Peters proposes immigration clamp-down

Winston Peters

New Zealand First is proposing a "flying squad" to search for potentially risky people who might be in the country.

Party leader Winston Peters said it would be called the Immigration Inspectorate and would scan visa applications going back six years.

Creating it is part of New Zealand First's immigration policy, released today.

Under the policy, immigration laws would be changed and a new "undesirables" category created.

Mr Peters said it would ensure "those from dangerous and unethical regimes are red flagged before they get here".

New Zealand would automatically refuse to consider for refugee status anyone with "terrorism-related convictions in other jurisdictions".

The inspectorate would be recruited from outside the Immigration Service and all staff would hold New Zealand citizenship, Mr Peters said.

It would make "random double checks" of past and current visa applications, and also investigate immigration crime and fraud.

Staff who were "corrupt or incompetent" would be weeded out.

Mr Peters has been a persistent critic of the Government's immigration policy, and has recently revealed that visas were wrongly granted to former members of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime.

The Government announced on Tuesday it was carrying out a wide-ranging review of immigration policy, which would take two years to complete.

Mr Peters said today there should be a comprehensive population and immigration policy, and the public should be consulted about it.

"We are at risk of losing our good name and the value of our citizenship," he said.

"In 2005 we struggle to know what a New Zealander really is because over the past 14 years National and Labour have flooded the country with immigrants.

"We are being colonised without having any say in the numbers of people coming in and where they come from."

Mr Peters said his party's population policy would eliminate the Government's "blind commitment" to bring in 45,000 people each year.

Instead there should be 10-year and 25-year plans, based on labour market demands.

"There is a net outflow of just over 18,000 New Zealanders to Australia and elsewhere each year," he said.

"In the same period we are bringing in 19,000 Asian immigrants to New Zealand... it is all part of Labour's ethnic engineering and repopulation policy."

- NZPA