ACT has positioned itself strongly as the leading pro-immigration party with the release of its immigration policy, which if implemented, would likely result in a strong surge in immigration numbers.
The policy would remove most restrictions on employers being able to recruit migrants for jobs in New Zealand and will also be welcomed by migrants who have NZ residency, who will be able to more easily have their parents join them on a permanent basis.
ACT is squarely taking aim at the current Work Visa Scheme which it's policy document describes as "the ridiculous labour market testing processes where bureaucrats try to micromanage the jobs migrants can undertake."
Under ACT's policy most of those restrictions would be scrapped, and employers in any industry would be able to hire migrant workers and there would be no cap on their numbers.
Essentially, as long as an intending migrant worker had a firm job offer in NZ, they would likely qualify for a work visa, regardless of whether they were going to work as a cleaner or a rocket scientist.
However ACT's policy also recognises that "the country also needs to build the infrastructure capacity to accommodate increases in population. There is still a need to have mechanisms for regulating the volumes of migrant flows."
Its solution is to have employers pay a levy for every migrant worker they employ, which could be adjusted up or down from time to time.
Under ACT's policy, if the Immigration Minister decided too many migrant workers were coming into the country, they could raise the levy to a level that would make that a less attractive option for employers, and if not enough migrant workers were coming, the levy could be lowered.
ACT's immigration spokesperson James McDowall said the employer levy would likely be set at $1350 for every migrant worker employed, which is about the same amount as employers currently pay in fees when sponsoring a migrant worker.
Given that work visas are generally issued for three years and McDowell said he was "fine with people renewing their visas," a one-off levy of $1350 per worker does not seem like much of an impediment to hiring migrants for any occupation, even those that pay the minimum wage.
McDowell acknowledged that introducing such a policy could cause an initial surge in migrant numbers, as employers rushed to hire migrant workers to fill vacancies.
"That's kind of what I'd expect and to be honest that's what we need because the shortages [of workers] at the moment are astronomical," he said.
McDowell said the main figure that would be used to determine whether the levy needed to be increased or decreased would be the net migration figures published by Statistics NZ, and he appeared to be under the mistaken belief that these were only updated every six months.
When asked how often the amount of the levy would be reviewed he replied: "I think every time the net migration figures come out from Stats NZ and I'm pretty sure that's every six months."
When told that Statistics NZ publishes new migration figures every month, McDowell was surprised.
"Is it monthly? God, how come I only receive them every six months?" he said.
But regardless of how often Statistics NZ updates its migration figures, McDowell said ACT's policy was to review the levy every six months.
However, relying on changes in Statistics NZ's net migration figures to set the levy could present a dilemma of its own.
Statistics NZ's figures are estimates which are revised every month and the revisions can be substantial.
As a result, its most current migration figures can be extremely unreliable, and interest.co.nz has found that later revisions can vary from the originally published figures by as much as 85%.
As a result, this website is no longer publishes a monthly summary of Statistics NZ's migration data.
The figures start to become reliable after about 12 months, depending on the rate at which migrant flows are changing, which would present policy makers relying on them to regulate migrant flows, with a dilemma.
Do they use the most current data, which may considerably over or under-state changes in net migration, or do they use later data which is likely to be more reliable, but could be up to a year or so out of date?
The other major ACT policy that could see a significant increase in migrants is to remove the cap on the number of parents of existing migrants who could settle here.
The Parent Visa Scheme, which allows migrants already living in NZ to have their overseas parents join them, was suspended by the then National-led government in 2016 because many of the elderly parents coming to NZ on the scheme had complex health issues, which were putting a serious strain on the public health system.
The scheme has recently been reopened by the current Labour government with a cap of 2500 parent visas a year.
ACT would remove the 2500 annual limit, but in a nod to the strain an influx of elderly migrants could put on an already stretched health system, would set up a compulsory health insurance scheme to which all migrant parents would have to subscribe.
According to McDowell, the insurance would only apply to the public health system such as public hospitals, and if migrant parents wanted cover for private medical services, they would have to purchase separate cover from existing medical insurance providers.
