7. Question No. 7—ImmigrationRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister of ImmigrationQuestion No. 7—Immigration7. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister of Immigration: What is the Government doing to enable people living in New Zealand to bring family members here from Gaza?SPEAKER: I've been advised that this answer might be a little longer. It is an important matter so please proceed.Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Immigration): New Zealand is deeply distressed by the escalating crisis and loss of life in Gaza. In my capacity as immigration Minister I can confirm that we are continuing to monitor the situation closely along with our partners. I have been advised that the steps Immigration New Zealand has taken related to the Gaza conflict are to centralise applications into one office prioritise those visa applications and provide case by case support to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for New Zealand citizens and residents attempting to leave Gaza and travel to New Zealand. In addition I have been assured by the Minister of Foreign Affairs that all New Zealand citizens and permanent residents who wanted to leave Gaza have now left and this was a priority for the new Government.Golriz Ghahraman: Will the Minister create a special visa category for Palestinians with family members in Gaza as was made available to Ukrainian New Zealanders in 2022?Hon ERICA STANFORD: Our current response of prioritising visa applications from people affected by the conflict is in line with our international partners but I can assure the member that we will continue to monitor the situation very closely.Golriz Ghahraman: What makes the situation in Gaza different from the situation in Ukraine given that the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is actually far worse having claimed the lives of at least 20000 civilians—more than 7000 children—in the past nine weeks?Hon ERICA STANFORD: I am advised by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment that Ukraine was a different situation in that we were unable to in that situation work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to take refugees. However I want to also reiterate that at that time we were working in accordance with our international partners in a global coordinated situation to take people from Ukraine. In this situation I am confident that we are processing visas with priority we are escalating them where required and we have a team set up as I said to make sure that that's happening. I can also assure the member that we are using the exception to instructions process and being very permissive where we can. I'd also like to let the member know that there have only been a very small handful of applications but all the steps that I mentioned just previously are being taken with those applications.Ricardo Menéndez March: Is the Minister aware that the Immigration New Zealand website currently provides no practical evidence or support to people seeking to bring their family members to New Zealand from Gaza and if so will she direct Immigration New Zealand to rectify this?Hon ERICA STANFORD: I asked my officials this morning if there was some information online about this process and they assured me that there was but I will go back to them and make sure that it is more easily able to be found and I'm happy to also work with the member from the Greens if you'd like a briefing on this with me and my officials.Ricardo Menéndez March: What is the average processing time for family members of people living in Gaza and how does this compare with other family members who are trying to bring their families to Aotearoa?Hon ERICA STANFORD: I asked that question of immigration officials this morning. It's very difficult to know because at the moment the number of applications that we've had are only divisible by offshore and onshore. So of those offshore at this point in time I am unable to tell how many of those people are actually in Gaza. On top of that I've asked for further information to find out how many there are in Gaza. I wasn't able to find out in the time allocated but what we will do from here is find out how many are actually in Gaza and then what visa type they're trying to come in on because it matters. It makes quite a big difference in terms of the visa that they're applying for. If it's a visitor visa it's usually more quick. If it's a resident visa it can take a little bit longer. But I am going to find out that information as quickly as we possibly can but we do have to go through every single application and look individually as to where they are if they've given us that information.