Posts with tag: immigration department

Letters from the Southern Man

Migrating is more than just filling in forms and submitting paperwork, its a complex process that will test even the most resilient of people. 

Understanding New Zealand is paramount to your immigration survival and to give you a realistic view of the country, its people and how we see the world, read our weekly Southern Man blogs. Often humorous, sometimes challenging, but always food for thought.

Four Golden Rules Sorely Tested

 

I think I have in the past shared with you my four golden rules for surviving the immigration process with some of your mental faculties left intact:

1. Assume nothing about your eligibility
2. Suspend logic – there is little to be found in the visa process
3. There’s a good chance when you think you understand the rules your Visa will be processed by an immigration officer who does not understand the rules
4. Don’t believe everything you read on the Immigration Department’s website

If this sounds a little uncharitable to the Department become a client of ours and you will very soon see what I mean.

Only this week I can give you good examples of all four rules in action.

Last week I wrote of the little drama over claims coming from the Christchurch Branch Work Visa Manager that he and his colleagues were going to ‘get tough on those entering New Zealand as visitors and subsequently applying for Work Visas’. This was obviously a real concern because entering New Zealand as a visitor with a view to exploring the country and checking it out (including employment opportunities) as a visitor is entirely lawful. If someone decides they like it, they find a job and wish to apply for a Work Visa that is not only entirely lawful but the way the labour market works. The Work Visa Manager in Christchurch expressed his surprise that employers and recruiters demanded to interview applicants in person and in New Zealand.

I asked his boss, the Branch Manager, to both explain what her position on those comments were and to consider granting my client a short term Work Visa as an exception while we resolved a relatively minor health issue that was holding things up.

If you recall both the case officer and the Work Visa Manager had flatly refused to consider this simple request.

To her credit she agreed and the client is now working with a 12 month work visa granted as an exception.

She has also in a nice sort of way put her employee back in his box by confirming my understanding of the law is accurate.

Which is good news for the city of Christchurch because if they wish to avoid living in the ruins of their downtown for all eternity this office is going to need to take a sensible and pragmatic approach to the conflicts that exist across Visitor, Work and Residence Visa policies and take a ’big picture’ approach to those, like my client, who travel to New Zealand as visitors, establish they are employable, establish this is a country they wish to settle in, secure work and apply for work visas followed, quite legitimately, by Residence Visas.

The Government could of course assist the officers in their task quite simply.

If a person has been selected from the skilled migrant pool with a job offer and they have been invited to apply for residence, the prima facie claim to that residence has been established. While we know that guarantees nothing in terms of Residence Visa outcomes and significant numbers of people who are invited to apply for residence are subsequently declined (often through no fault of their own) surely the creation of a temporary class of Work Visa for these people does not threaten the integrity of the immigration process?

To do so of course would be a clear breach of Golden rule # 2……

I have also been analysing some statistics on skilled migrant approval, decline and work to residence rates for INZ London, Beijing and Shanghai branches as part of our ongoing monitoring of decisions in those markets.

Those of you that have been reading this blog for a while will know that skilled migrant decline rates coming out of China two years ago were significant and hovered around 80% in Shanghai and Beijing for some time. After months of work and investigation we were able to force change on the Chinese branches which has led to the decline rates plummeting for all applicants. Although none of our cases were being declined we were being asked constantly to help those that had been declined who used other agents or had tried negotiating the process themselves.

In the latest statistics Work To Residence (WTR) Visa decisions still dominate with Shanghai granting around 80% of all Skilled Migration applicants the WTR visa and Beijing coming in just behind at 75%. Without tempting fate (or immigration officers) I can confirm that all of our clients since these officers were given ‘refresher training’ in the policy some 18 or so months ago have been granted Residence Visas following their interviews without leaving home.

Officers in those two Chinese branches continue to appear to ask them after the interview – ‘Is there any compelling reason why I should grant this family a Residence Visa?’ when the question policy actually asks is ‘Is there any compelling reason why I should not grant this family Residence Visas?”

While the fact that decline rates have plummeted is a vast improvement it is clear the de facto position of these two branches is to think that a Work Visa is the most appropriate outcome for applicants from their ‘catchment’. They expect virtually everyone they want to approve residence to get on planes, fly to New Zealand, find employment and then secure their residence.

When their colleagues in London continue to grant Residence Visas to the significant majority (upwards of 80%) of applicants from their markets of Europe, Africa, North and South America one can only ask why? What is the difference between Brazilian, German, French and Swiss applicants all of whom have English as a second language (and processed in London) and a Singaporean, Filipino and Malaysian most of whom have English as a first language (processed in China)?

Are Germans more employable in New Zealand than Singaporeans? Not in my experience. Are French more employable than Malaysians? Not in my experience.

So you see what I mean about my four golden rules – so much depends not on what category you apply under, whether that be temporary Work Visa or skilled migrant Residence Visa – it is where your visa is processed that is the single biggest indicator of the outcome on your application.

And that is quite wrong.

Until next week.

Southern Man - Iain MacLeod

 

The Price of Inconsistent Decision Making

I was mildly irritated recently to read the latest glossy release from the Immigration Department called ‘Vision2015’.

Sent out to all and sundry (I guess in the parlance, ‘stakeholders’) it was pages and pages of, well, as far as I could tell, nothing but a commitment to make consistent decisions.

Which is of course a frank admission that they don’t.

As I somewhat embarrassingly sit here in Singapore this week spending hour after hour outlining to potential clients that the average skilled migrant will spend between NZ$3000 and NZ$4500 on Visa fees and Government charges alone to secure their Residence Visas I wonder how much of those exorbitant costs fund this type of utterly meaningless publication.

I know that it is trendy these days even for Government Departments to employ expensive PR people and come up with ‘visions’ but, when your reason to exist is to control entry at the border and to assess and issue visas, why on earth do you need to have a vision or issue an expensive glossy publication?

Surely you have one reason for existing if you are the Immigration Department – to make accurate and timely visa decisions. That’s all the ‘vision’ you need isn’t it?

And we know they aren’t much chop at that.

The perennial frustration we have as Advisers is the constantly moving goalposts – the seeming inability (or unwillingness) of Immigration officers to learn their own rules or to implement them consistently. It can’t be that hard – they aren’t putting anyone on the moon. Immigration policy and process is not rocket science.

A perfect example is a case I am arguing with Christchurch INZ over.

In a nutshell, the situation I have is a highly skilled client who has come to New Zealand as a visitor and secured a Management level position; we filed his Expression of Interest in Residence as he now has enough points to get residence; he was selected and Invited to Apply for Residence and we have recently filed a Work Visa so he can take up that job while the Department spend the thick end of year processing his residence visa.

The one fly in the ointment (and it is incredibly common) is that his immigration medical lab tests showed some readings that fell outside of the ‘normal range’. Marginally, but outside, and like 50% of all medical certificates that accompany all visa class applications his medical was referred to a Department Doctor for an opinion. That process, thanks to the sheer volume, takes around 4 - 6 weeks to resolve and can mean the difference between getting a Work Visa or not – as employers are only so willing to wait for Work Visas to be issued.