Migrant parents would not be eligible for free public health services until they had been in the country for 20 years.
However, while the new insurance scheme would reimburse hospitals and other public health providers for the services they provided to migrant parents, it would not alleviate the physical strain a significant increase in elderly patients would put on the health system, which is already under pressure.
While cost may have been factor in the decision to suspend the parent visa scheme in 2016, the main reason was the amount of health resources required by elderly migrants and the strain that was putting on the health system to cater to their needs.
McDowell acknowledged that could again potential problem but hoped higher overall immigration levels would fix it.
"If we look at [the strain on] the public healthcare system at the moment, most of it is to do with lack of immigration," he said.
"So yes, this [more migrant parents] will have an impact on the healthcare system in terms of manpower and physical needs," he said.
"But at the same time, we are also going to make it a lot easier to staff these hospitals.
"So we are solving one problem and hopefully not creating too much of another one," he said
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91 Comments
Act need to read the room. Not just the emails from their business owning members.
Two different interpretations, as I see it: 1) incompetence; 2) specific targeting of a certain electorate, rather than the party vote nationwide.
Yep. In ACTs main electorate, almost half the voters are migrants (or 2nd generation migrants).
If by "the room" you mean "this room" - they do not need to read it.
Yeah, well ACT don't really think about their policies too deeply.
Its more, lets just choose the most neo-liberal position and run with that.
I read an article in Stuff where David Seymour said he would be happy with a population that had many millions of more people. He was envious of those countries that had populations of 100s of millions, due to the internal markets created.
He's not really reading the room is he.
The plan is to bring 100k+ new migrants each year into NZ, hoping
1) at least some of them will have the skills we genuinely need
2) those skilled individuals will want to stick around in NZ and not springboard to more competitive job markets.
This scheme did not work in the 2013-2019 period of high migration, and is even less likely to work this time around as more sought-after economies open their borders wide to global talent.
This isn't ACT trying to get skilled workers via an ineffective shotgun immigration approach. They know this will just bring in a flood of low skill workers, and it is the intended result as it drives down wages for business owners. And they don't care about the additional strain on our healthcare, education and general infrastructure. They will be quite happy to stress public services to the point of failure, so they can then propose privatizing healthcare, education (and anything else they can).
"so they can then propose privatizing healthcare, education"
Are you saying our healthcare and education is exemplary and need no further improvement ?
I am not saying they need to be private businesses, but the long health care wait list and the poor educational levels of our young kids are not something to rave about.
Long wait lists in comparison to what health system where?
We fall behind in education, not in the primary school sector but once we compare our student results in the secondary school sector. I suspect much of the poor results of late have to do more with rates of truancy than other factors. Here's ACT's solution;
'Need more out of the box thinking': ACT wants to fine parents of truant children (msn.com)
Don't know about that - perhaps they need to do some reading themselves;
Principal of one of NZ's most challenging schools (kidscan.org.nz)
Hi Kate,
Six month plus wait in NZ for healthcare is excessive.
Sadly, many of our kids fall behind in the primary school stage, and they never catch up.
School attendance is just one small cause of this, the issue is more complex, but if a child regularly does not attend then they can no learn.
Look at Kumon, and many other after school education companies who fill in the gaps in their education.
Six month wait list for what kind of healthcare? You're just putting a finger in the wind. Here's a good example from yesterday's news;
But on reading past the headline, the mum received medical attention - there was a missed diagnosis which was later remedied 4 months later and its not known whether had it been picked up 4 months earlier that the prognosis would have been different. I agree its a really, really sad situation but back pain has so many possible causes and there seem to have been multiple referrals and tests done prior to diagnosis. That to my mind isn't a sign of a health system in "dire straits". I think as a society we generally fail to realise that medicine in many cases is a matter of trial after trial as a means to diagnose. My concern about all the negativity associated with the health system is that the medical professionals begin to feel like the public think they are a hopeless lot when this kind of story hits the news.
My experience is that the care provided by the system has saved many lives of people I know. But where are the headlines about lives saved. There are many, many more of these stories than of lives lost and/or of early detection missed.
