Erica Stanford: A new visa for parents of citizens

The Government has announced a new Parent Boost Visa that will allow the parents of New Zealand citizens multi entry access for up to five years. 

The sponsor has to earn 1.5 times the median wage, or the parent must bring $16,000 - along with other insurance and health requirements. 

The Government says they are trying to make the country more attractive for skilled workers, without straining public services. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talks 'b.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
The government's announced a new parent Boost visa that will
allow the parents of New Zealand citizens multi entry access
for up to five years. The sponsor has to earn
one and a half times the medium wage or bring
in one hundred and sixty thousand. This is just per parent.
I think it's two fifty for a couple. Along with
other insurance and health requirements. The government says they're trying
to make the country more attractive for skilled workers without

(00:33):
straining public services. Ministry of Immigration Erica Stanford's with me now, Erica,
good afternoon, Hello, thank you for having me, Thank you
for joining us. What is the major evil that I
don't mean evil in terms of anything dastardly. What were
you trying to fix here? What was the problem?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
But we don't have a flexible, longer term visitor visa
that exists at the moment for parents to come and go.
So at the moment, the only visa that's available is
a three year multiple entry, but you can only be
in the country for six months at a time and
then out to six bas so it's not as flexible
and so there are other countries that we like to
compare ourselves to and are in competition with for highly

(01:11):
skilled migrants, have very similar visa to this one, five
years multiple entry. You can stay up to five years,
but you have to have health insurance. You've got to
make sure your sponsors earn the median wage for one
parent so that we're not putting additional strain on the
health system. So it brings us in line with other
countries Australia and Canada who we compete with.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Is that one of the major problems. For instance, look
at our nearest neighbor Australia that people were just thinking, well,
this is more friendly to me, so I'm off for Australia.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yes, look a couple of things. Having family around is
better for long term settlement for migrants who are coming
to New Zealand. But also we are losing people. I
always remember the case of the pediatric psychiatrist based in
the Whitehadow who told me he was going to Australia

(02:00):
because he needed to have his father close by and Australia.
Australia only often and I think it time a one
year maxim entry visa, but we just we weren't flexible
enough and we lost them, and so that always stuck
with me. And we are you know, like I say,
we're always in competition for highly skilled migrants. We need
to be competitive on the global stage. But also so

(02:20):
important to have your parents around when you know you've
got children, or there's a berthen new baby, or you
have a health complication. Been able to have your parents
come flexibly, there's so much better for settlement.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, that sort of leads into my next question. Because
you can do two lots of five years, you've got
to take a break for a few months in between.
I gather.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
But with a.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Maximum of ten, I wonder, maximum of ten is there
any point to that? Because I don't know. It just
feels that you're going to let them spend all that
time here and all of a sudden, right bye bye.
That's it.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
We've been very very clear upfront, and my message today
was this is not a residence visa, and they'll be
required to sit and sign all this up front. It
is a visitor visa. It's a flexible multiple entry visa.
It does not lead to residence. And if your health
deteriorates or you're unable to keep up your health insurance,

(03:12):
then you will be required to leave or apply for
a different type of visa that has a lower standard
of health. This is the longest visit of visa that
we will offer, and that's why it's really important to
have that very high standard of health and income requirements
to make sure that that parents can be looked after
while they're here. If they no longer meet that criteria,
they will not be able to apply for another visa.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
What checks are in place when it comes to insurance,
because you've got requirements that they've got to have enough
insurance at least for the first year, and I gather
they've probably got to keep renewing it as they go.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yes, they will. At the three year mark, we're requiring
them to redo their medical and they need to do
that from offshore. So when we look at their new
medical to make sure that they are still of acceptable
standard of health, which is a very high standard of health.
It's the same for residence. We will also look to
make sure that they have kept up their insurance, and
if they haven't, then we can cancel their theas. So

(04:06):
it is a high trust model. But if we find
that you haven't kept it up, you will not be
able to apply for another one, and we may well
cance your visa at the three year mark if you
haven't kept up your insurance.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Can sponsors? So the parents that I'm getting my luck
with parents here, but the people who are living here
and inviting their parents, and can they go out of the
country while there while they're the next generation up a visiting?
Can they have a holiday?

Speaker 3 (04:29):
In other words, I don't have a holiday, of course,
but they need to be on shore most of the time,
so you can't example, you bring your parents here for
a five year viisther and then hop off to Australia
for a number of years and do some work. You'll
be required to be here in the country if you
are sponsoring your parents.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
And what about how many people do you actually think
this will affect? What difference are you expecting this to
make to the number of skilled mirgrants we're going to attract.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Look, that's always hard to tell, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Your working paper must have given you a little steer,
wouldn't it.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
No, Well, actually the paper said, look, we're not sure
that we know anecdotally that people leave because they can't
have their parents, and we know that people are choosing
Australia and Canada because we don't have a competitive offerings.
Hard to quantify that, but in terms of the number
of people who may well apply for this FEASA, we've
got some figures because I know that those people already

(05:20):
bring their parents here on different other types of visas,
and so when you look at all those types of thesas,
it will be a proportion of those because it will
cannibalize effectively other types of visas that already exist. So
we expect it to be about six thousand in the
first year.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well that's a pretty that's a reasoning chunky number, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
And residency the other visas as I said, the other
visas that are currently coming on will will go down
accordingly because they won't be applying for the three year
multiple entry visa or a regular visit divisa, So those
ones will go down as this one goes up.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
What about people who are already here legitimately as parents
of residents or citizens. Will they be able to sort
of attach themselves to the changes.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
They can apply? I saw this visa. They need to
from offshore and get their medicals done done.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Offshore, Okay, and there's no pathway to residency. That's going
to sneak back in here.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
This is a visitor visa. It's not a pathway to residence.
It is not a residence visa. It's not you know,
sell up everything you have and moved to New Zealand.
It is a visitor visa. Will be very clear about
that upfront. These people may well find though that they
are eligible for residents at some point during that five
years affair children meet the income threshold of one point
five times medium wage, and they may well choose to

(06:36):
go in the ballot. And we expect many parents who
are in the ballot now will use this visa while
they're waiting for their residents to go through.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Excellent, Eric, I really appreciate your time the South End.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Cook so much.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
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