The Opportunities Party is proposing a new investor visa aimed at building up a fund to help resettle climate refugees from the Pacific in New Zealand.
Party leader Raf Manji announced the policy this morning on Q+A with Jack Tame.
The proposal would require those seeking a visa to pay $3 million to secure a path to residency, with that money then going into a refugee resettlement fund, as the issue of climate resettlement is forecast to increase in importance in the future.
That contrasts with the existing investor visa, which requires an investment of between $5 million and $15 million depending on the nature of the investment.
Manji said the lower fee partly reflected the fact that those taking it up wouldn't see a direct return on that investment.
"Their return is actually investing in the future of climate impact," said Manji.
"You could look at it as philanthropy, but that's why we pitched it at a slightly lower amount. So it's for people who do have an interest in that – they want a cleaner path to residency and it's something they want to invest in.
"This is a world first, it hasn't been done before, and I think this will be an attractive sell to people who want to move to New Zealand."
Interest in the existing investor visa has waned in the last year, with only 15 applications in 2023 to date.
Manji believes there would be more interest in his party's suggested option.
"A lot of people are coming here because they're worried about climate impacts in their own countries, and they're thinking New Zealand looks like the best place to be, so we're linking those two things up."
The Opportunities Party is running for their third election in a row, having first formed to contest the 2017 election.
Former Christchurch councillor Manji took over the leadership in 2022, to become the fourth party leader after founder Gareth Morgan, economist Geoff Simmons, and interim leader and current candidate Shai Navot.
Manji is running in the Christchurch seat of Ilam, where he came second as an independent in 2017.
Q+A with Jack Tame is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
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