Again, your general impression of primary education is just that - a general impression. And the same goes for our educators - we owe them a massive thanks for the caring, compassionate qualities they display as educators.
I just think we should leave the criticism, if there is to be any - to them - the professionals. And also to their credit, they are not shy of speaking out, because they too want better.
The way I see it:
1) They don't believe in climate change and resource limits (or other people who don't believe in these things are going to vote for them, so they target their policies at them).
2) They do believe in supporting business owners rather than employees (or business owners are going to vote for them, so they target their policies at them).
Just watch ACT's Simon Court talking in Parliament (or read the extract from one of his speeches here): https://quietskywaiheke.nz/2022/11/21/civil-aviation-bill-2nd-reading/. He seems to say similar things about every bill...
Well, as the great Sir Fredrick Dagg once said, "You can only fit so many sheep into one paddock" (personally, I'd rather see our population capped at, idk, 5 million?)
And then there's this little doozy..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/14/100-pure-rip-off-new-zeal…
That level of immigration would make even more of a mockery of co governance. 50% of the power for 5% of the population. Maybe why they want it?
More maybe why we NEED it
New Zealand needs targetted immigration. The policy above is targetting cannon fodder for poorly run businesses. We need a good hard recession to sort this sort of thing out;
But at the same time, we are also going to make it a lot easier to staff these hospitals
Of course. Tens of thousands of highly-trained medical professionals out there just waiting for a change in regime before they rush into NZ.
Typical neoliberal thinking - let's solve too much migration with yet more migration.
$1350. ROFL. That's going to pay for a ton of infrastructure.
It looks like Winston is the only option left.
Will not even supply one crown if an elderly parent bites on a chicken bone and breaks a tooth
It's sad but Winnie is looking electable again.
Winnie.... fool me once shame on you, fool me twice? I don't think so. It is going to be a PR rollercoaster of which most of will not be worth the time it takes to listen to.
Winnie's been posting anti-vax nonsense on Twitter, that's the end of him for me. Besides which, even though he campaigns on a platform of reducing NOM it never comes true.
I would have greater faith in fairies at the bottom of the garden before anything Winston Peters could ever bring to good governance.
$10,000 might be closer to the point. $10,000*100,000 = $1B. Hmmm even that is peanuts when it comes to infrastructure.
That will get you 4 flyovers or 75 roundabouts. Or .75 hospitals
Nice to see people who understand the numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if you work for Treasury
We don,t want this we want innovation.
More people will bring more social issue.
We can't even look after the people that we have.
Let,s be the best not the biggest.
You only need to look over the ditch at Australia they have major social issues and we are seeing some of them sent here.
There is no another quick way to make NZ prosperous than having more ppl in a short period of time.
You missed spelt preposterous.
Awesome! I'll definitely vote for Act :-)
It's about time ACT's policies were examined closely in the media - far too many people are being gulled into thinking they are a viable option by that 'cheerful chappy' Mr Seymour.
Next up - let's have a forensic examination of their health policies - somehow I can't quite square their libertarian low tax mantra with anything other than an expansion in the private system and a total collapse in the public one.
How about their ‘Let’s liberalise planning rules everywhere apart from Epsom’ policies?
ACT would remove the 2500 annual limit, but in a nod to the strain an influx of elderly migrants could put on an already stretched health system, would set up a compulsory health insurance scheme to which all migrant parents would have to subscribe.
What will happen if they couldn't foot the insurance bill while in NZ? Who does the responsibility come to if they need treatment and the money or insurance is not there?
Too much to work on in the country before reverting back to high levels of immigration. Investing in education, healthcare, law enforcement, what happened to ACT? They used to at least have a niche around 2020 which was relatable and now they are simply the neglected child trying anything and everything to get the attention of the class.
Even if they have health insurance, the private sector doesn't offer full services like ICU.
It's actually an astonishingly stupid policy, even for ACT.
I am not aganist getting workers but where is the infrastructure?
Why not we put in a Condition that anyone company which brings in immigrants is responsible to house them in a decent place and ensure they are paid living wage until ready to get permanent residency and it becomes the responsibility of the corporation bringing them in. They also need to have compulsory medical insurance and life insurance.
