McDowall James; Little AndrewDr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. I'd just like some clarity on the topic of the Active Investor Plus Visa. With regards to the weighting of funds because as I'm sure the Minister is well aware one of the purposes of this is to try and get direct investment which weights $1 to $3. So in theory we could have a—I imagine ideally the Government would want a lot of $5 million applications that New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) considers good investments. The problem with that is that based on the figure that I received in an oral question last week the average amount is $15 million per application so it would seem—unless that's incorrect or slightly misleading—that every application is not being weighted so they are not direct investments not managed funds. So I'd just like to clarify that with the Minister to determine if that is indeed how the system is going because if it is then it sounds like it's not working very well at all. The follow-up to that is that I would ask why NZTE seemed so ill-prepared for their significant role in this visa given that their advisory panel didn't meet until February 2023 to decide what an acceptable investment was which was five months after the visa was actually launched. Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Immigration): Mr Chair I thank the member for that question. I wasn't around for his question last week so I'm not quite sure the particular content of either the question or the answer given. What I can say is that of the 31 applications received since applications opened since August last year three are fully and finally approved and 14 have been approved in principle. As the member acknowledges there is a weighting so depending on the nature of the investment the title of the visa is Active Investor" so the aim is to get investments that generate business activity that could be—as opposed to putting money in a bank account and generating interest which tends to benefit probably more people offshore than they do here. It could be the person the visa holder taking their money and setting up or purchasing a business and actively running it and using their entrepreneurial skills and management skills to generate wealth and activity locally. That's actually what we would like most. Or it could be those who might be a passive investor of a business that is employing and generating activity and the weightings are given accordingly. I'd have to check the data that underpinned the answer to the member's question last week to see whether that average of $15 million is the weighted average of investments or the actual dollar value of investments. As the member knows the aim is to get investments of value for the purposes of the policy—not the dollar investment but valued for the purposes of the policy of $15 million. On the on the grounds that I've just specified. So a $5 million investment that the visa holder actively manages themselves and employs people and what have you will be valued at $15 million for the purposes of the application. Whereas the passive investor would require $15 million to get there. So that may not directly answer the member's question but I hope that it helps."