Episode description
In today's Focus on Politics podcast Political Reporter Anneke Smith explores the border reopening, immigration changes, and the response.
"The capacity really isn't there, and it means they opened up a visa category in full knowledge that it was going to suck the living daylights out of the resources," - Immigration advisor Katy Armstrong
Call it a reset, a rebalance or re-jig - the government has finally unveiled its new vision for immigration in a post-pandemic world.
Many industries are welcoming the news borders will open for non-visa waiver countries from August, but with it comes changes.
This shift in focus aims to leave behind the reliance on cheap migrant workers in favour of filling high-skill, high-income roles - but the plan has copped criticisms of unfairness and poor implementation before it's even begun.
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As part of the reset, employers wanting to bring workers in on temporary visas must apply for accreditation, pass a good character test and pay at least the median hourly wage.
Some sectors will get a temporary exemption with a lowered wage threshold; and there will also be a 'Green list' of 85 in-demand roles with a fast-track to residency.
National's Immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford questions how the system will cope, and says the government has resorted to a panicked shifting of resources.
"When we left office it took 21 days to get a visitor visa," she says. "They've had far fewer visas to process over the last two years ... they still take five months and they've got all those people doing the resident 2021 visa.
" took every available resource and put in on the resident 2021 visa, which as you know is 110,000 applications, then the Prime minister said 'hey, we're going to open the borders' and he went 'uh oh, we don't have enough staff to do that'."
Minister Kris Faafoi insists migrants will always play an important role in New Zealand, and is confident Immigration NZ is ready for the influx of migrants - but advisors say they've been burned before.
Read more:
New Zealand border reopening fully from end of July
Government's immigration decisions under fire
Rest homes say nurses should be on fast-tracked residency list
Hipkins wants to diversify countries international students come from
Border reopening causes 'massive upsurge' in new passport applications
Nurses' union 'flabbergasted' sector left off fast tracked residence list
Two-tier visa system a 'kick in the guts' - migrant workers' rights group …