Christopher Luxon is in Samoa and Tonga this week, meeting two new Pacific leaders and bringing along a delegation of business figures, community representatives, and opposition MPs. The government is billing it as a comprehensive Pacific engagement. The concrete policy offering? A temporary reduction in visitor visa fees from $216 to $161. Fifty-five dollars.
For NZ businesses that rely on Pacific labour or want to develop Pacific markets, this trip is diplomatic theatre without commercial substance. The harder questions about RSE expansion, visa-free travel, and what a real NZ-Pacific economic strategy looks like remain exactly where they were before the plane left.
Pacific leaders are asking for something NZ won’t give
The gap between what New Zealand offers and what Pacific nations want is not subtle. Former Samoan PM Fiame Naomi Mata’afa called explicitly for EU-style free movement of people across the Pacific, telling New Zealand and Australia to live up to their “Pacific family” rhetoric. She said she raised it with then-Deputy PM Carmel Sepuloni and was told it would only mean “all other people in the islands” wanting to move here.
Luxon’s position is blunter. Visa-free travel is “not a priority,” he said, adding that his focus is getting investors into the country. That framing tells Pacific leaders everything they need to know about where they sit in the hierarchy.
Here is the detail that should embarrass Wellington: close to 60 countries currently have visa-free access to New Zealand. Not one of them is a Pacific Island nation.
The RSE scheme is stuck in 2007
New Zealand’s primary labour mobility tool for the Pacific, the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme, has been running for 17 years. In that time, it has not expanded beyond horticulture. PIF Secretariat trade advisor Natalia Patternot is direct: “With New Zealand in particular, they haven’t expanded to new sectors. It’s remained in the horticulture space.”
Australia’s competing PALM scheme covers multiple industries. NZ has been reportedly assessing expansion into meat and seafood processing, care, and construction for years. “Assessing” has not turned into action, and this visit produced no announcements.
For aged care providers struggling to staff facilities, construction firms that cannot find workers, and food processors running short, the diplomatic photos are irrelevant. These businesses need policy, not photo opportunities.
The budget tells the real story
If you want to know where Pacific engagement actually sits in the government’s priorities, follow the money. The 2024 Budget cut Vote Pacific Peoples from $116.2 million to $90.2 million, a $26 million reduction. Skills, training and employment funding fell from $18.3 million to $12.5 million. The Pacific Business Procurement Support Service, the programme most directly relevant to NZ businesses with Pacific exposure, was eliminated entirely.
You cannot cut $26 million from Pacific funding, scrap the business procurement programme, and then fly to Apia claiming a reset. The numbers do not support the narrative.
Labour mobility is not obviously good for the Pacific either
The uncomfortable truth is that current labour schemes may be doing more harm than good to Pacific economies. Dr Naren Prasad, an ILO economist, warns that the Pacific risks a “remittance-dependence trap that no country has ever escaped.” The numbers are stark: Tonga’s economy is 44% dependent on remittances, Samoa receives around AU$240 million annually, roughly 30% of GDP.
New Samoan PM Schmidt has flagged the damage directly, noting that teachers, nurses, police and hospitality workers are leaving Samoa for overseas schemes. He pointed out that Australia made close to a billion dollars from its PALM scheme in one summer. Research from Samoa documents over 900 private sector employees resigning in 2022 to join overseas programmes, with some workers deliberately quitting jobs to qualify for schemes that prioritise the unemployed.
This is not development. It is extraction dressed up as partnership.
What a serious strategy would look like
A genuine Pacific economic reset would involve at least three things: expanding RSE to sectors where NZ businesses actually need workers, creating a credible pathway toward visa-free travel for Pacific nations that meets New Zealand’s immigration concerns, and restoring the funding and programmes that support two-way commercial engagement.
The overstay risk is real and immigration advisors have flagged it. But the proposed solution, building Pacific domestic economic capacity so return incentives are stronger, is exactly the kind of investment NZ just cut from the budget. The government is simultaneously refusing to open the door and defunding the programmes that would make opening it less risky.
Meanwhile, MBIE data shows Pacific peoples’ unemployment in Auckland has hit 11.0%, up 2.8 percentage points year-on-year. The Pacific community already in New Zealand is not thriving, the communities back home are losing their best workers, and NZ employers in critical sectors still cannot fill roles. Everyone is worse off, and a $55 visa discount will not change that.
Sources
- RNZ: Christopher Luxon to visit Samoa, Tonga to meet new PMs (2025-06)
- PINA: Visa-free travel for Pacific Islanders ‘not a priority’: NZ PM Luxon (2025-03-12)
- NZ Herald: Samoa PM calls out NZ and Australia over ‘Pacific family’
- RNZ: Pacific nations too dependent on seasonal worker schemes, labour expert warns
- Devpolicy: The Pacific’s remittance dependence – labour out, cash in (2026-02-06)
- RNZ: Budget 2024 – NZ govt cuts Pacific funding by $26m (2024-05)
- RNZ: Pacific leaders to endorse non-binding regional labour mobility principles at Honiara summit
- Islands Business: Samoa faces double-edged labour mobility sword
- Scoop: Pacific Islanders have a very high-risk of overstaying – NZ immigration expert (2025-03)
- MBIE: Pacific Peoples labour market statistics snapshot – June 2025 (2025-06)