The New Temporary Retirement Category.
This is for people who do not have children who are resident in New Zealand and allows them to live or travel here for up to two years at a time, rather than the current maximum of 6 months.
As long as they pay.
So what’s the deal?
- You get a 2-year visitors visa that allows you to come and go from New Zealand as you like during that two years.
- You need to be 66 years old or over
- You need to bribe invest $750,000 in New Zealand for the two years.
- Suitable investments are the same as for the Parent Retirement category.
- You need to be able to show $500,000 in maintenance funds for the two years, plus $60,000 a year in income.
- Have comprehensive travel / health insurance during the two years (you wont be eligible for public health care as this is not a residency visa)
- You need to meet the standard health and character requirements (so yes – you still have to go through the medical process – there’s just no getting round it is there?)
- The Application fee is $2.600
- If you want to stay longer you can re-apply (for another $2,600) for another visa.
- You only get 3 months to invest your money here, rather than 12 months under the Parent Retirement Visa
- You can get a 3 month visa to enter NZ to investigate “investment opportunities” before you plough your life savings into a “suitable investment”.
- You apply through the Business Migration Branch in Wellington.
The good news is that this policy doesn’t screw over the parents of residents who have worked their butts off in New Zealand for three years to earn the right to bring their families with them.
There’s no cap on the number of visas available, because this is not a permanent visa.
Still, I’m somewhat concerned that immigration policy is basically sinking to the level of “Gives us loads of money and you can come in”. I guess it has the advantage of being honest for a change.
The New Parent Retirement Category
On the 29th March 2010, a new immigration category is being released, which could make things easier for immigrants to bring their parents out to new Zealand.
If they have money of course.
My personal take on this is that I find these kinds of systems to be not much more ethical that legalised bribery. “Give us your money and we will let you in” does not sound much better than handing a brown envelope stuffed full of used notes to your case officer.
So, what’s the deal?
Firstly – there are actually two new retirement visas, which brings New Zealand more in line with Australia, who have long had a 2 year retirement visa option which was lacking here. There is a temporary retirement visa, allowing people to stay here for up to 2 years. The other is a permanent visa, and this is the one for parents of immigrants who are either residents or citizens.
Parent Retirement Category
The point of this is to bring in families of residents who have lots of money (NZD $1,000,000) and are willing to bribe invest it in New Zealand for four years. Actually I’m sure the point is to get a lot of money for New Zealand – the fact that it brings in peoples families is a side issue.
To qualify you need:
- an adult child who lives in New Zealand and who is either a New Zealand citizen or resident
- Meet Centre of Gravity requirements
- Be willing to invest $1,000,000 in New Zealand for 4 years: in one or more of the following:
-
- Government Bonds, Company bonds traded on the NZDX, or bonds from NZ firms with at least a BBB rating
-
- Shares in New Zealand companies including in Managed funds.
-
- Must be capable of making a return, and can contribute to the NZ economy,
-
- Must be invested in NZ$
-
- Must be legal, not for personal use, invested in property or stuck in the bank or a finance company.
- Must have $500,000 in settlement funds and earn $60,000 a year
- Meet the standard health end character requirements. (No matter how rich you are – they are still going to make your life hell with medical assessments!)
Now- the really really bad news.
They are combining the number of spaces available for the old parent category and this new parent retirement category – and there only 3440 – 3740 places available. There are currently 7305 parents in the queue waiting for parent sponsorship places as it stands, so it still looks like a 2 year backlog. Of course, now the ones with money go straight to the front of the queue, because they effectively come out of this queue and put in another application, and New Zealand has made it crystal clear they will prioritise people who can afford the bribe investment over the rest of us plebs without rich parents.
It costs $2,600 to apply. But then if you can afford to tie up $1,000,000 with the government for 4 years, that’s hardly an issue is it?
