Retirement visa plan draws flak

Allowing rich people to retire to New Zealand will create costs on the health system, Labour's immigration spokesman Pete Hodgson said today.

The Government has announced two new retirement visas -- temporary retirement and parent retirement.

The parent retirement category allows Immigration New Zealand to prioritise high net worth individuals who are already seeking to migrate to New Zealand under the Family Category.

The temporary retirement category creates a two-year permit for people who want to spend some of their retirement in New Zealand, provided they invest here and indemnify the government against possible health and welfare costs.

Parent retirement visa holders will be required to invest a minimum of $1 million in New Zealand over four years, whereas temporary retirees will need to invest $750,000 over the two-year term of their permit.

Temporary retirees will be able to renew their permits as long as they continue to meet criteria including investment funds, income and health insurance.

Mr Hodgson said the idea of a retirement visa was dismissed as an expensive mistake more than 10 years ago.

He said an August 1999 report warned the then associate immigration minister Lockwood Smith that a proposed retirement visa for cash scheme was unworkable, so he rejected it.

"But now (Immigration Minister) Jonathan Coleman has decided to proceed anyway, even though the risks of the scheme will be the same today as they were 10 years ago. These include 'significant risks' that visa holders would have to receive at least some of their healthcare in the public system. The possibility of lobby groups forming in response, and the possibility of no health insurance being available were all identified as risks," Mr Hodgson said.

"The report estimated that the likely costs to the public health system would be $580,000 per annum (in 1999 dollars or $757,396 in today's money) for every 100 retirement visa holders.

"It said that the experience in Australia had been unsatisfactory even though they required the visa holder to transfer $A500,000 to Australia."

Meanwhile Dr Coleman said the Government was keen to pull more migrant investors after changes to the rules last brought in $18m, with another $51m possibly on the way.

The Government relaxed the rules last year.

Now investors with $10m can get residency in three years without any English skills or business experience and no age limit.

They have to remain in the country for a fifth of every year.

These criteria changed from the previously required $20m investment, for residency in four years, with four years' business experience.

Migrants willing to invest $1.5m now also get residency though they have to meet language, age, and business experience requirements. These criteria are also set at a lower threshold than previously.

Since the changes six investors under the $1.5m category had invested $18m and 19 more applicants had been approved with $51m of investment.

Of those 19, 18 were in the $1.5m and one was in the $10m plus category.

Dr Coleman said since the changes there had been 99 expressions of interest by prospective migrant investors.

Before the changes in 2009 there had been 23 migrant investments since 2007 with three applicants under the old $20m investment category, though one of them had invested $120m.

Since 2005 there had been a significant drop off in business migration investment due to high investment expectations and stronger English language requirements.

Dr Coleman said the 99 applications was a sign the policy changes were working.