Vision New Zealand launched ‘family man’ Sonny Wilcox as its candidate for Manurewa today at Manurewa Marae in South Auckland.
In his speech, Wilcox announced the party’s policy for Pacific peoples. It includes establishing an accelerated corridor for Pacific peoples to become New Zealand citizens.
Currently there is a 10-year process for Pasifika to become citizens. Vision New Zealand say they want to cut this process in half to five years.
“We will establish an accelerated corridor for citizenship for all Pacific peoples by addressing the barriers of obtaining that citizenship, and establishing a five-year target across those five levels and categories of Pacific migration,” said Wilcox.
Vision New Zealand also wants overstayers to be pardoned.
“For those [overstayers] that have contributed, I would like them to be pardoned and given the opportunity to become the citizens that they want to be here in Aotearoa,” said Vision New Zealand Leader Hannah Tamaki.
Wilcox also announced the party’s intention to establish a national commissioning body, the Pacific Innovation Fund, that will put resources and funding directly into churches.
“When our Pacific people migrated here and those forefathers came here, it was the churches that held that community together, and it is still to this day the churches that holds the people together, so we want to get resource, funding directly to that church, directly to those leaders,” said Wilcox.
Vision New Zealand’s policy for Pacific peoples will uphold existing arrangements with the Pacific and realm countries, and maintain the special traditional immigration status for Pacific peoples.
