Larry Williams Drive

We've finally got to the bottom of how we’ve ended up in the ludicrous situation in last week’s immigration reset where nurses are not on the highest priority list for new migrants. If you heard our interview with the Aged Care Association last night, you’ll already know this seems to be the result of a massive stuff up. Turns out that – as suspected – the Aged Care Association asked the Government to bump nurses down from the highest priority list and instead put them on the list where they need to work for two years before they get their New Zealand residency. But the association also asked for nurses to be bonded to their employer for those two years so that the nurses wouldn’t come here to work for the aged care sector which pays less and immediately quit and go work for a DHB, which pays more. Problem is, that the Government only gave the association half of what it asked for: they only bumped the nurses down the priority lists but they didn’t bond them to employers. So, they’ve left the aged care sector