OELA Newsline: The Politics of Immigration

OELA Newsline: The Politics of Immigration: "Angela Gregory reports on New Zealand's proposed four-year probationary period for new immigrants, who would have to meet good-conduct requirements to gain permanent residency. David Besley, a former chairman of the Association for Migration and Investment, says the policy is off-putting and said all the political parties demonstrated degrees of negativity about immigration at election time. Beasley was particularly critical of the English language requirements as he knew of people who ran worldwide businesses who did not speak a word of English. The association's current chairman, Marcus Beveridge, was equally dismissive of the English language tests which he said had all but killed off the lucrative migrants interested in coming under the business and investor categories. What is more, Mark Tarrant, a New Zealand immigration lawyer based in Australia, said National's policy was foolhardy. 'There is no way if I was a migrant coming from the UK that I am going to uproot my family to come to New Zealand for a provisional visa. Mr. Tarrant said migrants in Australia had to meet English-speaking requirements to a vocational level, but New Zealand demanded University Entrance-equivalent English."