You will have 12 months once approved in principle to pay the bribe investment, and you will be given a 12 month visa to enter New Zealand to look at investment opportunities. (Like the internet? None of the approved investments on the list requite more than Internet access and the willingness to tie up a lot of money for four years)
The policy is run through the business migration branch in Wellington. This is fabulous news as it gets people out of the abusive hands of the London Family Residence team. I knew there had to be a silver lining somewhere.
Bloody hell I am so relieved my family are in and through this mess. I pity anyone who has not yet been able to apply under the normal parent category, because unless your parents have the money, it looks like NZ may dump them on the scrap heap.
Make sure you are really clear on this: this does not provide any EXTRA parent spaces.
It merely allows those parents with money to come in straight away, without waiting for their children to prove their worth to New Zealand for 3 years. People currently in the parent queue could potentially find themselves being expected to wait a lot longer for a place to become available as the places currently available go to the people with more money. So if someone comes in as a skilled migrant on the 1st April 2010, their parents can apply for the parent retirement visa on April 2nd 2010. Without the child having proved any benefit to new Zealand or ability to settle here whatsoever.
Once again, immigrants who have bent over backwards to be a benefit to New Zealand and have earned the right through that benefit are about to get shat on.
The Last Winterbottom becomes a RESIDENT
Details of how the hell this happened to follow – because you probably won’t believe it.
As soon as I get my head round it myself, and get some sleep.
Fascinating numbers
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, Hubby's Views, NZIS & Immigration issues
Well, okay, perhaps not for a lot of people. However, I’m one of those sick puppies (meow) who finds spreadsheets and numbers quite fascinating when they tell you something interesting.
So much to my surprise, we found at the weekend that Immigration now have a statistics page on their website. Seems to have been there for a while too. So kudos to INZ for releasing the information as part of open Govt.
So what can these numbers tell us?
Well for starters download the Excel files, since you can play with the numbers. Thankfully someone at INZ knows how to use Excel and has created lots of pivot tables – yippee. Although they’ve not created enough graphs I think. Graphics, pictures, we need to see more coloured lines.
So, if you really want to find out how many parents, originally resident in the UK made an application for NZ residency, via the London branch in a random month anytime in the last 14 years – you can! Download R6 – Residence applications accepted for processing.
Want to know how many of those people applying got approved or declined? – Download R2 Residence decisions by month.
Of course, it may have been too simple to put all those numbers into a single spreadsheet. Still, the info is there.
So you can indeed see how many people applied from each coutry, broken down by month, and which stream, whether they were primary or secondary applicants, and whether they got accepted or not. There’s loads more statistical info buried in them thar’ numbers, so I may start coming out with interesting factoids. Personally, I’m interested to see if anyone from a ‘first world’ country managed to get into NZ via the ‘humanitarian’ stream – normally reserved for refugee’s of the non-economic variety.
Of course more really interesting stuff is buried in R8 – Residence applications on hand. INZ talk a lot about having a large workload, lots of decisions to make etc. Which they do. How much of a workload is this? Well take a look at R8, these are all the applications that people have made to come to NZ. Whether or not INZ have even started working on the application or not. One of the few graphis provided in the three noted sheets is below, ranging from July 2000 on the left through to January 2010 on the right. {you can click on the image to load it full size}
Uncapped family sponsorship (non-Kiwi family of Kiwi citizens) has grown steadly since 2000 from approx 3,000 to almost 7,000 per year.
Parent & Adult sibling capped family sponsorship applications have gone from ~4,500 to ~10,500 – with no change in the number of places made available. And anyone wonders why there’s a queue?
For a big wow!, the Business/Skilled migrant stream peaked at a queue of ~51,500 applications at the end of 2002.. Dunno what happened there, but I’m sure gonna go find out.
Stay tuned for more (possibly useless) interesting factoids.
Family Sponsorship: The 2 year wait Update.
Finally we got around to sitting down with an excel spreadsheet, calculator, enormous amounts of coffee and a chocolate bar or two and crunched some numbers on Family Sponsorship.
The problem is that people are being told there is an 18 months to 2-year wait before a case officer is assigned. INZ have even put a news item up on their website about it.
