checking and investigations, so I’m confident that we have resourced that in a way that means that we can give it our best in terms of investigating migrant exploitation.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like some clarity on the topic of the Active Investor Plus Visa. With regards to the weighting of funds, because, as I’m sure the Minister is well aware, one of the purposes of this is to try and get direct investment which weights $1 to $3. So in theory, we could have a—I imagine ideally the Government would want a lot of $5 million applications that New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) considers good investments. The problem with that is that based on the figure that I received in an oral question last week, the average amount is $15 million per application so it would seem—unless that’s incorrect or slightly misleading—that every application is not being weighted, so they are not direct investments, not managed funds. So I’d just like to clarify that with the Minister to determine if that is indeed how the system is going, because if it is, then it sounds like it’s not working very well at all. The follow-up to that is that I would ask why NZTE seemed so ill-prepared for their significant role in this visa given that their advisory panel didn’t meet until February 2023 to decide what an acceptable investment was, which was five months after the visa was actually launched.

Mr Chair, I thank the member for that question. I wasn’t around for his question last week, so I’m not quite sure the particular content of either the question or the answer given. What I can say is that of the 31 applications received since applications opened since August last year, three are fully and finally approved and 14 have been approved in principle. As the member acknowledges, there is a weighting, so depending on the nature of the investment, the title of the visa is “Active Investor”, so the aim is to get investments that generate business activity that could be—as opposed to putting money in a bank account and generating interest, which tends to benefit probably more people offshore than they do here.

It could be the person, the visa holder taking their money and setting up or purchasing a business and actively running it, and using their entrepreneurial skills and management skills to generate wealth and activity locally. That’s actually what we would like most. Or, it could be those who might be a passive investor of a business that is employing and generating activity, and the weightings are given accordingly. I’d have to check the data that underpinned the answer to the member’s question last week to see whether that average of $15 million is the weighted average of investments, or the actual dollar value of investments.

As the member knows, the aim is to get investments of value for the purposes of the policy—not the dollar investment, but valued for the purposes of the policy of $15 million. On the on the grounds that I’ve just specified. So a $5 million investment that the visa holder actively manages themselves, and employs people, and what have you, will be valued at $15 million for the purposes of the application. Whereas the passive investor would require $15 million to get there. So that may not directly answer the member’s question, but I hope that it helps.

Erica Stanford. Can I just invite the member—I noticed when she sat down last time there were a number of questions and comments. If she—and other members, as well—wanted to have a more interactive with the Minister then I’ll be able to allocate questions accordingly. But the members can use their time how they like; it is a timed debate. That’s just a piece of advice from the Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair. A couple of quick questions: can I ask the Minister in the chair, with the post-accreditation checks, how many accreditations have been taken away—removed? Of the 516 that have been checked—out of 27,000—how many have been removed? He mentioned that they could be removed, how many have been removed?

My second question is: are all employers who are applying for accreditation providing documentation? Given that the Accredited Employer Risk Management and Review (AERMR) team is finding that many of them haven’t, what is his expectation? And if his expectation is that not all employers are providing the documentation, i.e., the 12 months of operation or the financial stability, what percentage are providing that information, according to some of the post-accreditation checks that have been done?

My third question is around those agents overseas, and the question is: is he aware that they are working in cahoots with employers here, because of this system that allows companies to be accredited with very little checks and jobs that are being advertised for no skill, no qualification, and therefore nothing to verify at Immigration New Zealand when the migrant applies for their visa? So the whole reason for the explosion in offshore agents acting in a nefarious way is because of this system that allows them to do that; when there are very little checks going on and those what I call “zero-zero contracts”—no skills, no qualification—job ads being done. Is he aware of that? And what plans has he got to work in the Accredited Employer Work Visa system to try and stamp that out? Is it around checking more businesses who are applying, or stamping down on jobs that require no skill, no qualification, or doing more checks and more verifications of migrants when they apply for their visa?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just on the issue of exploitation, I guess I wanted to check whether the Minister agrees that tying work visas to a single employer is a contributing factor to exploitation and, if so, whether any work around this practice is under way or considered in the future as part of preventing exploitation, as well? I wanted to also ask about the parent category visa and particularly with the processing times for that visa specifically, and what are the Minister’s goals for the number of parent visas that are going to be processed in this coming year? Particularly for those people that have been waiting for a substantial amount of time, who at the time of application their parents would have been in good health but by the time the visa is finally now being considered and they have to sit medical checks then their health may have changed, whether any consideration’s being done around making sure that those delays don’t then contribute to creating additional barriers for, you know, parents who through no fault of their own had to wait several years to have that visa being pulled up? So—thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. To Erica Stanford’s questions about post-accreditation checks. First of all, how many have been removed: I don’t have that number and officials haven’t been able to provide it to me. I know that a small number have been removed because I have seen some periodic reporting of accreditation having been removed from a small number of employers. The second question is, are all employers providing the documentation? They have to provide information, make declarations, and provide information to Immigration New Zealand in order to be accredited, and so the relevant information in order to be accredited is being provided. And the third question which relates to the relationship between employers and—I think the question relates really to rogue employers here and the relationship with dodgy agents overseas. It is not a requirement for employers seeking accreditation here to disclose their relationships with either agents or other nefarious operators offshore. And that would be a step too far, I would have thought. But if as a consequence of regular conduct it becomes clear that an employer here has relationships with people offshore who are aiding and abetting the exploitation of people here, then the employer here will be in the gun. So that is the check and balance on that.

