1. Question No. 1—Prime MinisterCHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister1. CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. Today the Government introduced the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill implementing the necessary legislative and regulatory amendments to give effect to the New Zealand - United Kingdom free-trade agreement. This is a gold standard free-trade agreement. Virtually all our current trade will be duty-free from entry into force including duty-free quotas for key products like meat butter and cheese. The deal is expected to boost our GDP by up to $1 billion supporting business and jobs across the economy and helping to accelerate our economic recovery. It's estimated New Zealand goods exports to the UK will increase by over 50 percent through the agreement and I look forward to further promoting trade and exports into the UK in my future travels.Christopher Luxon: Why are nurses not on Immigration New Zealand's fast-tracked straight to residence pathway when we are 4000 nurses short and Kiwis are having their surgeries cancelled?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The important point to note here is that they are on a fast track to residency and this is the first time that registered nurses have been on the fast track. The only request that is being made is that they continue to work as nurses. If the member believes that we should remove that provision then essentially he's telling us that we should have no request that anyone enter and work in our stressed health workforce which surely I would have thought would have been the point of fast tracking residency.Christopher Luxon: Is she not aware that Immigration New Zealand has a visa pathway specifically called the fast tracked straight to residence pathway" listing 40 professions and that nurses and midwives are not on it?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We currently have 20000 nurses registered but not practising in New Zealand. One of the issues that has been raised with us when we went out and consulted is a concern that if we did not attach to the residency pathway the requirement to keep working in nursing there may be a loss of that nursing workforce. The point is to take stress—Erica Stanford: It has been debunked and she knows it.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —Mr Speaker if I may—out of the health workforce and if the member thinks asking people to keep nursing is going to be a barrier I can only assume therefore that people's intention is not to work as nurses.Christopher Luxon: When she told Radio New Zealand that "we did have raised with us by some DHBs the concern of whether or not we were retaining everyone that was coming in as a nurse." which DHBs raised those concerns and when?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I'm not going to name individual district health boards but the stats do demonstrate that we have a higher movement rate for those who have come in as migrants into the nursing workforce than the general nursing workforce. Can I also point out that this is on top of the work that we've already been doing to bring in critical purpose visas for health workers. We have had even while our borders were closed 5700 critical purpose visas for health roles since COVID. We have been recruiting offshore. At the same time we've had the Return to Nursing Workforce Support Fund to try to bring back some of those 20000 who are trained as nurses but are currently not working as nurses. We've had the general nurses campaign; the New Entry to Practice Programme which had $25 million put in in 2019; and we have increased our nursing workforce as a Government by 15 percent. We have focused on turning around an understaffed health workforce and we continue to do so.Christopher Luxon: Was the health Minister Andrew Little wrong then when he wrote in response to written questions "I am advised that the Ministry of Health did not receive feedback specifically from the district health boards on migrant nurses leaving their profession."?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I was advised of this by Immigration New Zealand.David Seymour: If we accept that nurses are being fast tracked through the immigration process how many nurses are currently in that fast-tracked process and how long will it take each of them to go through it?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I think the member will know it's not unreasonable to ask for a question of that nature to be put in writing but as was asked in the House yesterday—how many for instance came through the specific critical purposes visa programme that we had running over the course of COVID—we had 5700 who were working across the health workforce who came in under that visa category. Happy to answer a question put in writing.Christopher Luxon: Can she explain why 40 occupations facing shortages including multimedia specialists and food technologists are on the fast-tracked straight to residence pathway but nurses and midwives are not and have to wait two years?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again this is guaranteed residency if you come and work as a nurse so I fail to understand why the member sees it as so problematic. If our gap is in nursing why not bond to nursing and guarantee residency? We need people to come in and work as nurses and if they're willing to do that they are guaranteed residency.Christopher Luxon: Does she stand by her statement to overseas nurses yesterday that "Our message is come to New Zealand and you will be fast tracked for residency" and if so why did she exclude nurses from the "Fast tracked straight to residence pathway"?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I stand by my statements yesterday and we have been running a recruitment campaign since February also to ensure that we are out there in the market trying to seek those who are willing to come and be nurses in New Zealand. At the same time another thing that we have to rectify and we've been doing this since 2017 is the underfunding both in our health system they will work in but also in the wages they are paid. We've seen a 20 percent and in some cases 25 percent increase in their salaries that was needed because under that Government in some cases they were seeing increases of as little as 1 percent.Christopher Luxon: Isn't it the case that despite repeated warnings from the health sector and the Opposition over the last two years her Government has simply failed to bring in the nurses we need to deal with something that was entirely predictable: the fact that people would get—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member has had his question.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: First point: would we be in the position of recruiting nurses offshore if we did not have nearly a decade of under-investment in health by the National Government? We now are trying to train at record [Members interjecting] rates to make up for that.SPEAKER: Order! Order! The Prime Minister will resume her seat. This is an issue which I can tell the vast majority of the people in the House care about. I want—Christopher Luxon: We care about it too.SPEAKER: The member is part of the vast majority of people in the House. I know he's a relatively new member but he does not interject when I'm on my feet. I want to be able to hear the answer and I'm having trouble hearing it because of the barracking from my left.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: And at the same time we have increased health funding every year as a Government and can I point out the contradiction of having just delivered the largest budget and investment into health that this country has seen and the National Party want to cancel it and instead give broad-base tax cuts. At the same time we've funded 3400 extra nurses we have 1400 extra doctors and we have funded more vacancies to take pressure off as well. Now yes because of lack of investment we are having to look offshore but that member should look in the mirror at his own Government's policies as to why we are in this position."