The head of the Temporary Visa team in Christchurch has flatly refused to consider granting a short term Work Visa as an exception to policy while their Doctors make some decision. This is something other branches will consider on a case by case basis and, indeed, Christchurch branch has done for us previously.

The officer said that ‘We are taking a tougher line on those who enter New Zealand as visitors and subsequently lodge Work Visa applications.’

I know that potential clients freak out at such talk and the chat rooms and forums are always abuzz with this rumour that you are not allowed to enter New Zealand to look for work. Don’t get caught with a CV in your suitcase on arrival. Don’t bring a suit if you are on holiday, etc.

I always thought this rubbish came from the uninformed immigration experts that frequent these chat groups. Now I am not so sure. Perhaps it is the employees of the Immigration Department themselves who are responsible for this tripe.

Such a threat to people legitimately in the country as visitors who legitimately secure jobs and who then legitimately apply for Work Visas to remain is out of line with virtually every other branch of this Department if that statement is taken at face value.

This Manager and the initial case officer both told me that the client should have applied for a Work Visa before he came to New Zealand. This appears to suggest they do not understand that you can’t get the Visa without the job.  Even more bizarrely when I explained to this officer that recruiters and employers demand to meet the applicants in New Zealand before offering positions for all sorts of reasons – he expressed his surprise.

I always thought Christchurch was on planet Earth but I confess I am less sure after this exchange.

If he is serious and we take his comment at face value it has enormous implications – simply put – migrants who need jobs to qualify for Residence will stop coming and looking.  And with that the Government’s Skilled Migrant Residence Programme will collapse in no time at all.

What is gobsmacking about that is that we are talking about Christchurch – a city that we are told will need between 30,000 and 35,000 skilled workers by this time next year to help them rebuild their city. My client is highly skilled, has enough points for his Residence Visa, has been invited to apply for that residency but also has a job to start – we suggested a solution other branches are willing to offer, but Christchurch turned us down flat.

While I accept INZ needed to refer his medical certificate to their own Doctor to be met with a blanket and abrupt refusal to contemplate a short term Work Visa solution while this process plays out beggared belief. Especially when so many other branches will do so.

The law is pretty clear – if you have a job offer in your back pocket and try entering New Zealand as a visitor then you have crossed the line – such people must travel to New Zealand on Work Visas or risk being turned around at the airport.

However, people who travel to New Zealand as visitors are quite legally able to do so to explore the country, establish how employable they might be, to have interviews with employers, check out schools for their kids, assess the cost of living and general living conditions and if they are offered a job to lawfully apply to change their status to that of Work Visa holders.

The sorry fact is that Visitor Visa, Work Visa and Residence Visa policies conflict with one another and they exist in isolation with their own aims, intents and criteria. Thankfully, enough immigration officers will take a sensible, pragmatic and strategic view and appreciate that Visitor and Work Visa classes can undermine the aims and intents of residence policy and react with sensible short term solutions that do not affect the greater integrity of the Immigration Act.  It is fair to say that if these three Visa classes were all interpreted strictly (not withstanding they are open to interpretation at some level) then there would be no Skilled Migrant Residence Programme.

If Christchurch ‘wants to get tough’ on people who are applying to change their status from Visitor to Work Visas I am afraid that I will be advising all my clients to steer clear of the South Island  and bring their skills north where some branches offer a more pragmatic ‘big picture’ service to clients and Advisers. 

The inconsistent thinking and implementation of this Department has not changed in my 23 years and with the culture so entrenched in so many branches I cannot see that it will ever change.

Perhaps a few copies of the glossy “Vision2015” brochure might be dropped on a few case officers’ desks in Christchurch. And maybe they might even be encouraged to read it. They might then see the ‘big picture’ and implement the same interpretations of policy as many of their colleagues elsewhere leading to happier employers and migrants.

I binned mine. Not worth the (glossy) paper it was written on.

Until next week

Southern Man - Iain MacLeod

Otago Rail Trail

 

This time last week I was in Central Otago, one of my favourite places on the planet let alone New Zealand.

A group of six of us were off to ride the Otago Rail Trail. Formerly the railway line linking Dunedin to the Otago gold fields the railway was shut down in 1992. Someone came up with the idea of ripping up the tracks and providing a surface suitable for walkers, cyclists and horse riders. And so in February 2000 the 150km Rail Trail was launched.

We began this adventure with two days in Queenstown where we ate wonderful food, drank some of the finest wines produced in New Zealand and when not imbibing wine,  sat sipping local boutique beers mesmerized by the view. 

I realised why the view looks so different in Central Otago and it is not just the local architecture, vineyards, soaring mountain peaks, lakes and rivers, it is the lack of moisture in the air that lends a clarity. We Aucklanders are surrounded by warm oceans and as a consequence are used to high levels of humidity (and on days when there is no wind, smog) with moisture laden air. This creates  a haze you don’t get in Queenstown and Central Otago.  

Our brief but enjoyable stay in Queenstown was followed by a night in the Dunstan Hotel in Clyde which was our starting point for the Trail ride.  I felt like I was in a movie set.  An old gold mining town that at its peak had 42 pubs (it now has one) and a resident population of over 30,000 people (it now has 900) that had entered a seemingly terminal decline until the rail trail brought it back to life as a tourist destination and start (or end) point for the walkers, cyclists and horse riders that pass through.

This old two storied hotel was a rundown backpackers until the current owners renovated and restored it around seven years ago operating it now as a bed and breakfast. Authentic in the extreme and true to its past but now with showers and flushing toilets…

What followed was three days in the saddle on mountain bikes. A little wary of ‘saddlebum’ I asked about the need for gel seat covers when we picked up our bikes. The guy who rented the bikes to us reckoned “only pussies need them” so being the tough guy I thought I was I didn’t rent one. Well, miaow……I was wishing within 48 hours I not only had a gel seat cover to sit on but a big fluffy pillow under my bum to boot! 

There is something about bikes – the freedom they offer, the exhilaration you feel as you free wheel down a hill; the things you see because you are travelling more slowly – dew soaked spider webs in the morning, a brown grasshopper sitting on a grass stalk, a New Zealand falcon riding the thermals looking for his next meal and a skink scuttling off his basking rock as your shadow passes over him. And the smells as your tyre crunches over the wild thyme, of grasses and dust and in this case the odd dead sheep all smelled strangely intoxicating. 

I confess I felt like a ten year old once again the first morning riding beside the Clyde River, round Poplar trees which were turning a rich gold colour as autumn settles in the valley and through piles of leaves that were accumulating on the path. What great fun to stop every now and then at local wineries for wine tasting (didn’t do that when I was ten).

Another bonus was apple trees gone wild. All along the trail apple trees grow. Thrown from passing trains decades ago some of the seeds sprouted providing free juicy apples. fresh fast food at its finest.

A stop at an unmanned  fruit stall with its ‘Honesty Box’ outside of Alexandra where I left my  money in a jar in exchange for $5 worth of the freshest sun ripened strawberries  was a real treat. They were quite possibly the plumpest and sweetest I have ever eaten.

The thing that really got me apart from the vastness of the countryside was the lack of sound. Like all children of cities I am comfortable around noise.  Immersed in the constant urban sounds provided by cars, buses, fire engines, ambulances and police cars I realise when these sounds are not swirling about me I don’t feel totally comfortable. 

