If only we could take one tenth of the energy we currently expend on worrying about what Ian Foster’s coaching policies are doing to the All Blacks, and feed it into the national grid. We’d be far better off putting some of that energy into worrying about the harms that our current immigration settings are doing to the nation. Forget the World Cup. There’s a far more important global competition going on to attract skilled labour – from nursing staff to the cutting edge workers in Artificial Intelligence – and New Zealand is losing this contest, hand over fist. People who want to come here, and/or want to stay here, are being driven away by the short-sighted chaotic and inhumane approach we take to the granting of permanent residency.

Put simply, we withhold and drip feed permanent residency for skilled workers, while other countries put residency upfront and central to the enticements they offer to attract skilled talent. Other countries realise that foreign skilled workers have put years of study and significant hardship into their careers, during which many have been separated for long periods from their families. They now crave the certainty of knowing when they can be reunited, and where they can make a home. These basic truths seem to elude New Zealand policy makers on immigration.

As a result, talent crucial to this country’s ability to meet both its current needs, and its requirements for future growth, are heading off to the likes of Australia, Canada, Germany and elsewhere. Yes, they’re doing so partly because our experiment in neoliberalism has deliberately turned New Zealand into a high cost and low wage economy. But another significant reason is because of this country’s refusal to make “permanent residency” a ready option for scarce skilled talent.

Nursing staff for instance were inexplicably omitted from the recent Immigration “Green List” of 85 priority occupations earmarked for “fast track” via approval . Many skilled workers who were studying at the time therefore did not qualify for this “one-off” intake of 165,000 migrants between December and July 2022 – a window of opportunity that has now been closed.

This brief concession to reality, although inadequate, had come after New Zealand had virtually shut down the process. In March 2020, the Labour-led coalition government suspended the processing of visas under the Skilled Migrant Category, a decision that at the time left tens of thousands of applicants in limbo – and in effect, robbed them of their circa $3,000 application fees. (These monies were only belatedly returned to many of them years later.) Again, there seems to have been little concern about the reputational damage that this brutally absurd episode had done to the New Zealand brand as a destination location for skilled talent. Anecdotally, I was repeatedly told by international students burned by their dealings with the Immigration Service of the warnings they were giving to people back home: Don’t come here.

This morning, RNZ gave a couple of very telling examples of how we are driving away the people we need. Reportedly, Sandeep Kaur has spent years separated from her two young sons in India while studying for a nursing degree in New Zealand. Because she graduated a few months after the “one-off” fast track period, she couldn’t apply, and her nursing skills – in any case - weren’t on the list of priority occupations.

"I feel really frustrated, I sometimes cry. I did everything to get a good future here, whatever I save I spend it on my study. I'm separated from my kids, it's just really heartbreaking," she said. Kaur and her husband are preparing to move to Australia where she can gain residency quickly and reunite her family. "I really don't want to leave New Zealand because I really love this country. I spent a beautiful six years of my life here."

Another Tauranga nurse, who did not want to be named, said she planned to leave New Zealand for Australia or Canada where she could apply for residency straight away. "It was my dream country to come to at the beginning, but at the end of the day, you have to think about your career as well. I've had enough now. I've waited a long time, I can't wait any more," she said.

Weirdly, Immigation Minister Michael Wood justified to RNZ the further two year wait for visa approval in terms of the need to retain staff.

"The work-to-residence path requires two years' work in the role ahead of gaining residence which supports addressing the shortages, whereas a straight-to-residence pathway would not require any time in the role before a worker could potentially leave.

Ah-huh. So six years of study here still cuts no ice as a sign of commitment to live in New Zealand? And is it considered OK to impose visa conditions that drive away skilled staff, because of an imaginary need to deter them from leaving once they’d gained residency? That makes no sense at all. BTW, RNZ points to the lack of evidence for this paranoid assumption that if we give them residency they’ll only bring in their families and then quickly fly the coop:

The government has repeatedly highlighted retention problems as one of the main reasons nurses should be treated differently under the Green List rules, although just four percent of New Zealand-trained nurses left the profession in 2020.

If more have left since, that may be because of the reluctance to invite them to stay, and not because of bad faith on their part. The pandemic has highlighted how out of kilter immgration policy has been with the needs of the public health system and the aged care sector. Yet the same short-sightedness has been evident in other sectors as well. Ph.d graduates in key sectors – such as A.I.- are also heading elsewhere because of the lack of certainty that their years of study here will count in any way as a path to permanent residency. Contrast the situation here with Australia – for example - and its Global Talent Visa program. It offers 15,000 places annually to skilled applicants. 

Global Talent Officers are in Australia, London, San Francisco, Singapore, Taipei and Washington DC. They promote the program by engaging with prospective applicants, business and industry.

Crucially, the Aussies put the ability to gain residency – the ability to live and work and make a home in Australia – at the forefront of their pitch. As indicated, they also offer a personalised service on the ground in several key recruitment locations offshore, to make this happen as smoothly as possible. While the New Zealand approach is one of grudging suspicion - prove to us that you really, really intend to stay here – the Aussies are doing the opposite. They’re putting out the welcome mat to people with the skills Australia needs, and are using the certainty of being able to live, work and make a home in Australia as a carrot. In fact, permanent residency appears to be almost the only ingredient of this particular Aussie programme for skilled graduates.

Here's how the German Embassy in Wellington is pitching the EU Blue Card, which offers a four year ability to live and work in, say, Germany. The graduate has to have earned their degree in a university of recognised standard, and must have a firm job offer at a certain minimum income level. (A lower pay level is acceptable for those who have trained in occupations in particular demand within Germany.

This is not a permanent residency visa, per se. Reportedly though, the recently elected German coalition government has announced plans to reduce the time legally spent in Germany to five years ( from eight years) before naturalisation applications can be lodged. It also aims to allow for dual citizenship, and has promised to make the whole process of getting residency less bureaucratically demanding. Again… the Germans are relaxing the pre-conditions for residency, and are inviting in skilled talent to live and work in their country.

Unfortunately, New Zealand still seems to be trying to make its mind up about whether immigration policy changes are needed, whether they should be driven by long term government strategy or by short term business need, and whether we can and should afford the infrastructure costs – more and costlier housing? – that having an increase in our skilled migrant workforce might entail. As we dither and tinker, other countries are doing what’s required to attract skilled talent, and make it feel welcome.

Killer of Sheep

For nearly two decades, the black film director Charles Burnett’s 1978 film Killer of Sheep went unseen, because he couldn’t afford to pay the licensing rights for the music heds put on the soundtrack. Burnett finally got the funding 15 years ago, and eventually brought the film to the NZ International Film Festival. His q&a session was a masterclass in how to politely handle a series of stupid questions. One questioner clearly thought the film – a drama about a lower class black family growing up in the Watts area of Los Angeles – was a documentary.

The most spectacular fusions of music and image include the use of Dinah’s Washington’s “This Bitter Earth” for a scene in which the estranged married couple slow dance. The use of Paul Robeson’s spectral “Going Home” in a scene set in the slaughterhouse where the man works is just as striking. This song by Faye Adams though – it was a huge hit apparently on the r& b charts in 1953 – has been a revelation. For the tender of temperament, be re-assured that while there is infinite sadness, there is little gore in the scenes involving the sheep. Faye Adams, BTW, is still alive. She will turn 100 next May 23rd. Above all else though, do try to see Burnett’s movie.

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