Lets bring in some cheaper politicians from overseas.
Even Donald Trump has better policy than this flight of fantasy from the ACT Party. I can see why Seymour keeps most this party's MPs hidden behind the door.
Flooding the country with immigrants when we don't have the infrastructure to facilitate the growth in population is madness.
I'm not xenophobic, but when we have a housing crisis and people living in motels around the country because we can't house people who were born here, why the hell are we trying to bring in even more people from overseas who weren't born here?
Its daft. Let's fix the problems we have already, before importing even more of the issue (lack of infrastructure).
living in motels
Hence I imagine Yvil's enthusiasm for voting for ACT.
I do not like that party ACT
Too many policies that are whacked
This I know, I know for a fact
I do not like that party ACT.
Brilliant - brings back memories of my childhood :-).
As an expat myself I believe I can view this from both sides and even I feel this is a short sighted strategy.
1. The plan is to employ migrants on minimum wage (which is below the living wage) and they have to support family?
2. Housing is already stretched with 'emergency' housing being the norm - especially in places like Rotorua.
3. There is already an aging population in New Zealand with the incapacity to support the older generation. If under this scheme you bring in your 55 year old parents then by the time they are 75 they would qualify for public healthcare. Anecdotally this is the age when health risks start increasing.
4. Inflation and raises to the OCR are about to result in an increased unemployment rate anyway.
5. What happens when some sponsor business close due to the recession which the RBNZ is already predicting? Who pays for repatriation/living benefits?
6. Explotation of migrant workers tied to a particular job is already well documented.
7. The skilled labour (the labour we need) will be less motivated to move to NZ if they are now competing for housing etc.
I think it's a desperate sign of anglosphere nations losing global power and trying to cling to economic growth using whatever tools they possible can - regardless of the long term damage and the drop in living standards it will cause.
Bit like Biden, Trump and Pelosis trying to remain politically relevant despite that they are on the decline and should have just accepted they're past it years ago - done everyone a favour by going to the rest home and getting out of the way, allowing the change that needs to happen under the natural order of actions and consequences.
Just as the anglosphere nations need to realise they can't just pump housing bubbles to have strong economies - that isn't sustainable political policy. Its a desperate ploy to avoid facing the economic reality that we've been living beyond our means of production for too long.
The issue is that pumping the housing has been the only model for the better part of 30years, im genuinely concerned the government doesnt have any other options in mind and hence is trying to cling to a now outdated model that is failing (as shown by the gradual effect of the bursting bubble). Can no politician come up with a real and balanced plan that isnt some form of power play for votes? Time will tell but i wont be throwing any bets on it
According to the ACT party website James McDowell co-owns an immigration law firm. Of course pumping the numbers of migrants up is going to pump up his own businesses books. I guess its just the usual self interest we come to expect from our politicians.
Therefore, that ACT Party policy is simply "self-serving". Isn't there another word for that?
Let us be real, all parties have some level of self-serving incentives.
We need to find the self-serving party with the most talent to lead this country.
Who do you think that will be now ?
This policy is another reason why I vote ACT.
I love that NZ has become multi cultural and we have people from all around the world living here.
How ironic you name yourself delboy, a working class character whose wages would remain low under Acts policies. There is nothing wrong with multiculturalism but when a country doesn't have the infrastructure to provide for its present population, encouraging more is literal madness.
This will be policy of NZ not just ACT.
Hmm…start at $50k per immigrant and you might be closer to the true cost on infrastructure and services.
Back in 2016 Australian development economist Jane O'Sullivan costed it out at $500,000 per migrant.
Sounds about right. The infrastructure deficit in Auckland alone is in the billions.
Yes, it looks like ACT have dropped a zero if they wanted this to be a reasonable policy. Possibly two zeros.
This is what I don't get about ACT's immigration policy - it's not libertarian for the NZers who might want to vote for them - many would see unchecked, indiscriminate immigration to infringe on personal choices e.g. reduced home ownership due to higher competition, fewer homes to rent (simple supply/demand). In a way it's pure libertarianism I suppose - let the whole world do as it wants.
