The New Zealand government has announced plans to increase transparency in immigration decisions through the creation of an overarching policy statement. The aim is to provide the public with better insight and keep the government accountable. Immigration Minister Michael Wood has said that this would create a “much more stable platform for employers, workers and the public to understand”.
The proposal comes as the government’s interim response to the Productivity Commission inquiry into immigration, which recommended a government policy statement that could also increase accountability. The inquiry found that New Zealand’s productivity growth had been weak, and while immigration was likely not to be the solution to the productivity challenge, it was also not the cause or source of the problem.
The proposed government policy statement (GPS) would set out objectives to show the public the information that the government was considering as it makes decisions that point several years ahead. Wood has said that the policy statement would be similar to the government’s policy statement on transport, which is updated every three years, setting priorities and how funding is allocated in some areas, looking across the next 10 years.
The proposal could potentially take out some of the heat from a debate that at times can become extremely heated, politicized, and sometimes actually damaging. The GPS could also include the country’s absorptive capacity, such as the housing stock or infrastructure ability in managing a greater population of temporary or permanent migrants.
Wood hopes that an immigration-like GPS has the potential to improve public confidence in the immigration system and also “improve the quality of debate about immigration, and lead to better decisions being made as well”. The proposal is expected to be further consulted on and developed in the coming years.