Out on the trail there is a lot of ‘scrunching’ as the bike tyres roll over the stones and gravel and after that there isn’t a lot to hear.

There are poignant moments on every journey and one of mine came shortly after leaving Wedderburn on the second day of our ride. Having puffed and panted my way up yet another gently sloping part of the trail I stopped to enjoy the view. My riding companions were spread out ahead and behind me so it was just me, the sky, an early autumn sun, the gentlest of breezes,  a whole lot of brown tussock and a few sheep spread all the way to the horizon. I had the whole of the Maniatoto Plains to myself for a good five minutes.

The sun was fair beating down given it was the early afternoon and I was surrounded on all sides by what are called ‘Ranges’; not big enough to be classified as mountains but far higher than your typical hill.  What is labelled in these parts as ‘High Country’.  The fields seemed to go on forever. The light was pure. The view dominated by rust and blue.

I decided to do something I never do in Auckland.

I lay my bike down and just listened.

The first sound I was conscious of was the whisper of a breeze.  Far off I heard the faint sounds of birds.  Crickets chirped in their thousands in the grasslands from my feet to the hills (and no doubt beyond).  A bee then flew across the path in front of me.

And that was it.

Nothing else. It was utterly peaceful. And utterly sublime. 

Central Otago is classified as semi-arid with rainfall of less than 350mm a year or for those of you using the imperial system that’s about 13 inches. The farmers pray for rain. Away from the river fed valleys the soils are traditionally poor making it ideal for producing wine and the grape of choice is Pinot Noir although many of the local vineyards do a pretty good Pinot Gris as well. If you are into wine this patch of NZ is heaven on a stick (or in a bottle). 

The landscape is dominated by mountain tussock of various varieties interspersed with grass for the sheep, cattle and deer that are raised through here. In many parts Thyme grows wild among the cracked and flaking schist. 

Through many parts of this journey I half expected to see a rhino or two, herds of Impala and possibly a Zulu village or three as it looked and felt exactly like parts of Kwa Zulu Natal in South Africa.

We saw it at its best perhaps because we enjoyed it at its most climatically comfortable – not too hot and not too cold. Being there in early autumn we were told is the best time to ride the trail because there is little to no wind. This is important for here the wind can blow fiercely – it races down off the mountains and is dry and hot (think Berg wind you South Africans). Swapping stories with friends the other night who have also completed the trail they got a couple of intensely windy days and one of their sons was literally blown off his bike. No damage done but a good laugh was had by all. 

As I have spent my life explaining to so many would be New Zealanders it doesn’t rain all the time everywhere in this magical country of ours. Just through the mountains where we were basking in the heat the west coast of the South Island was almost certainly being rained upon. Over that side of the mountains rainfall is usually measured in the thousands of millimetres. Yet the massive mountain range that is the Southern Alps blocks the moist westerly airflow meaning by the time the weather cells pass over Central Otago and Canterbury they are spent and a parched thirsty landscape sits yellow-brown from horizon to horizon.

The temperature extremes are quite extraordinary.  Even last week we would get up in the morning to temperatures of only 3-4 degrees. On went the thermal, the tee shirt, the merino hoodie and the wind breaker. Within half an hour of hitting the trail the wind breaker was off, within an hour the merino was stowed, by lunch the thermal was packed away and by 2pm I was cycling only in shorts given the temperature was 23 degrees in the shade which would make it at least 30 degrees in the sun.

Many people avoid riding the trail in summer (January and February) given it is usually over 30 degrees in the shade and well over 40 degrees in the sun. Plentiful pubs and the cool rivers would be welcome relief I am sure for those brave enough to cycle in such heat.

Along the way we had a night at Waipiata which holds the record for one of the coldest ever temperatures recorded on mainland New Zealand – minus 23 degrees Celsius in 1995. By contrast it is regularly 35 degrees plus in summer.  This is a part of New Zealand that occasionally gets a hoar frost – where the moisture in the air actually freezes – making for scenes straight out of Narnia. 

It really is a magical place. Harsh for sure but peaceful in a uniquely New Zealand way. I’d recommend it to anyone who lives here or is passing through.

Over the three days spent on the bikes we covered 163 km. My advice to any of you that might fancy this adventure is you need to be moderately fit (but no more), it would be great with children but I’d probably want them to be 10 years old or older, you can do it over 4-6 days and best of all it is free.

Do it. You will love it.

Don't forget I'll be giving free seminars coming in Singapore this weekend and Malaysia the following weekend and Paul will be in South Africa in two weeks. 

Until next week.

Southern Man - Iain MacLeod

 

Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody…

As you will no doubt be aware from last weeks blog, the Southern Man has taken a leave of absence this week, pursuing his own personal equivalent of the Tour de France, through Central Otago on the world famous (in New Zealand) Otago Rail Trail. 

He has been updating the office regularly with tales of climbing great peaks, pedalling for hours, freezing cold mornings, and stunning scenery; all part of the fun I am sure. Thus far it appears he will be back in one piece next week and no doubt reporting on his adventures, but in the meantime he has entrusted the weekly blog to me. 

It wasn’t difficult for me to pick a topic for this week’s blog, simply because when you do what we do there are always interesting stories to tell. There is one, however, that has been a simultaneous source of laughter and frustration for me and one of my colleagues over the last couple of months. A story which I believe has to be shared. For those of you in South Africa, this will be familiar territory; for those of you in other parts of the world, it may surprise or shock you (or might also be familiar), but will definitely prompt at least a few chuckles.

Before I tell my story let me share with you a great and very relevant quote, which I have stuck on the wall in my study at home:

“There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that everybody blamed Somebody when actually Nobody asked Anybody.”

I often refer to this during heated conversations with my wife, over why various domestic chores never get done (don’t try this yourself - it doesn’t work) and also to remind me to remain calm when doing my day job. We deal with Government departments all day every day, not only in New Zealand but all over the world in an attempt to gather together all of the bits of paper one needs to file an application for Residence. If there was ever a position created to administer every Government department in the world, and I was elected the Chief Executive, my first point of order would be to add the above quote to the mission statement.

For anyone that has had to deal with a Government department in South Africa, I am pretty sure they would want that quote emblazoned across the department’s front door in neon flashing lights.

The following is just one example of the hundreds of stories we could tell, but it is a particularly humorous one (something light for the Easter break).

We routinely send off requests to the South African Police for ‘Clearance Certificates’ on behalf of our clients. It is supposed to be a fairly straightforward process where we send the applicant’s fingerprints, a copy of their passport and the fee to the SA police in order for them to search their database (rifle through stacks of paper) and issue the clearance.

For this particular client we followed the ‘normal’ process and the application was sent away by courier. Eager to follow up on its progress and knowing that they usually take around 6-8 weeks to do anything about it, my very diligent (and patient) colleague Jo, followed up a few weeks later to check on progress. What followed on from there makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Firstly the person in charge of this request (let’s call her Janice – not her actual name) asked whether or not our client was a South African citizen, this would have been plainly obvious from the copy of the passport that had been provided; nonetheless we confirmed that he was.

The next email from Janice was a request for his South African ID number, which again would have been pretty obvious from his passport; however we confirmed his ID number and asked for an update.