In relation to the questions from Ricardo Menéndez March, first of all the question about time: the accredited employer visa to the employer. The Accredited Employer Work Visa was a process to allow employers here to employ from offshore. So they get accredited, they get the approval to be an employer who can employ from overseas, or least to employ a visa holder. The role or roles into which the employer wants to employ those workers is checked off as being one for which the employer has failed to—after reasonable efforts—get a New Zealander to occupy, and then the employer is entitled to recruit offshore and Immigration New Zealand then provides that worker with a visa to pick up that job. It would defeat the purpose of the exercise—which is an immigration system tailored to meet labour market needs—for the visa not to relate to the particular employer who’s gone through the effort of getting accredited and getting the job checked out and recruiting the worker. So we don’t intend to change that aspect of the scheme.

But the safeguard against exploitation is that if something does go wrong—if the worker is dismissed, then they can go on to a dismissed worker visa. If they are the victim of migrant exploitation, they can go on to a migrant exploitation protection visa. Moving to those visas can happen reasonably swiftly and so they are afforded that level of protection. So we don’t intend to change that. In relation to parent visas, the member will know that there is a cap on those—2,500 of those parent visas per year. So the process at the moment is taking some months to process those. But they are oversubscribed—that is the reality. I’ve just been given some information about the time, so as of 24 July this year, so just slightly more than one week ago, there had been just over 1,400 invitations to apply for those visas as a result of applications made onshore, and that started in November last year. Of those, 968 applications have been submitted and 107 have been decided.

So there’s still some in train to get decided, but we know that that is an area of great stress for many migrant families here who want parents protected to come here. We’ll work within the cap, we have the processing under way, and we’re doing the best we can to meet those families’ needs.

Thank you. I’ve taken your advice, Mr Chair; I’ve got a number of quick questions, but I’ll do one at a time and seek the Minister’s response. The first question is around his previous answer to my question when he mentioned that it is his expectation that all employers are providing information or declarations, and that potentially is where the nub of the issue is. Is it the Minister’s understanding that businesses, when they apply for accreditation, are providing actual documentation to prove that they have been in operation for a year and have good financials, or is it his understanding that all they have to do is to sign a declaration to say that, yes, they have been operating for 12 months, and, yes, they are financially stable?

The advice I’ve had is that the employers have to provide a declaration in relation to the standards that they have to meet, which includes employment standards, and about their business. So if they do that, that is then the basis on which any subsequent check or audit is taken. I remind the committee that, for franchisees, 100 percent of franchisee businesses who are accredited employers are checked each year; 30 percent of high-volume employers of migrant workers are checked each year; across the total cohort of 20,000 accredited employers, 15 percent are checked. If any of those employers have made declarations that turn out to be incorrect, then there are penalties on that employer. So it is not in their interests to be misleading Immigration New Zealand. Where the cases of gross exploitation have been discovered, to date, accreditation has been removed, and enforcement action is in train for those particular employers. That is the system as we have it.

Thank you, Mr Chair. This is a much better way of operating; thank you for your advice.

