[ It’s very easy to veer off course and digress (lumihis) from the topic of today’s post so I’ll do my best to stay on course, thank you for reading and mabuhay! ]
IN THE PHILIPPINES, IN THE land of our hosts New Zealand, and anywhere else in the world, there exists one common reality, as reliable as death and taxes : political parties exist primarily to seize and maintain political power. They may espouse principles and ideology, but all these will be compromised and set aside if it means staying in power, holding on to the reins of Government and ruling with any kind of majority.
Quite a departure from our usual migrant-friendly, often down-to-earth intro statements kabayan and friends, but it had to be done. The Labour Government of New Zealand has recently fielded a lot of flak and criticism for their negligence of migrants’ welfare for an extended amount of time (three years). Along with quite a few other policy failures, confidence in governance and leadership has understandably gone down as a result, but immigration policy has the potential to make matters exponentially worse.
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It’s hard to put it into numbers, but New Zealand is reliant, some say dependent on migrant labor and skills. Name an industry, nearly ANY industry and there are considerable numbers of migrants, euphemistically termed “guest workers” helping churn out wealth from New Zealand’s economy, from that industry.
Inexplicably, New Zealand doesn’t reciprocate the benefits it gets from its migrants, trickling down measly one-year to three-year visas, making it ultra-hard (and harder) to even apply for permanent residency, and then hoping that those work visa holders will give up applying for residency, to be replaced always by new armies of ever-hopeful guest workers with dreams of permanent residency in their eyes (good luck with that).
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WHICH brings us to the present: a little bubwit (bird) has told us that in a nutshell, negative feedback and unfavorable survey / poll results have forced the Labour Government to announce that a migration policy announcement will be made this week, coming from no less than the Prime Minister herself.
You gotta ask yourself kabayan : how often is an announcement made about an announcement on policy? Rarely right? This likely means that the first announcement was made as a reaction to negative feedback about immigration. For sure, Government has been dragging its feet on the matter, ever since Skilled Migrant pathway and covid related excuses have been on center stage regarding government inaction, and so, so many migrant hopefuls have shed bitter tears on shattered dreams of residency.
Secondly, why is the Prime Minister herself (and not the annoying Immigration Minister) gonna make the announcement? For sure, the Immigration Minister has not gained any fans on the visa/ residency issue, and is probably the least popular member in Government, but to have Ma’m Jacinda make the announcement makes it clear it’s gonna be an important one.
Let us humbly present three possible outcomes of next week’s announcement, Precious Reader/ kabayan:
SCENARIO A: Suspension of visa pathways lifted, but goalposts to be changed again. The three year suspension of the Skilled Migrant visa pathway (SMC) will be officially lifted, but in name only. There will be new requirements, and more of the same hurdles towards residency.
This has been done before. Government put the Parent Cateogory on hold for a couple of years, lifted it only to add unreasonable requirements that made compliance unattainable to all but 5% of applicants. In other words, Government will give in to the demand to start admitting Expressions of Interest and applications, but in reality it will be just as hard.
Probability of this happening : 50%
SCENARIO B: Longer visa extensions to be issued to everyone in New Zealand. Everyone who’s been in New Zealand during the pandemic who’s a temporary visa holder (work, visit, study) either couldn’t get a mercy flight home or HAS CHOSEN TO TOUGH IT OUT. Either way, it’s been a benefit for New Zealand. Everybody’s done their share, worked effectively as an essential worker (because you can argue that most jobs during the pandemic can be classified essential), and has more importantly paid taxes necessary to national life. The very least New Zealand can do is to allow people to stay here a little longer. The very least.
Again, this is quite easy for government to do, and in fact has already done it in the form of six-month extensions since the end of lockdown. It costs them nothing and administratively does away with so much logistics and paperwork that government is loathe to do anyway.
Probability of this happening : 15% to 20%
SCENARIO C: No substantial announcements, but big promises to follow. in effect next week’s announcement will be an announcement of yet another announcement, but it will be a preview of what many have been calling for Government to do: granting an amnesty not just to overstayers but to every temporary visa holder in New Zealand.
Let’s face it. For more than a generation, New Zealand’s use-and-discard policy of temporary migrants is a direct affront to its Kiwi way of kindness, neighborliness and upfront way of dealing with brother / sister states.
Granting an amnesty by giving residency to all who’ve dared to hope by soldiering it through the pandemic would go a long way towards undoing NZ’s plantation / slaveowner history.
probability of this happening 5% to 10%
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I’m trying not to let the potential announcement this week overtake itself: don’t let the moment be bigger than the issue itself, the issue of the lives of so many migrants here in New Zealand, whose lives have been on hold. In my research and statistically weak postings, as usual I consulted Google: How many work visa holders in New Zealand? 59,232 as of Feb 2020, more or less.
It seems much bigger than that. No matter what the announcement, Mam Jacinda’s briefing will forever change New Zealand next week.