We were then advised by Janice that the cheque payment included with the application was ‘unacceptable’. We still to this day don’t know why it was unacceptable or where the cheque is, but that doesn’t surprise me greatly. There was also no suggestion as to what to do next, so of course we asked and shortly after we were given bank account details to complete a telegraphic funds transfer for the R59.00 fee. Despite the fact that the fee in New Zealand dollars was equivalent to $6.00 and the cost to send the transfer was more than the fee itself, the client immediately did this and we advised Janice accordingly.

Having received no update we followed up again and received the following response: “Hi, Are you an (sic) SA citizen”. At this point I was about to give up and I was conjuring up all sorts of expletives to put down in an email as a response. My very patient colleague however responded politely (not sure how she managed that) and reiterated the fact that the request was for my client and they had all the information they needed.

Shortly thereafter, Janice informed us that the clearance was ready for collection. We contacted our courier company to collect it and have it returned to us. The courier called the next day to advise that it was in fact not yet ready and hence no Police Clearance for my client. It turns out that the bank details that Janice had given us were incorrect and the payment hadn’t been made. I am not sure how that translated into her email that the Clearance was ready, but frankly at this point I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Police Department had relocated its offices to the moon and they actually wanted us to complete an intergalactic funds transfer.

We emailed Janice again and, understandably, Jo’s patience by now was about as thin as the paper you would print a Police Clearance on. Janice in her wisdom sent back the same account details – leaving us all scratching our heads. Searching for a solution, as we do, we suggested that the client pay the fee again, this time asking someone in South Africa to physically deposit the money; which he did. 

Today we have sent off what we hope is our final response to Janice to try and track down one piece of paper which has taken three payment attempts, 20 or so emails and a good deal of patience to obtain. I only hope they spell his name right.

You might be wondering what the client thought about all of this, which is best summed up in his email to us (and is going to be the next quote on my study wall – perhaps in neon lights):

“Hi Jo, ‘If you are not confused, you are misinformed’ - South African Police credo.”

With any luck we will almost be at the end of the process and within a few days he should have that lovely yellow certificate that we have been chasing for the last two months, that is of course unless Janice, (who is all at once the Nobody, Somebody, Everybody and Anybody from my original quote) still isn’t sure whether he is a South African citizen, or we are or whether or not she is … I’ll keep you posted.

Until next week when the Southern Man returns – Paul Janssen (acting Southern Man)

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

You know I have a distrust of the mass media and little respect for the standards of journalism in New Zealand. The print media here are increasingly tabloid in flavour and excel in negative headlines and stories. Their reporting is shallow with few exceptions. I do not subscribe to any local newspapers as a consequence.

Nothing could be better illustrated this point than an article that appeared in this morning’s New Zealand Herald with the by line ‘Jobs-driven migration to Oz at high of 53,000’.  As I read this article online this morning my blood started to boil and I sputtered and choked on my Corn Flakes.

The article bemoans that  ‘New Zealand suffered a net loss of 39,100 people after departure numbers were partially offset by 13,900 arrivals, most of them returning citizens. The overall net loss of 4100 people in the year to February 29 is also the largest since the year ended August 31, 2001, when 4400 people left New Zealand. The highest single month loss to Australia was 5000 people, in February 2001.’

All true. On the money. Right on. So far so good.

On the face of it one might think – Gee more people are leaving, will I be the last one out and will the responsibility be mine to turn off the light?

However like all poorly researched and presented news stories there is far more to it than meets the eye – like putting those raw numbers in context.

It is quite true that there has been 4100 more people leave New Zealand than entered it in the past 12 months. This has everything to with the fact that the Government has, as readers of this blog are only too aware, slashed skilled migrant numbers – so they are not granting as many residence visas in the first place.

All other things being equal, if you grant significantly fewer residence visas and the same number of people leave, you end up with a net migration loss. Had the numbers of residence visas been allowed to reach historical levels then the migration gain would have been positive.

Furthermore and as the Labour and Immigration Research Centre (part of the Department of Labour which runs the Immigration Department) rightly points out in a recent report:

Permanent and long term migration to and from New Zealand has followed a cyclical pattern over the last 60 years and current patterns are consistent with the long term trends. New Zealand’s population growth provides context to the relative size of migration flows to and from New Zealand but is often overlooked’.

I would say ‘is always overlooked’ myself and the impact can be very damaging because of the perception it can create. 

Many New Zealanders have some strange dark energy that manifests itself by constantly putting this country down – I really struggle to understand why except to suggest they get out a little more and see a bit more of the world and they will appreciate just what they have here in terms of lifestyle, social support, education and health care. 

The first and most important point in adding context to these numbers is that New Zealand and Australia have an open border policy and citizens of each country can move and settle freely between the two nations without visas, permission or either state standing in the way. We spend weekends in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane because they are all so close. I spend more time in Melbourne over weekends than I do in Christchurch or Queenstown. 

The second point is we all but share a common economic zone and the two economies are highly integrated.  People are often moved both ways by their employers who are often Australian. Of course some go for reasons of family, lifestyle or a better employment opportunity but do these ’record’ numbers suggest New Zealanders are leaving en masse?

No. Quite the opposite in fact.

When the numbers of those departing and those arriving are viewed as a percentage of the New Zealand population the picture that emerges is very different.

The fact is that the highest net loss from New Zealand occurred during the late 1970s and early 1980s when the country was on a one way trip to third world status – going broke extremely quickly and lead by an almost Soviet style interventionist Government. At the end of the 1980s the numbers leaving picked up again, also for three years 1999-2001 and since 2002 net migration has been positive (until now).

Clearly what the headline writers  and journos never like to report in their ‘turn off the lights’ stories is that the population has grown enormously since these net migration records began. 

When viewed as a percentage of the population more people than ever are staying in New Zealand and getting on with their lives.

In a global labour market coupled with population increases caused by natural growth and migration you might expect the raw numbers of people departing to also increase which is funnily enough exactly what we see.

When the fact there is now 4.5 million people living here is taken into account the percentage of people ‘leaving’ for Australia has decreased steadily since the 1970s!

The headlines then should probably trumpet – ‘Record low levels of migration of New Zealanders to Australia’.

But that doesn’t feed into the seeming genetically inbuilt inferiority complex New Zealanders suffer from and the mass media feeds off.

I have yet to read a headline which says ‘Australians moving to New Zealand in record numbers’ yet that is the reality. Over quarter of a million Australians ‘flee’ that country for a better life, opportunities, pay packets and a myriad of other reasons every year for which New Zealand is the destination for roughly 5000 - 6,000 of them.

In times of economic buoyancy in Australia and economic weakness in New Zealand it is obvious that people will move there to find work given the geographic closeness, the cultural (fit – well, they are like our cousins if not like our brothers….) and general familiarity. And when Australia falls on harder times and our economy is buoyant the flows reverse. This is what an open border was in part designed to achieve.

It isn’t a bad thing. It is a 21st century thing. My generation and that of my children move between countries the way our parents moved between cities. When Australia is a two hour flight away it is the natural choice for New Zealanders. I just hope they find what they are looking for when they go there.

So if the New Zealand Herald and other rags wish to bring ‘news’ to us all they have in my humble opinion a responsibility to report things accurately that they have bothered to research or at least provide a context to. Not to publish the sort of headline grabbing trash that they seem to specialise in. 

