New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has skipped parliament to meet a visiting Indian minister amid free trade talks between the two nations.
India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and his 43-member delegation landed in Auckland on Wednesday for the New Zealand-India Business Forum, and Mr Luxon flew in to meet him, missing Question Time but denying it was a sign negotiations were going poorly.
Mr Luxon then appeared in an Indian scarf with a red dot painted on his forehead alongside Mr Goyal and NZ Trade Minister Todd McClay, and said he wanted to address the high visa rejection rate for Indian nationals applying for New Zealand visas, RNZ reported.
“Conversations about labour mobility are a huge part of these FTA negotiations,” Mr Luxon said.
“There is work our immigration services need to do to make it easier. We are very open to working on that from both sides.
“The fact that [Goyal has] come down to New Zealand is a really big sign of the conversation, the progress that we’re making, and it’s a really important relationship for New Zealand so it’s important I spend some time with him.”
New Zealand’s Prime Minister has promised to make it easier for Indians to get visas amid free trade talks between the two nations.
Christopher Luxon made the comments after skipping parliament and painting a dot on his forehead to meet Indian minister Piyush Goyal in Auckland. pic.twitter.com/bXm3fRPeFP
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) November 6, 2025
Mr Goyal, who revealed in September that India was in secret talks with the Australian government to build one million homes using Indian immigrant workers, said he had a “deep personal friendship” with Mr McClay “where we respect each countries’ sensitivities”.
During the 2023 election Mr Luxon promised to sign free trade agreement with India during his first term, and visited the country on a trade mission in March.
Previous free trade negotiations between New Zealand and Indian between 2011 and 2015 broke down due to obstacles around dairy exports.
The Prime Minister’s visa comments come after it was revealed that immigrants are using New Zealand as a backdoor to Australia, with many openly admitting to getting citizenship so they could then apply for Special Category Visa (SCV).
SCV holders can apply for Australian citizenship directly after just four years, even if they are not permanent residents, and of the 92,000 New Zealand citizens who applied between July 2023 and June 2025, 48% were born outside of New Zealand, according to Australia’s Department of Home Affairs.
Stats NZ figures show that almost 30,000 New Zealanders migrated to Australia in 2024, 35% of whom were born overseas.
At the time of the 2023 Census there were 292,000 Indians living in New Zealand, 5.8% of the population and up from 155,000 ten years earlier.
