> People have been coming here and working on holiday for years, even though people are supposed to get a work permit if you come as a tourist and work remotely there's no practical to enforce it and no government has tried in the past.
This in itself is a very good reason to actually enshrine reality into the law of the land. I don't disagree that the fanfare and PR around it is overblown, but hand waving and saying this is nothing is unfair. Clarifying the law is precisely what a government should be doing.
> Making this change will have no practical effect on the economy.
I don't know if this alone will change much, but I can guarantee the number of companies that don't let staff work remote for a few weeks in NZ because it's a legal grey area is not 0.
They didn’t say it was nothing they said it was nearly nothing “no practical effect” on the economy, which is true.
One of the exciting and appealing parts about remote work is the enormous lifestyle increase you can get by living in a country where cost of living is low and the currency exchange is favourable.
NZ cost of living is pretty high, and also housing is a problem, the government press release and posturing is acting like this is going to bring a swath of digital workers to accelerate the NZ economy (they actually said that was the primary reason for this). Which is just not true at all.
In NZ on a 6 figure USD salary, you can get a nice apartment (single bedroom) in the city and live comfortably.
In southeast Asian countries you could have a villa with a pool and a personal chef, cleaner, for less money. Same in most of Europe if you go to the right places (not the big cities). How do I know? I was a travelling nomad for 6 years and lived in 6 different countries. NZ is where I have settled now, but there’s NO WAY a tidal wave of digital nomads are coming here to revitalise our economy, like the ministers claimed.
I'm not going to argue semantics about the difference between 'nothing' and 'no practical effect'.
Very rarely does one law change in isolation have a significant impact the entire economy. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it, and it doesn't mean it has no effect.
This in itself is a very good reason to actually enshrine reality into the law of the land. I don't disagree that the fanfare and PR around it is overblown, but hand waving and saying this is nothing is unfair. Clarifying the law is precisely what a government should be doing.
> Making this change will have no practical effect on the economy.
I don't know if this alone will change much, but I can guarantee the number of companies that don't let staff work remote for a few weeks in NZ because it's a legal grey area is not 0.