Do they really believe the headline ‘Record low percentage of New Zealanders departing for Australia’ not be of any interest to its readership?

I suspect they are wrong.

I think it would be of interest to a great many people and play a positive role in the national debate.

I have often said that I know nothing about a whole lot but when it comes to the subject of immigration I know an awful lot. I seldom if ever read anything related to immigration that rings true in newspapers in this country. And if they can’t get this right what chance is there that anything else I might read on unrelated topics is actually approaching the truth either?

This is why and a great many of my friends cancelled our subscriptions a long long time ago.

Until next week

Southern Man -Iain MacLeod

South Africans soon to require Visitor Visas before they travel?

 

In an interesting development last week the New Zealand Government signalled they are reviewing the visa free status of South African passport holders who wish to travel to New Zealand as tourists, to visit friends and family, to check the country out as a place to settle, to look at schools for their children, to attend job interviews and so on.

I would predict right now they will go through with it. 

They are justifying forcing all South Africans who wish to visit here to obtain visitor visas prior to their departure from South Africa on the basis of the risk presented by an increasingly corrupt public service in South Africa that sells passports. Our Government, among others, feel this risk to the integrity of our borders and the potential increase in the risk of terrorism makes this change prudent. It is common knowledge that significant numbers of Al Qaida suspects have been picked up travelling on South African passports. Why terrorists travelling on false South African passports might be interested in New Zealand is a little beyond me, but that’s the official reason.

I suspect to a large extent this is a case of our Government simply being politically correct. While it is fair to say the UK Government used the same reason to justify imposing visas on South African travellers a few years ago I strongly believe the real reason is that visa free access to South African passport holders means the Government cannot prevent all South African passport holders attempting to enter New Zealand – rich, poor, skilled, unskilled, ones they want, ones they don’t……..have an airline ticket, can attempt travel equals risk.

Being able to travel to New Zealand without a visa has never guaranteed entry to anyone (ever watched those stupid Border Security programmes??) but forcing people to get visas allows mitigation of risk from the New Zealand Government’s perspective. In my judgment the risk is actually very small given most travellers to New Zealand are not members of terrorist groups and poor South Africans or refugees to South Africa have limited financial means and most could never afford the Visa application fee let alone the airline ticket to even attempt to travel here. 

I would also venture to suggest our Government is ‘future proofing’ against a South Africa as more and more people of all backgrounds may wish to depart.

It is, it has to be said, a sorry indictment on the ‘new’ South Africa. Corruption and fraud are undermining other Governments’ faith in the country’s Institutions and their integrity. 

I recall a conversation a few years ago with a senior official at the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). When they decided they should start verifying the authenticity of South African Trade qualifications they found that one in three was false.  

South Africa now holds 1st equal status as the nationality with the highest risk profile for immigration fraud in New Zealand.

No longer are University degrees from once proud world class Universities there automatically recognised within our education system as being comparable to degrees conferred by New Zealand Universities. Any degree issued in 2010 or more recently now has to be assessed/verified by NZQA.

Although New Zealand employers haven’t caught up with this change in recognition this decision by the Immigration Department and NZQA to potentially ‘downgrade’ the status of many South African degrees is caused not just by fear of fraud but by well publicised declining education standards in the Republic. 

Requiring all South Africans to obtain Visitor Visas before travelling here will impose even more bureaucracy on our South African clients, but we do hope that those who are honest about their intentions of visiting here – to scout the place as a possible destination to settle, to check out schools for their children, to see feel first hand the cost of living, the cost of housing, renting, employability and even to apply for jobs is not going to be given as reasons to decline visitor visas as they are not ‘bona fide’ tourists. We routinely deal with this nonsense in many other markets (and I would add virtually always get the visa).

No one should read into this that the New Zealand Government is closing the doors to South Africans – I don’t see it like that at all. What I do know is that politicians and their public servants often end up ‘throwing babies out with bath water’ however and they need to be very careful they continue to allow the South Africans we (they?) do want to visit here in order to ensure the success of our Residence Visa programme.

There is no way the New Zealand Government does not want South African skills here and I will put my reputation on the line in saying so. Nobody should fear any sort of closing of the doors.

Why?

South African migrants are highly skilled, demonstrably employable, linguistically identical (or very close) and present a close cultural fit. No one else outside of Australia or the UK comes as close although Singaporeans and Malaysians might dispute that if they were to settle in or around Auckland given the increasingly Asian nature of this city.

The simple reality is to get those jobs the Government demands of skilled migrants in order to migrate here these people need to be here to apply for jobs. New Zealand employers overwhelmingly demand that so to close the door would be unthinkable and I strongly suspect not in the minds of the Ministers.

Having said that a lot of policy gets lost in translation and as it filters down to counter level immigration officers working thousands of kilometres away policy intentions and policy outcomes can become confused and twisted. 

With different policies seeking different outcomes – visitor visas to protect against non-genuine ‘visitors’ yet residence policy demanding jobs which requires migrants to visit New Zealand for starters can, for your average immigration official, cause all sorts of cerebral contortions and confusion. And given the reality is that most immigration officers exist in a somewhat paranoid world of risk assessments and belief that everyone will lie and cheat their way to ‘Paradise’, unintended policy consequences occur. 

'If in doubt, keep them out!' would appear to be the motto.

So for us life will get even more complicated and for South Africans wishing to visit here the scrutiny placed upon you will become even greater. 

We will be working extremely hard to ensure that the sorts of skilled migrants this country needs out of South Africa (and anywhere else that visas are required to travel here) will continue be strongly represented to ensure they have the maximum chance of becoming employees of New Zealand businesses.

And that those who wish to visit friends or family will not be prevented from doing so by the officials that work in the New Zealand Embassy in Pretoria.

Until next week

 

Iain MacLeod

Southern Man

Why does policy discriminate against parents?

I am often asked to explain the New Zealand Government’s seeming aversion to allowing permanent entry to parents of already settled migrants.

It is easy to explain. It is harder to defend.

At the moment I am involved in at least one case where an elderly widowed parent wishes to remain in New Zealand with her only daughter who settled here a few years ago as a skilled migrant. Mum has lived with this daughter, her husband and grandsons for over 20 years since the passing of her own husband. They all moved to New Zealand together – Mum on a Visitor Visa and the rest of the family with Residence Visas already in their passports.

They have continued to live together with what they all identify as their primary family unit ever since.

Unfortunately for her, she still has two sons living in her ‘home’ country and therefore she fails the centre of gravity test which requires her to have the same number or more adult children living in New Zealand than in any other country, including the ‘home’ country.

Although these two sons are in no position financially and indeed geographically to have her live with them, policy takes no account of this.

The rationale for this policy and its restrictions are clear – New Zealand has an aging population and the older we get the greater the cost to the public health system in particular. I know this – thanks to a private meeting I had with a Minister of Immigration a few years ago when they were reviewing and considering dumping the policy.

My question to the Minister at the time was ‘Minister you can tell me what the average public health spend is per annum on a 75 year old, but can you tell me what the gross economic, not to mention social benefit, is when you consider what the children of these parents bring to New Zealand i.e. the combined big picture?”

