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India Trade Talks: Winston Peters Pours Cold Water On Immigration Changes
Jo Moir, Political Editor
New Zealand First's Winston Peters sees no need for a relaxation of New Zealand's immigration settings in any trade talks with India.
He told Morning Report on Monday any liberalisation of the country's immigration settings would provide an unnecessary "incentive".
The Prime Minister has just returned from a five-day trip to India where he held bilateral talks with his counterpart Narendra Modi, and announced the beginning of official trade talks between the two countries.
While Sir John Key tried in both 2011 and 2016 to get a free trade agreement off the ground, talks never really progressed, and under the previous Labour government the focus shifted to more achievable deals with the likes of the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Dairy access for New Zealand's exporters is the big sticking point with India, due to its economy being made up of a number of small farmers - some with only one or two cows each - who fear the impact a big milk producer like New Zealand would have on their livelihoods.
Progressing an FTA with India that doesn't include dairy, however, is seen as a non-starter by both the New Zealand dairy sector and trade experts.
One area important to India that could be used as a bargaining chip by the coalition is immigration and any freeing up of New Zealand's settings to make it easier for Indians to gain residency.
In 2019 the Indian community in New Zealand spoke out against a change in approach by immigration officials to partnership visas, which insisted couples had to spend time living together in order to be eligible.
The change in directive required immigration officials to stop waiving requirements, such as couples needing to have lived together for 12 months - a test Indian couples who have had arranged marriages can't meet.
New Zealand First was in coalition with Labour at the time - Winston Peters was deputy prime minister - and happily took the credit for a tougher approach to partnership visas.
Shane Jones was also a Cabinet minister in that government and took aim at the Indian community's frustrations with the changes.
"I would just say to the activists from the Indian community, tame down your rhetoric, you have no legitimate expectations in my view to bring your whole village to New Zealand and if you don't like it and you're threatening to go home - catch the next flight home," Jones told RNZ in October 2019.
Jones ramped those comments up further the following month, telling RNZ as "the son of the Treaty" he was "one of the most eminently qualified people to talk about population policy, immigration, the blend of economics, the blend of migrant labour".
At the time the Opposition leader, National's Simon Bridges, called Jones' comments "entirely unacceptable, distasteful and wrong".
The then-immigration minister, Labour's Iain Lees-Galloway, denied a new directive had been given to his department but as a result of the changes he had asked officials to go away and sort out a solution.
It all ground to a halt a few months later, however, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the processing of immigration visas dried up.
Bharat Chawla, chair of the India New Zealand Business Council, said he expected people-to-people movement to be part of discussions, and did not believe dairy would be kept aside.
"They're both two different areas. They can't be replicated, or can be one taken one given. Having both the things will be helpful. But there are more areas, opening visitor visas, or opening more long-term visas for Indian residents, or the family of Indian residents or Indian-origin citizens of New Zealand," he said.
"Currently, education settings are not too bad for India. What they want to see is how it can be more streamlined. Possibly, the areas that can be covered will be more on visitor visas and the business or investment visas, because that's an area which can be done better."
He did not think the Gulf countries should be used as a comparison.
"Gulf settings are very different settings, and then they're very low-skilled workers we are talking about. But here in New Zealand, we don't have that kind of growth, if you see in terms of infrastructure growth, what the Gulf has seen," he said.
"It'll be more like skilled visas for IT people, or very high-end individuals who can add value to the economy."
What is the right balance for the country's immigration settings looks to be firmly back on the table.
Speaking to Morning Report on Monday Peters said India had the "biggest population in the world now - 1.4 billion people".
"Do you really think Immigration New Zealand is going to help? Get serious for goodness sake."
Peters has no issue with New Zealand being opened up to India for education and work, but drew the line at that extending to being able to stay permanently.
"Economies like Singapore, and dare I say it all around the world, bring people in to do jobs. The United Arab Emirates do that, all the Gulf countries do it, but when they finish the job they go home.
"And that's what we can do, we can still get all the benefits without making the stupid mistake of a failed immigration policy that says, we're so bad at what we do, we're so bad at education, that we're going to give them the incentive to actually come here and immigrate to our country."
Peters told Morning Report New Zealanders needed to be asked the question about the country's immigration settings, and what was appropriate.
Asked whether he opposed any liberalisation of Indian immigration under a trade deal, Peters responded, "where in that deal is that part of the process?"
The prime minister has given an assurance that all three parties in the coalition "know that we want to have a deeper, bigger, better relationship with India".
He told TVNZ's Q+A on Sunday that Peters was on board with a free trade deal with India, and had visited himself as foreign minister.
Luxon firmly holds the view that New Zealand is a richer country for the diversity it enjoys from a range of "new New Zealanders".
"They come to New Zealand and leave everything behind, often their language, their friends, their family, their culture. They come to New Zealand and work incredibly hard - they take one job, two jobs, three jobs to get a deposit for a business or a house - they really focus on their kids having opportunities they didn't have, they see a future for themselves in New Zealand, and as new New Zealanders they add a lot of energy into the country as well," Luxon said.
"The New Zealand I grew up in versus the New Zealand today is much more diverse, interesting, and richer culturally," he said.
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