Rt Hon Winston Peters

New Zealand First Leader

Member of Parliament for Northland
12 OCTOBER 2016

Pushing Pause Buttton Not Enough on Parent Migrants

The government has admitted “concerns” about immigrants in the parent category, but has only made a half-hearted attempt to fix it, says New Zealand First.

“They have ‘temporarily’ stopped new applications while they deal with a backlog of way over 2000 applications,” says New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters. “Seventy percent of these are from China, which has recently been the dominant source of applications.

“The National Government brought this influx of parental unification on by naively believing the promises of applicants, and then allowing one country, China, to make most of the applications.

“As a result, the New Zealand taxpayer has been faced with huge costs – hundreds of thousands of dollars per individual – for medical care and other benefits.

“The government has failed spectacularly in trying to tie migrant parents to a financial commitment for their residency.

“The mismanagement of the system has been phenomenal.

“Thirty-one per cent of migrants bringing parents in have abandoned this country and dumped their parents on the New Zealand taxpayer.

“A correspondent told New Zealand First about a couple who came in on the parent category, bought a property and then transferred it to their migrant children who sold it and moved overseas, leaving their parents behind, old, sick and now on a benefit.

“These appalling failures in public policy are unparalleled by the cavalier attitude that some have taken towards it,” says Mr Peters.

ENDS

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