ACT's immigration policy would make it easier for employers to hire migrant workers and for migrants with residency to bring their parents to NZ

This will be massively abused. essentially it’s offering visa’s for cash, because it won’t be the employer paying the fee it will end up being paid by the worker.

Basically if the fee is less than the difference in what someone can earn in their home country, vs what they can in NZ, then they will pay the fee.

So for NZ employers it will always be worth bringing in a worker if they will work for less (or put up with worse conditions etc) as the cost will be zero.

I'm seeing a shortage of teachers, parents at my daughters school are unhappy about the very strict teacher who replaced the unvaxxed one that lost her job.  Most of the teachers at the other nearby school are still in training and not yet qualified.  In this case the employer is govt. hopefully for the sake of kids who have already fallen behind because of the lockdowns, govt. can sort this quickly.  This is not an abstract future problem, education is a very important factor for the future of any child.

100%.

The problem we seem to have at the moment is there are effective two camps of employers who are angling for importing labour:

1. Employers who need skills that genuinely cannot be found in the labour pool here in NZ (I have a couple of clients in this camp, e.g. one who needs engineers trained in a specific type of robotic automation. They are hiring juniors from NZ and training them up but they need people with existing skills now as well in order to continue delivering for their customers. They are offering excellent salaries and benefits but the talent simply isn't here in NZ yet) 
2. Employers who simply want to undercut the local wage/employment market, by importing cheap labour - often with reciprocity in the sense that the worker knows they are being exploited, but can then bring their family here etc.

I have genuine sympathy for employers/businesses in the first camp. The problem is that the employers in the second camp (who seem to be the majority) have ruined it for everyone else.

If we are going to have a "pay to play" immigration model as ACT proposes, then the fee would need to be dynamic and sufficiently high, but I would also suggest that the fee should be higher for jobs that would be easier to fill domestically.

For example, maybe its $50k to import a skilled robotic engineer, but $100k to bring in a bottle store worker. The big challenge then becomes how do you ensure that the employer is paying, and not just the employee being forced to pay it back - you'd need some mechanism to crack down on this, and remove the privilege of using the system from any employer that abuses it.

I got curious about this the other day.

I went on seek and searched for "apprenticeship" in Napier.

There was one- a diesel mechanic cadetship.

Just one apprenticeship! I didn't bother to look at other regions.

No wonder kids are joining the gangs.No wonder we have a skills shortage.

It is not Chinese. It is Japanese. 

It's a stock file photo of Narita Airport, which is free to be used or shared without license from Wikimedia.  

If you have had a chance to visit any hospitals lately, its eye opening the amount of elderly Chinese in the waiting rooms. I also noted that almost none of them spoke English, which would be the main indicator as to the amount of tax they paid in NZ over their lifetimes...for clarification "none". Not bagging Chinese people, have  many as friends, both born and raised here and recent arrivals. Merely pointing out a a fact from  from a recent hospital visit. Its always possible that Mondays and Tuesdays is some secret regular elderly Chinese peoples day...

Oh they can bring parents but they will not qualify for NZ Super or free mediacal care, so who will be able to afford that?

... I'm an ACT fan , and I'm not trying myself up in knots ... ... I pay a dominatrix to do that for me ...

Yeah , and setting up bogus employers to "pay" the levy, and bring in whoever can afford it . Probably get a dairy with 500 employees. 

I know people who hired an IT Guy (from India or straight out of a business school level 15 queen street etc ) paid him a salary of 35k for two years so he could qualify for NZ residence, The deal was the guy paid half back in cash, ie they where selling residency, it was not uncommon, I know a few of these situations.   this was why that english lang / business school shit was so profitable, it was ALL REALLY a buy a visa scam and EVERYONE knew as much.   Hence why these people struggled to integrate into NZ corporate jobs, where some understanding of your speciality is required.

Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that HR reject applicants due to ‘cultural fit’ rather than ability? I understand it is extremely difficult to determine the real reasons behind turning an applicant down. This information is a closely guarded secret normally.

Survey of GPs just released show most of them aren't coping and are burnt out. One example of many. ACT need to address such issues before admitting more people. 

Opening the floodgates is the reason I can't vote for ACT despite them making a lot of sense in other areas. The long term damage to our our quality of life and environment from overpopulation is too much to ignore. 

There are plenty of capacities in the private health sector. It is only the public system that's clogged up. 

I was an ACT supporter, but they've thrown away every libertarian policy they had in an effort to become a generic centre-right National-lite - presumably to capitalise on the Nat's ongoing leadership debacles. There's just nothing substantive to differentiate them anymore.

