 kia whai ka rodia ki te ātu e o Rongarawa. Hē mongerongu ki Rongu ki te Penua. Hē pakaarao pāi kia tātau te kaupapa tangata ti hei mauri ora. Papatonuku e takotamae ki waho. Te nākue. E te whare e whakamahana tia tātau. Te nākue. E ngā mati o nama rai ka to te mutu haire haire haire. E ngā mana, e ngā waka, e ngā reo, te nākoutau, te nākoutau, te nākouta ka toa. Te iwi kainga, te atiawa rangatira, e kaanui tamihi, te iwi ngā rangatira, te nākoroa, te whāna o te kiwi kenec, te nākouta ka toa, e ngā manuhiri o te au, no mai, no mai, haire mae ki autearoa nei. Kia ora, Kia ora nā. Talofa Lava, Mālo i Le Lei, Mālo Nii. Nisa Volavanaka whakalofa lahia tū. Ko Nga Jabiku taku wungoa, te kai whaka hairi o te rātonga manene. Ko Ruhi o Poriroa, e rangatira ko Erika, e ngā whātamari ki e ngā torokotero, e tahi he tama. Hi everybody, I am Nigel Bicol on the head of immigration New Zealand. In the context of what today's all about in terms of New Zealand and New Zealand culture, I wanted to start in the language of our indigenous people, the Māori. I'm not Māori, I'm full-blooded European pākiha, but I think in terms of the New Zealand way, really important to start by addressing you in te reo Māori by way of translation, and I'm hoping in terms of our rangatira at the back, you know, probably not a 10 out of 10 effort, but I hope what I've basically done is firstly acknowledge God, acknowledge the place that we stand, acknowledge the people of this land, and acknowledge all of our ancestors that have gone before us with whom out we wouldn't be here. I've introduced myself obviously as the head of immigration New Zealand, but me as Nigel Bicol, the human being, I told you that I hail from a little place over the hill called Porirua, where I was born and raised and continue to live, which is the tribal area of Ngāti Toa iwi. I'm married to Erika, have four kids, three daughters and a son, and for me, you know, I'm a proud and passionate New Zealander. My mother is a fourth generation New Zealand European. My father was a migrant from Britain in the 1960s, what we colloquially refer to as the 10 pound poms. My wife is Māori, she is Ngāpui from the far north of the North Island from a little town called Kaio, her whānau is the Hickeys, and her father was a Polish refugee that arrived in New Zealand in 1948 after the Second World War. So when I talk to my kids about our stories and migrant stories and look at my kids who are a little bit Polish, a little bit English, a little bit Kiwi, sort of pakiā, a little bit Māori, it's not a unique story in New Zealand because we are a migrant nation. We are a young nation, 175 years old, incredibly multicultural. So the things that you might or might not know, we have the largest flows of people in the OECD. We are the second largest diaspora in the world after Ireland in terms of 25% of New Zealanders living away from New Zealand, which conversely means we're all about attracting others to come on in. Our big export earning services sectors like tourism, international education, big export earning sectors like hort and viticulture, all reliant on sort of migration. We look at New Zealand as it stands today. One in four of our working age population was born overseas. Cities like Auckland are only one international city, second largest migrant city in the world after Vancouver, 43% foreign born. So we are a migrant country and a very multicultural country, but I truly believe born off multiculturalism through a bicultural lens where we're all recent arrivals to New Zealand, but the relationship is underpinned with our tanga te whenua, our Māori that's enshrined in our Treaty of Waitangi. So I guess that's my broad context for then to set I guess the messages that I want to send around immigration. And I guess what I always say is the fact that immigration in New Zealand is a ministry of business innovation and employment and is not part of the Department of Homeland Security or immigration and border protection gives you a sense on which the primary lens we think about immigration in New Zealand. And it's not to say I'm not having a go at the US or the UK, our context is different. We are a small island nation at the bottom of the world, a long, long way away from where all the conflicts happening, a long, long way away from where all of the unprecedented amount of globally displaced people are. And we often think about sometimes these are our challenges, but also the opportunities. We are a small island nation surrounded by treacherous water where the only way to really come and visit us is by plane, so we have some natural advantages in being able to manage some of our immigration risks. But you would have heard from Pete this morning in terms of the New Zealand story, I'm sure you've got a sense of that the current Government, it's all about growing the economy and it's an export-led economic strategy where we are basically really interested in attracting entrepreneurs, capital, the skills that New Zealand needs to grow the economy. And the fundamental mission of my organisation in life is to get the best people that New Zealand needs to prosper. That's our simple mission. And whilst, yes, we have some of the same challenges that overseas governments do around freedom fighters in Syria and threats of illegal migration and transnational crime, the primary lens on which we see the world and immigration is about how can we make sure that our settings facilitate us getting the best people for New Zealand to do well. And it's an emphasis on the broader ministry that I sit in on these purposes to grow New Zealand for all with the emphasis on grow and for all where we want to grow New Zealand. We want to be generating the types of economic value that allows us to continue to be a first-world country that has world-class education and health and welfare systems, but for all is about everyone has to benefit from that economic growth and it can't come at the expense of the environment or our people or in terms of putting them at risk, in terms of going to work, putting them at risk in safety or being exploited by employers. And, you know, that's our emphasis. So I often get that that's not the case of people interacting with overseas immigration