{"id":11281,"date":"2024-09-04T05:19:13","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T17:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=11281"},"modified":"2024-09-04T05:19:13","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T17:19:13","slug":"is-new-zealands-immigration-set-up-to-take-in-climate-migrants-from-the-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=11281","title":{"rendered":"Is New Zealand’s immigration ‘set up’ to take in climate migrants from the Pacific?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pacific Islanders hoping to flee the consequences of climate change and migrate to Aotearoa currently\u00a0need to pay $1385 for the visa application, pass a health test, be under 45, and have a job offer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And they must also be lucky enough to have their name drawn from a ballot.<\/p>\n

World Vision advocacy and research advisor Dr Olivia Yates says Aotearoa’s current immigration settings are not suitable for people migrating for climate-related reasons; termed “climate mobility.”<\/p>\n

“Our immigration is set up to cater more for employment pathways than to address climate mobility.”<\/p>\n

The Pacific Access Category visa provides residency to 500 people from Fiji, 150 from Kiribati, 500 from Tonga, and 250 from Tuvalu annually. Although known as a humanitarian visa, applicants must also be able to read, write, and speak English.<\/p>\n

“The costs associated with securing a visa and setting up a life here are having the opposite effect of humanitarian,” Yates said.<\/p>\n

“Instead of supporting people’s well-being, they’re seeing many Pacific families lose their life savings and sense of dignity.”<\/p>\n

Workers are also at risk of exploitative employment conditions as they need a job to secure a visa. The other available route for migration is a seasonal worker visa.<\/p>\n

Yates has been researching climate mobility in the Pacific for almost a decade. “I began my research back in 2018, and over the past six years, we’ve not actually seen any policy change.”<\/p>\n

Climate mobility from the Pacific was first recognised globally\u00a0during last year’s Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yates said New Zealand was “furiously involved” in the process behind the “pivotal” Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility, with research conducted into the scope, scale and pace of climate mobility from the Pacific to Aotearoa.<\/p>\n

“The Framework is the first time, put down on paper, that people are migrating because of climate-related reasons, and it acknowledges Pacific states need to do something about it to ensure people can migrate through official pathways with security, safety and dignity” she said. However, the framework is non-binding.<\/p>\n

“It means our government is ready to take this seriously. But I wouldn’t say they are taking this seriously yet.”<\/p>\n

rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pacific Islanders hoping to flee the consequences of climate change and migrate to Aotearoa currently\u00a0need to pay $1385 for the visa application, pass a health test, be under 45, and have a job offer. And they must also be lucky enough to have their name drawn from a ballot. World Vision advocacy and research advisor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11283,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11281\/revisions\/11283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}