Kris Faafoi is defending the Government's new immigration settings after accusations it is "creating a white immigration policy".
The Government revealed on Wednesday the country's border will reopen two months earlier than expected on July 31.
Along with the border reopening, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a raft of changes to the immigration settings including making it easier for employers to hire from a list of professions that have been hard to attract - such as surgeons, doctors, engineers, veterinarians and IT specialists. There will also be tweaks to make it easier for them to become residents.
In areas like tourism and hospitality, bosses will be allowed to pay migrants below the median wage to attract desperately-needed lower-skilled workers
International education should be back to normal from July 31, and students will need more money to stay in New Zealand for the duration of their study
The cornerstone of the reset is the Green List. To go straight to residency you need to have one of 56 very specific jobs - like structural engineers, psychiatrists and vets. Then there are those who have to work for two years and need one of 29 jobs - like midwives, ECE teachers and farm managers.
The Green Party has criticised the reset warning it would create a two-tier system by only rewarding high wage workers.
"It kind of feels like we are creating a white immigration policy - whether intentionally or otherwise," said Greens immigration spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March.
When asked on Thursday if the new rules were racist and sexist, Faafoi said no.
"Because it's not?" Faafoi told AM co-host Ryan Bridge after being asked why it wasn't.
"And the Greens are wrong because it is not racist or sexist."
When questioned whether the outcome was racist or sexist, Faafoi again said no.
"The system is designed to make sure we get the skills we need and the people who will come in and do those jobs will come from a number of places and will be both male or female or whatever gender they describe themselves as."
"I don't think they've got anything to stand on, I think they are wrong," Faafoi said.
When asked what he would say to Menéndez March in response to his claims, Faafoi said, "That he is wrong".
Green co-leader Marama Davidson also criticised the settings telling AM Early host Bernadine Oliver-Kerby they are discriminatory.
"The impact of the immigration reset is essentially setting up a two-tier system and the impact of that, unfortunately, upholds quite a bit of discrepancy and discrimination that New Zealand has unfortunately not fixed for quite some time," Davidson said.
"The differences between who is able to gain pathways to residency including in the current reset is an area of concern for us because it shows the white countries, the fair skin countries, the northern sort of American and European countries are far more likely and far more favoured to be able to seek pathways to residency because they are also traditionally far higher earning of immigrants who come here.
"If we set residency pathways based on salaries, we aren't taking into account fairer skin migrants from a white country will likely have easy access to criteria."
