Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill — Instructions to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill — Instructions to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8289] 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: 
 I thought it would be useful for New Zealand First to understand that Labour’simmigration target—the quota—is about 45000 and 60 percent of it is meant to come from skilled migrants and business migrants so that reduces the figure to about 27000. I think the Government is looking to get about 20000 from the skilled migrants category. I predict that this bill will greatly reduce the number of skilled migrants who will be approved so I am surprised that New Zealand First is not supporting it. It would go quite a long way to addressing its wish to reduce the total number of migrants down to 10000. This bill deals only with skilled migrants and New Zealand First now wants that target reduced to10000. 
I want to acknowledge that one of my proposed amendments to “ensure the transparency and certainty of immigration policies to maintain the international credibility of the New Zealand immigration system” was adopted by the Minister as part of clause 3(a) in Part 1 although I regret it could not be accepted as a stand-alone amendment. In adopting that amendment I would like the Minister to now reflect on the invitation-to-apply provision in terms of transparency and certainty. Submitters to the select committee widely commented that that tool particularly failed to pass the test of transparency and certainty. The legislation makes it quite clear that the discretion to issue a letter of invitation lies entirely with the Minister. If the letter is not issued then technically there is no right of appeal for potential applicants who have submitted an expression of interest. I doubt very much that people who are serious about wanting to receive a letter of invitation would dare to submit an expression of interest that did not incur a lot of cost. In order to secure that letter of invitation they would therefore have gone through the process as if they were submitting a full application with full documentation and incurring consultancy costs or whatever. 
The other thing I want to challenge the Minister on is the current points system. I believe there are sufficient tools in that system for the Minister or the Immigration Service to achieve the aim of accepting applicants who would be of benefit to New Zealand. First of all this points system is a two-step process by which the Cabinet can start to assign points to whatever the Government and officials deem to be appropriate on the day. For example they could allocate points in respect of age qualification or vary the type of qualification that we believe New Zealand requires or the background information or even the relevant skills. 
But under this new changed system that the Minister has just explained to us every 3 months the Government will look at the pool of people who have submitted expressions of interest and take those with the highest points. But the argument can be made that in that particular 3 months we might have people who just cross the threshold but officials will still have to issue letters of invitation to the highest point-scorers whereas in the second 3 months we might have applicants who all exceed the threshold by a lot. I think that system is actually limiting our ability to get the best candidates we can. 
With the current points system the Immigration Service in consultation with the Minister has to express —