Winston Peters
More than a third of decisions in May this year concerning Philippines students applying to study in New Zealand were uncovered as fraudulent.
Of 720 decisions Immigration New Zealand made in Manila, a total of 224 were found to have fraudulent documentation.
Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse paints this as a positive of Immigration NZ (INZ) doing a great job investigating the problem.
Graft galore
But this figure will only be the tip of the iceberg; the corruption and fraud begins in the Philippines and elsewhere, and then continues in New Zealand with students being exploited and ripped off as they try to get residency here.
Other information that New Zealand First obtained from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment reveals that in March this year, three offices in China identified 73 cases of fraudulent documentation.
Also, between May 1, 2016, and May 19, 2017, a total of 261 Indian nationals were deported from New Zealand.
These are only the cases that have been identified.
Subsistence and Exploitation
Mr Woodhouse said that the Labour Inspectorate does a great job investigating here in New Zealand but he does not say there are only the pitiful number of 54 officers for the entire country and that a record 226,000 work visas were issued to people from overseas in the past year.
Thousands of them are students who are being exploited but are too afraid to come forward for fear of losing their visas and having to leave the country.
Youth Offenders
Serious youth offenders have been allowed to run amok under National, which is now panicking and pouring $60 million into a boot camp and community groups.
It is in a rush to herd them into the army and hide them, but dog whistling now about boot camps will not save National.
National created this problem by its lack of resourcing for the police and not recognising that many youth go off the rails at school.
For many, school is not the best fit.
New Zealand First would take these youth out of school, before they get into bashing and threatening dairy owners, and give them a chance.
Our Youth Education Training and Employment scheme would put them into paid training in the Defence Force where they would improve their literacy and numeracy and learn a trade.
They would have something to focus on, and would not be wandering the streets looking for trouble. By 18, they would be work ready and valuable to our workforce.
National has had nine years, and all it can do to appease dairy owners and others who have been victims of youth crime is rush out a tired old boot camp idea.
It has already tried boot camps with little success – National has not managed crime and it is run out of ideas.
Had enough?”
Winston Peters is elected Member of Parliament from Northland and Leader of the New Zealand First Party.
