3. Question No. 3—ImmigrationERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of ImmigrationQuestion No. 3—Immigration3. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Immigration): Kia orana Mr Speaker. Yes I stand by our Government's management of the border to keep COVID out of our communities to make sure that New Zealanders can get home to reunite families and to respond to skill shortages where we can. Throughout the pandemic we have worked to strike a balance between protecting people using the limited capacity we have at the border to bring people through and making the best use of onshore workforce through changes to visa settings. In taking this approach we have been able to bring in more than 17000 skilled workers and their families to date and we've also extended essential skills working holiday and supplementary seasonal employment visas to meet our onshore labour demands. We've also taken decisions to make the system as flexible as it can be to make sure we have the best use of these workers.Erica Stanford: Why despite a letter being sent to the chief executive of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment in early 2019 to express the Government's concern over Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) residency visa processing delays has he done little to stop the visa processing times jumping from 11 months then to 27 months today?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Kia orana Mr Speaker. There are two issues there. The first issue is that the demand for the SMC process was much larger than expected and managing the demand in terms of processing has been a challenge for Immigration New Zealand. Also the second issue would be COVID-19 and the ability of Immigration New Zealand to process those applications as well as the applications for the likes of critical purpose visas which allow those 17000 workers and families to come through the border when the border is closed.Erica Stanford: Can he explain to the thousands of skilled migrants stuck in limbo why they should have any confidence that he will fix the residency backlog when according to his office he has only received one piece of written advice on this issue since the election?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Because if you look at the decisions that we've made recently we are watching and looking at options available to us when our border is closed. She may have seen on Monday that we announced the beginning of quarantine-free travel hopefully with the likes of Tonga Samoa and Vanuatu in order to have Recognised Seasonal Employer workers here for the next harvest and about three weeks ago the extension of essential skilled workers to make sure that businesses can continue to keep the workers that they have.Ricardo Menéndez March: Kia ora Mr Speaker. Does the Minister stand by his answer to parliamentary written question No. 26322 that the health requirements of migrants do not discriminate on the basis of disability and if so what does he say to the multiple families currently petitioning to stop the deportation of their disabled children?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The health requirements or acceptable level of health requirements that have been in place for Immigration New Zealand have been there for many years. They are there to ensure that people who come to New Zealand on temporary work visas don't impose undue costs on taxpayers. There is the ability if individuals or individual families want to take a specific case to Immigration New Zealand or the Associate Minister of Immigration to go down that avenue.Erica Stanford: What does the Minister say to the Ōtaki community who now face a three-week wait to see a GP after their migrant doctor Dr Harding Richards at the Ōtaki Medical Centre who looked after 1300 patients—SPEAKER: Order! Order! No. The member's going to start again having lost that one because she had three unnecessary bits of information in there.Erica Stanford: Does the Minister believe that it is good value for money to spend approximately $6 million since 2018 to relocate migrant teachers to New Zealand to then have those teachers leave because they're stuck in an expression of interest (EOI) pool that is frozen?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Obviously there was a need to attract teachers here when that decision and that investment was made. Obviously no one knew that the border was going to close. As was said earlier this week we're looking at the resumption of EOI options as we speak and a decision will come in short order.