The answer was ‘No Iain, there have been no studies into that.”

So in a nutshell then, Government can tell us the cost of parents but cannot quantify the benefits. Either economic or social.

It is interesting that the Australians have a policy that allows widowed or divorced parents to be included in their offspring’s General Skill application (the equivalent of our Skilled Migrant Category). The catch is that if the parent is found to not meet an acceptable standard of health then everyone is rejected and the application is declined.

Fair enough in my view. Nice to see the Aussies taking a more practical and humanitarian approach to the issue.

The fact is if we had the same policy, New Zealand would likely get two skilled migrants, their children and one grandparent as a package deal.

The inclusion of the grandparent allows both their children to go out and find work. Grandma is usually going to act as a secondary caregiver taking the financial pressure off their children in terms of costly day care. It allows the state to receive taxes from both the two adult migrants who work. And these taxes should not be under estimated. If both are earning the average annual salary of $50,000 then the Government is picking up close to $16,000 a year in taxes. If Grandma was healthy and remains so she is not going to be a net user of the public health system for many years, if ever, given the incredibly high standard of health all migrants to New Zealand must demonstrate.

Of course if Grandma is healthy she may well wish to go to work herself, even on a part time basis, and therefore contributing directly to the public finances of which she will one day become a recipient of.

In the case of my client she is a registered (in NZ) nurse and has in fact been working despite her age. Her skills continue to be in demand and we have kept her in New Zealand so far on Essential Skills Work Visas despite her age.

An approach to the Minister to grant an exception to the requirement to have the same or more children in New Zealand, notwithstanding the clear economic argument, was rejected.

Unfortunately the Minister clearly found no reason to even consider the humanitarian aspects of the case – the primary family unit for this applicant has been her daughter and son-in-law since her husband died over 20 years ago.

Of course a great many parents also are independently wealthy – bringing with them pensions and other capital to fund their housing and day to day needs – often preferring to have private medical insurance to having to rely on the public health system (despite its quality). 

What would be wrong with some sort of means test? We do it for those seeking two year temporary Retirement Visas. We even demand that they hold medical insurance during their temporary stay in New Zealand. If we can accommodate that why can’t we demand the same of parents? I know many of my clients would happily agree to hold comprehensive medical insurance as the price of entry.

I am not arguing here for open slather on parents. I also know, off the record, that this, and the previous Government’s, real issue is China’s one child policy. For every skilled migrant we get from that country we are usually going to end up with two sets, of often poor parents.

I am arguing for policy to at least be able to consider cases like this which have a clear and demonstrable economic as well as social benefit to New Zealand.

Why not have some other criteria such as minimum net worth (I am not suggesting it has to be brought to New Zealand) that migrant parents can draw on if they choose. Limit their access to the public health system (they are like everyone physically in New Zealand covered by our no faults public health insurance scheme). If we had these criteria clearly stated up front, parents and their skilled migrant children would know the parameters required for gaining entry and what their future costs and responsibilities would be.

I can just hear the policy wonks in Wellington sighing as they read this. They will be thinking, yeah so we let them in and say they have to hold medical insurance but five years later they lose everything and can no longer afford it – are we meant to chuck them out?

Well to that line of argument, I would argue the case of a client of mine who got her Residence Visa recently in apparently good (and well tested) health got to New Zealand and was within a few months diagnosed with cancer and has had, and will continue to have, all her treatment covered by the state system. No one is talking of chucking her out. Given breast cancer affects one in eight women, no one is seriously arguing we stop all sexually mature adult females migrating to New Zealand, despite the clear financial risk of doing so.

Ultimately parents have a valuable role to play in strengthening the families they may well have been a part of in the home country when the three generations move to New Zealand.

Right now the attitude of this Government is that my client should leave.  If that means her daughter and son-in-law go with her that is their problem.

Not only is that incredibly cruel, it is short sighted in the extreme given the clear economic benefits of keeping them all in New Zealand and it is an intellectually weak argument. It is a policy built on one factor – future potential health costs – which can be mitigated by a few tweaks of the policy.

We do it with other migrants – why don’t we start doing it with parents?

Until next week

Southern Man - Iain MacLeod

Immigration changes and review...

As the end of the year bears down on us like a runaway freight train and I ponder the holiday season ahead it is worthwhile reviewing some of the changes to immigration policy and processes that have taken place this year.

Those of you that have followed our strong and sustained efforts to effect change in Immigration New Zealand (INZ) Beijing and Shanghai offices will be interested to know that Skilled Migrant decline rates this year:

• have fallen in Beijing from roughly 85% of all applications filed a little over a year ago to 35% today which brings that office pretty much in line with global INZ averages; and

• have decreased in Shanghai from roughly 85 % a little over a year ago to 50% today. That number is still too high and it is hard to understand with new management in place in both offices why this office has persistently high decline rates totally out of step with the rest of the world; and

• for all our clients through those two offices remains zero. In fact it is better than that – as far as I am aware every client, bar one,  in 2011 has been granted a Residence Visa following their settlement interview, one were granted Work to Residence Visas and none were declined. This reinforces the view that if you know what you are doing in this environment and don’t mind investing in  services like ours there is no reason for your application to be declined.

On 5 December new Long Term Skills Shortage List criteria have opened the floodgates to Engineers of many disciplines. Up until last week most Engineers needed job offers to qualify for residence of New Zealand. 

To avoid the need to get jobs, most Engineers had to gain bonus points for qualifications or work experience but the policy made this difficult for most as it was incredibly prescriptive and restrictive. The policy limited bonus points only to those Engineers who had a degree comparable to a New Zealand degree and whose degree was issued by a Washington Accord Signatory country (and only from the date the Accord was established). This meant those bonus points were very hard to get.

The new rules will allow far more Engineers to potentially qualify for Residence Visas without having job offers first which, as we all know, is like being helicoptered half way up Mount Everest rather than being made to climb it one step at a time from the bottom.

If you are an Engineer who holds a Bachelor’s Degree we urge you to get (back) in touch with us – your Christmas might have just come early.

However the party might be short lived given these lists are reviewed every six months and in a meeting with senior Government Officials earlier this week we did warn them that in our view they have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous and this change really opens the floodgates. 

Their response was just as we expected ‘Well, we can always take the occupation off the List of course…..’. 

Therefore there is a window of opportunity here that might not remain open for long. So this is a call to action for all those Engineers who might fancy moving here……

 

In other changes the criteria for ICT Specialists has changed but in discussing this with the INZ Officials we pointed out their changes were practically meaningless because of the way the new policy is worded. I won’t bore you with the detail but we are talking about the use of the word ‘and’ when they say “they think” they meant ‘or’.

How important it is to get this right because the policy as it is currently written will have zero impact when it was designed to open the game up a bit in particular for Telecommunications and Communications Engineers.

Change the word ‘and’ to ‘or’ and the outcomes will be very very different.

In the meantime however immigration officers and advisers can only base decisions and advice on the policy as it is written not as it was meant to be written. So right now it is no easier to claim and be awarded those bonus points but it may be soon. Watch this space.

