Buzz from the Beehive
The government’s immigration policies have come under heavy fire in recent weeks, even though the shortages of key workers — nurses for example — have become acute.
One response to the critics – included among the latest Beehive announcements – is something the government is calling its “Immigration Rebalance strategy”. But one flaw quickly becomes obvious.
More of that later.
For now, let’s note that the Immigration Rebalance strategy is vying for media attention, analysis and debate along with
- The latest ministerial bragging about benefits continuing to fall;
- A message to the biggest polluters that they will have to do more to help meet climate targets because of changes the government is making to decade-old settings (these settings “have allocated far too many free climate pollution credits to New Zealand’s largest emitters”, Climate Change Minister James Shaw said);
- The launch of the country’s first nationwide tsunami evacuation map (perhaps to heighten our anxieties as we increasingly observe the impacts of climate change around the world);
- The provision of $179m of government funding to seven centres around the country for groundwork infrastructure such as pipes and roads that will enable over 8,000 new homes to be built;
- A speech from the PM to the Local Government New Zealand conference (our team is struggling to find nuggets of hard news in the contents).
Point of Order 