Immigration settings will be very different when the border reopens, the government announced last night. In a speech actually delivered by minister Stuart Nash (immigration minister Kris Faafoi was sick) the government told businesses to prepare to employ far fewer migrant workers, and far more locals. Political editor Justin Giovannetti reported in our live updates that it follows plenty of other signals in this direction from the government. Here’s a set of key paragraphs about the proposed changes, and what they signify:
In recent weeks the Labour government has said that immigrants have been responsible for driving down wages and pressures on the country’s infrastructure and housing. Tonight, Nash made it clear that the high levels of migration seen in recent years is no longer welcome.
“When our borders fully open again, we can’t afford to simply turn on the tap to the previous immigration settings. That path is a continuation of pressures on our infrastructure … and downward pressure on wages. Since the borders closed, we’ve seen a reversal in the horticulture sector, for example, where there’s been a lift in wages to bring in local workers,” said Nash.
Nearly 5% of the country’s workers are on temporary visas, by far the highest level in the OECD. Thousands of those workers, including many in the healthcare sector, haven’t been able to bring their families into the country over the past year because of Covid-19 restrictions. In a sign of what’s to come, Nash said that won’t change. The government is instead creating a new exemption for foreign businesspeople who want to come here to negotiate deals in-person.
The speech was more about a direction of travel than a set of hard numbers to work with. But even within that, some observers were left confused at that lack of detail, reports the NZ Herald. As Stuff reports, there was no further clarity on either how quickly the direction would be implemented, or whether more resources would go to the under-pressure Immigration NZ – the latter question will be answered on Budget Day. Politik (paywalled) reported that some observers were left wondering where the “Kiwis first” workforce was actually going to come from. On The Spinoff, Bernard Hickey argued that a lack of migration planning generally has contributed to the infrastructure and housing deficit New Zealand now faces.
And finally, the numbers that give context for the policy reset: Radio NZ reports that immigration – in terms of people from overseas countries coming to live here – basically stopped over the last year. The net migration gain for the country last year was about 6k people – the year before it was more than 90k.
So... thoughts NSG? Is it appropriate for governments to use global pandemics to fundamentally overhaul immigration settings outside the context of pandemic restrictions? Should governments be enacting trickle down immigration policies ever? Does this reframe how you think about NZ?
I think this is disgusting. It's bad policy being made by bad actors and defended by people for no apparent reason. If you want details of why I think these things:
RE: poll, apologies to people who really like "closed borders" and "ancestry visas/citizenship". With the first case, I assume that if you're anti-immigration you'll find trickle down and employer supported and temporary migration schemes to your taste. If you're into the ancestry visas, the closest proxy would be moral immigration settings. Points schemes are just a way of incorporating various kinds of objectives into a single system, but compare skills and employer supported schemes.