services that view the world in a different way. Over the next couple of days, you'll get to meet some of my guys, so Matt Hoskins and Nick and Jen, who work in our sort of skills, entrepreneur capital attraction sort of teams. They're really excited about coming out here and talking with you guys. I think we've enjoyed a fantastic relationship with Matt and Brian and Yosef and Kiwi Connect. The thing that I suppose for me I get really excited about as a New Zealander is that clearly the tech sector is a really important part of our economy. It's probably the fastest growing sector of economy. We care deeply about the creative sector and arts, lots of opportunity there. But I think it's about the alignment of the business opportunity with the alignment of values. And if I replay back, hopefully I was listening, when I met with Matt and Brian and Yosef before Christmas, around what you guys were reflecting is what you truly believe in in terms of a value set. You know, technology's here, sure you make money, but it's here to solve the world's problems. That there is a massive set of opportunities, I believe, in terms of alignment of the opportunities in New Zealand with an alignment of values. We've got a range of immigration products, my one-minute pitch, that can support those of you that are interested from an investment or living and working sort of here in New Zealand. You'll find my team that's incredibly interested and sit down and talk with you over the course of, you know, the rest of the week around how that works. You would have heard this this morning, so I'm not going to repeat the New Zealand story from a business perspective. What I'd say to you is, look, I think we're incredibly proud of the fact that if you believe the World Bank, you know, we're the third-most open economy in the world after Singapore and Hong Kong. We're number one for starting up a business. I think we're number two after Singapore or Hong Kong for the ease of doing business. Whilst it's not perfect, we've got quite a bit of certainty in terms of our regulatory environment. We're incredibly proud of the fact that from a values point of view, we're number one in the world in terms of transparency international. We are a corrupt free government and public sector, which again I just think underscores what we're about as New Zealand. So I want to leave lots of time for questions. So I just want to finish by saying, look, you know, it's always dangerous in government when you say, hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. But we truly are with you guys in this space. You know, Yosef, I've just congratulated for becoming a resident of New Zealand, which is, you know, fantastic. And, you know, continue to be inspired with what you guys are doing to connect in terms of the bridges building the connections that you're making and off a base of, you know, a passionate belief in New Zealand. And it's just, you know, I feel very grateful for that and really, really look forward to my team being able to explore with you both over the course of this week in an ongoing way about how we might support you in terms of pursuing opportunities here in New Zealand. So that's enough from me. So I'll finish and say, kaha, kia maia, kia mana whenui, tina koutou, tina koutou kia ora marae, tata kato. Any questions, comments? My name is Joshua Fouts. I run a 25-year-old non-profit called Bioneers and we're focused on practical solutions for some of the most vanguard issues of the day. Our founders, Kenny Elsobel and Nina Simons are here as well. I was struck by this question and I wanted to ask it to the other representative who was here and I'm also an alum of the US government. I started out at the State Department but I've really viscerally struck by the fact that I've not seen any government with such a progressive stance as the ones you have and while it's kind of of both of you to extend a message of invitation but I feel that the response that's coming out of me is what can we do for you is something really rare and unique about the policies you're implementing about the cultural sensitivity policies that you're working on. I mean, there's nothing like it on the planet and I actually don't see you as remote. I see you on the vanguard more or less on the edge of the world and more leading the world at the tip of the spear. So what can we do for you? Fantastic question because in a very applied way the opportunity over lunch to talk about, I think that to answer your question, I think it's going to be about actually the opportunities for us to collaborate and co-create around if you think about the strategic interests of the New Zealand Government. So we're really interested in attracting capital, entrepreneurs innovating, growing the high end of our economy. So we're going to see the opportunities in terms of the tech sector, technology, whether it's ag, biotech. I think the questions that we are challenging ourselves with is saying we do think we have some relatively good product that our fundamental wiring in Government again, hopefully not drinking our own jungle juice, but that we do believe is that we're probably more business-like than bureaucratic and I think the opportunity comes from saying if we have an alignment of opportunity and values and we can frame up some objectives around so let's be aspirational. If we wanted New Zealand to be the next Silicon Valley, at the next innovative vanguard of how do we attract the entrepreneurs and the start-ups, then how might we co-create the environment to do that, because I think there are some concerns that some of our products or some of them are very good that we might have some gaps. The danger always with the bureaucracy is that we design things from the bureaucracy and I think that there is quite an applied opportunity for us to get the right people out of the ecosystem together with the right people out of Government and actually do some work that says if the aspiration is a truly amazing ecosystem around start-up that supports technology then how do we design that together? So that would be the way I answered that and basically a commitment. I think the task that Yosef's agreed to is we've got a big opportunity in a few weeks' time