I'm sure you don't mean exporting people when the population cap is reached.

$20,000 - possibly small change if you can pretty much automatically get in and later merrily bring in your parents - and from the sounds of it sums of $20,000 or thereabouts are already used in the employer/employee roundabout.

20k would be too low - that would still push local incomes down.

100k feels about right to me - not too expensive if you actually have a business case for the employee, but high enough to make locals more attractive. Maybe inflation adjusted..

In some small businesses where the business model relies on imported labour (typically from the home country of the business owner) the migrant would ultimately pay the $20,000 levy.  A rogue employer will require a payment in cash when the migrant gets the visa and/or residency.  This is not uncommon in some Vietnamese nail salons as an example ($40,000 in cases I am aware of).  Currently the "accredited  employee" system is being introduced to limit this activity, but the system remains open to abuse due to lack of enforcement, and penalties are insufficient, and cultural pressure is applied by the employer against the migrant, and of course the migrant is also bending the rules so has no incentive to speak out.  I cannot see ACT's proposed policy solving this problem.

And since we are short of aged care staff, we will have to import more foreign aged care workers to service all those migrant parents. Then the new migrant workers will want to import their elderly parents, so we will need to import more aged care workers to look after them, and so on and so on. 

Don't bring in a levy and we all pay.

""another way to reduce immigration to the wealthy only"" - good! 

Of course the general public is entitled to sponsor poor immigrants.  I can imagine some poor Pasifica being sponsored by church groups. And why not?

The rationale behind this policy is that the current system of officials picking which skills are needed is not working. If anyone who can't get the skilled workers from NZ can afford the fee, they can get the skills in. This is good, because ACT is right about this aspect. The devil will be in the detail. For this policy to work there should be a salary minimum so the people who get abused like chefs and farm labourers won't be eligible.

Pretty sure its the sons cultural role to look after the parents. This is a good thing that kiwis could take a lesson from in many cases. Also why there was a  high pregnancy termination rate for daughters under the one child policy. My only beef would be that its at the expense of NZ taxpayers.

A few years ago my son's maths teacher at a reputable Auckland school left NZ to return to Scotland so he could look after his elderly parents.  We will lose good people and retain the poor and the callous.

... me too  ... only ACT & TOP appear to have policies designed to improve our lives in NZ ...

Labour & Gnats seem hell bent on bribing their way into power  ...

It is the employed Kiwi who picks up the tab.  Worst of all is the unemployed Kiwi who is kicked in the teeth every time a low paid immigrant takes a low skill job.

Should be but partial. The levy could be paid annually until the immigrant becomes a citizen.

Yeah it's weird. The whole point of this immigration is to import ready trained and experienced workers to hit the ground running and be able to pay taxes to support the parents of Kiwis already here.

Try leaving home at 17 in NZ today and paying huge rent on mediocre pay with high transport, food and power costs - there's a good reason so many stay with the folks for years, they'd never get anywhere otherwise with their income eaten up by essentials

One would think the Greens might be that party but apparently not.

They seem to equate low- moderate levels of immigration intakes with xenophobia…

You are damned either way.

Suppresed wages from increased competition.

Higher taxes from a lower tax base paying for an increasing number of dependents. And stuff just doesn't get done.

No.  They all want unfettered immigration, they just want it for different reasons.  The Left wants open borders to facilitate the easy movement of people from third world countries to developed countries to mitigate inequality and poverty, enhanced multiculturalism (just dont mention assimilation), all in the aim of building a WEF/UN ideological global Govt entity.  The Right wants unlimited access to cheap labour and skills they don't have to pay for.  Anyone who complains about either the Left or the Right immigration policy will immediately be branded a racist, and shut down, like Dick Smith in Australia.

Sensible.

While I agree with the majority of your premise, I can never support anything that tries to gauge wellbeing as a metric and especially when it is used for important decisions and formulas. Using wellbeing as a metric can be manipulated in any way fit to prove a point of those implementing it and sets a dangerous precedent for what those higher up in both business and government can do. For example some could say they put in a government pay freeze in 2020...."but the wellbeing of our workers increased through x, y, and z being implemented so we are doing a great job". Textbook Labour practices filtering through

That describes the Immigration NZ has seen for the last 20 years.  Check prof Stringer's report on worker exploitation (Dec 2016).  However does not apply to professors, GPs, Surgeons, Electrical and Civil Engineers, etc.  Paid enough combined with a more than modest visa fee and this 'modern slavery' will disappear.