12. Question No. 12—ImmigrationERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of ImmigrationQuestion No. 12—Immigration12. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he stand by his statements and actions?Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): Yes I do. In particular I stand by the Government's decision to increase the refugee resettlement quota for the 2022–23 year to 1500 people and to double the family support category from 300 to 600 as a part of that. While quite rightly much of our focus in the immigration policy is on short-term work visa issues at the moment it's important to remember that as we reconnect with the world there is an important role for humanitarian policy in our immigration settings as well.Erica Stanford: How well does he think the new Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) is working for attracting nurses when only 14 new offshore nurses applied in the first 5½ weeks compared to an average of 57 new offshore nurses each month this year under the old visa?Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The evidence in terms of the numbers and reports that I have received is that there is very strong interest amongst nurses and across the health workforce in respect of the Accredited Employer Work Visa. I'm advised that a relatively large number of applications have now come through the Job Check process in the health sector: 7033 applications for people to work in the health sector have been approved by Immigration New Zealand in that Job Check process bearing in mind that is a process that effectively commenced last month in July. The next step then is for employers to recruit and for those people to apply for work visas. We are now beginning to see those come through—54 have been approved and 48 are in-country. In the meantime nurses and health workers do continue to come in through the critical purpose visa including 67 last week.Erica Stanford: Is he satisfied that only three new offshore aged-care nurses applied for an AEWV visa in nearly six weeks when the aged-care sector has been forced to close a thousand beds in the last six months due to shortages of 1200 nurses?Hon MICHAEL WOOD: As I have explained in my primary answer the evidence that we see is that very strong numbers across the health workforce including in aged care have been approved in the Job Check stage of the Accredited Employer Work Visa. That is a process that has kicked in relatively recently. Employers now have the ability once they receive those approvals and those tickets to then be able to go and recruit offshore and we expect those numbers to be coming through. Again I note that workers continue to come into New Zealand through other visa categories that are still active.Erica Stanford: Does the Minister understand that the Job Check process has been open since 20 June AEWVs have been able to be applied for for the last 6½ weeks and only 14 nurses have applied?Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I would have to confirm the member's numbers because as we have heard in this House previously she doesn't always get them right. As I have outlined the process is in flow. We have had 7033 health workers who have been approved by Immigration New Zealand under the Job Check stage of the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme and those completed applications across the AEWV have been completed on an average of 11 days' processing time which is a pretty good performance for a scheme in its first one to two months of operation. We now expect to see work visa applications ramp up in the coming weeks.Erica Stanford: Does the Minister remember signing off a question to me saying that only 14 offshore new nurses—SPEAKER: Order! The member might want to start again—maybe he signed off an answer?Erica Stanford: Oh sorry. Does the Minister remember signing off an answer to a question from me stating that only 14 new offshore nurses had applied for an AEWV up to 10 August which is the first 5½ weeks of the visa being open?Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Yes but I note that that answer would have been received nearly two weeks ago.