Many ACT policies are attractive, including free speech, reduced red tape, freedom of choice but immigration queers the pitch for me. To their credit, I (and others) challenged them on their China policy prior to the last election and they changed their tune, so maybe if people let them know this policy wasn't for them, they might listen.
The levy proposed is about 100x too low. At peak immigration levels, NZ had more per capita migrants than Germany did during Europe's 'refugee crisis'. And that was BAU. I'm not in favour of this coming back. We don't have the infrastructure to cope.
Then there is what happened pre-covid with the huge backlog of residency applications where [from memory] successive governments reduced the number of residency visas allowed per year 3 terms in a row, added with 100k migrants in one year lead to immigration approving the visas then letting the rest pile up once they hit their limit for the year. A friend of mine waited 18months after applying for residency then covid hit and he lost his job which his residency application was tied to. Horrible to see him go through that after 4 years in nz and meeting his partner here. I dont want to see mass backlogs like that again for any of the applicants sake, and mass migration proposed as ACT does will make it even worse
There really isn't any NZ political party that is anti-free speech - anti-hate speech, sure, but no one should support hate speech.
And what have they proposed to reduce red tape? Even this immigration proposal introduces new red tape (invoicing. collection, compliance). To fix truancy - they want to fine parents (more red tape). I'd love to hear any of their suggestions for reducing red tape - aside from them constantly spouting about the need to reduce red tape.
And freedom of choice - again, another mantra without firm policy proposals - the only one I think they've talked about in that respect is freedom to choose what school your kids can go to via a voucher system - but then when Auckland Grammar moved to change its zoning in response to population changes in its area, ACT screamed bloody murder, as the zoning changes would exclude some of the single-dwelling owner-occupiers (more high rise apartment buildings had been built within the previous catchment - so the catchment needed to be re-drawn).
In other words, a public school trying to legitimately manage its roll got hammered. That's not 'freedom' - that's hey the residents here paid a big premium on their house purchases to get into this public-school zone. ACT tried to imply there was some 'rule' associated with guaranteed enrollment ... in a public school!
This is ACT's big blind spot. How does mass immigration led to greater productivity and lifestyles for New Zealanders? And a levy of $1350 is ridiculous.
We need smart immigration in NZ. We need to productively and smartly grow the population.
At the same time, there are too many low-end jobs in NZ that locals just don't want to do. Blue collar jobs are not everyone's cup of tea anymore. Many want to be entrepreneurs or have a white collar job.
-7
I had a very small thought of voting Act, I voted for them once many years ago.
But this, along with some of their other policies? Thanks but no thanks
All of the parties at present appear to have an Archilles heel (policy wise) that makes them quite difficult to be appealing at gaining widespread support that would be socially and financially sustainable. 80% of the policy might look good and then they will say oh yes but we will removed the foreign buyer ban, or remove the changes to interest deductibility, or remove the top tax rate, or increase immigration too much, or introduce 3 waters and co-governance.
Surely someone could take the middle ground somewhere and bring the people back together with common goals and cooperation?
Winston “hold my beer”
So who is it for you? Hold your nose and vote Labour? Greens? TOP? I assume National are off the cards for their atrocious housing policies?
Yeah, TOP
I really don’t know, maybe no one.
The big issue with our voting population is they think a vote for red or blue is the winning vote. Any other party is a loser vote.
I stopped voting National after 2008, thanks John Key. I instead voted ACT, although some of their policies I don't agree with (immigration) some I do (e.g. superannuation), and I saw a party that showed promise in their competency. I'll take the good with the bad if a party will actually do as they promise.
Look, ACT like free market, here is an idea. Set a maximum number of sustainable places for work visas (I actually agree with ACTs proposal to review that six monthly). Then allow employers to bid for those visas. Say there are 30k visas, then they can bid. If they don’t use the visa they can get a refund and it goes into the next auction. Classic economics. It will ensure the most valuable skill gaps get addressed and if there is surplus demand it will drive up revenue for infrastructure.
Noting people’s concerns about exploitation you’d also need aggressive monitoring of employers who are most at risk of offending - thinking of stories in the past about small business, liquor stores, restaurants, places like that. They should be proactively audited with stiff penalties for exploitation.