I guess, my next question after that is—so what we understand now is that businesses don’t actually have to show any evidence by just signing a declaration. So this is a very high-trust model, Minister, where the businesses just have to sign to say, “Yep. I’m good. I’ve been operating for a year and I’m financially viable.”, and then they will be picked up, as I understand it, in a post-accreditation check of which we’ve only done 560 in the first year, out of 27,000. So you can see, I think, Minister, where we’re coming from, in that if you are a business who wants to work in cahoots with an overseas agent to make tens of thousands—in fact, hundreds of thousands—of dollars by exploiting migrants, bringing them into the country, pretending you have a job for them, and then letting them go and get more in, your chance of getting picked up is slim, given that you haven’t had to have provided any actual documentation to Immigration New Zealand to check, you’ve just signed a declaration, then only at the moment—what are we on one-point-something percent; 1.9 percent of businesses have been checked in a year, and we know that they don’t have to apply for accreditation again for another year.

That gives a business who would like to take part in this pretty awful behaviour two years to run, at which point they can disestablish their business, re-establish as something else, and carry on. Can the Minister understand how this system has created a huge hole in our border for those people who wish to exploit migrants, and that’s exactly why it’s happening?

I reiterate the points that I have already made. Of the 27,000 employers who have been accredited, they make their declarations—they don’t just make their declarations; they have to go through other processes too in order to achieve accreditation. So they also have to demonstrate that they have attempted to employ New Zealanders in the role, and if they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve gone through that process and cannot employ anybody, they then have to recruit an overseas worker on the basis of the relevant wage, which is higher than the minimum wage—the median wage, usually; or with sector agreements, that can be slightly adjusted. But that’s the basis in which that employment takes place.

I just remind the committee and, indeed, that member, of her own words only a year ago, criticising the Government for not moving fast enough to fill the labour market gaps that we demonstrably had, following the opening of the borders, and the winding down of the impact of the pandemic. We had a labour market that was in desperate need of many workers, but we needed to have an immigration system that had enough checks and balances and safeguards to allow New Zealand employers to employ, to fill the gaps, to meet the needs, to get output going and productivity going, but also allow good, effective enforcement action. We then further assisted, of course, by the passage of the worker protection legislation just recently, which gives Immigration New Zealand more power to get information from employers, to investigate allegations of migrant exploitation.

So the system as a whole was set up on the basis that most employers—most employers—try to do the right thing, and I say that as a former union official! Most employers try to do the right thing. There are rogue employers. We’ve always had rogue employers; we had them 10 years ago. I remember the heaviest prosecutions that took place—not many of them, unfortunately—prosecutions of hideous conduct that took place, where workers had their passports removed from them, where they were required to sleep overnight in the place where they worked, working seven days a week, and we had a very haphazard enforcement system. The system that we’ve set up now, in terms of collecting information, getting information about the employers, knowing where those workers are going, and a system for those workers to make complaints, as evidenced by the increase in complaints—nearly half of all complaints now come through a channel that was not in place two years ago. So it tells you that migrant exploitation was real before, it’s real now, you started to get a feel for the real value of it.

But that is the nature of Labour Governments, because we don’t seek to sweep things under the carpet; we actually want to know what’s going on and we set up systems to make sure we know what’s going on. That is the difference between members in the National Party, who shout and scream a lot but don’t actually mean it—because they want streamlined processes with no bureaucracy for employers, but then they turn up here, complaining about migrant exploitation. They want to have it both ways. We want a system that has integrity. We want to have a system that generates the information about what’s actually happening, and that’s what we’re getting and that’s what we’re doing. That’s why we now have 300 people dedicated to dealing with claims and allegations of breaches of accredited employer rules or migrant exploitation, and the system is working as it is intended.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to ask the Minister about the response that Immigration New Zealand has made in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle and Cyclone Hale. We know that those events across the North Island resulted in carnage, the destruction of property and infrastructure, and loss of life. We know that the scale is not something that we’ve had to deal with in rural communities very often—usually, there’s a flood and we, you know, get on our tractor and we go clean out our neighbour’s fence lines—and we know that the significant labour needs required to respond has been high and complex.

I’m just curious about what the plans are for the cyclone Recovery Visa that was set up. Is it working as intended, and if you can explain some of the types of workers that are coming in to help with the recovery, Minister?

I’m happy to answer Angela Roberts’ questions in that respect. So I think the fact that we were able to get a Recovery Visa up in place as quickly as we did demonstrates how agile our system can now be, in the same way that we did with the Ukraine visa last year and that we’ve done with other special category visas.