Timeframes for Family Capped Applications
Thursday, 26 November 2009
New Zealand carefully plans allocation of permanent residence places.
The Government’s annual residence programme gives priority to skilled and business migrants and the partners of returning New Zealanders. The family capped stream (which comprises parent, adult child and sibling residence cases) is currently allocated 4,950 – 5500 places per year. Demand for these places currently exceeds supply.
There is a current waiting time of 18 -24 months for a place to become available within the cap. In practice this means that an application will usually take from 18-24 months from the time of lodgement to be allocated to a case officer for assessment.
On top of the three years you have to wait before you are eligible to sponsor your parents (and then even longer if like us you have a sibling you want to sponsor) it is becoming incredibly traumatic for people.
So – we have tried to see what is going on by looking at the fortnightly stats that come out with the Skilled Migrant EOI selections. Although this has nothing to do with Family Sponsorship – at the bottom of each PDF file is a little box which gives the numbers of applications currently being looked at. The numbers cumulate over the year, and reset in July – the end of the year for Immigration purposes.
This is total and utter bollocks. The queue is simply because the staff at INZ have been told to hold back applications until they get to the head of a “queue” in applications. It has absolutely nothing to do with the number of spaces available. The number of spaces is renewed each year. Are INZ suggesting that we should go and kill a couple of NZers to free us some space for our families.???
I think I may have been wrong!
I think what I actually should have said is thati t is a piss-poor attempt at an explanation because it make no sense whatsoever. But having actually looked at the numbers – I think I know what they were trying to say – but failed miserably.
So – what do the numbers really tell us?
1. By the end of January, 2454 of the maximum 5500 spaces have been allocated.
2. This leaves 3046 spaces that can be filled by the end of June (55% of the allocation is free with 5 months to go.)
3. INZ are processing on average 224 people each fortnight. (Starting with 12.8.09 -declines + acceptances)
4. Even with this being done – the number of people in the queue is increasing by an average of 75 people every fortnight.
5. Basically this means that there are about 300 people applying, and 224 decisions being made.
6. Only one fortnight have INZ actually managed to process more applications than came in.
7. Most depressingly – despite the huge overdemand for spaces – INZ let in just 41 people over its minimum allowance for this policy last year.
8. They could have allowed an extra 509 people to join thier families last year – those spaces are gone – they do not get rolled over into the next year allocation.
Now – how can you work out when you family should (very roughly speaking) get processed and get a decision?
See the highlighted line above? My Brother is one of those 131 people that entered the queue.
1. You need to know how many people were in the queue ahead of your family. (9897)
2. Take away how many applications people have been processed since then. (People declined + people accepted = 2459)
3. Which leaves 7438 people that need to be processed before my brother.
4. Work out how many fortnights that should take if they process an average of 224 people a fortnight (33 fortnights)
5. Get a strong drink.
Basically this means that from now – all else going well – we can expect to get a decision on my brothers application in 66 weeks, or about 15 months time. And he has already been in the queue for 6 months – giving a total of 21 months for the process.
And it’s just going to get worse.
The fact is that INZ are right in saying that more people are applying than there are spaces. They just utterly screwed up the explanation and have left people dazed and scared. There are “spaces”. There’s 3046 left this year! But there are 10,000 people waiting for them, and more lining up every week. Even if no one put in an application for the next 12 months, and INZ accepted everyone in the queue – that still accounts for 2 full years worth of spaces sitting in the pile right now.
You are not actually waiting for a space to become available as such – but you do have to wait in line till INZ have decided on all the cases that went in before you. In some ways I think what INZ have done in forcing the applications to be handled in turn is making the situation fairer -it’s not then a lottery about which branch you use or which case officer works faster. I just think they need to be more honest and clear about what is happening and why. (They can pay me to write their news items for a start!).
Please note: we have no way of knowing if this is the true reflection of what is happening. Please feel free to have a go at working through the numbers – and tell me if you get a different answer. The only way to know for definite what is going on would be to have an inside track at INZ – and we don’t. Working through the publicly available info probably won’t tell us everything – but hopefully it will help some of you to see WHY the wait is so long.
