Sunday7th June 2009: Q+A’s Guyon Espiner interviews Immigration Minister, Dr Jonathan Coleman.

Points of interest:

- Coleman – who was Melissa Lee’s campaign manager – admits National’s ‘execution of strategy wasn’t 100%’
- Key wasn’t in Mt Albert in final days of campaign because he was “busy” and the “election was a sideshow”
- 100,000 people mishandled by Immigration New Zealand: A lot of people in New Zealand who shouldn’t be or “a lot of people who aren’t in New Zealand who by rights could be”
- Immigration New Zealand a mess: ‘Different visa decisions on different days in different branches’
- Immigration New Zealand Chief Executive to get “liaison” person to monitor reform
- Immigration New Zealand takes six weeks to reply to potential students applying from China; in Australia it take two days

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at,
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

JONATHAN COLEMAN interviewed by GUYON ESPINER

GUYON Welcome back to Q+A and good morning to Immigration Minister Jonathon Coleman, thanks very much for coming in and joining us this morning.

JONATHAN Morning Guyon.

GUYON We’ll get to the immigration portfolio soon, but firstly you were the campaign manager for Melissa Lee. How much responsibility do you take for yesterday’s disastrous result?

JONATHAN Well look you’ve got to look at this result in context. This is a Labour seat. It always has been. We were never expecting to win this seat….

GUYON But you could have expected to do a lot better. Our polling showed that the party, the National party, was polling about 37% in that electorate yet Melissa Lee got 17%, about half that, so by any measure it’s a disaster.

JONATHAN It’s easy in hindsight. But Melissa came out last night …she took some responsibility for some of those errors that were made on the trail – I think she’s a very courageous woman…I think she did well. A lot of people would have been curled up on the floor after the hammering she got over the past few weeks. It was a difficult situation…Labour were always going to win this.

GUYON Sure.. she showed some guts - I asked you though what responsibility do YOU take for the campaign?

JONATHAN Well, we had a strategy which we followed right through to the end but obviously some of the … at some point along the way…the execution of that strategy wasn’t 100%. I think there’s some lessons here – all Labour are going to learn from that …

GUYON What are they, what are they?

JONATHAN …Oh well I’m not going to share the lessons here on television because there’s going to be some time to reflect. But let’s just say the next time we fight a by-election we’ll have taken a lot of knowledge from this one through to the next one. Whereas all Labour are going to learn is that they can still hold on to a deeply red seat, and on top of that they’ve put an albatross around their neck in the form of a 3 billion dollar promise to build a tunnel and now they’ve got to come out and say how they’re going to afford that at the next election – that’s going to be a big problem for Phil Goff.

GUYON OK, this Waterview project, why wasn’t Melissa Lee told about the government’s intentions before she went onto this show and the first major television debate in the by-election, why didn’t you find out what the government was doing - you sit at the cabinet - and tell your candidate?

JONATHAN Well it’s easy in retrospect to see where the faults and the flaws were….

GUYON …But that’s blindingly obvious with all respect isn’t it…

JONATHAN …but some of this is going to come out in our debrief…

GUYON …You’ve got a motorway coming through the electorate and you don’t
tell the candidate that that’s what the government is going to do?

JONATHAN Well I think the point about that motorway is that was part of a long term roading plan which the government is determined to make sure happens. You know we’ve got a lot of roads with national certificates we have to build that’s part of it, this was a local election fought on local issues but there are some bigger things people expect the government to do, they want the infra-structure to get the country, to get the city moving, and we have to deliver on that. So we’re polling extremely well nationally, I mean John Key is extremely popular and people want us to do stuff and part of that is completing the roads, part of that is actually building the Waterview connection and that’s going to be vital to getting the economy going and making Auckland work. And I tell you it’s not working at the moment – Labour had nine years to get it working, they’ve done nothing. John Key’s got that mandate, we’re not going to be distracted by the sideshow of a by-election which quite frankly Labour were always going to win. There’s bigger things to take up our intentions.

GUYON Sure, just before I leave this – John Key went on holiday on Friday now no-one’s begrudging him that, but wouldn’t you expect the leader of the party to be with his candidate in the final days and on the night?. Phil Goff was with David Shearer?

JONATHAN Look, the Prime Minister was there last Sunday, he’s been in touch with the campaign all the way along, he was there right at the start as well. He had a long term engagement which he had to fulfil – Phil Goff’s got nothing better to do than go around the country looking for people who want to talk to him and frankly he had a lot at stake in this election – anything less than a resounding result was going to be a black mark for him, why do you think he was out there door knocking so much -because this was a big test for Phil Goff and frankly he had to be there all the time. The Prime Minister’s busy, he’s got a lot to do this election was a sideshow and frankly Labour were always going to win it.

