Andrew Little, opposition Leader of New Zealand’s Labour Party
By Gurbir Singh
Hamilton (New Zealand), June, 2017 :
Immigrants and students heading to New Zealand would be adversely affected if the Labour Party wins this year’s September elections.
Andrew Little, opposition Leader of New Zealand’s Labour Party, yesterday announced his party’s new immigration policy that will tighten rules around student and work visas and slash net migration by 20,000 - 30,000 a year.
Andrew Little said his party would clamp down on "sham" low-level courses, run mainly by Private Training Establishments, which are being used as a back door to residency by international students.
Since 2013, immigration has increased more than four times what was forecast, and according to Statistics New Zealand figures, last year 129,500 people arrived in the country.
International students, including those from India, doing any course below university-level bachelor degree and who want to work and stay in New Zealand after their study, will bear the main brunt of this policy.
Labour Party will also stop students doing paid work even for those doing bachelor or higher degrees unless work is a course requirement. Currently, all overseas students can legally work part time for 20 hours while studying and full-time during course vacations.
Under the present immigration policy, students can stay for a year after finishing their study on an open visa, and later on a two-year work visa if they secure a course-related job. These extra three years of onshore study and work experience gave them more points to apply for residency than someone who is applying from overseas.
The party also proposes to remove the post-study open work visa unless they have a job offer.
Therefore, there will be no bonus points to those who studied or worked in New Zealand and points for age would be standardised to 30 for everyone under age of 45.
Labour Party, if it comes to power, will also introduce a stricter labour market test to ensure employers do not recruit from overseas unless they have exhausted all avenues of finding suitable local resident. There are over 90,000 local young Kiwis who are unemployed.
He said number of low-skill work visas issued had increased from 14,000 in 2011-12 to 22,000 for jobs, including “retail supervisor” work visas that increased from 700 to 1,700. Similarly, issue of work visas increased from 37,190 in year 2000 to 192,688 in 2016.
This party will set up a new 'Exceptional Skills Visa’ for up to 1000 highly skilled or experienced workers a year. These migrants would not have to undergo the usual points test and could bring immediate family with them.
Labour Party’s new policy has drawn a clear battle-line with only three months to go for the election.
New Zealand PM, Bill English has criticised has criticised labour's immigration policy as it is “based upon misunderstanding... and (will) stall the economy”.
It has, however, found favours with the New Zealand First Party leader, Winston Peters who has always been opposed to New Zealand being used a dumping ground for “all and sundry”.
Some Kiwis also appear to support this move as they blame migrants for current housing shortage in Auckland (most migrants chose to settle there) and the perception that migrants take away their jobs.
But some business groups are questioning this Labour's policy as this may affect the hospitality, education and tourism industry and vacancies will be hard to fill. Then who would do the ‘menial’ jobs, for example, cleaning, care giving, others ask?
Though current government favours immigration, yet in April it raised the income level threshold to $49,000 for applying for a residency. This will result in many skilled workers ineligible to apply as most low-skilled jobs pay less.
If Labour Party comes to power and implements this policy, it is feared that it will result in closure of at least 70% of New Zealand’s educational institutes that are dependent upon international students- mainly from India and China.
No government can afford to lose a flourishing industry that generates $4.5 billion in foreign exchange revenue.
Meanwhile, a long period of uncertainty faces international students and prospective migrants.
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Gurbir Singh is a New Zealand-based feature writer & journalist. He can be contacted at: gurbir@journalist.com