“If you talk to employers in New Zealand at the moment, anybody that is of good character and has the skills, they will take them as a worker. They don’t mind where they come from. They (employers) would be very disappointed if the government’s policy is to bring people from elsewhere and not India, because we have a strong relationship with India. We have a very large Indian community in New Zealand that now calls New Zealand home,” said Todd McClay, National MP from Rotorua.
McClay was speaking to the Indian Weekender in the Parliament precincts shortly after receiving a petition submitted on Wednesday on behalf of the Migrant United Council, an umbrella organisation representing 26 registered migrant groups in New Zealand.
The petition, supported by around 5,000 signatures, requested Parliament to “urge the government to automatically reinstate the visas of migrants that expired while our borders were closed due to Covid-19 restrictions, and extend those visas for a period starting from 19 March 2020 and ending at an appropriate time after our borders reopen.”
Rajeev Bajwa, founder and chairperson of the Migrant United Council, explained the compulsion behind his petition: “We never reacted when the borders were closed because we were facing a global pandemic. When borders were reopened, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on 3 February 2022 that all migrants under all visa categories could re-enter the country from 13 April 2022. Then she brought in the condition that only those holding current, valid visas could return.”
This left scores of migrants stranded around the world, unable to return because their visas had expired, Bajwa noted.
In India, an estimated 900 migrants were unable to re-enter New Zealand because their visas had expired, according to Bajwa.
Bajwa’s petition aimed to press the legal rights and “secure justice” for stranded migrants worldwide, who have been disadvantaged by the changes in immigration rules.
Bajwa set out a three-step approach to secure his goal. First, have the issue raised in Parliament. Second, get the petition discussed in the parliamentary petitions committee. Third, exercise the right to approach the Ombudsman.
If justice was still denied to the stranded migrants, the Migrant United Council intended to take the issue to the streets by resorting to nonviolent agitation, including relay hunger strikes.
“I have full faith in our parliamentary process. I believe we will get justice if we are patient,” Bajwa added.
But National’s McClay and Taupo MP Louise Upston, who were backing Bajwa’s petition in Parliament, denied the Labour government’s changes to immigration policy were discriminatory or targeted at any particular ethnic migrant community.
“If it’s shown that the government has put this policy in place for only one country of this world, then I think those people would be right to feel it’s discriminatory,” McClay said.
‘But I think this is for many countries. They would be not only from India but many parts of Asia and elsewhere in the world, like South America, where people had visas to come here, the border was closed, their visas had run out and they can’t come to New Zealand,” he added.
But McClay acknowledged he did not know if there were similar cases from other countries.
The Tauranga MP was of the view that the immigration system was not working as it should.
He wondered why the stranded migrants could not be reinstated or a pathway for them to come back to New Zealand couldn’t be found when those people were able to enter the country before Covid.
‘If they are not able to come now, what has changed in that period of time?”
Upston supplemented McClay, saying those who worked in New Zealand before and had returned home to other countries were being disadvantaged by the policy of the government. They should be allowed to come back and “continue to contribute to our businesses, our communities and our country,” she added.
Kanwaljeet Bakshi, National’s ex-List MP, spoke of the stranded migrants he had met on his last visit to India and described them as being “traumatized”.
“We need people who have NZ experience. There is a shortage of workers in every sector,” Bakshi noted.
Gaurav Sharma, Labour MP from Hamilton West, told Indian Weekender there would be further policy announcements in September and that “the new minister is definitely looking at broader immigration policies as well.”
Paramjit Singh, a former office bearer of the Wellington gurudwara, said New Zealand needed “working hands to keep the economy growing.”
With the petition being raised by a sitting MP during Question Hour, the petition is now embedded in the parliamentary process.
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