New Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says a long-standing rule to reject immigrants who pose a significant cost to New Zealand's health system "seems heartless" but is part of the "balancing act" involved with migration.
Currently, immigrants can have their residency application rejected if officials determine that their health conditions could burden the health system in the long run.
The threshold for what counted as a "significant cost" increased from $41,000 to $81,000, over a five-year period, under the previous Labour government.
HIV and AIDS were also removed from the list of medical conditions counted.
People classed as burdening the health system have been deported or forced to leave New Zealand in the past - some of whom had been children split from their families.
Labour faced calls to ditch the system entirely. Advocates have long wanted the system gone, with the rules being derided as "inhumane", "ableist", and inconsistent with New Zealand's commitment to upholding UN conventions for disabled people.
Speaking to Q+A, Stanford was asked today whether the long-standing system, based around economic value, was consistent with Kiwi values.
"I know that it seems heartless, but actually, what is the purpose of Immigration New Zealand? The purpose of the [Immigration] Act is to make sure that we're putting New Zealanders first," the minister said.
"I accept that might sound heartless, but there has to be a point where we say - with a burden on the health system, with the system at the moment, that is not sustainable."
She said: "We've got an overburdened health system, an ageing population, and we're very stretched. We don't have enough GPs, we don't have enough nurses.
"We all know the situation that we're in with our health system."
Experts in the field have warned New Zealand's health system has come under increasing pressure - some say reaching crisis levels - in recent years.
The Immigration Minister was asked by interviewer Jack Tame: "If people can enrich our country in other ways, and when you measure someone's value strictly in economic terms, there's an immovable bar, then I suppose that says something about our values?"
Stanford responded: "It's a balancing act, because we could shift and say: 'Look our values say this, and let's shift this bar right up'.
"Then immediately, we have a huge impact on the health system, and then we have New Zealanders saying: 'Well, I can't get into these services'.
"And so it is a balancing act. In a perfect world with a health system that can cope with all of it - absolutely. But unfortunately, we're not in that situation."
In November, the advocacy group Migrants Against the Acceptable Standard of Health called on the new government to end a "system that continues to discriminate against migrants and families based on disability or health conditions".
The rule is splitting families, even forcing residents with NZ-born children to leave. (Source: 1News)
Group spokesperson Áine Kelly-Costello said: "The migration measures the Government has agreed to focus on making it easier for some migrants to work in Aotearoa.
"However, as migrants with disabilities and health conditions and their family members, we know that treating migrants as units to be measured in their economic productivity is a recipe for exploitative and dehumanising work conditions.
"We are all human beings with inherent value and we call on this government to treat all migrants as such."
Net migration levels 'unsustainable' in the long run
The Immigration Minister was also asked about her thoughts on recent net migration figures released by Stats NZ, covering the 2023 calendar year.
When asked if net migration of 126,000 people last year was sustainable, she said: "It's not a sustainable number. But I think you need to look at it in a broader context. We have had an unprecedented time with Covid, where literally the country emptied out.
"I think in 2021, we had a negative net migration of about 15,000. You need to look at it in that context, and not catastrophise. We certainly cannot have 126,000 every year, but we do need to look back and say it is a bit of recuperation migration - they call it that in Australia, and every other country's in the same boat. There's part of that going on.
According to Stats NZ, 245,600 migrants arrived in the country in the year to October. (Source: 1News)
"The other really important thing to note is that we don't have people to leave. All of these people were bringing in - their visas are for two, or three years.
"They haven't started to expire yet. Under normal circumstances, you would have people leaving and people coming in.
"We're seeing part of this high net migration is the fact that people aren't leaving yet. I did note though in December, we are starting to see more people leave.
"I can see that net migration is starting to shift - people are starting to leave and we're going to get that equilibrium back. But in the long term, is this sustainable? No, it's not."
Later in the interview, Stanford said she had directed officials to begin looking into a potential National Policy Statement relating to immigration and population - however, that it was "very early days".
"It's very early days. I've sent my officials away to start work on that," she said.
"What I want it to do is give us a planning framework, understand what our absorptive capacity is, and make sure that our hospitals, our schools, our infrastructure, are working with immigration so that we have better long-term planning."
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of NZ On Air
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