Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Erica Stanford: Immigration Minister on the Travel Authority for Chinese visitors

Transcript

Erica Stanford: Immigration Minister on the Travel Authority for Chinese visitors · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now more visa changes for Chinese visitors on the way.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From November, Chinese passport holders will no longer be required
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: to obtain a transit visa we're traveling through New Zealand airports.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: This means no visa application fees when traveling through to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: say South America and beyond. Eric Stanford is the Minister
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and with me this morning. Good morning, minister, good morning,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: how are you good? Thank you? What do we think
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: this will do? What effect will this have?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Although we're a number of great things for New Zealand.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, firstly, it will boost our terrorism numbers. We
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: know that our tourism numbers aren't where they need to be,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: especially our Chinese visitors. They're still lagging it around sixty
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: five percent pre COVID, so anything we can do to help.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: But also if you think about our trade as well,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, this will significantly increase the amount of freight
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: that will come in and out of China but also
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: across to South America as well. It'll also bring down
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: freight prices on air freight prices which you know are
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: pretty high. The other thing which I think people are
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: probably not thinking about, but I'm thinking about as well
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: as our international education. So if you think about South America,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: we want more international students coming from South America. At
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: the moment, there is I saw them a monopoly on flights.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: There's only one company doing it. Now you'll have more,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: so we'll bring that price down of being able to
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: get across from South America. So I'm hoping that we'll
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: also see an increased number of international students out of
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: South America as well.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: All right, minister, let's talk about the weird thing that's
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: happening with the government. So why is any why won't
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: anybody just say, you know, China's not on our visa
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: free list? Right, And I've asked. I asked the Prime
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Minister about this on Monday. I heard him aster about
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: it because he's over in China at the moment, and
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: he won't say why they're not on the visa free list.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Can you just say, categorically, what risk do they pipe?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Why aren't they on there?
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Most countries aren't on a visa free list. The reason
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: we got is because it because there's there's risk with
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: every country. Every country has a certain risk. There's loads
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: of different risks. If you look at China for example, well,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: if you look at China for example, they're our second
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: largest market for asylum seeconds, right, and so there are
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: lots of other countries we have asylum seekers from as well,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: But it's just one of the considerations. But the main
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: thing is also it's a huge piece of work to
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: undertake a big program of looking at whether or not
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: we should make a country visa free, and that would
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: be an immigration piece of work. We are absolutely up
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to our eyeballs and immigration with our work program. There
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: is literally nothing else we can add it and without
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: me taking something else of a huge piece of work.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So I don't have the time to do it. But
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: what I can do is the two things you've seen.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: We worried just so weekly. We're worried that we would
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: be overwhelmed with asylum seekers if we did visa free
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: from China.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: You're putting words into my mouth. I didn't say overwhelmed,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: said that are the second largest country that we have
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: asylum seekers from.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: It's one of the risks, right, But what is the benefit.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: What is the benefit though, because we're still only at
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: sixty percent of pre COVID levels for tourism from China
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: when we're living more than a billion bucks on the
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: table at this point, is it not worth looking at?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Or do we not do we not even want to
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: go there?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I think there are a couple of other things we've
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: done just recently which I think will bring the numbers
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: back that are a lot easier, safer, risk free. If
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: you look at what we've just done recently, we've announced
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: the fact that China, China, these past beholders can come
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: in through Australia visa free. Now we're expecting that to
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: increase tourism numbers by ten to twenty percent. When I
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: say Chinese visitors are back to sixty five percent, that's
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: arrived on sure. The actual figure that's more interesting is
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: eighty five percent of the pre COVID numbers of Chinese
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: visitors have been approved of visa, which means they haven't
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: used it yet because it takes twelve months. They're on
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: their ways. So if you add their eighty five life
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: percent to what we think are going to come to
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Australia plus this, I think we'll be back to We'll
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: be back to pre pandemic numbers as without me having
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: to do months and months and months of work that
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: we don't have time to do. Plice. Also, you know,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I think you have answered the question quite sufficiently. I
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. Thank you, unlike your boss just spat it
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: out anyway, I appreciate you coming on the show. Minister,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: have a great day, Eric still welcome. Thank you, Immigration Minister.
• 4:32
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• 4:35
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• 4:38
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