BY PHILIP FERGUSON
CHRISTCHURCH — New Zealand's Labour government has rushed through new immigration restrictions. The Immigration Amendment Bill and Immigration Amendment Bill (No. 2) were introduced into parliament on the evening of July 1 "under urgency" and pushed through that night.
In the past, 27,000 of the 45,000 immigration places set by the government were under the skilled/business category. Within this, most people applied under a general skills section. They paid a fee and were then assessed for particular skills, their age, job offers in New Zealand, and so on. They were allotted points for each attribute. In recent years, the number of points necessary has been raised.
While some immigration consultants are peeved at having their niche market undermined, New Zealand capitalists have welcomed the changes. Business New Zealand chief executive Simon Carlaw has praised the new system as a major improvement, adding, "Clearly there has been a mismatch for too long between what businesses have been searching for, and what the immigration process has been providing", Carlaw told the July 2 Christchurch Press.
The new regulations scrap the general skills category and take away the right of any person to apply for residency in New Zealand and be entitled to assessment. Anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people currently awaiting for assessment will be denied entry and basically told to push off. In case any of them might challenge this in court, the government has abolished the right to appeal such immigration decisions in court.
The government's new regulations strike down a High Court ruling which went against a previous immigration policy decision. Indeed, the government can now cancel or reject any applications under any category and not be challenged in court. The new laws also come on top of tighter English language requirements introduced by Labour last year.
Future immigrants will have to go through intensified medical, "character" and English-language tests. They will be tested for their employability and whether they have the kind of attributes the government desires among the citizenry. In a new skills category, people will need a job offer that the government specifically approves. People wanting to settle in the rural and regional areas will also be favoured over those wanting to live in the major metropolitan areas.
Immigration minister Lianne Dalziel describes the July 1 changes as the most significant in a decade. If that is the case, why were the bills introduced without prior notice and the most draconian 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ introduced without being examined by a parliamentary select committee, let alone any serious opportunity for public debate? (There will be a select committee to discuss the broader aspects of immigration overhaul in the first bill.)
However, the denial of any opportunity for public discussion and debate, along with the removal of the right of legal appeal, fits in well with the authoritarian — indeed, viciously anti-democratic — outlook of the Labour government's leaders.
It's not hard to work out who these changes will impact upon most. As journalist David McLoughlin noted in the July 2 Press, "[Dalziel's] changes are most likely to affect new applicants from such countries as India and China, who have trouble finding work relevant to their skills, even if they meet stricter English language tests ... imposed last year."
In motivating the bills, Dalziel even used pie charts showing that a third of those offered residency between the middle of 2002 and March 2003 came from India and China and that these had usually been in the general skills category.
The concentration of immigration policy in the government's hands and the removal of the right of court appeal is reminiscent of the 1920 Immigration Restriction Act, which removed immigration, especially relating to Chinese entrants, from the public domain and concentrated it in the hands of a government minister. That legislation was the final, crowning glory of the "White New Zealand" policy.
Needless to say, the Labour Party vigorously supported that law and the White New Zealand policy in general. It was also a Labour government that began the raids on workers from the Pacific islands in the early to mid-1970s that culminated, under the following conservative regime, in mass harassment, arrests and deportations of Pacific island workers.
Just last year, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark apologised to Chinese New Zealanders for the "White New Zealand" policy of the late 1800s/early 1900s and its imposition of a poll tax exclusively on Chinese immigrants. This new legislation shows just how much that apology was worth.
[Philip Ferguson is an editor of the New Zealand-based magazine Revolution and a founder-member of the Anti-Capitalist Alliance.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 30, 2003.
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