Erica Stanford

You would have heard me in the media talking about it and, you know, of course, riling up some of those on the left, saying that I'm heartless.

But actually, if you are coming to New Zealand, we expect you to behave and abide by the conditions of your visa.

And if you don't, you're out.

No, and I was very careful and worked with Todd McClay to help set the mandate very carefully to make sure that what we were doing was beneficial to New Zealand, which is why you see

The bulk of those 5,000, like 90%, are those high-skilled green list workers.

There is a small handful of what we call iconic occupations.

We did it with the China FTA as well.

And there's a handful of them.

Typically, out of the Chinese one, I looked at the stats the other day, we don't fill most of those.

So the Chinese herbalists and the acupuncture, we don't fill hardly any of those roles.

We do fill the chefs because there's quite a high demand for chefs.

There has to be a job offer for them.

It has to be a proper job that is paid well.

And so you tend not to get those categories filled, but it is an important part to get these across the line so that we can get our exports out.

Oh, look, I don't know the answer to that question.

I don't think it's probably wise for me to answer it.

But what I do know is that what Labour did in their last term of government with RV21, with the mass migration programme, with no skill, no English language, no health checks, just if you're in the country, welcome to New Zealand, and if your family's overseas, bring them in, which put enormous pressure on our health system, our education system, our infrastructure, that plus labour.

hey, let's open the floodgates after COVID and don't worry about actually properly verifying things.

People are now feeling that.

There is a lag effect of the hundreds of thousands of people that labour allowed across the border without proper checks.