Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Erica Stanford: Immigration Minister on the visa pathway for Pacific and Chinese travellers

Transcript

Erica Stanford: Immigration Minister on the visa pathway for Pacific and Chinese travellers · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Update on the visa free travel policy for Chinese and
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Pacific island to As you'll remember this, visited numbers from
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: China and the Islands have traveled since December. Eighty five
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: percent of the Chinese travelers are saying that the policy,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the policy change was a deciding factor in choosing to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: come here. Erica Stanford Immigration ministers. We've been this morning
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and I think, good morning, Good morning, Ryan. So since December,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: we've had is this right, thirty six thousand, nine hundred
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: terrorists have come in under the new visa free system.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: That's right. Then, that's triple the number that we've had
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: since December, which was when we last looked at it,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: which was a month after this new pathway opened. And
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: remembering it it's a joining a sort of trial of
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: this for twelve months to see how it works.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So that thirty nine hundred that's for one month,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is it?
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: That's over overall? So that's that's a tripling of the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: number from thirteen thousand that we announced in December, right.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And with that thirteen thousand that was or how long
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: what period.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: That was since since December? So tripled since December. But
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: remember this is only one small pathway. This is not
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: overall Chinese visits. We've got visitor visas and group visas,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: there's a number of other visas. This is quite overall.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: It's a small number, but it's still significant for the
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: New Zealand economy. And it's added about two hundred million
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: dollars into our local tourism businesses and hotels and in
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: hospitality businesses, which is great to keep with us.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Gotcha. So it's almost thirty seven thousand tourists have come
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: here under this visa since it began in December. And
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: so what you mentioned all the money that they're bringing,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: which is all good stuff. Does this mean that is
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: this success? Do we keep the whole that you know,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: it's a trial? Do we keep it going?
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Now? Well, we're only a few months and we'll do
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: a review closer to the twelve month mark and we'll
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: take a look at some of the the entries and
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the risks. And it hasn't been successful because of course,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: what we do in the background is is look at
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: the risk and so far from what I have seen
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: and I get updated every month, of course, is that
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the risk is extraordinarily low because the Australians we're piggybacking
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: essentially off their visa processing. They have very robust visa
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: processing and so it is a very low risk activity
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: for us, and we've not seen anything yet apart from
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the system working. There's been a couple of turnarounds and
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: a handful of where we've not issued the nz ETA document,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: but that's just the system working well between Australia and
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: New Zealand.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Why did you turn them around? What are the risks
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: that will have overstayers?
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: They're just people that we wouldn't usually issue a visa too,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And if the Australians haven't issued them a visa, then
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't have issued them in visa. In fact, the
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Australians are little. When we look at the Australian declines
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: compared to our declines, they seem to be a bit
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: tougher than us soberall, so they're very robust. So it's
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: a pretty risk reactivity for US. But we do information
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: sharing between the two countries and quite often when we're
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: looking to issure an ETA, if we get any information
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: that we shouldn't be from the Australians, then we don't.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: But like I say, it's a tiny handful and it
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: shows the system is working very very well. So I
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: expect in a year's time, you know, it'd look pretty positive.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: But we still got a long way to run, so
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: we'll keep an eye on it, all.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Right, Minister, appreciate your time this morning, Erica Stamford, Immigration Minister.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: to News Talk Sat B from five am weekdays, or
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.