GUYON OK, let’s turn to your ministerial responsibility of immigration and start with your department. The Auditor General’s report that was released recently – it’s a fairly damning report on the department.

JONATHAN It is. Absolutely.

GUYON Basically they’re saying that this department is rushing its visa decisions about who gets into the country and making very poor judgements about who gets into this country. I mean how bad are things?

JONATHAN Look that is a very bad report and we knew things were bad but this really confirms it and what its really showing is that if you go to a New Zealand Immigration office you can get a different decision on a different day depending on who you speak to and what branch you go to…it’s unacceptable.

GUYON It’s a lottery..

JONATHAN It’s unacceptable and it has to be fixed. They’re saying that 21% of the decisions are not up to scratch. In the Pacific division that was 40% so things definitely have got to change because customers are not getting the service

GUYON So what are you going to do Minister?

JONATHAN Well there’s a series of recommendations in that report which are going to be implemented. That has to happen. But at a wider level we have to pull apart every process that’s undertaken by Immigration New Zealand and look at it from top to bottom and actually make sure that things are working properly. We’ve also now got to put in permanent senior management at those levels where there’s people in acting roles…

GUYON So are people going to get fired from those positions?

JONATHAN Well there’s people acting in some of those roles at the moment and they will apply for their jobs as part of that process. But the other thing we’re going to do, we’re going to be putting in someone independent to work alongside the CE as a liaison between me and the CE to make sure these changes get implemented.

GUYON So the Chief Executive gets a minder essentially?

JONATHAN Well, it’s a difficult job he’s got, this is one of the problems – the CE of the Department of Labour has got Immigration, he’s got ACC, he’s got Employment, he’s got all the labour functions as well, it’s a big job for one person….

GUYON Do we need to make Immigration as separate department?

JONATHAN ….We’ve got to have the focus now on getting the right leadership of the Immigration Service.

GUYON Do you need to strip it out Minister and make it a separate department?

JONATHAN That is certainly one thing we considered but when we looked at the costs and the risks of doing that in terms of providing a service while a major restructure was undergone, the best option was actually to get in and make immigration work…so structural changes doesn’t always work.

GUYON Can I just clarify something you said, you said that 20% of those decisions were poor quality decisions..

JONATHAN ….that’s right, not up to scratch…

GUYON …now the department approves 543,000 visa and permanent applications a year, does that mean about a hundred thousand people are in New Zealand who shouldn’t be?

JONATHAN Well it could also mean there’s a lot of people in New Zealand or who aren’t in New Zealand who by rights could be. I mean we don’t… It’s hard to quantify really what it means one way or the other, but what we do know is its completely unacceptable… and the quality of service really has to improve within a time line.

GUYON Does this leave you open to litigation or review about these decisions…from unsuccessful applicants?

JONATHAN There’s an established independent process for appealing any decision which people are able to undergo and certainly those review boards do deal with a lot of applicants who have been turned down – often they’ve been turned down correctly but there is a sound independent appeals process.

GUYON I’m just wondering how much money you’re going to need to put into this department. I look at that Auditor General’s report and he focuses also on the IT systems. Now he says that their core computer system which processes and records visa and permit decisions, and I quote him here, “cannot store some basic identity and verification information about applicants including photographs and scanned copies of passports”. I mean this just seems like it’s an antiquated and completely inefficient IT system.

JONATHAN And you’d have to wonder why over nine years Labour didn’t do something about it. They’ve left us with a massive problem here. This IT system needs a $117 million spent over four years – we’re in very tight economic times, that is an issue. But look there’s some more basic things that can be done to fix Immigration New Zealand…

GUYON ..Before you leave that though, $120 million, are you going to put $120 million into fixing that IT system?

JONATHAN Oh look, I’m certainly going to be applying next year at the Budget for funds and looking at ways that we can upgrade this, because the problem with the IT system is that not only can we not guarantee currently with that system that our borders are absolutely secure compared to other countries, but the problem is we’re not able to give the quality of service that potential immigrants and visitors to New Zealand need. So for instance, if you’re living in China and you want to study in Australia or New Zealand you apply on line to Australia, you get an answer back in two days. If you apply to New Zealand at the moment it takes six weeks so if you’re in Shanghai and you’re wondering where to go it’s a no-brainer, so with this infra structure we’re at a really competitive disadvantage compared to the rest of the world and that’s a problem this Government’s been left with in very tight economic times. But as I say there’s a lot we can do to fix Immigration New Zealand in terms of getting those processes right so making sure that what Immigration NZ does is done to an excellent standard with consistent quality.

