Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman says audits will ensure money invested by wealthy foreign retirees under two new immigration visas stays in the country.
The parents of children who have migrated to New Zealand can already apply to be reunited with them under the Family Parent category.
Now, immigration officials will give priority to foreign parents of children living in New Zealand who can invest at least $1 million over four years.
A second visa will allow 65-year-olds to stay for two years if they invest $750,000 over that period.
Dr Coleman told Morning Report all investments will be monitored to ensure the money stays in the country.
He says previous business migration schemes haven't worked because the last Goverment was "loose" about them.
Labour Party immigration spokesperson Pete Hodgson says the retirement visas were proposed by the last National Government in 1999 but rejected after immigration officials said they would have few benefits and significant risks.
He says the system is elitist and will have to be paid for by taxpayers sooner or later.
Discrimination claim
An immigrant support group says giving preferential visa treatment to rich retirees will create a new form of discrimination.
Auckland's Migrant Action Trust co-ordinator Agnes Granada says the new visas divide immigrants into those who have money, and those who don't.
Ms Granada says the needs of poor parents to be reunited with their children are the same as those of the rich.
A director of Auckland University's Retirement Policy and Research Centre, Michael Littlewood, says giving some immigrants preferential treatment will put the system on dangerous ground.
Mr Littlewood says it might not make sense financially because the Government could have to meet the migrants' health care costs and provide them with a pension after 10 years of living here.
Mr Coleman says all applicants for the new visas must have comprehensive health insurance.
