Labour waited until New Zealand’s health system was on its knees before finally adding 32 further healthcare professional roles to the Green List fast track, National’s Immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford says.

“National has been calling for more health professional roles to be added to the Green List fast track for months. Last year, I wrote to then-Health Minister Andrew Little and Immigration Minister Michael Wood asking for more healthcare workers to be added.

“The healthcare sector has been calling on these changes to be made for nearly a year – instead, Labour thought it was more important to fast track food technologists and multimedia specialists to New Zealand.

“It shouldn’t take the sector a year of lobbying for a minister to make simple changes that were clearly necessary to everyone.

“Labour didn’t even add nurses and midwives to the Green List fast track to residence until December last year despite repeated calls from the sector. Australia added nurses to the Green List fast track a year ago.

“You only have to look at our health system to see it is in crisis – emergency wait times have exploded and people are waiting months to see specialists and have surgery.

“Despite this, Labour has spent the last year gaslighting New Zealanders and telling them that the health sector is coping, despite every shred of data saying the exact opposite.

“Labour’s arrogance and slow decision making has meant these workers will not be here in time for winter, despite what the Health Minister has disingenuously claimed.

“Labour’s own stubbornness and failure to listen to the health sector means that New Zealanders are failing the get the healthcare they need and deserve.

“National would have opened up New Zealand’s immigration settings for the health workers months ago and focused on funding and supporting front-line staff.”

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