8. Question No. 8—ImmigrationERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of ImmigrationQuestion No. 8—Immigration8. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he stand by all his statements and actions on immigration?Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Immigration): Yes in particular I stand by the progress this Government is making on the 2021 resident visa. As of yesterday a little over 78000 applications had been submitted representing 151459 people. Of these nearly 11000 have already been granted residence representing close to 25000 people becoming New Zealand residents. This gives certainty to those people and their employers and enables New Zealanders to retain a very important part of our skilled settled and scarce workforce. I also stand by the Government's recent decision to offer shelter to around 4000 families of Ukrainians in New Zealand and I stand by the Government's careful strategy to reconnect with the world and as we are able to do so we are welcoming more and more people from overseas back to Aotearoa. As we said last month where it is possible to bring forward the entry dates for different groups of migrants the Government is working to do that.Erica Stanford: Does he agree with the Prime Minister's comment yesterday that the reason the Government isn't able to prioritise split families is because The major issue … is not a question of safety… a question of being able to process those new visas in a timely way"?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Families will be able to be reunited throughout the phases of the staged and balanced process that the Prime Minister outlined yesterday. From 13 April Australians will be able to travel to New Zealand isolation free. And then 2½ weeks later from 11.59 on 1 May vaccinated travellers from visa waiver countries with valid visitor visas will also be able to travel. Also from July the processing of partnership visas for temporary migrants will resume. As the Prime Minister has said a staged and balanced approach to reconnecting New Zealand is the way we've gone about it because of both public health reasons and our willingness to open the borders as quickly as we can.Erica Stanford: Can he explain why he put the bulk of split families in the very last border reopening category of October behind tourists and sports teams when these families have been separated for three years?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: As we open to the likes of Australia and visa waiver countries that change will allow a large number of people who have been split to reconnect with their families. There are also around 570000 people who still have valid visas who can open in our new phased approach. Erica Stanford: Why is it that 90 percent of visitor visa applications currently take seven months to complete and is this the reason he can't open up to all tourists on 1 May?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I think the fact that the border has been closed for two years would have something to do with the focus of where processing for Immigration New Zealand has been. A bulk of the processing capacity has been dealing with the likes of critical purpose visas to make sure that we've got the kind of skills and people that we've needed here over the last two years while our borders have been closed.Erica Stanford: What does he say to the consultant psychiatrist who is the only approved trainer for addiction psychiatry in the Waikato who has resigned and is moving to Australia because Immigration does not have the capacity to process his father's residency application even though he fits the income criteria to be approved?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I'm only hearing about this one individual case at the moment but if that person has an issue with the way that that has been processed I suggest they speak to Immigration New Zealand."