Joyce denies double-standard as Indian students face deportation

Indian students may be deported over fraudulent visa applications while Filipino dairy farm workers in a similar situation were allowed to apply to stay, but Economic Development and Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce denies there’s a double standard.

Mr Joyce says he doesn’t know how many students could be in New Zealand fraudulently, but it could be hundreds.

NZQA says 11 private training establishments are currently under investigation, but Mr Joyce says that isn’t unusual.

He is ignoring Winston Peters' criticism over the Indian student controversy, but won’t rule out adjusting immigration targets in order to form a government with New Zealand First after the next election.

RAW DATA: Patrick Gower interviews Economic Development and Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce on The Nation.

Patrick Gower: International education — that’s foreign students coming here to study. It is one of our biggest export earners. A $3 billion — yes, a $3 billion — industry. Our fifth biggest, just behind wood. It brings in more money than wine or seafood. More money than them put together, actually. And the government has said it wants it to get even bigger, until it brings in $5 billion every year. But there is an ugly side as well. Corruption and exploitation. Steven Joyce is the tertiary education minister and also the minister of economic development. He joins me now in the studio. Now, Minister, I want to start with a case study — a guy that I’ve been talking to. Pays a million rupees, about $23,000, $17,000 in fees. Comes out to New Zealand, arrives here, does his course, gets his job at Dominos, working there, and then one day Immigration New Zealand comes to him and says, ‘Hey, you came through a corrupt agent. We’re deporting you.’ Now, whose fault is it? Is it the student’s or is it our system that let him get all the way out here?

Steven Joyce: Ultimately, the responsibility is with the student. They have to make a declaration that all the information that they supplied to New Zealand is correct. They make that declaration when they submit their visa applications, and, yes, they get agents to advise them, but it is squarely and clearly the responsibility of the student. Now, we obviously want the agents to behave themselves well, and we know that some agents haven’t been behaving themselves. So we’ve tightened up the rules recently. We put in new requirements in the code of practice that providers must be accountable for their agent’s behaviour. But when it comes down to it, it’s the student’s declaration that they’ve supplied information that’s correct, which is what Immigration goes on.

But what happens if these students, like all of them tell us, all of them say it was the agent, ‘The agent tricked me’?

Well, of course, with the greatest respect, you would say that. There’s 125,000 students come to New Zealand every year. Most of them come in the right way, do it the right way and stay and have a successful time. Unfortunately there’s always some, and the Indian market in particular—

These ones that we’re not stopping from India are all coming through the Mumbai office. You know a lot about it, but for the people watching out there, the amount of work that it does — 34,000 student visas processed there in the last 18 months; 17,000 granted. It’s huge.

It is very significant.

And there are huge numbers of corrupt agents pushing huge numbers of false students into this country. How many do you think have got in?

Well, actually, it’s a problem everywhere in the Western world. So let’s start at the beginning.

But—

No, just give me a minute. Give me a minute, because I’ll just give the background to it. India is now the biggest market in the world for young people wanting to study offshore. The Australians, the UK, the Canadians, the US, ourselves all have challenges because of some of the corruption that occurs in India. So the numbers you gave, I think, are quite instructive, because what it says is about 40-odd per cent of all visa applications are turned down because of the risks that come with it. Now, Mumbai is a big office, but actually, so is Beijing. So are some of the other offices around the world that we work. Chinese market is the biggest market, but there is some unique challenges to India, and every country experiences those challenges. And so I look along and say, ‘Are the New Zealand agencies doing as well or better than their international comparatives?’ And the answer is they’re having similar challenges which they’re dealing with in similar ways.

Okay, so now answer the question that we originally started with. How many students with false visas do you think have come into New Zealand in recent years?

We don’t know the answer to that question, but what we do know—

You should know. You should know, shouldn’t you?

No, we don’t, because that’s a bit like saying how many people have committed crime that you don’t know about?

No, it’s not. It’s about saying—

People are being fraudulent, by definition—

Could it be hundreds? Could it be hundreds?

It could be a few hundred, absolutely.

Could it be over a thousand?

I literally don’t know, Paddy, but what I do know is right now there’s about 41 up for heading home at the moment.

So we could have over a thousand, maybe more?

Well, no, you were looking for a headline. I’m not just going to guesstimate on a headline.

I’m looking to assess what’s happened to the integrity of our border through student visas. It’s not a headline.

No, you are looking for a headline, and I can’t tell you an exact number, but what I can tell you at the moment is there’s 41 students up for deportation.

But you’ve said there could be hundreds that are here.

No, you said that. What I said to you—

No, you said there could be a few hundred

What I said to you is… The difficulty with fraud, of course, is somebody is committing fraud so as not to be detected. So you can’t just turn around and say, ‘Okay, well, I know exactly what the number is.’ It’s a bit like saying, ‘How many people are committing fraud in New Zealand society?’ We don’t know the answer to that question.

