Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Well if I ever heard a speech that showed just how much the polls hurt that was it from Grant Robertson. He spends half his time talking about the Opposition and attacking our leader who's doing a really great job rather than talking about issues that matter to New Zealanders the squeezed middle who feel like they're behind every month every pay cycle because they can't afford to put the basics on the table. That is a speech that shows that they are worried. We now know what the Prime Minister is going to be doing next week. We now know that she's going to be giving a pre-Budget speech about immigration another area of complete and utter failure for this Government under an incompetent Minister who now has put the single biggest handbrake on our economy because of his incompetence and is a cause of so much misery for so many people. Given the multitude of issues that plague our immigration department it's really hard to know where the Prime Minister's going. But I do have some suggestions for her. We have the biggest workforce shortage in 40 years and we know this is going to get worse when our bright young Kiwis start leaving New Zealand for opportunities offshore because they feel like they're getting behind in this country thanks to this Government. Businesses are crying out for workers. They're closing their doors. They're turning down contracts. We've got a health sector that is 4000 workers short. Other countries understand what to do. They know what to do. If you just take a look at Australia creating guaranteed pathways to residence in skill shortages they know they need welcoming and simple pathways for workers; attractive conditions for students with work rights and pathways to residence; and their borders have been open for months. If you compare and contrast that with what this Government have done they're doing the exact opposite a border reopening that is taking a whole year; pathways to residence that have been closed since 2020 and goodness knows when they're going to open again; workers that cannot apply for work visas until the middle of the year and goodness knows when they will be granted; businesses now facing a new compulsory expensive and bureaucratic process of being registered before they can even hire a migrant; a totally unexplainable cap on international students of 5000 and a Government that is hell-bent on making it much more difficult for them to get here; and visa processing times that have blown out since 2017. If you want to attract the best migrants to this country what is attractive about any of that? We are being outgunned by Australia who have more attractive conditions and simple pathways attracting workers students and tourists while we languish because this Government has no clue in immigration. Case in point when the Prime Minister announced our border reopening at stage two Kris Faafoi told the media that the very previously strict criteria for critical workers would be relaxed and anyone earning 1.5 the minimum wage would be able to come into this country on a work visa. And this was going to attract 20000 workers—20000 workers were going to come into the country. Well guess how many have arrived to date? Hon Louise Upston: How many?ERICA STANFORD: Six—six workers have arrived. And this shows the utter incompetence of this Minister and his misunderstanding of how immigration works. People want to know they have pathways to residence. And I told him this right at the beginning. These skilled migrants won't come if you don't provide them a pathway to residence. It's still closed and he says Oh trust me. We'll open it at some stage." Well here's the proof in the pudding: six workers out of 20000 have arrived—an utter failure by this Minister.SPEAKER: Order! Order! I'm sorry to interrupt the member. I just want to say to the members down the far end this is not a chat room all right? So thank you. ERICA STANFORD: Thank you Mr Speaker. How could the Minister have gotten this so wrong?The second thing that he's done to try and attract workers is open up the working holiday visa scheme. But the poor Minister of Tourism yesterday had to stand up and tell us that the only solution that he's got to the critical workforce shortage in the tourism sector is the working holiday visa scheme. Forcing our previous biggest export earner to rely on a transient and unpredictable workforce was always a terrible policy and by the way only 400 have arrived. When the Prime Minister makes her announcement on Wednesday next week here are the three things she needs to talk about: pathways to residence for people so that they will choose to come to this country and they will stop leaving—reopen the residence pathway to make sure that that happens; remove the handbrake on our immigration system to make sure we get the skilled workers here we need now; and thirdly she needs to bring forward step five of the border reopening policy so that we unlock tourists from non-visa waiver countries and finally reunite migrant families that have been apart for three years. Here's just one more I'll throw in there for her: decouple work visas from employers to stop migrant exploitation. If we want the best we need to be the best. For the past four years under this incompetent Minister we have been the worst and things need to change."