In this episode, Kadambari Raghukumar talks to the Minister for Ethnic Communities, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, along with the Green and National party spokespeople for ethnic communities - Golriz Ghahraman and Melissa Lee respectively. What is the road map ahead for refugee intakes, international students and the Royal Commission huis?

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New Zealand's refugee intake resumes this year after a hiatus since March 2020. The plan is to accept 250 new refugees by June 2021.

That's one-sixth of our yearly quota of 1500. What happens to the remainder of the yearly quota - will it get carried forward to 2022's intake?

Minister for Ethnic Communities Priyanca Radhakrishnan says "it won't".

Speaking of the immigrants and former refugee families and partners who have been separated through the Covid-19 lockdowns, Radhakrishnan said "family reunification is a priority".

Green Party ethnic communities spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said: "The Green party has fought hard for humanitarian categories of people included in the phased opening of the border - so we were happy that the quota was going to open in some way.

"But the refugee crises is only worsening - what we'd like to see is the refugee resettlement centre in Mangere kitted out in a way that it can be used as a quarantine facility. That would be ideal as a way in which we can reopen the borders,"

National Party ethnic communities spokesperson Melissa Lee, speaking further to the concerns around refugee resettlement and support programmes for 2021, said: "my concerns are that are they equipped to emerge out of the 6 weeks and able to live in New Zealand in a more comfortable way - many aren't able to get jobs - where's the support- we're actually not providing for them."

In response, Radhakrishan said that under the government's wider employment plan there was a plan around working through the employment barriers faced by new migrants, former refugees and more broadly, ethnic communities.

"That was put on pause due to Covid - we will be picking that up this year."

With tertiary institutes feeling the pinch now that new international students have stopped arriving, is the planned return of 1000 students who were stuck overseas sufficient to ease the struggle of the export education sector, an industry that brings in nearly $4.8 billion yearly?…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details