New Zealand Immigration News: June 2010

Upcoming New Zealand Immigration Seminars In Kuala Lumpur And Singapore

Our New Zealand Director Iain MacLeod will be in Singapore this weekend and Kuala Lumpur the following weekend giving a seminar on New Zealand, life after the recession, unemployment figures and the outcome of his negotiations with Immigration New Zealand over the treatment of applications processed through Shanghai and Beijing.

Registration is absolutely essential.  To register, visit our website's New Zealand Seminar Registration page.

Singapore

Seminar: Saturday 29 May at 11.00 a.m. at the Concorde Hotel, 100 Orchard Road
Consultations: 30, 31 May, 1, 2, 3 & 4 June at the Orchard Hotel 442 Orchard Road.
Cost applies.

Please be there by 10.45 a.m.

Kuala Lumpur

Seminar: Saturday 5 June at 11.00 a.m. at the Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur City Centre
Consultations: 6, 7, 8, 9 June at the Hotel Hilton 3 Jalan Stesen Sentral.
Cost applies.

Please be there by 10.45 a.m.

New Zealand Immigration Changes And Update

I have recently blogged about what is the very different treatment (meted out) to Skilled Migrant Category applicants processed through Immigration NZ Shanghai and Beijing over, for example, London. I have previously written of three cases; a Malaysian IT Specialist, a Philippine Electrical Engineer and Malaysian Lawyer, all of whom filed Skilled Migrant Category applications themselves and were ultimately declined or, at least were told they were going to be, following their settlement interview.

A war has raged for the last few months between ourselves, INZ Head Office in Wellington (all the way to the Associate Minister) and the Shanghai and Beijing Branches over what we see as real injustices toward applicants from Asia.

It has been our contention that the Immigration Department operates individual processing fiefdoms with their own interpretations of policy despite a clear expectation in the market place that applications filed under a particular Category should be processed and assessed the same regardless of where the applicant comes from, which Branch and indeed which Immigration Officer processes the case. We were very quickly coming to the conclusion that an applicant's ethnicity had a greater impact on the outcome than anybody inside the Department cared to admit.

It appears, however, to be simpler than that – basic incompetence.

If you have been following the drama, statistics obtained under the Official Information Act show that overwhelmingly the Immigration Branch in London granted significantly more Residence Visas (given their three choices of decline, Work Visa or Residence Visa following the settlement interview) yet the opposite was true in Shanghai and Beijing which saw Residence Visas granted very rarely (less than 10% of the time), some Work to Residence Visas but a significant number of people declined. This was justified (by Shanghai and Beijing) on the back of New Zealand labour market tests (which were all flawed in their execution but that is another story) translating into (in their minds) the strong possibility applicants would not find work here.

We now have it from the highest authorities that the Immigration Department in Shanghai and Beijing have been incorrectly interpreting the aim and intent of policy and those people who have been declined residence and who have chosen not to appeal, or whose appeal rights have expired because forty-two days have elapsed since the decision was made, may well have a chance to file a new application and succeed. The admission has come that those people claiming points for qualifications and/or work experience on the Long Term Skill Shortage List should not be subjected to labour market tests before or after the settlement interview and Residence Visas should be granted.

It took representations from IMMagine New Zealand and feedback from the Residence Review Board to alert the Immigration Department that they had a major systemic issue. Senior management appear not to have noticed.

We are now advised that Officers in the Shanghai and Beijing Branches will be receiving “refresher” training and will attend workshops which will be attended by their colleagues from INZ London to try and get a consistent approach.

The admission has also been made that the default position under this policy should see applicants granted Work to Residence Visas and exceptional applicants a Residence Visa e.g. if they are on the Long Term Skills Shortage List.

We have made it clear to the hierarchy of INZ that following the review they have been undertaking in recent weeks and advice given to us that policy is colour-blind that we will continue to monitor over the coming months, the outcomes between INZ London and other branches to ensure all applicants are treated equally.

In relation to the three cases which we were alerted to I can confirm that one has been reviewed and sent back to the branch for reassessment with an apology from the Associate Minister of Immigration for the inconvenience, the second was granted a Work to Residence Visa and the third has a decision pending.

Watch this space.

