Policy change will turn immigrants off NZ, consultants say

11.45am

The Government's "panic-driven" policy switches on immigration will effectively turn skilled migrants off New Zealand and send the country into economic decline, say some immigration consultants.

A surprise overhaul of immigration policy announced yesterday shut the door to an estimated 20,000 hopeful immigrants.

Announcing the amendments, Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel said it would cost the Government $9 million in refunded fees.

However, New Zealand Association for Migration chairman Bill Milnes told NZPA today the Government had not done its homework and the changes were likely to cost a lot more.

"I think she's picked 20,000 because she can live with that up to a cost of $10 million, but I suspect the costs will be considerably higher on refunds."

He said there were two main problems with the bill: the way in which it was being rushed through, which he believed was to over-ride a high court decision, and secondly, the lack of consultation with the industry.

In November, the Government attempted to impose stricter English language tests on potential migrants retrospectively.

The Association for Migration and Investment challenged the policy in the High Court, arguing it had been wrongly implemented, and the court ruled against the Government in May.

"The bill was introduced quite blatantly to overturn the high court decision after the minister had already gone to appeal," Mr Milnes said.

"The legislation is there to try and avoid the due process of law -- what we are concerned about is that if Immigration is allowed to write retrospective legislation in immigration, what's to stop them doing it in health, welfare, tax or whatever?

"Very serious principles are at stake."

He said he had "no problem" with introducing new policy, but he had yet to see any details on the plan, and it was of concern that the minister was "refusing" to talk to industry.

"She seems to have real antipathy to an industry that is talking with the people, meeting them face to face, getting to know them.

"We know what the issues are and when she comes to us again with a fait-accompli policy announcement, we say 'But minister, what about this and what about that?

"This has been brought in in panic, it's short-term planning, it has to be because the November changes were meant to overcome shortcomings in the general skills category, so at maximum she's had since November to get this in place and in the minimum, since we won the court case and she realised she got it wrong."

It was "quite frightening" that such important legislation could be written in such an ad hoc manner, Mr Milnes said.

Ms Dalziel said the changes would give priority to those who meet the intent of the skilled migration policy.

"New Zealanders do not want to see skilled migrants driving taxis, cleaning offices and cooking hamburgers," she said.

However, Mr Milnes said that was exactly the policy the Government wanted.

"When they wrote that policy, the term they used was 'it will increase the level of the gene pool in New Zealand'.

"At that stage, there was no concern about nuclear physicists driving taxis."

In fact, given the choice, most people would rather be a taxi driver in New Zealand than a nuclear physicist in Pakistan, he said.

"You ask them, and 100 per cent of the time I've been told 'Give us New Zealand any time, this is our country, we love it, we want to be here'.

"The Government has got to sort out what it wants -- there shouldn't be this continual political door-slamming thing to ease the conscience of politicians....

"They can't screw people around like this; they're dealing with people's lives, it's fundamental to New Zealand -- we're all migrants."

Immigration policy had been "flip-flopping" for the last decade at least, he said.

"The doors were slammed in 1991, then they had to crank them open again and get the roundabout going through 1993, 1994 and 1995, and suddenly in 1996, (Winston) Peters emerged on the scene again, immigration became politically unpopular and they slammed the door.

"In October 2001, we were being abused by the immigration service as an industry for not spending more money going to China and marketing our services.

"Then in February 2002, they were telling us they had more people than could handle, so were not going to make any more decisions until July 2002.

"In August 2002, the (New Zealand) Herald reported there were 75,000 in the queue and we've only got a target of 45,000 a year, but it wasn't until November that they bring in retrospective legislation to try and get rid of this backlog."

The problem was the Minister had "artificially" kept the pass mark at 24 points "because she didn't want to have to worry about changing it every week", he said.

"Then all of a sudden we realise we've got all these people in the queue and panic and get rid of the queue.

"You can't treat people like that.... it's disgusting."

Most people had been waiting over two years while the Government "quite cynically" put their applications on hold, he said.

It is estimated the loss of 20,000 potential citizens will cost New Zealand up to $2 billion in investment.

"In the election year, we'll suddenly see the cost to the country through lack of migrants, and they'll be back into panic mode, opening up the doors again."

While there were some "irresponsible" immigration consultants, the Government could not blame any business for working within the law it had made, he said.

"The problem is the way the Government marketed New Zealand for a long time, it's incompetence and mismanagement on the part of Immigration and this chopping and changing will cost us."

Meanwhile, the head of the Industry Training Federation, Darel Hall, said the legislation would play a useful part in addressing skill shortages.

"The minister has stated that the new system will mean that skilled tradespeople are more likely to be able to come to New Zealand," he said in a statement.

Industry training organisations (ITOs) had been legislated to identify "current and future skill needs" within industry, he said.

The Industry Training Federation would make an assessment of the details of the proposed legislative changes, bringing together the knowledge and experience of ITOs, and contribute a submission to the select committee.

- NZPA