Rebuild will need urgent action on immigration
Hon Erica Stanford MP
Member of Parliament for East Coast Bays. Minister of Education. Minister of Immigration.
PRESS RELEASE | Erica Stanford MP | 23 February 2023
The Government should move quickly to scrap immigration red tape and support businesses to bring in the skilled migrants needed to assist with the rebuild following Cyclone Gabrielle, National’s Immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford says.
“Rebuilding infrastructure following last week’s destruction will be a colossal effort requiring vast resources and many skilled workers.
“The building and construction sector is already short tens of thousands of workers, significantly minimising New Zealand’s capacity to rebuild our shattered infrastructure across the country.
“This Labour Government has a tendency to overcomplicate our immigration settings by making it more difficult, costly and slower – resulting in fewer migrants applying. Right now we need flexibility to be able to meet the needs of the affected regions and not a repeat of the bureaucracy that happened during Covid.
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“National is calling on the Government to cut out the bureaucracy and prioritise bringing in the skilled workers required as quickly as possible. This means:
“Since New Zealand re-opened its borders, our immigration settings have failed to quickly bring in enough of the skilled workers we need, meaning we are not equipped for the task ahead. Currently, it takes an employer the better part of half a year to get through the red tape just to hire a migrant.
“The Government has been too slow in responding to crippling workforce shortages, and we cannot afford to wait months before desperately needed changes are made – we need urgent action now.
“These changes proposed by National could be implemented immediately and would give businesses working on the rebuild access to the skilled migrants needed without endless red tape and delays.”
Retired
1 年Erica, the word quickly isn’t in Michael Wood’s, or this government’s vocabulary .
Senior Lawyer/Barrister & Solicitor (BSc Econ, LLB, LEC/BAR)
1 年I have dual citizenship with NZ and Trinidad, Caribbean. I obtained NZ passport after residing in NZ for 5 continuous yrs thanks to being married to a kiwi. NZ immigration has strict laws that are not in favour of migrants or their migrant partners because migrants compete for housing, health, food, jobs, education etc, vicious cycle
Head of Litigation | LLM (Hons), Commercial Litigation
1 年There are high skilled workers in New Zealand who are waiting on residency applications to be processed that were announced during late 2021 as rubber stamping exercises. There are tens of thousands still not signed off despite those having to have been filed one year ago which prevents those individuals moving roles without another application being made that costs thousands more and of course won’t get processed owing to the backlog. We need to replace those immigrants we lost when the borders got closed in 2020 as well as add to the numbers for this rebuild. But we do have many inside our borders who could shift the load now but have their hands tied by delays
Success occurs when preparation meets opportunity!
1 年Could not agree more
General Manager - Immigration Services | Immigration Strategy Expert
1 年They could also scrap today's announcement of introducing the restrictions on partner work rights...which is going to have a negative impact on securing the main applicants we need who are securing jobs and accredited employer work visas. Restricting partner work rights in any format, acts as a significant roadblock to bringing in talent.