‘We are not giving up on immigration,’ says Prime Minister
Ahead of elections, Prime Minister Bill English has reached out to the Kiwi-Indian community by speaking with The Indian Weekender about a range of issues that matters to the community including immigration and law and order. Here are some excerpts of the interview.
IWK: There are two Kiwi-Indian MPs in the National Party caucus, of which one has been there for all three terms. Does National Party not find them talented enough to elevate either of them to a ministerial berth in the cabinet?
PM: Well, that’s a matter that we sort out each time we pick a cabinet. We have in our caucus plenty of talent. That’s one of the privileges of being a Prime Minister of National caucus of having so many talented people who can be a Minister. Generally, if they are longer in the caucus, then there are more chances for them to become a Minister. I can say that both Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi and Parmjeet Parmar have performed well.
IWK: Can you tell us today if National comes to power for a fourth term, then would we get the first Kiwi-Indian Minister in New Zealand?
PM: Well that will be decided once we get there in the government.
IWK: Can we get your promise today for a Kiwi-Indian Minister in next term?
PM: (Laughs) Well I know you would like to me to make that undertaking, but that would be getting way ahead of me because we haven’t yet had the election and we haven’t seen who has turned up in the parliament.
IWK: Why is the New Zealand government and your party giving up on immigration numbers?
PM: Well we are not giving up on immigration. The other political parties are. One way or the other they all are seeking to cut back immigration numbers quite low, but they haven’t told us that how they will do that.
What we believe is happening is that success of the economy is driving immigration. It’s not the other way around.
We are not dependent on immigration. We need migrant workers to do the jobs that need to be done.
IWK: Recently your government introduced the Minimum Income Threshold to classify people as “low skilled” and “high skilled.” Are you getting your unemployment statistics on the basis of “low skilled” or “high skilled”? What was the point there?
PM: The point over there was to make it clearer what people could expect to happen. The occupational classifications don’t always give you the right information, and the industry keeps telling us that the name of the job in your system does not tell us how important the job is. What’s important is how we pay them. So we are just bringing in now and will keep it under review as we always keep immigration policies under review. The idea is to get people into jobs with reasonable skill content and is reasonably well paid.
IWK: Coming to international students, Indian international students have gone through significant troubles for right or wrong reasons and the Kiwi-Indian community thinks that immigration agents and private tertiary institutes are taking Indian international students for a ride and government is not doing enough to regulate PTEs? What do you have to say about that?
PM: I think it is well regulated now, and people understand that New Zealand government will enforce its rules.
We want a well-regarded international education sector. We are very pleased to have a degree of interest from Indian students and about 20 per cent of those students choose to stay back here in New Zealand permanently. We welcome them here, and we want it to be sustainable and high quality.
IWK: Can you ensure that there will be more regulation of PTEs in the fourth term of National government?
PM: That is in place now. In the last 18 months, a lot of efforts have been made in enforcing the rules. We have got a pretty good set of rules. But now people are clear that they are going to be enforced.
Ahead of elections, Prime Minister Bill English has reached out to the Kiwi-Indian community by speaking with The Indian Weekender about a range of issues that matters to the community including immigration and law and order. Here are some excerpts of the interview.
IWK: There are two Kiwi-Indian...
Ahead of elections, Prime Minister Bill English has reached out to the Kiwi-Indian community by speaking with The Indian Weekender about a range of issues that matters to the community including immigration and law and order. Here are some excerpts of the interview.
IWK: There are two Kiwi-Indian MPs in the National Party caucus, of which one has been there for all three terms. Does National Party not find them talented enough to elevate either of them to a ministerial berth in the cabinet?
PM: Well, that’s a matter that we sort out each time we pick a cabinet. We have in our caucus plenty of talent. That’s one of the privileges of being a Prime Minister of National caucus of having so many talented people who can be a Minister. Generally, if they are longer in the caucus, then there are more chances for them to become a Minister. I can say that both Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi and Parmjeet Parmar have performed well.
IWK: Can you tell us today if National comes to power for a fourth term, then would we get the first Kiwi-Indian Minister in New Zealand?
PM: Well that will be decided once we get there in the government.
IWK: Can we get your promise today for a Kiwi-Indian Minister in next term?
PM: (Laughs) Well I know you would like to me to make that undertaking, but that would be getting way ahead of me because we haven’t yet had the election and we haven’t seen who has turned up in the parliament.
IWK: Why is the New Zealand government and your party giving up on immigration numbers?
PM: Well we are not giving up on immigration. The other political parties are. One way or the other they all are seeking to cut back immigration numbers quite low, but they haven’t told us that how they will do that.
What we believe is happening is that success of the economy is driving immigration. It’s not the other way around.
We are not dependent on immigration. We need migrant workers to do the jobs that need to be done.
IWK: Recently your government introduced the Minimum Income Threshold to classify people as “low skilled” and “high skilled.” Are you getting your unemployment statistics on the basis of “low skilled” or “high skilled”? What was the point there?
PM: The point over there was to make it clearer what people could expect to happen. The occupational classifications don’t always give you the right information, and the industry keeps telling us that the name of the job in your system does not tell us how important the job is. What’s important is how we pay them. So we are just bringing in now and will keep it under review as we always keep immigration policies under review. The idea is to get people into jobs with reasonable skill content and is reasonably well paid.
IWK: Coming to international students, Indian international students have gone through significant troubles for right or wrong reasons and the Kiwi-Indian community thinks that immigration agents and private tertiary institutes are taking Indian international students for a ride and government is not doing enough to regulate PTEs? What do you have to say about that?
PM: I think it is well regulated now, and people understand that New Zealand government will enforce its rules.
We want a well-regarded international education sector. We are very pleased to have a degree of interest from Indian students and about 20 per cent of those students choose to stay back here in New Zealand permanently. We welcome them here, and we want it to be sustainable and high quality.
IWK: Can you ensure that there will be more regulation of PTEs in the fourth term of National government?
PM: That is in place now. In the last 18 months, a lot of efforts have been made in enforcing the rules. We have got a pretty good set of rules. But now people are clear that they are going to be enforced.
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