where we're having these conversations with the Prime Minister and the front-bench of Government and I think the opportunity to start to say what does some of the innovation start to look like in the space, what are some of the big opportunities but to do that in a way where I don't think it will be successful unless we can find a way of co-creating it with you guys. You shouldn't tell from my accent on my Kiwi. This is a Kiwi question because what worries me a little bit on what you're saying is where is the partnership in this for us? These people came in and might be great, might be doing great things. What is the beneficial aspect to the resident party? We only have to go back to Treaty of Waitangi and Maori and what Maori saw when they saw wealthier, more skilled, more lots of assited people came into this country in the 19th century and they thought they had a good deal there for a while until they saw a lot of downsides to that. Right? And I'm sure you're aware that we're the most open economy in the world apart from places like Hong Kong and Singapore and say, well, there's a downside to being really open. What do you see as the protections in terms of the partnership with us is this is going to increase the educational opportunities for New Zealanders, the upskilling of New Zealanders or are we going to get displaced? That's the argument, isn't it? I'd be reliant on your comments in terms of how to use to yourself balancing up, trying to encourage people who will be helpful to New Zealand and what sort of life or whatever and how does that help the people already here? So, I guess I'll start with the narrative and the underpinning logic is and some facts. What we know now is that in terms of, if I start from immigration's primarily we view from an economic lens but not exclusively. So, I think the other things that we're proud of as New Zealanders is, as a small country we punch above our weight in most things, whether it's sport or science or business but we pride ourselves on for a country that's smaller than most international cities the role that we play as an international citizen. So, we do a bunch of things in immigration from a humanitarian point of view so I think we're proud that we run what's recognised as the best refugee sort of programme in the world. We only take 750 a year but we've taken tens of thousands since the 1950s and have a strong commitment to doing our bit in the humanitarian space that we have a unique relationship with Polynesia in particular in terms of our historical and deep roots with Polynesia. But some facts, we know that in terms of migration it contributes a net economic $3.2 billion to the economy over New Zealand sort of citizens the tension that always needs to exist in immigration is the one that you're saying. Are we so open that we're letting migrants coming in that are taking away the work opportunities for New Zealand New Zealanders to work for New Zealand kids coming out of University and that's the bit where you've always got a design to get right. I think in this space the fundamental underpinning is if we attract the right entrepreneurs we do this in a way that's aligned with what we stand for as a set of values as the net contribution to the country in terms of the jobs and opportunities that generate to benefit all New Zealanders as I think the design principles because that is the underlying tension that always exists in the immigration space. So if I can make it real, a story that I tell that I'm pretty passionate about horticulture and viticulture sectors in New Zealand really important part of our economy what earns us export dollars 10 years ago we had situations where Kiwis were either busy doing other things but we had massive labour shortages fruit-dying on trees a lot of employers employing migrants illegally, not very good practices out actually on vineyards and orchids and what have you. We now have a situation where we have 9,000 Pacific Islanders coming to New Zealand every year for seven months of the year to work for employers in horticulture. What we know and seen firsthand is that it's made a massive difference back in the small island nations so in terms of real money going back, no bureaucracy involved like trade programs start-up of micro-enterprise making a huge difference there. What do we know for New Zealand? We know that whilst there are 9,000 workers coming in and doing that there is a less percentage of foreign nationals employed in horticulture and viticulture now than there was when we started this thing nine years ago that sorting out the supplier productive labour those employers have invested capital to grow their business and we've got more New Zealanders employed in those sectors now than ever before what they're not doing is picking the apples and chopping the asparagus they've got the supervisory jobs, the admin jobs the jobs in the pack house and you say, I think that's what we're always trying to do is how do you design this thing at a macro level that doesn't undercut sort of kiwis, doesn't suppress wages and deny opportunity but getting it right in a way that can grow the overall economy that creates more opportunities that benefits all New Zealanders is the way that I would answer and we don't always get it right but that's the way I think that we have to continue to frame how we think about our immigration policies and products. Thanks very much for the great insights into immigration, I think it's something that I've certainly discussed a lot and just a question and reference really to the situation in Christchurch and a policy that I imagine you know well of and this idea from one of the councillors in Christchurch about a wee generation entrepreneurship visa where somebody arrives but they're at the lower end of the spectrum in terms of their financial capital and I'm just wondering do you see any sort of space for something like that around the very entrepreneurial mindset coming into the country in large numbers and given the opportunity to create something and if something is created great if not maybe they go back to where they came from I just wanted your comments generally broadly on that and yeah So what I'm hoping that Yosef might do over the course