Because what we know about the Mumbai area office from official documents, organised crime, organised corruption coming through there. That’s from documents.

And we do get that periodically in different markets. 2012, we had the same issue in China. We had to send 200-and-something students home because their documents were fraudulent, and we do have that from time to time. The vast bulk of the students coming to New Zealand do it the right way, but we have to basically investigate those that don’t do it the right way and have to send some home.

Let’s look at what these students are coming in for. Education, obviously. They pay for that. But what we’re also giving them, aren’t we, is the chance to work for 20 hours a week and full time in the holidays.

Only if they’re at a certain level of education, yeah.

And a pathway to citizenship — a chance to stay here after their year is up. So what is—?

No, that’s not quite right, Paddy. If you study here for two years at levels five or six or one year if you’re at level seven or above, then you do get the opportunity to stay for a graduate work visa. Just so you know. 80% go home.

So, you know, there’s another 20% that get to stay.

That’s right.

And that’s the way it’s marketed in India.

No, across the world, it’s marketed as quality education, English language, great experience, and, yes, for those that are interested in working in New Zealand afterwards, there is that option if you work.

Work and potentially residence.

Potentially, and some do, and they’re great, actually, because they’re intelligent young people.

What are we selling, or what are they buying? Are we selling them an education, or are we selling them a chance to come here and work and a chance to live here?

We’re selling them an education. We’re selling them the opportunity to come and be educated in New Zealand, and for nearly all of them, that’s what their—

With all due respect, that’s not what they tell us. When we talk to them, they say the main things here are the chance to work and live.

That’s why Immigration takes a robust approach with those that apply, and nearly 40% of them don’t get to come.

And on that, you know, if we look back at what the big picture here — New Zealand’s reputation in this industry that is so important to us as well. When we look at organised corruption, fraud, systematic fraud all coming through, you can’t even say how many students have got here fraudulently. You don’t even know. What’s it doing for our reputation?

Well, actually, as I said to you before, every English language country which operates in India has these challenges. They can’t afford not to operate there, because it is the biggest market of education in the world, and it’s very important, and there’s some very good students there. But if you talk to the Canadians, you talk to the UK, you talk to the US, you talk to Australia, they’ve all got the same challenges that we have, and New Zealand is no more tarred by this than anybody else. Everybody understands the challenge of this market. Just go back to my point. The students have to make a declaration that the information they’re supplying is correct. If they don’t and it’s found out subsequently to be not the case, our response is pretty robust and we send them home.

On those students who sign that declaration and are now being deported or under threat of being deported, if they come back and say, ‘Okay, I did sign it. It was the agent that did it,’ if they’re able to prove to you that that’s the case, will you give them an amnesty? Will you give them a chance to stay?

No. No, that’s not what we’ll do, and we have to be consistent and fair to everybody. I’ve been asked about this. There’s 40-odd students at the moment who are saying—

Yeah, there’s going to be a lot more, by the sounds of things.

Well, no, that’s what they’re saying, but actually it is really important that people follow the rules. Now, we, in 2012, we had, as I said, about 200-and-something Chinese students. They also would’ve said the same thing.

But if they prove to you it was the agent—?

But it’s not the agent.

If they say, ‘I was let down by the agent. Mumbai area office ticked the box. I got here. I paid my money. I’ve come here. I’ve done my course. I’ve worked in my job’?

That’s where you and they are wrong, in that they are responsible for the information that’s submitted, and if the information is submitted fraudulently, then, actually, when they get caught up with, they will have to go home.

So, you know, you’re saying we’re wrong and we need to be consistent. That’s the point here, isn’t it?

Yeah.

Well, what about the Filipinos? Okay, the Filipino workers that came in fraudulently, they’ve been given a second chance to stay.

This situation’s— There’s a couple of things that are quite different there. Firstly—

But they came in fraudulently. They got to stay. What’s the difference?

Let me go through as to what’s different about that.

Because it’s quite important, isn’t it? Because you’re talking about consistency.

When you’re ready, I’ll take you through it. The reality is that those cases, when they were looked into, most of them had been found to have embellished their CVs, but actually, they would’ve qualified — most of them — to come here anyway if they hadn’t done that, and many of them had been in New Zealand working for a long period of time, they had long-standing links to the region, so they were quite different. And the Minister of Immigration makes those decisions.

So it goes like this, doesn’t it? One rule for the Filipinos on the National-voting dairy farms. And another rule for the expendable Indian students.

No, no, no, no, no.

That’s your— That’s your consistency.

No, that’s absolutely wrong.

The Indian students aren’t worth anything.

No, that’s not correct. As you’ve just pointed out—

They go home — no refund, no nothing. Filipino farmer down in Dipton gets a chance because he’s mates with the National Party.

