SpeechHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): Madam Chair I thank the members for their questions. Mr Menéndez March—his question around under age overstayers. Immigration New Zealand doesn't hold age data on hand about the age of people who might be overstaying and in New Zealand illegally. I do have concerns for the welfare and wellbeing of many of those people particularly including children and young people. I do note that children are still able to attend school regardless of the regularity of their immigration status. As we have discussed previously the Government is considering whether a regularisation initiative in this area is appropriate. That is something we are giving careful consideration to. In respect of his question about whether the Government is considering something like the Special Ukraine Visa for people in other conflict zones and areas of difficulty around the world we're not currently considering any specific proposals. We have established a number of those in recent years including for Ukraine and for Afghanistan as quite bespoke processes dealing with particular situations in those places. We do continue to rely on our United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees quota as the main pathway for humanitarian resettlement in New Zealand but we do give consideration as I say on a bespoke basis as to whether there are other cases. Mr McDowall asked about visitor visas and the extent to which there might be a backlog building there again. I wouldn't characterise it that way. There has been an increase in numbers over about the last two months. That has been particularly linked effectively to the opening of borders in China and a significant inflow of interest in visitor visas from people in China. And on-hand numbers have built up again to around about 30000. I've been monitoring that very closely. My main concern is that that does not result in a decrease in processing performance. Ultimately even if your on-hand numbers are a bit higher but you still have a good output in terms of getting decisions made that is less of a concern. I'm well satisfied at the moment in that respect. Our processing times are as fast as they have been since reconnection—77 percent are processed within 20 days and the average is eight working days. We do expect to see the numbers begin to recede probably from later this month. In respect of FIFA Immigration New Zealand does work very closely with FIFA to facilitate a smooth event in that space and we do encourage people to apply in a timely fashion themselves. There is always a responsibility on people to apply taking account of how long it will reasonably take to process a visa but we do have an added process there to make sure that event goes well. In respect of Erica Stanford's question around the processing of visitor visas and the risk rules—on a point of terminology she used not maliciously at all or inaccurately but the term instructions I'll just be very clear because the word instructions" has a particular meaning in the world of immigration that we are not referring here to instructions that are issued by the Minister but operational rules that are set and can be altered by the department itself. And what they did in the latter part of 2022 was to have sort of a common-sense review of the rules that were put in place to make sure there wasn't anything in there that was unnecessary that was creating additional slowness in the system but not really helping us to manage risk in a meaningful way. So there was a bit of a sweep through those rules; a number were removed. As I understand it that remains the same and I am satisfied that those rules are appropriate. She asked if any further risks have been manifested; I have not seen evidence of that. We have had a small increase in the number of asylum seekers in recent months—month on month—but it's too early to establish whether there is really a pattern there. Although I do note it is consistent with what compatriots in other like countries are experiencing at the moment and I think it is therefore just more likely linked to the fact that we are living in very turbulent times."