of a few days having all of you create of entrepreneurial technologists in the room is that's what we were talking about over lunch you know like if we were going to really innovate and create some products that went to entrepreneurship what might that what might that look like and we're probably in terms of our current products got some some sort of gaps around entrepreneurship in that way and that's where I think there's the opportunity to do a bit of innovating and co-creating around saying well if we were interested in that regard or you know truly believing that New Zealand could be some form of the next generation Silicon Valley or really attracting you know the entrepreneurs and start up what might that look like and you know I don't know what they might look like but I know that in terms of an alignment with what this government's all about in terms of wanting to attract capital wanting to attract entrepreneurs in a way that's of net benefit you know what is a partnership I mean it's got to work from you guys from a business perspective but also continuing to grow the economy and the opportunities that you know exist going forward then you know basically my message is all ideas you know all ideas welcome and you know I believe that we could actually do some co-creation in this space Other questions Kia ora I had a wonderful time up at Waitangi a few weeks ago camping out in the Lower Marae area and hello and also was at an event run by some of the independent pākehā who were invited in to listen to the Nāpuhi hearings and re-learned, re-understood our history and I wonder what the role is and could be of Immigration New Zealand and Education about the Treaty and about what it is now and what it might be Yeah I mean you know big questions about this in relation to the New Zealand population let alone the sort of migrant one but you know I think at a pragmatic sort of level some of what this looks like in the best space and this is probably a slither of what we do is I think about you know all 750 refugees that come to New Zealand every year they start off in Mangere in South Auckland at our refugee centre I think the work that we've done with the local iwi when Ngāti Fātua about the role that Ngāti Fātua play in terms of you know everyone arrives in Mangere with a Pōhiri Ngāti Fātua involved in the six week orientation around what it means to be in New Zealand is probably what it looks like at best I think the one of the big challenges for us and being very frank with you I mean I'm not sure how the conversation will go with ministers in a few weeks time is saying one of the things that you know we're a long way from perfect yeah whilst I think we've got a great New Zealand story and I passionately believe as a New Zealander that you know we have a strong bicultural base which our multi-cultural society operates on there are things that I know about you guys but you know I'm sick of some of the problems that we talk about around you know multi disproportionate and this, that and the other thing is that in my most optimistic I think that I think there are opportunities for us to do sort of more in the space around what it means to be a New Zealander and from a fundamental bicultural lens and the role of you know the treaty in that and people's understanding around it don't know what it necessarily sort of looks like. I think that the opportunities was the Māori economy worth now $40 billion in terms of the assets that are stewarded by Māori I think that there are opportunities in terms of some different ways of thinking about the space that one of the things that we challenge ourselves from a Ministry of Business perspective is that you know often the frame in government is all these problems that need to be solved with Māori. I actually think that has to be tipped on its head around and I think there are fantastic things going going on but you know what's the opportunities to start to sort of leverage and work in partnership with Māori who in terms of an economic base of $40 billion in growing and I guess Peter you'll talk about some more of this in a more intelligent way than I will sort of sort of shortly but to answer your question I think that there's a lot of scope to do a lot of scope to do some things better and differently. I actually have a question for you Tunae Jill. When you talk about economic development and economic prosperity and aligning values sort of one of the challenges we come across is way of measuring value within an economic development paradigm so in even immigration perspectives there's the investor one visa where the way of measuring the value somebody brings is in dollar amounts while there are people who could add so many different ways of values and also when you talk about people who are coming with alignment or certain values how do you go about balancing those too and what are some of the ways that you're quantifying or measuring that? So at a broad level the way that immigration systems work and it's not that different from the international context is ultimately you're trying to have settings that you're confident that you're going to get benefit economically and socially from the migration programs that you run that's generally fundamentally about health and the character of people that are coming into the country. I think the question about how do you define economic values is quite a tricky one again in an applied way I'd say if I think about the conversation over lunch and the opportunities that exist in the entrepreneur spaces a bit of co-creation that sort of says well if you really wanted to create an entrepreneur product that went to New Zealand having an ecosystem that attracted some of the best but you also accepted that part of that is going to be you're going to get some failures some things that don't work I think it's how do you start to co-create and design that from a shared set of objectives and values and I don't think there's a misalignment there but the value questions are really difficult one to get right I mean to give you an example this is at the sort of lowest skill end of New Zealand at the moment one of the things that we're grappling with is saying and these are difficult things to grapple with