A Vote for Visas?
New Zealand has voted…well just under 79% of us did at least, in what felt like one of the biggest election campaigns in living memory. This election may not have seen the same turnout of previous years or a landslide victory for anyone, but it certainly captured the nations attention over the weekend. We were caught up enough to have an “election night party”, with friends on all sides of the political spectrum…thankfully the food was plentiful and the drinks were flowing.
Naturally, questions are starting to circulate as to what this all means for the future migrant and what changes might come as the Government slowly starts to form. Following our pre-election article, we take a closer look at what might be on the table in the near future.
Firstly, it is important to understand that the final verdict on the elections has yet to be cast and that is largely due to just over half-a-million special votes still to be counted. These are votes from people offshore (about 80,000) and votes taken from people outside of their electorate or in slightly unusual circumstances. This represents about 20% of the total vote yet to be worked through and that could shift how the new Government is formed. At this stage, the National and Act parties have enough to do it together, without the need of a third actor, however if the special votes move the dial, we may see NZ First being needed to make up the majority. This is important for a number of reasons, but largely because all three parties have different views on immigration and thus any changes will become a topic of negotiation either between two or three players.
National’s Approach
Whilst National was big on policy announcements that addressed some of our more pressing issues (cost of living, healthcare, law and order etc.), its pre-election announcements on immigration were relatively light. Their approach can be summed up as trying to achieve “sensible solutions that make New Zealand more attractive without costing taxpayers”. The brunt of that is going to be felt in an increase in application fees for most migrants, which will go towards funding other policies. This might sting but ultimately we will still be relatively competitive on price, compared to our country competitors.
In terms of actual categories, so far they have announced a new Parent Boost Visa, which will will allows parents to visit their adult children (and grandchildren) for extended periods of time. They have also proposed some fringe policies that aim to attract highly skilled talent (particularly in tech), open opportunities for remote work to occur here (digital nomads) and are aiming to secure graduates from top-tier universities around the world. On top of this they want to speed up Student Visa processing to inject some much-needed life in to the export education sector.
These are great ideas, but they are really just playing in the shallow end of the pool and don’t address the core policies we use to plug skill gaps, being the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme and the Skilled Migrant programs for Residence. These policies are the “engine room” for our immigration system and both of them need some attention. The (soon to be) former Government has tinkered in the engine room for six years and the result sounds like a bit of a misfire.
It will be interesting to see what National’s bigger picture plans are and whether they line up with their potential team-mates.
ACT’s Approach
The ACT party has never really had a strong stance on immigration and has focused more on big ticket items such as law and order, education and healthcare. Ironically however, their pre-election pitch did include some changes to our core policies, so as a coalition partner, they may end up driving more change their than National.
The encouraging signals from ACT are that they want to remove the “work to residence” process for occupations on the existing Green List, so everyone goes directly to Residence. They also want to tidy up the Accredited Employer Scheme, removing wage restrictions and labour market tests and then tackle the skilled migration program by making it a more efficient and predictable process (I read this as a removal of the new one, two and three year work requirements).
As someone who has been in the industry this long, these are encouraging words as they would address some of the key failings with the existing policies that make us less attractive than destinations that offer residence upfront - the “work to residence” model works in other markets where “transitory” migration is more common. People moving here want to move here and stay here and know they can do that sooner, rather than later.
Also encouraging from ACT is a signal to tackle the system itself, Immigration New Zealand. They want to address processing delays, but really need to go further and sort out what is very negative culture and operating model - fix that and you would have better staff retention, leading to far better processing outcomes.
NZ First’s Approach
If there was a festering, rotten apple in the bag, when it comes to this potential coalition and its impact on the future of our immigration system, NZ First would be that apple. Traditionally NZ First has had a very conservative view on immigration, aiming to cut numbers, with a very protectionist view of the local labour market. Largely out of step with the real needs of the economy, they thankfully have never been able to get any of their immigration ideas over the line. I doubt much will change this time around, even if they get a seat at the big table.
Their proposals in this election were to replace the Accredited Employer Scheme with a Critical Skill and Labour Shortage Visa (basically the same thing in a different pair of pants), maintain caps on parent Visas, focus more or rural and regional migration outcomes (actually not a bad idea) and guarantee that immigration settings are focused on meeting critical skill gaps - which is in fact the general purpose of our immigration policy already.
In reality what NZ First is suggesting is more of the same and it feels a lot like a back of the napkin proposal, rather than a clear focused and well thought out plan.
A Visa Medley
The most likely outcome of all of this, regardless of whether its a political twosome or threesome is going to be a merger between National’s add-on policy ideas to target talent, as well as their need to lift Visa fees to cover tax-cuts, married up with ACT’s more practical and common sense, ground up reviews and adjustments of core policies. If ACT gets their way and is able to demolish or even reduce the reliance on the “work to residence” process that Labour seemed to be stuck on and if they can manage to get rid of an obsession with salary levels as a proxy for skills, these could be big wins for future migrants.
What we have now in terms of systems is actually a pretty good mix of policies, and covers a very broad spectrum of occupations with some swift and direct pathways to Residence. What we need to change is the “work to residence” component of all of these, because in my mind, if you need people you need people - making some of those people work for one, two or three years, adds no value to the process, creates uncertainty and makes us potentially less desirable for some applicants (there are actually plenty wo dont mind this at all) than our competitor countries.
It’s not the worlds end to have a work to residence process process but it should not form a core part of our system, nor should that system exclude some very desirable skill sets, whose only option under the current rules, would be to earn a much higher salary with three years of work here first.
If we can can mix ACT’s ground up approach and focus on core policies, with National’s aspirations to target higher-skilled talent, we might just get somewhere. However I would also encourage both parties to remember that our migration offering has to be competitive, clear and practical and in addition to the headline details, we need to ensure the underlying machinery (INZ) is fit for purpose - there is a lot of work to be done to get that part right as well.
It will take a month or two for the Government to be officially formed and to settle in and then of course there are always competing priorities, so change won’t come quickly - 2024 however is shaping up to be a very interesting one on the immigration front.
For now, I am just glad the election is over and even better we have a long weekend to look forward to, with not a campaign billboard in sight.
Until next week…