So with the Recovery Visa, I think there’s roughly 2,800 applications for those visas—about 1,400 were granted. A significant number have been applied for in more recent months, but they’ve actually been declined. That tells you that, actually, the oversight of these applications—and it’s about ensuring that the applications have an authenticity and a genuineness about it—that we’re not just taking anybody who comes. It’s got to be related to particular work related to the recovery.

The advice I’ve had from officials is that, in more recent months—the last couple of months—some of the applications have had the appearance of, using their words, “a try-on”. And we don’t like try-ons; we like authentic applications. But that has allowed roughly 1,400 workers to come into the country to assist farmers, horticulturalists, and others for the work needed for recovery—for recovering their productive land.

So that visa is still open, and it is under review about how much longer we keep it open for. It is still open, but we will keep a close eye on that. The sort of workers that have come through there have been a whole range, actually, from the semi-skilled labourers and what have you to the skilled—carpenters, electricians, and others—who have come here to assist in doing work that is needed to support the recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wanted to quickly clarify the previous issue that I was raising around the Active Investor Plus Visa and the investment amount. Because the oral question that I put—and the Associate Minister did it on behalf of the Minister—was on notice, obviously, and it was for “unweighted”. In the response, it was specifically, the Minister, on behalf, said, “unweighted”.

Now, when you average it out, it’s $15 million an application. Now, the reason that’s an issue is because, as the Minister knows, ideally, you’d be getting lots of $5 million investments that New Zealand Trade and Enterprise is happy with and the Government is happy with. But it seems like it just isn’t happening. So with that in mind, it would be good to—if we could go back and check that question at some point to make sure the information was indeed unweighted and correct, and, if it was, what’s happening?

I’m happy that the member has repeated that question. I have now, since, had confirmation that the member is correct: the average $15 million value is unweighted. So the thesis that I think the member is trying to establish looks like it is almost certainly correct, which is that most of the applications relate to the higher cash amount, which means that the level of involvement of the investor is not necessarily applying their management skills, but it will be applying their entrepreneurial skills, even if only as a joint investor or a partner in an investment or a “sleeping partner”, as the commercial world refers to it.

So it is attracting that investment. That is certainly a more active mode of investment than we were seeing for many years previously, which was a lot of people were getting a visa, bringing millions of dollars here, and putting them in Government bonds, putting them in term deposits and things like that, which was not generating employment or generating wealth locally in the way that we want to with this investor class.

The Active Investor Plus Visa gives rights and a pathway to residency, so we want to make sure that New Zealand is getting out of that what we need to, which is investment that generates wealth, as opposed to just sitting in a bank account.

Thank you, Mr Chair. In light of the answers to the patsy question that the Minister gave in question time today around wanting to see more skilled workers in New Zealand, I’d like to read him out a quote from the “Immigration Reset: Setting the scene” speech which says, “Increasingly, [the] temporary workers [previously coming into New Zealand] are at lower skill levels—nearly half of all Essential Skills visas approved in 2019 were at the two lowest skill levels.” So my question to the Minister is: with the new Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) system that’s been in place for a year, and given his desire to bring in more skilled workers, what is the percentage now of those AEWV workers being on skill levels 1 and 2?

Mr Chairman, thank you for that. To the member, I cannot quantify what that is in terms of skill level, but the whole reason for setting a minimum income level, median wage level, is to incentivise employers to employ higher skill levels than would otherwise be the case. That is an objective of this scheme, and one of the concerns that this Government had picked up from many people over many years in the years previously was we had an immigration scheme that allowed a lot of unqualified or semi-skilled people to come here where that was not necessarily where the need was. It is about focusing employers here on filling skilled gaps that we just cannot fill locally.

I know that that member, when I look at the comments that she made to The Platform in April this year, is not concerned about that, and she thinks there shouldn’t be a wage threshold or an income threshold.

💬 Erica Stanford: It’s nice that you listen to me!

And so—well, the member thinks that I listen to her; actually, she goes and talks to The Platform. I have to tell that member—to her considerable regret, I’m sure—that I don’t listen to The Platform. I do note what she said to The Platform, which was this—and I quote—“I’ve been saying for a long time is we’ve got to get rid of this median wage rubbish about, you know, you have to earn almost $30 an hour to be able to work in New Zealand, which means in some cases you’re going to be paid more than the Kiwi standing next to you. That’s just got to go.” So we know what the National Party wants to do. And—

The time for the Minister’s time in the chair has come to an end, and we now make room for the Minister of Education. Thank you, Minister.

Education