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Friday, November 11, 2022

Mike Hosking: How is the Government still blind to our immigration woes?


Sarah and Rob, you might have seen their story.

They are a couple of specialists, as in doctors. They came here during Covid under a critical work visa, now they are thinking of heading back to the UK because of, you guessed it, immigration delays.

They don't get to be on the green list. Ah, the magic green list. The list that gets you residency. It's called fast track residency. But fast track being over a year, so not really that fast.

The problem, of course, is if you are not a resident, you don’t get to buy a house, you don’t settle down, you don’t sort your kids, and you are in the waiting place. And as Dr Seuss so eloquently said, “you don’t want to be in the waiting place”.

By the way, when I say 12 months, that changed and it got pushed out. I wonder why that happened? Anyway, they think at this stage it's more like 2024.

Part of the reason is, of course, the processing rate. For a while there, things looked on the up. They were ticking off 570-ish a day, but now it's back to 235. So not exactly gearing up, more gearing down.

These two, Sarah and Rob, are just two of a myriad stuck in this mad battle between us and the Government.

Us being regular New Zealanders who every day, in a huge variety of ways, see the cold hard reality of not having enough people. And we're up against the Government who tell us it's all good, things are ticking along, and applications are being sorted by the million.

The two things we seem to agree on are that we are short of people and the people that might come to help have a lot of choice as in other countries.

Where it becomes an issue is the bit where the Government do anything urgent about it.



Grant Robertson on this show last week said they monitor these things all the time. I had raised the lack of bus drivers and the $61 million that was being handed out to boost the pay of the bus drivers that weren't here.

Robertson said they're monitoring. I said, well if you are, why aren't you letting more in? He said well that’s Michael Wood's job. Which it is.

So where is Michael Wood? Where is the monitoring? Where is the announcement? Where are the bus drivers?

That's the problem, they are mouth no trousers.

Here is your rule of thumb. Do we need you? If the answer is yes, you're in.

Under that system, Sarah and Rob would be buying a house in Tauranga they would be new New Zealanders and we would be grateful for their arrival.

Under this Government? Not even close.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.

2 comments:

Terry Morrissey said...

"They don't get to be on the green list."
The green list Mike, is really the one you can get on if you have the neccessary amount of folding green for this corrupt government.
"An investment of at least NZ $3 million over a 4 year period or. NZ $10 million over a 3 year period."
So if you can invest in productive land to the value of $3 million, remove the stock and plant it in pines you not only get in but you join in at the trough of ETS. If however you happen to be a qualified doctor, not so important.

Anonymous said...

From all accounts the Immigration dept. can't keep up with the volume of work. I assume that now they are prioritising the work visas so the residential ones will be kept waiting.
Another example of totally inept planning and execution of a critical public service by this most useless government.
MC