Immigration reports x2
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, Hubby's Views, Life in New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
The Dept of Labor have actually come out with two reports on migration, as a contribution to some OECD studies.
It’s possibly sad that I’m working my way through both of them at the moment. At 62 & 125 pages I should at least get some sleep, even if it takes longer to finish reading them.
My first question will be what’s the difference between;
International Migration Outlook
&
Migration Trends & Outlook
‘cos I sure can’t tell the difference first off. Still, why publish one paper using a set of research when you can publish two? It’s at least efficient if the reports have completely different purposes.
So I shall work my way through the reports. There’s some fascinating info buried in the tables and numbers already.
Still, it’s an excuse to swan off to the beach and read the paperwork in some sun 
Herald series on Migration Trends
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, The Family Sponsorship Saga
Lincoln Tan at the NZ Herald is running a three part series on migration trends in New Zealand. His first one interestingly looks at parent sponsorship, and shows some interesting figures.
China has now overtaken the UK as the top source of family sponsorship migration to New Zealand. One of the things that make this possible is that it’s much easier for Chinese migrants to meet the “Centre of Gravity” requirements because of the one child policy. This part of the policy has caused a huge amount of anguish for many people who have stepfamilies. It’s a bit of a blunt tool, and INZ tend to be highly inflexible over its implementation. Mind you – flexibility and INZ just don’t really go hand in hand anyway.
“The growth in Chinese immigrant numbers overall reflects the fact that increasing numbers of Chinese nationals are choosing to study here, gain recognised qualifications and then compete for and obtain skilled employment in New Zealand,” said Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman. Dr Coleman said New Zealand’s immigration policy was designed “to attract the type of migrants we want”.
(Ah yes – international students – such a lucrative source of money for New Zealand that you don’t have to be licensed to give them advice – because they might stop coming. Protecting migrants isn’t half as important as protecting the money they bring in.)
The article also shows that the UK is still the source of most of skilled migrants – with many of the Chinese migrants being younger – in their twenties, as opposed to the Brits being in their thirties and forties. This is seen as a bad thing as they are thought not to be able to provide for their aging parents. This does however ignore 2 things about the Family Sponsorship program. First you have to have a certain level of income before you can sponsor them. It’s stupidly low in my opinion – but that’s the policy. Secondly – you actually only have to be able to support them for two years – and as soon as your “aged” parents become residents -they have access to public healthcare.
We are going to be looking into the Family Sponsorship statistics ourselves over the next few weeks. I know that makes us sound like we really have no lives – but we want to try and understand just why INZ are holding back applications for 2 years.
In the mean time – I’ll be interested in what else Lincoln shows up.
Well that was a waste of one year of my life.
Filed under: NZIS & Immigration issues, The Family Sponsorship Saga
Finally – we come to the end of a really shitty year for me. It started with finally deciding we had enough of NZIS pissing about over the medicals, and has ended with the Ombudsman telling us to basically get stuffed.
Our letter starts off quite well, talking about our reference to the lack of published complaints process, and how they now made it accessible. So that’s a tick in the “Done” box. (lets ignore for a moment that the Ombudsman was complicit in keeping it hidden as well). Then we get to our “Concerns about delay”. This is where things get a trifle “distressing”. Basically all the ombudsman is doing is copying parts of a letter they have received from INZ about this.
That’s it.
No investigation, no review of the evidence I provided (and there was a LOT of it – it took 3 A4 envelopes stuffed to the brim to hand it in). Just a cut and paste of what INZ told them to say.
Brilliant.
I’m so glad I wasted my time actually writing to the Ombudsman, let alone ensuring that the files I sent were complete and fully referenced. It seems all I had to do was ask them to ask the nice people at INZ to repeat their crap because I was too stupid to read it the first 27 times.
Importantly – INZ have once again not been completely honest and upfront – and it disturbs me that the Ombudsman – who is let’s remember supposed to be “Independent” is so easily misled.