This reminds me of Putin's just throw bodies at the problem.
"High level".
Add that to the ever growing list of reasons not to vote for them....
A friend asked me if I would vote for ACT.
I replied that if I wanted to live in the U.S.A., I would move there.
So ACT policies are freedom from tax and freedom from room to move.
ACT policies are whatever the good people of Epson want them to be.
We have far more cows and sheep in NZ than people, that's the problem.
We need more people, new ideas, and better jobs, not less.
Act are the only party with enough guts to say what they think, and come up with some new ideas. Good on them.
Shame the good people of "ACT" have no concept of what constitutes freedom, or biophysical limits. You are correct we need new ideas for a planet in a state of ecological collapse, unfortunately "more people" is not a new idea!
unfortunately "more people" is not a new idea!
Exactly.
In 2017 when our immigration was about +60,000 net. Ardern was elected with a promise to reduce immigration to 30,000 a year. In coalition with WinstonFirst our 2019 (pre-covid) immigration rose to +90,000 net.
Granted but since covid they had embarked on a massive immigration reset which has slowly been watered down due to political pressure from the right/media.
Reading this makes me hope the cost of living in NZ continues to power upwards, to well and truly lock in the judgement that it's a shitty place to try and make a living. Once that is firmly in place, the policies ACT is floating would make little difference.
I think increasingly a large proportion of immigrants will come from basket case countries like India, Philippines and South Africa.
Ie. people trying to escape awful countries /regimes.
The days when many of our immigrants came from wealthy western or eastern countries is long gone (ie. pre-2006). In terms of cost of living it would make very little sense to emigrate to NZ.
Many immigrants in the 1995-2005 period came to NZ because their money went much further on property than in their home countries, at least it was a key reason for many.
So we now have the absurd situation where NZ’s cost of living is pushing kiwis away AND acting as a disincentive for highly skilled migrants to come here.
Yes, the desperate will remain a market for us.
I knew an Iraqi who (obviously) wanted to escape and applied, he said, to about a hundred countries. Miraculously, NZ came through and he had to look up where it is.
So many negative comments on immigration.
You all think NZ is productive enough to pay for itself and improve on the current trajectory..
Please tell what magic you have instead?
Personally I think we should take pride that educated and motivated people would want to come here. At the same time we need to sort our crap education system to enable our youth, among a large list of things that have slipped in NZ.
Not so much negative on immigration, negative on deliberately using immigration to increase population.
It's time to learn how to prosper without population growth. It has no end, you know, the population growth thing, just more. Look at Japan, many times the population we have here, yet now getting anxious as their population growth has stalled, going backwards even.
It was said a few decades ago, we'd be good to go at about 5 million. We're there now, but no, what do we have? We have it being said we need more, more.
Traditional economics simply requires continuous growth and when it's all boiled down, that equates to population. We can't do that anymore.
Dudes running ACT must surely be a joke? Their single minded concept of freedom as making a select elite wealthy beyond imagination, while condemning the natural world to be smothered in sprawling humanity, is pathologically stupid and ranks us with yeast as a boom and crash species.
I can’t speak for others, but for me it’s not immigration per se which is the issue but the levels of immigration.
There are clearly some areas we really really need immigrants.
It’s the non discerning and high volumes of immigration that I object to.
Ditto
Every major party in New Zealand is pro-immigration. Converging views are a forewarning of catastrophic outcomes. If everyone is thinking the same thing no one is thinking at all.
Mass immigration and money creation favourites of all in power
That's because economics requires constant growth. Constant growth requires more people. Political parties are too sh1t scared to address it, as not enough people have yet got their heads around the idea, we simply cannot keep doing that
No thanks. Certainly not if their parents get to keep their overseas Super and get full NZ Super. And we'll have another decrease in GDP per head of population so will be absolutely going nowhere. Get a brain ACT.
An ACT policy that includes a new tax, and a new government run insurance scheme.
Blow me down...
NZ runs an immigration economy. People bring wealth and skills into this country, and other stuff as the by-product.
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