Pauline Hanson’s New Zealand migration plan misses the mark

Dr Abul Rizvi writes that Pauline Hanson’s proposal to immigrate to New Zealand will create more problems than it solves.

SENATOR PAULINE HANSON told Daily Mail He wants to reduce immigration from New Zealand by limiting immigration to Australia “until you become a New Zealand citizen for at least eight to ten years.”.

While there are benefits to reducing immigration from New Zealand, Hanson’s approach is as clumsy as ever.

Immigration from New Zealand has increased significantly in recent years due to New Zealand’s weak labor market compared to Australia, as well as changes made by the Labor Government to make it easier for New Zealand citizens to obtain Australian citizenship directly without going through the permanent resident visa stage.

If net migration is to be lower in future, as Labor, the Coalition and One Nation suggest, immigration from New Zealand will need to tighten. But One Nation’s approach has three fundamental problems.

Firstly, it means that New Zealand citizens born outside New Zealand must be much older before they can immigrate to Australia; It is stated that New Zealand has a five-year residence requirement for an immigrant to obtain New Zealand citizenship. Therefore, they may be 15 years older than when they immigrated to New Zealand. Focusing immigration policy on much older people will have poor demographic, economic and budgetary consequences for Australia.

Second, the existing highly modernized Subclass 444 visa For New Zealand citizens, they would need to be significantly redesigned to allow entry to those born in New Zealand while filtering out people born in other countries. Assuming Hanson does not propose to limit non-New Zealand-born New Zealand citizens’ access to other visas (such as visitor visas, skilled temporary visas), there may also be a need to distinguish between those who have another purpose for coming to Australia and those who are considering immigration.

New Zealand citizens are the largest or second largest source of tourists to Australia. A more complex visa system would face harsh criticism from Australia’s tourism industry, particularly from Queensland, which is the main focus of tourists from New Zealand.

Thirdly, the New Zealand Government will object to these changes which divide New Zealand citizens into two classes. Even if the New Zealand Government does not fully retaliate, it will create a major disturbance in the bilateral relationship. A Nation and its followers may not be alarmed about this.

A much better approach would be to revert to changes. Howard The 2001 government move did not affect the operation of the SC 444 visa (thus preventing a negative impact on tourism), but it did reduce access to social support for New Zealand citizens while in Australia and not secured permanent residence. This made New Zealand citizens in Australia net Budget positive.

Doctor Abul Rizvi He is an independent Australian columnist and former Deputy Secretary of the Immigration Service. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul or Bluesky @abulrizvi.bsky.social.

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