Immigration bill gets priority in drafting

Press, 21 April 1986, Page 14

Immigration bill gets priority in drafting

PA Wellington The Government’s new immigration bill has been given a high priority in drafting and is expected to be introduced to Parliament in the next two months, says the Minister of Immigration, Mr Burke.

Immigration laws are being changed into what Mr Burke describes as a non-discriminatory approach that reflects the 1980 s and respects the rights of New Zealand residents or visitors. The traditional policy of discriminatory immigration has been removed but some of the framework has been preserved in the new draft legislation, he said. The policy guidelines require Immigrants to be under 45 years of age, have an occupational skill or family connections and four children or fewer.

“If you can think of that as being discriminatory, it is,” he said. Mr Burke believes that the most dramatic relaxation of immigration policy that the proposed legislation will achieve is the removal of the preference

given to people from socalled traditional source countries.

At present those who have skills needed under the occupational priority list can come to New Zealand if they are from Germany or Norway but not if they are from Fiji or China.

Jobs such as draughtsmen (architectural), quantity surveyors, and offset printers were recently added to the occupational priority list for immigration but boiler- , makers and engineering technicians were deleted. The list identifies those skills which are in short supply in New Zealand that employers are free to recruit from overseas.

“That, in my view, is probably the most dramatic switch in immigration policy the country has seen for years,” he said.

“We’ve said there is occupational skills we need and we’ll take them from anywhere in the world providing we’re comparing apples with apples. Bearing that in mind we’ve just moved completely to a nondiscriminatory approach,”

Mr Burke said.

The non-discriminatory approach does not include a relaxation in the two quota systems which apply to the Netherlands and Western Samoa.

In spite of some reports the Government was not planning to interfere with the Western Samoan quota system which al-

lows 1100 into New Zealand each year. Mr Burke said that at recent meetings of Pacific Island representatives in Wellington and Auckland, he was able to explain the present proposals and allay fears. No general power of arrest was contemplated for immigration officers.

A few specially-trained and certified officers should have the power to detain, and if necessary arrest, in certain defined circumstances and only in connection with the detection of possible immigration offences. No general power of search and entry was intended either, he said.