Immigration minister Andrew Little.
Immigration minister Andrew Little.

The BulletinAugust 2, 2023

A tough week to be immigration minister

Immigration minister Andrew Little.
Immigration minister Andrew Little.

Less than six weeks into the role, Andrew Little is embroiled in a fight with a select committee and under attack from migrant groups over visa policy, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

Reports of migrant exploitation are skyrocketing

It’s only Wednesday, and already this is a week the immigration minister would probably rather forget. As The Bulletin covered yesterday, Andrew Little is currently at war with a select committee over a bill to allow extended detention of asylum seekers arriving en masse. And that’s just one of his headaches. On Monday Newshub’s Amelia Wade reported that complaints of migrant exploitation have increased sixfold under Labour, and many experts are blaming the accredited employer work visa (AEWV). The accreditation system was designed to weed out bad employers, but by tying migrant workers to a single employer the AEWV is actually making abuse worse, says the Migrant Workers Association’s Anu Kaloti. Andrew Little says the increase in complaints can largely be explained by tools launched in 2021 to allow easier reporting.

The Greens are on the warpath over overstayers

Meanwhile, the Greens are attacking the slow progress on an amnesty for overstayers. In March, Little’s predecessor Michael Wood said the government was “actively considering” offering migrant overstayers amnesty, but there’s been little movement since. Now Little says it won’t happen before the election, citing the “very careful balancing exercise” of designing such a scheme. “Little said there was also concern about sending a signal that if people overstayed they would be granted an amnesty at some point,” reports the Herald’s Michael Neilson. The Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez March says that’s a cop out: “MBIE has been unable to provide any evidence an amnesty encourages people to overstay – those are simply vibes.” He says if Labour wants the Greens’ support after the election it will need to make the overstayer amnesty a priority.

Parent visa hugely oversubscribed; cyclone visa the target of mass fraud

A couple more immigration-related headlines from the past few days: There’s only a minuscule possibility of getting one of the parent visas that were reintroduced last October, writes Lincoln Tan at the Herald. There are now 5000 applications in the queue for the visa, which allows immigrants to sponsor their parents for residence in New Zealand. Only 500 visas are available each year – although Immigration NZ (INZ) now says it will also hold a one-off selection for applications received before the restart in October – and because each expression of interest “will have roughly two people, there’s only about a 2% possibility of getting a visa”. The results of this year’s ballot are released on August 8. Another visa headline: The special cyclone-recovery work visa introduced in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle was targeted by organised scammers, reports Businessdesk’s Jem Traylen (paywalled), forcing INZ to reject two out of every five applications.

Is every NZ business considering an Aussie move, or does it just feel like it?

The biggest immigration story of the week isn’t about inward migration at all. You’ve probably noticed that sudden flurry of articles about business owners abandoning New Zealand for Australia, and so has Hayden Donnell. He sought out two small businesswomen who are standing firm, bravely refusing to join the Kiwi exodus. Their reasons for staying include preferring not to “die due to climate change-influenced civil war“ and “packing is a bitch”. As someone who recently packed up their entire house to go travelling, I can passionately attest to that last one.

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