GUYON Before I leave your department, do you have faith in the Chief Executive?

JONATHAN Yes I do have confidence in the Chief Executive. I have confidence that he’s going to fix this issue.

GUYON How long has he got to do that?

JONATHAN Oh look I’m not going to put a time line on this but in two year’s time I think we have to have a superb immigration service and that’s the outside limit.

GUYON OK, let’s look, turn away from the department and look at Government policy on immigration. Do you see Immigration as a critical part of our economic strategy?

JONATHAN Yes absolutely it is critical because we’re not able to grow the skills and the capital that we need to have a properly functioning economy from within our own population so we’re always gong to need to bring in people from outside with the skills that this country needs. We need more doctors, more engineers a whole range of skills that we’re going to be reliant on in immigration. Look New Zealand was built on immigration it’s going to be a very important part of our future. Immigrants make a fantastic net contribution in financial terms to the economy, and so continued immigration of people with the right skills and also with the right levels of capital is going to be very important for us.

GUYON I’m just wondering about what impact the recession is going to have on Immigration policy? I see Australia has just cut back its Skilled Migrant programme by 14% because of the recession…how, if at all, is Immigration policy going to change as a result of the recession?

JONATHAN Well look the Australians have a very different system. We have a smaller number of permanent residents’ applications which are approved each year and those are people with the skills and the capital that we need in the country. So we’ve got to keep that level up. It’s set at between 45 and 55 thousand per year.

GUYON We take a lot of people don’t we?

JONATHAN So if we turn that down when we come out of the recession we’re not going to have the skills we need - and we need those skills and that now. But in terms of matching supply and demand of labour how we do control that is through issuing or not reissuing temporary worker permits, so you know, as more New Zealanders come available, and its got to be Kiwis first for jobs, there will be fewer temporary permits either issued or renewed.

GUYON We do take a lot of people, New Zealand I’m told has one of the highest per capita inflows of Migrants in the developed world. In Auckland here one worker in every three is born overseas…

JONATHAN ..that’s right…

GUYON ..I mean that worries some people doesn’t it?

JONATHAN Well look, we need those people, it’s absolutely vital to our economy. I mean we’re just barely into net positive migration flow now, we lose a lot of people from New Zealand and to keep the skills up, to keep the number of people you need to keep an economy going you need to bring people in. Look it doesn’t matter where those people come from, they just have to be quality migrants….

GUYON …Isn’t there a disjunct though Minister because if we have unemployment rising and we’re still taking the same number of migrants in then how can you guarantee it’s Kiwi jobs for Kiwis?

JONATHAN No, no, it’s the difference between temporary and permanent migration. Those permanent migrants, there’s generally jobs for them – those are skills which the government has determined we’re short of in the economy. Where we’re turning it down is on the temporary side where those people would be doing jobs that New Zealanders could do…and look this system works.

GUYON Just to clarify, how much are you turning that down by?

JONATHAN Oh look, these are positions a labour market tested, it’s not set in advance by the government…

GUYON But more are being turned down..

JONATHAN Oh more will be because more New Zealanders are becoming available as unemployment rises so it’s not something that we set it’s something we adjust depending on the number of unemployed New Zealanders available to fill those positions.

GUYON The Maori party is worried about the levels of immigration into New Zealand is that something they’ve raised with you as Immigration Minister?

JONATHAN No they haven’t raised that with me but I’m always happy to talk to them on any issue regarding this portfolio.

GUYON Just before we leave it if you look at the intake – I mean we take 42% European, Chinese 15%, South African 9%, Indian 8% - do you see the make up of where people are coming from changing at all or does it not matter where they come from as long as they have the skills to contribute to New Zealand?

JONATHAN Look I think we’ve got to focus on people with the right skills to contribute to the economy. But we also want them to come here, and while keeping their own culture, obviously you know embracing what it means to be a New Zealander, and I think you can’t define what it means to be a New Zealander, that’s going to evolve over time, but personally I don’t think it matters where the migrants come from as long as they bring the skills and are going to be good citizens who are going to contribute to our society - and that’s not just economically, that’s adding to the overall picture of our society and societies evolve, and I’m sure New Zealand society will continue to evolve.

GUYON Good place to leave it. Thanks very much for coming in and joining us.

JONATHAN Thanks Guyon.

ENDS

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