Government lifts migrant target to 50,000

By AUDREY YOUNG

New Zealand is lifting its immigration targets to recover from a slump in approvals after it tightened its selection policy.

And despite an apparent collapse in the skilled migrant category, Immigration Minister Paul Swain says there is no cause for panic.

The transition to the new system has caused the slowdown and reforming the immigration policy is like "shifting an oil tanker", he says. But that will not last.

"Let's be frank, it's a bit lumpy," Mr Swain said last night. "But I am absolutely confident that by this time next year we will be back on track."

The approvals target in the year to June was 45,000, but when that ended last week, only 39,100 applicants had been approved.

Of more concern than the shortfall was that only 517 applicants were approved in the much-vaunted skilled migrant category of the new system, introduced in December.

"There has been a bit of a slow- down as people get the hang of the fact that we are being a bit more selective," Mr Swain said.

He has set the new residency approvals target at 50,000 in the coming year and is promising more active marketing of New Zealand to try to make up for the past year's drop. Once that was achieved, he expected it to settle at 45,000.

The United States and British offices of the Immigration Service were more active in seeking skilled applicants in areas of shortage, he said.

Anti-Asian immigration campaigner and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is suspicious of the new target.

He said New Zealand was being "dragged into the status of an Asian colony" and the higher target was softening up the country for "another immigration invasion under the guise of meeting a shortage of skilled workers".

Progressives deputy leader Matt Robson rounded on Mr Peters, saying he was "softening up New Zealanders for another Winston Peters hate campaign against immigrants".

National broadly backs the new immigration policy but spokesman Wayne Mapp said the slump could have been avoided if the Government had not set the bar so high at the start of its selections.

Mr Swain scoffed at Dr Mapp's request for the shortfall to be made up of foreign graduates from New Zealand universities because, he said, the selection system was already highly geared towards them.

Under the old points system, any applicant with the requisite number of points at a given time qualified for residency, whether or not his or her skills were in demand.

Mr Swain described the shift as one from a "passive and protective regime" to a "proactive recruitment agency".

Under the new system, potential migrants register an expression of interest if they pass a minimum 100 points. They then enter a pool and those with the highest number of points are invited to apply for residence.

Selections for the pool are conducted every fortnight. The pass mark is dropping steadily and the number in the pool of potential migrants is rising.

The Immigration Service's chief operating manager, Brendan Quirk, attributed the drop in figures to three main factors: a drop in the size of families applying, better detection of fraudulent applications and the lapsing of lower quality applications made under the old system when the new one was introduced in December.