we've got increasingly migrants that are in New Zealand on a temporary basis doing jobs and sectors and regions of our economy so you take the dairy sector for example so I just can try to keep this evidence based on no emotion here but just the things we're grappling with 10 years ago migrants earned 3% of wages in the dairy sector today they earned 13% of wages in the dairy sector we have increasing cohorts of people predominantly from the Philippines working as dairy herd managers and assistant herd managers that are here as almost permanent temporary migrants because the way that we define value which is about your qualifications and the wages you earn say well you've got no way to stay in New Zealand permanently and increasingly we're saying do we need to redefine how we view value but they're very difficult things to get right and whole of government sort of system so probably not answering your question but they're very difficult very difficult to do I think the best way that we have to do that though is again about saying well where do we have alignment in terms of our objectives and how might you design this thing as best you can to be confident that what you're going to get out of this is net benefit for those that are involved those coming here for the government in terms of doing this and in a way that protects ultimately what is the New Zealand story because I think the thing without being naive the thing that keeps me a little bit awake at night is how much of all the positive New Zealand story and the general social licence that we have around immigration is by good luck, good design or when something really goes wrong with immigration will we be any different from the US or the UK or Australia where we think we've got a deep social licence and people positively view migration actually something goes wrong and it's in the public domain you scratch the surface how real is that that social licence so it's one that you just have to be so careful about when you design your settings both for the country but also what you're holding out is the promise and what you're selling to those that you're trying to you know basically attract to the country One last question So I'd love to know a little bit more about the situation with the vineyards I understand that you actually provide transport and temporary immigration from a specific island of people that come because that's a particular skillset in California we struggle with this as well because we have leaky borders but we don't have enough people to do typically agricultural work that it's the lowest in the pay scale and the economics only work because that's what happens but I'm curious how you manage it here if you're actually inviting immigrants in and providing housing but the detail around that and how it works out economically would be important to know So I think you can provide you a lot of detail on that at a high level I think one of the things that we're incredibly proud of is that this program in the horticulture and viticulture sector is that it's underpinned by really good evidence and research and I think the things that make it work is it truly is a circular temporary migration program where we have 9,000 workers coming in many of them are return workers we've worked and invested heavily in the relationships with the Pacific Island sort of governments around all the work that goes in terms of selecting them bringing them to New Zealand the part of the social contract with employers is you guys have to pay half the year fares you have to meet all the pastoral care standards in terms of accommodation hours you have to pay above minimum sort of wage but in return what you do get is certainty around the supply of productive labour that has given those employers confidence then to get on and start to make investments in their business so we talk about it as triple one so the fact is we know as the World Bank describes it as the best aid program in the world because it involves no bureaucracy it's real people earning real money taking real money back home making differences in their own villages starting micro enterprise here it's created the confidence for those sectors to invest and grow and get bigger and where there has been virtually no jobs for Kiwis and more Kiwis are working than ever before in those sectors but in the more year round jobs in terms of supervisory administration so we think that it's pretty much the main features of the program I think the other thing that again if I'm plugging a New Zealand story in a very applied way I think that the things that we never imagined when we designed the scheme that would happen in terms of the deep relationships that now exist between employers and some of those Pacific Islands, the villages a number of employers that are up their three, four times a year that are honorary chiefs in villages some of the social connection so you look at the top of the South Island, Malbra, Nelson that again without being too stereotypical you'd characterise as probably you know, it's where some of the skin-ead groups are probably most flourished in parts of the South Island where you actually have the communities coming together to celebrate the start of the season and the arrival of all their RSE workers churches getting together into denominational church meetings to celebrate the start of all of our workers arriving again so I think it's not just been the economic benefits it's been the sort of social benefits and the relationships that it's fostered both in communities and the relationships with Pacific Island nations and it's probably I don't know what makes it work in the New Zealand context, we've had Australia trying to do this for seven or eight years because they've got the same problem we've had senior Australians over on to comment but for whatever reason can't seem to make it work in Australia and of course the US for the reasons that you outlined probably a bigger set of challenges than we have in that the only way to us is actually on a plane so we've probably got some natural advantages Well Langell thank you very much for giving us a sneak peak view of what it means to be with immigration and for sharing all your thoughts and vision thank you