- By Christopher Luxon, Leader of the Opposition and MP for Botany
The summer holidays are fast approaching, and, like many New Zealanders around the country, I’m looking forward to spending time with my family and enjoying the warmer weather.
However, summer this year won’t be back to ‘normal’ just yet, as New Zealand still faces one of the worst workforce shortages in 50 years.
You might notice that some food services will be slower; hotels might not be able to offer their full range of catering or cleaning; hospital wait times will be longer and retail shops you visit for your Christmas shopping might be operating with fewer staff than usual.
These shortages exist because the Labour Government was far too slow to open New Zealand’s borders to much-needed skilled workers and working holidaymakers.
Instead of preparing for life after Covid, the Government patted itself on the back, raised the drawbridge and made New Zealand a fortress for longer than it should have.
Right now, there is a global war for talent. Every country is experiencing worker shortages and the competition to be the most attractive destination is on. However, New Zealand is barely competing.
While countries like Australia opened to all visa holders at the start of February, it took almost half a year longer for New Zealand to do the same.
Worse still, New Zealand isn’t offering anywhere near the same benefits to offshore migrants as our overseas counterparts.
For example, New Zealand’s health sector is in crisis and needs all the front-line staff it can get. Currently, we are short of 4000 nurses, hundreds of midwives and desperately need a raft of medical specialists.
Despite this, Labour continues to force nurses and midwives to wait two years before they can even apply for residency, while Australia is granting them immediate residency.
Why would a migrant nurse choose New Zealand over Australia when the cost of living here is higher and there is no certainty of immediate residency?
Yet Labour is granting immediate residency to food technologists and graduates with PhDs in art history, but not for desperately needed nurses.
To make matters worse, the day after the Reserve Bank announced the largest Official Cash Rate hike in New Zealand’s history, it also stated that the current immigration settings are a handbrake on the economy and that interest rates will continue to increase as a result.
Homeowners are in for a pummelling. Bigger mortgage payments will blow up household budgets, creating more financial stress and taking Kiwis backwards.
The Government’s immigration policies have been a disaster and Kiwis are now paying the price with higher inflation and higher interest rates.
While Labour is asleep at the wheel, a National government would speed up visa processing times which are creating bottlenecks for businesses trying to hire workers, and immediately add the desperately needed nurses, midwives and health specialists to the straight-to-residency pathway.
