NZ First leader Winston Peters. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
NZ First leader Winston Peters wants all new migrants to have to sign a document agreeing to abide by New Zealand values.
NZ First's annual conference was held over the weekend in Palmerston North, where Peters also outlined a policy to make KiwiSaver compulsory, with contributions from employers and employees rising to 10 percent and tax cuts to curb the extra cost.
Peters told Morning Report migrants should be required to commit to coming to New Zealand for a purpose.
"If they don't salute our flag, don't support freedom of religion, don't support democracy, don't support a whole lot of those traditional New Zealand values, then why come?" he said.
"Half the ones that have come here in recent times have used New Zealand truly as a bolthole or stepping board to go to Australia.
"This is just the country being misused by immigration. We're not against smart immigration, we're against unfocused immigration."
NZ First previously campaigned on the policy in 2018.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Morning Report New Zealand already had a citizenship oath that migrants made upon citizenship.
"Migrants make a great contribution to this country, I think we've actually managed immigration well under successive governments because it has been smart, it has been legal and it has been linked to the economic agenda," he said
"We don't have the situation you're seeing in the UK or the US or Western Europe, where there's been a massive influx of illegal immigrants and also refugees."
At the NZ First conference, Peters outlined a policy increasing KiwiSaver contributions from employees and employers to 8 percent, and subsequently to 10 percent.
Peters said New Zealand was suffering from an overseas fire sale of banks, energy and dairy companies which were now under off-shore control, and his party's response was to reform KiwiSaver and turn it into a serious, New Zealand asset-owning entity.
Luxon said he was open to increasing KiwiSaver contributions.
"We did it at this Budget we've moved it from 3 to 4 percent and you have to consider quite a lot of factors, like what's the impact on base pay? What does it mean for pay rises going forward? What does it mean for the affordability for businesses to be able to do that?
"There's a lot of detail to be thinking through."
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