Podcast

Erica Stanford says she asks the uber-wealthy if "we can improve the service we offer you" and that they don't need be in NZ long before acquiring residency

Elon Musk might be alarmed, having previously warned his fellow tycoons bolt holes in New Zealand won't save them

Video thread

Kia ora,

I thought you folks should hear this one for yourself in this short 3 minute video. A transcript is included for those of you who just want to read:

(On foreign home buyers)

Stanford: I don’t have that. In fact, I won’t have that because it hasn’t quite happened yet.

It’s still going through the legislative process, so we should be happening any time soon.

Q: Do you have any data on how much time on average investors are spending in New Zealand?

Stanford: Well, I can have a look into that for you.

I know that obviously the minimum they have to spend if they’re in growth is a week a year.

Some of them will be spending a lot more time than that.

We know that because I meet with them all the time.

Either before they’ve gone through the process or once they’re already out the other end.

I’m spending as much time with them as I can to learn about can we improve the service that we offer you and they have fallen in love with this country and a lot of them who were saying to me, well, we were just going to wait before we moved, are saying to me, actually, now we’re looking to move now.

Q: Today, the stats are slightly adjacent to this release, that the migration gap is the lowest it’s been since 2013.

How concerning is that for you? (NZ has lost 2.8%% of it’s citizens outbound in the last 2 years. In 2024, Louise Upston said losing our best and brighest was just the price we had to pay for National fixing the country)

Stanford: It’s not concerning at all.

In fact, it’s stabilised, and you will remember the commentators saying we’re going to be in the net negative.

I never thought that that would be the case, but it has stabilised over the last few months.

It’s remained much the same, and we’re just starting to see a slight uptick.

So I’m confident as the economy improves that our net migration figures will get back to their 20-year average.

Q: Just to clarify, the period that you’re comparing with in terms of investor stats, the number of applications received, it includes the COVID pandemic period, right? So is it a fair comparison to late?

Stanford: No, it was post-COVID, those numbers.

I mean, during COVID, they still had the old investor one and two, so it came in just after that.

Look, the settings weren’t right, and we know that from investors because I speak to them all the time. and requiring them and forcing them to be in New Zealand for a certain period of time when these people are global citizens.

I mean, the wealth that they’ve accumulated over a long period of time by investing in businesses and selling businesses and growing them is huge.

And they spend a lot of time all over the world. And forcing them to be in New Zealand for a certain period of time didn’t suit their requirements.

And so that has been a key driver of this program.

But I’m under no illusions that it is a visa at the right time as well because of what’s going on in the world.

Q about investment types

Stanford:We know in private credit, for example, a lot of it’s going into healthcare and into infrastructure and into cloud-based technology and all sorts of really amazing things.

So we can get that for you.

End Transcript

Stanford’s media training seems to have improved since her disastrous entrance on AI replacing teachers, and claiming ”all brains learn the same way” as Education Minister

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