National requested urgent meeting on immigration during NZ First talks

Immigration was a hot topic in talks between NZ First and National. Photo / Doug Sherring

National's coalition negotiations with New Zealand First included a close look at the number of people allowed into New Zealand on skilled migrant and family and partnership visa categories.

The State Services Commission has released the information it provided to the parties during the negotiations that took place over a fortnight after the final election results were known.

NZ First eventually opted to go into coalition with Labour with the Green Party as a confidence and supply support partner.

Parties involved in such negotiations over policies can seek information from officials to help the process.

National made just the one request on Monday, October 16, asking for an urgent meeting with officials in order to fully understand immigration numbers and "the consequences of any change in them", prior to further talks with NZ First later that day.

National was particularly eager to understand the skilled migrant category in the context of overall resident numbers.

Three senior immigration officials from the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment attended the meeting, along with Deputy State Services Commissioner Debbie Power and Assistant Commissioner Geoff Short.

National asked the team to confirm the number of approved residences by visa categories including the family and partnerships, humanitarian and skilled and migrant categories.

Officials confirmed the associated personage and parents and siblings categories are currently closed, and in response to questions confirmed the skilled migrants category included 29,000 approvals for permanent residence in the past year.

They provided an estimate of the total number of people approved residence in the current financial year – about 38,000. This would be about 18 per cent fewer than the previous year, because of a toughening of the skilled migrant points system.

NZ First and leader Winston Peters campaigned on a drastic cut to net migration to around 10,000 a year. Net migration is currently at about 70,000.

Labour campaigned on immigration changes including cutting certain visas including for low level tertiary study. The party estimated this would reduce net migration by between 20,000 to 30,000.

The new Government is following Labour's policy on immigration.

"As per Labour's policy, pursue Labour and New Zealand First's shared priorities to: Ensure work visas issued reflect genuine skills shortages and cut down on low quality international education courses," the coalition agreement stated.

"The parties also agreed to take serious action on migrant exploitation, particularly of international students."