Immigration

Click here to return to the policy homepage.

• Acknowledge that our country is built on immigration and acknowledge that a well balanced immigration policy can contribute greatly to New Zealand.
• Continue policies that favour making the country attractive to immigrants, lowering administrative barriers to entry.
• Push the next government to ensure that immigration policy favours productive workers who will enrich our society and economy, create jobs through entrepreneurship, links to home countries, and demand for goods and services.
• Push the next government to ensure that immigration does not become a drain on the New Zealand welfare state.
• Push the next government to realise that retaining New Zealanders and attracting highly skilled immigrants depends more than anything else on our economic performance.  The next government must have a strong focus on reducing wasteful government spending and overregulation to improve economic performance. (more here)

• Increase our refugee quota from 750 to 1,000.
• Give priority in the skilled migrant category to skills needed for a sustainable society and economy.
• Require strict scrutiny of applications in the investor category for overall benefit to Aotearoa/NZ.
• Require employers to give temporary migrant workers at least the same pay and working conditions as local workers.
• Ensure that the setting of immigration levels would be reviewed regularly, based on: net population change; the need to have spare population capacity for returning NZ citizens and climate change refugees; the capacity of systems in place to cope fairly and effectively; the ability to encourage settlement outside areas under infrastructure and population capacity stress; the ability of our environment to cope with population increases New Zealand's humanitarian obligations with regard to refugees. (more here)

• Labour will review the Skilled Migrant Category to ensure that it is still meeting our needs and that it is not posing unnecessary barriers to skilled migrants that are needed to grow our economy.
• Labour will review the business migrant categories, with an emphasis on the investor category providing an option for active investment and allowing flexibility in the requirements for different levels of investor migrant.
• Labour will also investigate changes to the Entrepreneur categories to increase opportunities for young entrepreneurs to migrate to New Zealand or remain here at the completion of their studies. We plan to enable joint ventures or taking equity in an existing high growth potential company to support the application.
• Labour will reverse the policy changes to entry visas for temporary entertainment industry workers that are due to come into operational effect in March 2012.
• Labour will strengthen mental health services for refugees. It will review refugee entitlements for consistency. Labour will also review refugee family reunification policies to ensure families are reunited wherever possible and desirable.
• Labour will investigate the options for better support for tertiary education for refugees, to ensure that both New Zealand and the refugee themselves is able to take the best opportunity for future contribution to our nation.
• Labour will introduce a specialist Immigration Ombudsman within the office of the Ombudsman, with extensive powers of inquiry enabling him/her to investigate systemic issues, individual complaints from onshore and family sponsored applicants without other appeal rights, immigration detention issues and protected disclosures from immigration staff.
• Labour will establish a Residence Review Panel as an advisory board to make recommendations on exceptions to policy to the Minister. (more here)

Not set out on their website.

• All new citizens to complete a course in the history of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as part of receiving citizenship. (more here)

• Continue to attract more business migrants and investment capital.
• Proactively locate and recruit migrants with the skills to grow the New Zealand economy.
• Identify and facilitate the labour force needed for the Christchurch rebuild where New Zealanders are unavailable.
• Currently no single Government department has overall responsibility for meeting the needs of refugees. A centralised strategy is needed to bring together all the support that refugees can rely on. (more here)

• Develop a 10-year population strategy in government to identify the impact of demographic changes on our society, the economy, and other areas of government policy, and to develop policies to minimise the costs and capitalise on benefits that these changes may bring.
• Prioritise the residency applications of those who have skills we need and a job offer that is relevant to those skills, and regularly update the priority occupations list.
• Devise comprehensive and integrated immigrant settlement programmes, in consultation with the Federation of Ethnic Councils, to ensure that all new immigrants receive full information and ongoing support on all aspects of New Zealand society, including language, customs, job placement programmes, health and social services.
• Focus efforts on ensuring that those who arrive in New Zealand under the family or humanitarian quotas are supported into viable training and employment opportunities, to enable them to obtain financial independence faster and to counter negative stereotypes about some migrant groups.
• Establish a one-stop Business Development Agency to help migrants in setting up their own businesses.
• Encourage all migrants to consider themselves as New Zealanders, by encouraging participation in community activities and pursuits amongst migrant groups, while supporting ethnic associations and providing positive opportunities for all New Zealanders to express their cultural heritage.
• Establish a retirement visa to allow parents of permanent residents and citizens to be sponsored to settle in New Zealand, provided the majority of immediate family members are already resident in New Zealand.
• Allow siblings of permanent residents and citizens more easy access to short-term visitors and limited purpose visas.
• Provide additional staffing resources to the Immigration Service to meet customer demand and speed up the applications process, especially in Auckland and at pressure points overseas.
• Increase resources for ESOL programmes to ensure that our newest residents can participate fully in education and life in New Zealand. Improving English language skills is a major factor in making friends outside migrants’ own ethnic groups. Move away from classroom-based delivery to home tutoring or work-based lessons and give intensive English training for teachers already in immigrant communities so they can set up their own classes.
• Review the operations of NZQA to ensure that the process of formally recognising migrants’ skills is effective and efficient.
• Ensure that advice and information is available to businesses to support them in hiring migrants to fill skill shortages, and support migrants with workshops and training to learn about the Kiwi work environment.
• Develop a global online service that matches potential skilled migrants with job opportunities in New Zealand to help fill critical skill shortages.
• Take a proactive approach to skills shortages through promotional events in overseas target markets with high proportions of skilled people.
• Establish a specific employment placement service for refugees.
• Establish a nationally coordinated “mentor” programme whereby all those accepted for migration to New Zealand are put in touch with a trained volunteer mentor prior to arrival in New Zealand. The mentor will, through the process of preparing to migrate and the first 12 months within New Zealand be able to discuss settlement issues and direct migrants to necessary specialist resources. (more here)