New Zealand's Unemployment Figures Plunge

In the March quarter the numbers of people registered unemployed fell from 7.3% to 6% representing the biggest quarterly fall in over a generation. The fall took commentators by surprise although for those of us working with migrants the fact that the time it was taking to get skilled employment had plummeted from an average of eight to twelve weeks this time last year down to five – eight weeks was a clear indication that employers were moving from an intention to employ to actually doing so. With 25,000 jobs created in the quarter the other interesting aspect is that they were overwhelmingly full-time. There was real belief (including from me) that there was a degree of under employment through the recession as employers cut back on hours rather than lay people off. The fact that unemployment never reached the levels of our major trading partners supported that view, but in hindsight one wonders how accurate that was.

The drop in unemployment numbers is obviously wonderful news.

We predict an increasing tightening of the labour market as more New Zealanders head overseas (particularly young ones for their “OE” – Overseas Experience) and offshore employment opportunities increase New Zealanders who returned from Australia (we have a common labour market with them) during the recession will likely head back there in greater numbers following an increase in activity there. The number of migrants entering New Zealand remains the same, but overall there should be a greater net outflow than we have seen over the past eighteen months and I therefore predict unemployment will continue to trend down over the next few months and I would be surprised if it was higher than 5% by Christmas.

This is further evidence that New Zealand has weathered the recession that has impacted so enormously on the rest of the world and in particular the UK and the US, far better.

It is also good news for our clients – a tightening labour market means greater opportunities for migrants.

New Zealand: Economic Update

Apart from the good news on unemployment the Government released its annual budget a little over a week ago.

Of particular note was the Government's tax changes designed to rebalance the economy and to gently persuade New Zealanders away from consumption to saving. The Government achieved this in two particular ways:

• Increasing Goods & Services Tax from the current 12.5% to 15% from October 1.
• Significant across the board personal tax cuts.
• Establishing one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the developed world.

New tax rates then are as follows:

The net effect of all of this is $15.00 per week for the average wage earner (and the average salary is $48,000) and a net boost for the average household of $25.00 and a significant percentage of wage and salary earners now have an effective personal tax rate of only 17.5%.

The Government has topped up benefits to superannuitants (the retired), veterans, student allowances and so on to compensate.

In the short term there will be an inflationary impact and inflation is expected to increase over the next twelve months from the current 1.5% to as high as 5%, but many people question that assumption given the fact that retail sales remain subdued and New Zealanders are retiring debt at a rate not seen for decades.

The Government came in for some criticism given that the greatest tax cuts went to the wealthiest, but as the Government rightly pointed out those people in New Zealand earning $50,000.00 effectively through income support mechanisms effectively pay little to no tax and 10% of income earners effectively pay 76% of all personal tax. The Government realizes that with one in four Graduates from our universities living overseas if we are to keep a greater percentage of our most highly skilled and potential top income earners in New Zealand, we are going to have to give them good reason to do so.

The big surprise of the Budget was the announcement that from 1 April next year the corporate tax rate will fall from 30% to 28%. The Australian Government recently signalled that should the Rudd Government win this year's Election by 2014 they would look to do the same. It does, however, appear that Rudd is going to be unsuccessful in his bid for re-election and that should provide greater incentive for businesses to establish themselves here or at the very least not move off shore.

After ten years of a Government that felt that the rich needed to be taxed more in order to give to those who earned little or nothing, we have returned to something a little more fair.

Well, We Prayed For Rain ........

As we go to press parts of New Zealand are receiving rainfall at levels never previously recorded. Many of these are the drought stricken areas (Northland, Auckland, the East Cape and east coast of the South Island). All these regions have been crippled by drought in recent months and the last thing that is required is rain of this intensity and magnitude. There are parts of New Zealand that have received 150 millimetres of rain in a twenty-four hour period. Northern Otago is expecting over 300 millimetres of rain in twenty-four hours which is half their annual total. With much of the ground dry and cracked, along with many roads around the country, the fear is major flooding along with landslips and road failures.

Over the last week Auckland's drought appears to have well and truly ended. After six months of no significant rain we were looking forward to some and while the current “weather bomb” appears to have largely missed Auckland, we would be quite happy now that the garden is well watered for the weather to move on.

Winter has now also arrived here in the North although the temperatures are between 18 degrees and 19 degrees most days, with our normal resident, perhaps Autumn would better describe it.

In the Deep South the first snowfalls have begun on the mountains and they are now gearing up for their annual ski season.

South Africa And The World Cup

As we have mentioned before our next round of seminars, which will include Pretoria, will take place in late July. For those people registering already (and there appear to be plenty) we will send out reminder emails, but equally expect that the “full” sign will go up before the seminars can be delivered. We would ask that people only register for the seminar if they are seriously contemplating attending as we generally find around fifty percent of those who register don't bother turning up and in fairness to those who are serious we do ask that you think twice before registering for it.