Why Is the Immigration Minister Avoiding Queenstown?

When Labour won the last election all by themselves, some people thought they might actually get some stuff done, and I guess if you count banning and taxing, they have. But if you have been expecting them to actually fix problems, then you have been waiting a long time.

Over two hundred and fifty days has been the wait, so far, for the struggling employers of the Queenstown Lakes area. What are they waiting for? Well as most would know, the Queenstown and Wanaka areas are pretty much completely dependent on temporary immigrant labour. If you are an employer with a bar, a rental car agency, an hotel, a restaurant, a gas station, a liquor store, a ski shop etc etc, then you can only get by, by employing visitors who hold the appropriate work visa. There simply aren’t enough Kiwis in town so employing foreigners on working holiday visas is a must.

Kris Faafoi inherited the mantle of Minister for Immigration at the election after the last guy made a hash of it letting dodgy drug dealers stay and other such underhandedness.

Perhaps it is because of said dodginess from the previous incumbent that Minister Faafoi seems to be too scared to front up in Queenstown?

It is so noticeable that the local paper, the Mountain Scene has been running stories for over a year now wondering why the problem has not been solved and of late, why the Immigration Minister is avoiding the area that is arguably one of, if not the most dependent on immigrant labour.

So much so that they have, for many months now, dedicated a prime spot on the front of every edition, for a Minister-ometer, highlighting exactly how many days it has been since Mr Faafoi was entrusted with the important Immigration portfolio, but failed to show himself in the area.

The Mountain Scene hasn’t ever been afraid of putting pressure on our politicians. In the past, they have also had a crack at Labour’s first Minister in Witless Protection, Kelvin Davis when he was behaving similarly hopelessly in his role of Minister for Tourism. This was a particularly hard-hitting article that I covered for The BFD back in June last year. (Go on, click on here and you can have a read of that one in case you missed it.)

But it seems that nothing the Mountain Scene do ever convinces Minister Faafoi to actually do his job. They even hit up his old mate Nashy when he slithered into town a few weeks ago. The current Minister for Tourism Stuart Nash seemed to think “It would be madness not to” when it was suggested that a working holiday visa extension might be a good idea. Nash even promised to march to Faafoi’s office to bring up the issue with him. Maybe that helped as there have been some small piecemeal extension policies put in place but how hard is it to just say ‘ok, we need youse fullas here to keep our tourist towns operating, so you’re good to go for two years until we get on our feet again‘?

Then the illustrious Grant Robertson put in an appearance in the resort for Gay Ski Week, sorry, I mean popped down to Queenstown for some meetings with business leaders and the question of Faafoi’s absence was also put to him.

“I don’t know, has he not been?” Robertson responded, before being told about Scene’s page one. “Oh wow, alright, I’ll pass on the enthusiasm of the people of Queenstown to see him… Why wouldn’t he want to come here? It’s a beautiful place.”

Mountain Scene, Kris, where the hell are ya? June 4th 2021. The BFD.

This statement to me is pretty typical of our current government. They don’t seem to get that we might want the appropriate Minister to visit the town because there’s work to do, not because it’s “a beautiful place” and they could have a good time on the taxpayer’s dime.

So the question remains Minister Faafoi, what are you afraid of? Why is Queenstown so scary for you that you have actively avoided putting in an appearance there for over 250 days? Are you just a lazy diversity hire like your mate Kelvin, or are you avoiding the place because you’re incompetent?

It’s not like he hasn’t had a personal invitation. Nash, Robertson and National’s Erica Stanford have all promised to pass on a personal invitation. Apparently, the Queenstown mayor Jim Boult has invited him twice, but still, he is a no show.

Personally, I think he might actually like having his name on the front page of a small-town newspaper every week. They do say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but to be fair Kris, it’s been over 35 weeks now and it’s making you look like a bit of an egg.

Let’s see if he ignores his immigration responsibilities for a bit longer. I reckon he will easily crack 300 days.

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