We also raised the issue with INZ about English language. As many of you will know my colleagues and I have been undergoing in-depth training on Australian General Skills Policy by my business partner and great friend Myer Lipschitz who runs our Melbourne office. It seems logical to have a working knowledge of the policy and experts at our fingertips when the New Zealand Government has made it so hard to get in here and given it is often far easier to get PR of Australia.

One clear advantage of the Australian policy over ours is that applicants can score points for their level of English language. Certain applicants from particular countries are exempt from mandatory English testing so long as they are citizens of and ordinarily live in that country. If they need more points to qualify they can sit the IELTS and are rewarded for it – the better the English the higher their score and the ‘easier’ it is to meet the current pass marks.

We don’t operate like that but we should and we have suggested Immigration New Zealand look to  adopt something similar.

The reason for this is clear – there is no greater factor influencing a migrant’s ability to secure meaningful employment at the level they want and our policy settings seek than English language. The better, more fluent, less accented your English the more attractive you are to a New Zealand employer.

This would allow for better settlement outcomes through employment and we have urged the officials to take this message back to Wellington. 

It has also been fascinating to learn through Myer how for some clients who might need a job offer to qualify for New Zealand can in fact get PR here using Australia as the back door – and without a job.

This is because Australia is less concerned about jobs before dishing out PR Visas. In fact there are many clients that we can get into Australia without their leaving home. 

Which is brilliant because if they really wish to settle here in New Zealand all they have to do is travel through Australia on their way to NZ; activate the Australian Residence Visa automatically at the Australian airport on arrival, get on the next plane and be granted a Residence Visa of New Zealand automatically on arrival here. And we are done – hey presto! New Zealand PR.

Australia has become the welcome doormat to paradise!

Delicious!

If then we have assessed you as not qualifying for New Zealand without a job offer but you wish to explore using Australia as the welcome doormat and back door to New Zealand let us know and we can assess the possibilities. This pathway won’t suit everyone but if it works, is less risky and gets you here without having to actually live in Australia it might be worth some serious consideration.

With this the second to last Southern Man letter before I head to the beach house and spend a few weeks fishing, planting some more native trees and drinking (in some unhealthy quantity) great NZ, South African – just arrived by boat - along with Australian wine, sleeping in, swimming in the warm Pacific Ocean, barbequing in my new fire pit and lying on the beach under that quintessentially New Zealand of trees, the Pohutukawa, I look back on what has been another crazy year. And crazy it seems to have been.

Crazy economy

Crazy Earthquakes down south

Crazy bureaucrats

Crazy Europe

Crazy America

Crazy Julius Malema

Here at Immagine we are finishing on a very busy note which augurs well for next year. As we all take a bit of a break and reflect on our lives and the futures of our children where ever we may live, the uncertain economic times in which we exist, the seeming never ending pressures to deliver economic comfort to our family, being slaves to the capitalist machine, doing our best to keep our heads above the stormy economic seas economically, I hope gives us an opportunity to pause and think hard about what sort of future we really want for ourselves and our family.

Notwithstanding the difficult journey that migration presents, New Zealand really does present something of an oasis of sanity in a world seemingly mad and getting madder by the month.

As we always say, ‘NZ ain’t perfect’ but there are few places better in the world to raise a family than right here.

Until next week

Iain MacLeod -Southern Man

Call Centre or Comedy Channel?

If I told you what you are about to read is true and not a transcript from something seen on the Comedy Channel, you probably wouldn't believe me.

But it is true and it gives a lie to all those, inside and outside of the Immigration Department who would have you believe getting permanent residence is a process that can be easily negotiated.

I have long believed INZ should put on all its guides, application forms and leaflets the same sort of warning that cigarette manufacturers must put on their little packets of death – something along the lines of ‘WARNING –Dealing with the Department of Immigration might lead to severe mental instability.'

The Consultant involved in this comedic exchange is our own level headed, mild mannered and generally calm Paul Janssen, a veteran of this industry, with many years experience and dare I add is a highly respected licensed immigration adviser with many years representing clients under his belt.

He is well used to dealing with Immigration Officers whose English is worse than the migrants upon whom they sit in judgement.

It's an exchange with the Immigration Department Call Centre here in NZ. The client's name has been changed so that if the real one reads it he doesn't think his residence visa is doomed owing to bureaucratic imbecility.

Here is the gist of how it went one sunny Auckland morning last week. Paul just wished he had recorded it so he could post it on You Tube or Facebook and watch it go viral!

INZ: Welcome to INZ how can you help me?

PJ: Sorry? I think you mean how can I help you?

INZ: Yes that's right…

PJ: Client number is 234577, client's name is John Smith. I am Paul from Immagine New Zealand, licensed advisor to the applicant.

INZ: Thank you. So what is your name?

PJ: Sorry?

INZ: Your name is John?

PJ: No, my name is Paul Janssen.

INZ: Oh okay sorry, thank you. So John is the licensed advisor.

PJ: No he is the client.

INZ: Oh okay thank you….( in cheery voice)….So how can I help you today?

PJ: Could you please give me an update on the Residence Visa application?

INZ: Certainly, what was he applying for?

PJ: Are you serious? He is applying for Residence, which is why I asked for an update on his Residence application.

INZ: Oh sorry, okay can I hold you while I look up his file.

PJ: I would prefer if you didn't hold me, but you can place me on hold.

INZ: [laughs] Oh sorry, yes I mean put you on hold.

PJ: No problem

5 minutes passes with Paul pushing a pencil with a dull lead into his brain through his left earhole – only because it is more fun and less painful.

INZ: Are you there Mr Smith?

PJ: It's Paul…

INZ: Oh sorry, yes. His Work Visa was approved in July. Is there anything else I can help you with.

PJ: Please……. God no…

Paul hangs up and looks for ledge on the exterior of our building to leap off.

And this dear reader is what we put up with day in and day out and which all our clients pay for through their (not insignificant) Government application fees. Given the average skilled migrant family of four now pays around NZ$3500 in Government Visa fees alone to share this little corner of planet Earth with us you might expect you would have people on the other end of the phone that could occasionally tell you something you didn't already know.

An extreme example?

I can tell you with hand on heart that I, the Southern Man, never use the Call Centre. I do this because what little remains of my sanity after 23 years of dealing with these people needs to be preserved.

I have about five minutes worth of sanity if forced to deal with the INZ call centre left in me.

On a more serious note it is nice to see that pass marks have come down in the latest pool draw and all those claiming at least 115 points including six years of work in an area of absolute skills shortage have been selected. This is down from 125 in the two previous pool draws and 135 in the three prior to them.

I will no longer read anything into these pass marks.

If I was going to speculate on what is going on I would say that we are four weeks away from a national election that the current Government will sleep walk to victory in (but let's not forget what I said about the World Cup final!).

They announced as expected this week significant reforms to the welfare system which will essentially make it harder for the 12% of New Zealand's working age population who sit around on their backsides to get off them and look for work.

To get the unemployment rate (currently sitting at just under 6.5%) down it would be politically foolish to signal allowing greater numbers of migrants into the country unless you had a political death wish (which these guys don't).

So better to undershoot your existing migrant numbers by some margin until the election is over.

It is obviously ridiculous to suggest that skilled migrants in any way compete with the unemployed. In my experience the unemployed are either unemployable, not interested, unmotivated or to be fair, sometimes unskilled (but don't start me on blowing a world class education opportunity that had been provided and not taken up).