No, that’s not correct. But my point is you said at the outset you’ve got to be careful that we don’t risk what is a very important industry for New Zealand and it has to have clear rules, and I, as the minister responsible for it, am absolutely clear that if people don’t meet those rules, then, I’m sorry, and if they’ve been fraudulently coming to New Zealand, they’ve been making declarations— Because, don’t forget, this stuff is actually for their welfare. So what do we actually ask them for?

So no amnesty.

What do we ask them for? We ask them for English language skills that allow them to participate in New Zealand, and we ask them to bring enough money so that—

And official documentation shows their agents put imposters in to do the tests, and you guys let them in here.

Hang on a second. And the second this is is that they must bring enough money to New Zealand to be able to support themselves so they don’t risk exploitation. These are things for their benefit.

Which their family get loans for, and then if they get kicked out, they get no refund. We’ll move on, though, because look at this IANZ — one of the providers, one of the private training educators. That’s sold up and closed down while it’s been under investigation.

That’s right.

Is anyone going to be held responsible?

Yes. There’s continued investigations around that particular— I can’t go into the details of that. That particular operator has a long history, long before you guys actually showed interest in it, to be fair, back to 2014, where they have been having arguments that have ended in court over the quality of their external evaluations.

Investigations continue there, and someone will be held to account?

Investigations continue. It’s ultimately up to NZQA. I don’t get to make those decisions.

NZQA have told us yesterday 11 private training enterprises are under investigation since July last year.

There’s always a whole lot. We do about 30 to 40 a year. There’s something like 600 providers internationally, including schools and PTEs and universities and ITPs. We always have a number under investigation.

The point here, Minister, is we’ve got problems, haven’t we, with this? We’ve got 11 private training enterprises under investigation here. We’ve got corruption.

We always have that many, Paddy. We always have that many. There’s always things that are going on which we would all prefer not to—

So there’s always problems?

There’s always a period of— Yep, there’s always people who are taking it over the line and they shouldn’t be, and we have a pretty robust process which they get investigated, and there has been plenty in the last four or five years where they’ve been told, ‘You will not be bringing any students into New Zealand any more, because you’ve misbehaved.’

Will we see more of these investigations and sanctions in the coming weeks and months?

You’ll see a continued amount that continues over the year ahead, not just in the international space, but also on the domestic space. What we’ve taken is an approach where we’ve been toughening up with all the providers, because we want to keep lifting the standard of quality. And so, for example, now the point you made earlier, providers are expressly responsible for the behaviour of their agents in the market. And that’s from the 1st of July this year. That may well have repercussions.

Okay, so I want to move to immigration more broadly. Are the numbers coming into the country right now, is it right? Have you got the number coming in and the mix right when it comes to immigration?

That’s primarily a matter for Michael Woodhouse, but from an economic development perspective, I’d say broadly correct. We keep tweaking them. It’s hard to get exactly the perfect number at all times. But if you look at, wearing my employment hat, unemployment coming down, city like Auckland, 4.7% unemployment.

You think you’ve got the number right and the mix right?

Broadly, because what we’re looking for are certain skills around the country. There’s plenty of people who will raise the issue and say, ‘Oh, you know, why are we bringing in a baker,’ or whatever. But actually, in different parts of the country, we have very low levels of unemployment, and actually, those people help fill those gaps because people aren’t prepared to do them.

Because I want to read you a list about immigration here.

Yeah, sure.

The Reserve Bank, the head of ANZ David Hisco, Michael Barnett from the Chamber of Commerce, first-home buyers, principals in Auckland, who’ll tell you their classrooms are bursting, Judith Collins, your police minister who blamed a rise in crime on a rise in population this week.

The population is rising.

60% of people in the Newshub poll who said immigration needs to slow down. All these people think that you and your government have got it wrong. So are they wrong on immigration, or are you?

There’s a reason why New Zealand is growing strongly, and one of the biggest— There’s a number of reasons why New Zealand is growing strongly and one of the strongest growing economies in the OECD right now. And that is because our companies are growing, they’re adding more people, they’re having the opportunity to bring in skilled workers if there’s not enough of them here, and that’s helping New Zealand grow, and it’s helping us add something like 375,000 jobs, or 15% of our total number of jobs, since the GFC. So my point is you can’t just sort of say, ‘Well, okay, we’ll pick that part of the recipe out and say we’ll get rid of that, we’ll get rid of this, we’ll get rid of that and hope to be growing strongly.’

But you can still be successful without bringing in 72,000 foreign immigrants a year.

But hang on. A) it’s about 68,000, but anyway, a lot of those go away.

No, that’s net migration. 72,000 foreign immigrants came in—

But my point is, firstly, a significant number of those are international students, and 80% of those—

That’s going well.

And 80% of those— Yeah, that is going very well, thank you. $3.5 billion. 30-something thousand jobs—

The question is — at what point is it too many?