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Transcript

Erica Stanford: Immigration Minister on the new changes to the Accredited Employer Work Visa · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B Follow
• 0:12
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• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Ryan Bridge.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: The government's making changes to the Accredited Employee visa to
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: make it easier for businesses to hire migrants. From March,
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  Speaker 2: the minimum experience requirement and the median wage threshold of
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  Speaker 2: thirty one dollars an hour for skilled migrants will be gone.
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  Speaker 2: The labor market test will also be simplified significantly. Immigration
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  Speaker 2: Minister Erica Stanford is with me tonight's minister. Good evening,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: good evening. How are you very well? Thank you, nice
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: to have you on the program. Is this just going
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  Speaker 2: to be a race to the bottom, then you can
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  Speaker 2: do you know, more more workers coming in, skilled workers
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  Speaker 2: coming in and just pay them whatever you want.
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  Speaker 3: No. And the reason I'm saying no is earlier in
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  Speaker 3: the year we put some things in place to make
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: sure that we're altering this skills mix to more highly
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  Speaker 3: skilled migrants and fewer lower skilled migrants. And the way
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  Speaker 3: that we did that was we said you need to
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  Speaker 3: come in with a certain number of years experience we
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  Speaker 3: said three years, and you need to speak English, which
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  Speaker 3: is actually a good proxy for skill and so any
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  Speaker 3: migrants that are coming in are going to have to
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  Speaker 3: have We've been talking to the few different sectors and
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  Speaker 3: fed farmers in particular, who have set actually two years
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  Speaker 3: skill is a much better workable solution for them, and
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  Speaker 3: we've listened to the sector and said, actually that makes
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  Speaker 3: good sense, and so we've made a few tweaks, but
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  Speaker 3: essentially we are still making sure that New Zealanders are
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  Speaker 3: being put forward first for those entry level jobs because
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  Speaker 3: we know we've got a number of young people coming
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  Speaker 3: out of school who need access into the labor market,
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  Speaker 3: and so those jobs will be available first and foremost.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Four keywis what do you expect that they will be paid?
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  Speaker 2: If the median threshold of thirty one dollars is too high?
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  Speaker 2: What do you expect that these people with two years
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  Speaker 2: of experienced minimum and English will be paid?
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  Speaker 3: Well, they'll be paid at a rate that is commensurate
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  Speaker 3: with their skills and experience, which is what you do
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  Speaker 3: with every key wei worker in this country. The problem
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  Speaker 3: we've had ryan over the last few years under the
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  Speaker 3: previous government, as you've been you know, bringing in low
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  Speaker 3: skilled workers to fill low skilled roles and having to
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  Speaker 3: pay them the median wage, which is paying them more
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  Speaker 3: than the key we standing next to them, and it's
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  Speaker 3: caused huge problems for employers, you know, who've got you know,
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  Speaker 3: their kei workers sitting there doing the same job for
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: and being paid at a lower amount. And so it's really
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  Speaker 3: skewed the market. So there will be you know, when
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  Speaker 3: we're bringing people, and of course immigration officers on the
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  Speaker 3: front line will be looking at what is the you know,
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  Speaker 3: the market rate for someone and knowing that you know,
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  Speaker 3: a migrant is coming in with two years experience, they
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  Speaker 3: would question any employer bringing someone in on the minimum wage.
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  Speaker 3: That would raise a red flag for an immigration officer
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  Speaker 3: on the ground.
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  Speaker 2: Are you worried this will mean businesses choose to hire
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  Speaker 2: migrants over New Zealanders when they might have gone with
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  Speaker 2: the kiwis in the first place.
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  Speaker 3: No, I don't think so, because it is still more
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  Speaker 3: expensive and more cumbersome to bring a migrant into the country.
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  Speaker 3: You have to be accredited, you have to get a
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  Speaker 3: job check, then you've got to go through the visa
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  Speaker 3: process and that takes time. Employers, you know, if and
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  Speaker 3: you will have to hire someone who's got a minimum
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  Speaker 3: level of skills and experience, where if you wanted to
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  Speaker 3: hire a key keywi, it's much quicker, much simpler, and
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  Speaker 3: much more cost.
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  Speaker 2: If you want, why were we doing it in the
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: first place? I mean, they must be better workers than us.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Then oh you'll have to.
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  Speaker 3: Ask that, you know, the previous government why they had
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  Speaker 3: those settings in place. But this is going to make
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  Speaker 3: this is going to mean a lot of business.
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  Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
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  Speaker 1: Though?
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  Speaker 2: If you're an employer and you have to pay the
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  Speaker 2: migrant more than you do the keyw why would you
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  Speaker 2: bother getting the migrant Because you have.
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  Speaker 3: To remember when after after COVID, we had a huge
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  Speaker 3: labor market shortage because everybody left New Zealand and people
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  Speaker 3: were desperate, and it didn't They just got people in
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  Speaker 3: warm bodies, That's what they've said to me. We've got
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  Speaker 3: brought warm bodies in and we had to pay them
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: the medium wage even for doing completely unskilled jobs because
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  Speaker 3: there was just a massive need for it. And it's
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  Speaker 3: massively skewed the market.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Hey, minister, how does it feel everyone saying
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: you're the best Minister of the year and all that
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  Speaker 2: kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 3: Ah, I don't like I don't pay attention to that.
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  Speaker 3: It's a team effort and you know, as you know,
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  Speaker 3: I couldn't do my job without the support of our
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  Speaker 3: incredible Prime Minister.
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  Speaker 2: Ah, there we go, very humble, very humble. What a politician, Eric,
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  Speaker 2: and master tip to you again. Eric is Stanford Immigration
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  Speaker 2: Minister and number one in many's books.
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