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New Kiwi immigration minister praises successful immigration policies
| Published: | 1 Mar at 6 PM |
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Following a surprise shuffle of the New Zealand government’s cabinet ministers, new immigration minister Michael Woodhouse praised the department’s new initiatives.
Former minister Nathan Guy was replaced by Woodhouse in mid-February, with his first official occasion taking place in Christchurch where he gave a speech to the city’s New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment. Although, he said, he had nothing new to report, he reassured listeners that Immigration New Zealand was working efficiently.
According to the new minister, the time taken to process visitor and work visas has fallen by 50 per cent, and the wait for student visas is now 75 per cent less than a year ago. Customer satisfaction, he added, has risen from 70 per cent in 2009 to 87 per cent last year.
He expects that the recently-introduced Global Management System and the Global Service Delivery Module would reduce waiting times still further. As to Christchurch’s pressing needs for engineering and construction workers for its rebuild, he reassured listeners that Christchurch visas for overseas workers would be rushed through, once checks had established there was no local demand for the jobs on offer.
Concerning the acute skills shortage in the Canterbury region, he reassured employers that sufficient training schemes for skills on the list would be set up for local people. International student numbers, he revealed, had risen considerably since the permitted working hours on student visas had been doubled, although he noted that illegal workers anywhere in the country would be hit with the full force of the law.
Former minister Nathan Guy was replaced by Woodhouse in mid-February, with his first official occasion taking place in Christchurch where he gave a speech to the city’s New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment. Although, he said, he had nothing new to report, he reassured listeners that Immigration New Zealand was working efficiently.
According to the new minister, the time taken to process visitor and work visas has fallen by 50 per cent, and the wait for student visas is now 75 per cent less than a year ago. Customer satisfaction, he added, has risen from 70 per cent in 2009 to 87 per cent last year.
He expects that the recently-introduced Global Management System and the Global Service Delivery Module would reduce waiting times still further. As to Christchurch’s pressing needs for engineering and construction workers for its rebuild, he reassured listeners that Christchurch visas for overseas workers would be rushed through, once checks had established there was no local demand for the jobs on offer.
Concerning the acute skills shortage in the Canterbury region, he reassured employers that sufficient training schemes for skills on the list would be set up for local people. International student numbers, he revealed, had risen considerably since the permitted working hours on student visas had been doubled, although he noted that illegal workers anywhere in the country would be hit with the full force of the law.
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