But in politics perception is reality. Although every major study ever undertaken anywhere on this planet of ours clearly indicates that migrants do not ‘steal' jobs from locals that is the common perception. So the politicians aren't going to fight it.

So maybe what we are seeing now is a Government that has wanted migrant numbers lower (the net gain through migration in the 12 months ending September 2011 was only 770 people) than their public targets but now knows that increasing migrant numbers will not impact on them electorally.

Sorry if that sounds cynical but I cannot find any other explanation for the Government keeping pass marks significantly higher than they need to be to meet their quotas.

I am no longer willing to predict pass marks continuing to trend down but maybe, just maybe, the door is going to be opened a little more.

Watch this space.

Until next week...

Once Were Communists

 

I remember quite distinctly when I was ten years old, sitting in the passenger seat of my mother’s old Austin 1100 being driven home from school having an in-depth discussion about the merits of communism with her. As you do when you are ten…… I simply couldn't comprehend a world in which people went hungry, where there were very rich and very poor people and I could not understand why everyone shouldn't receive the same advantages as everyone else.

My ten year old brain saw communism as the perfect solution to inequality in all its forms.

That of course was at the height of the Cold War and no doubt my mother was a little horrified at my left leaning tendencies given I was being raised in an otherwise upwardly mobile middle-class household. Knowing my mother she was probably also quietly proud of my caring, sharing attitude (which of course did not extend to offering to help with the dishes or mowing lawns…….).

But when I was ten I hadn’t yet heard of the Immigration Department and ‘public servants’ and the role they play in our lives.

Three decades on I confess I still wonder why there is reason for any child to go hungry on a planet with such abundance, but I can safely say I am no longer a Communist. Only because experience suggests that it doesn’t work. And I have the Immigration Department to ‘thank’ for that.

Before I go on I am the first to question unregulated total free market capitalism and concede it is far from ideal. But thus far nothing else has served us as well. It is arguably just less bad.

There is still nothing better than competition and the profit motive to drive efficiency, sensible decision making, innovation and growth – which of course creates, albeit unevenly at times, the means for all to partake in the advantages of everyone’s effort.

When you have no skin in the game and your salary rolls in each and every week regardless of performance, any incentive to improve output or the quality of your decisions evaporates.

In the 23 years I have been working as an Immigration Adviser one thing I have come to realize is that when there is no profit motive, the incentive for customer service and sensible outcomes flies out the window.

There are plenty of people who will advise would be migrants not to “waste their money” on Immigration Advisers or Lawyers to help them negotiate the complex bureaucracy that is moving from one country to another. The very fact that we are still in business after 23 years lends something of a lie to any belief that we don’t add value.

I could write a book about the stupidity and culture of paranoia we deal with all day with the Immigration Department and a second which might be titled ‘How many lives can I screw up today by not thinking too hard?’.

The Immigration Department likes to talk the talk but they can’t walk the walk and it takes a special kind of lunatic to continue working in this industry.

Although we deal with a handful of very good immigration officers and I believe that the majority do not set out to ruin lives, separate families, make inconsistent decisions and contradict themselves the lack of any profit motive and competition for the whole organisation diminishes their individual and collective need to think differently and no meaningful accountability does create the situation where the quality of decision making and service is poor.

Let me offer a couple of examples.

The first concerned an exchange that we were having with a senior officer inside the Immigration Department recently on a point of policy. The particular branch is known for exercising wide discretion i.e. ignoring the rules when it suits. Of course, sometimes this can work to a client’s advantage but equally it can also sometimes work to a client’s disadvantage. As a consequence we asked for clarification on where exactly this particular office was drawing the line in the sand over a particular criterion under the Skilled Migrant Category. The reply we got can best be summarised as follows:

We have no discretion in applying the policy, however, each case needs to be assessed on its merits as each is unique.

Now, is it just me, or is that somehow oxymoronic?

What they are saying is that they must follow the rules except when they don’t.

How is anyone meant to negotiate a process where an officer says we must strictly interpret and implement the rules yet it is each case on its merits?

The second recent example of what happens when you operate a monopoly without competition is revealed in a letter we received last week from INZ Shanghai. Many of you will be familiar with our dealings with that Branch, the problems they have had over the last 18 months with implementing consistent visa decision making outcomes, staff turnover and the resulting appalling level of knowledge of the rules by newly appointed and inexperienced case officers (compounded by employing staff who cannot adequately communicate in English).

We had filed the client’s residence application under the Skilled Migrant Category and the Department was writing to acknowledge receipt. This is what they said.

“Your application will be allocated to an Immigration Officer within seven months. Please note that as you are applying for residence without a skilled job offer from a New Zealand employer, it may be necessary to perform a settlement and contribution interview.

These can take time to plan and while we endeavour to complete these interviews and follow up assessment within our time frames, they can take longer to finalize and your application may take up to twelve months to complete from when it is allocated to an Immigration Officer”.

I did a double take because in the past three or four months it has taken between four and six weeks for clients’ Residence Visa applications to be allocated to a Case Officer following receipt; not seven months in this branch. Processing times thereafter to get to interview stage have generally been between two and four months with a final decision coming two to three weeks later - nothing at all like twelve months on top of seven.

The ‘time to plan’ an interview is in every other branch between a week or two.

I then wrote back to the Head of the Skilled Migrant Team asking if processing times had suddenly quadrupled and, if so, why?

The reply was dated 16 September:

“The good news is that our allocation today took us up to applications lodged on 5 August 2010. So right now the wait time is short.

We haven’t changed the acknowledgement letter ...... These acknowledgement letters are generic – applications for your clients wouldn’t usually take twelve months as they don’t tend to have the range of issues that some other applications have, for example, medical conditions where further tests are needed, and that then need to be considered for medical waivers”.

Someone help me to understand why they would do this?

Why would you write a letter to an Adviser talking about a nineteen month processing time when what you really meant was two to three months given the quality of the applications we present?

From where I am sitting any Government organization that has charged my client NZ$2,500.00 just to get to this point in processing fees owes it to its customers to not write generic letters, but to send something meaningful that won’t scare the bejesus out of the applicant or the Adviser.

Interesting also that the Senior Officer who penned this reply seems to feel that clients of IMMagine New Zealand are fitter and healthier than the norm. I strongly suspect this is not the case as many people come to us because they perceive their case is more complex specifically because of issues around health among other things (like the dangers of putting your lives in the hands of a jobs-for-life state functionary).

In my experience the Immigration Department mindlessly puts out letters saying processing times will be nineteen months so they can, with hand on heart, (and a degree of false pride) announce to anyone who wishes to listen that they meet 95% of their processing targets within the deadlines they lay down for themselves.

Which makes me wonder why they don’t say it is going to take ten years to process your Residence Visa and then they can say that they have a 100% success rate achieving their KPIs.

I strongly suspect if there was some competition for the work that they carry out then they might not adopt double speak in emails that would not be out of place in George Orwell’s novel 1984 and they might be a little less lazy and stop sending out generic letters and send out letters which correlate to processing reality.

Competition with some oversight inevitably brings efficiency and better service delivery. If only there was some competition for the Immigration Department.

Until next week...

Iain MacLeod - Southern Man