INZ say,
“escalation of the complaint to the DS [deputy secretary] would have resulted in yet another person having to review the full case history and [dad] would still have needed to provide further medical information”.
Well, what a load of bollocks.
For a start – this refers to the fact that once I discovered what the complaints process actually entailed – I found that the Branch Manager should have investigated the complaint himself – not hand it off to the Head of the Family Residence team. This has nothing to do with the Deputy Secretary – it has to do with following procedures properly and doing the job properly. After all – how many times was I told rather snottily that the staff were “just following the process” and couldn’t possible be helpful by breaking the process to speed things along. They always say this when they want to get out of some screw up, and hide behind it when they don’t want to bend the rules to fix said screw up. I’m sick to death of INZ cherrypicking when to follow the rules and when to ignore them depending entirely on what suits them personally. Either the rules apply to everyone – or to no one.
Secondly – if just one single person involved had had the guts and intelligence, let alone the decency to actually go back to the Medical Assessor and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, then we should not in fact have had to provide any further medical info.
Then INZ (via the mouthpiece of the “independent” ombudsman) says:
“[the Head of the Family Team] made a real effort to explain to [me] that the residence application was subject to her father providing medical evidence to the Medical Assessor notwithstanding the fact that [I] had her personal perception of what constituted an acceptable standard of health.”
What a load of bullshit!
She broke procedure by inferring quite clearly that Dad had an appendix 10 condition, which he did not, and it is completely outside of her job to make that call. She also could not be arsed to contact the MA to ask for clarification, and became abusive when I asked repeatedly for her to clarify what the MA wanted to know.
Further – it was not MY opinion of my father’s health. By this point he had had so many tests it was not funny – and they all said the same thing – he was in excellent health. “My opinion” – my arse!
INZ also believes
“every effort was made to resolve the situation without the need to escalate it further”.
You have got to be kidding. I’ve dealt with a number of complaints over the years – and I’m telling you – the head of the family team screwed it up big time. You do not start having a go at someone and being rude to them when they make a complaint – you fix the bloody problem. The case office refused to speak to us – how on earth is that making “every effort”? He could have sorted this out months before we even made a compalnt – he just couldn’t be bothered to take an hour out of his day to talk to us.
INZ do go on to say (via the helpful mouthpiece that is the independent ombudsman, of course):
It has duly noted [my] comments and Mr Ross Wells, Manager of the Business Improvement and Risk arm of the Department of Labour has been informed of the situation. Mr Wells proposes to raise the issues when the department outlines its Performance Improvement Action to the State Service Commission, in the near future.”
Well, blimey – that’s OK then. Just a thought – TELL ME THAT IN A LETTER TO ME YOU BLITHERING IDIOTS!
Sheesh – these people really have no clue about how to deal with a situation like this properly. I need to see some action – not a meaningless “apology” that only covers about half of what INZ staff screwed up on. Not that I understand a word of what that says mind you – sounds like “pseudo-scientific-bollocks” to me. It does however win the award for the most capitals used in a sentence that says nothing whatsoever of any importance.
The only other thing the Ombudsman tells me on this score is that she understands my dads application was approved in March. No shit Sherlock. But thanks for telling me. That was nice of you. Really.
Right – then we get on to a heading of “Recent Correspondence”, which concerns that fact that no real action was to be taken against the case officer and the FRT even though they badly mishandled the case, lied and abused us.
The Ombudsman says (No really – they actually said this themselves this time):
“I consider that the appropriateness of whether disciplinary action should be taken against a staff member is an employment issue and properly for the Chief Executive of an organisation to determine”.
So basically: bugger off and shut up.
This is something that is very disturbing about life in New Zealand. Companies and organisations can hide behind the phrase “Employment issue” and use it to slam the brakes on any complaint you have about someone working for that organisation or company. You have no right whatsoever to know the outcome. I happen to know for example that the member of staff in the Labour Whips office who so elegantly called me a “dingbat” still hasn’t been sacked – despite that fact that she has now twice sent abusive emails about people “accidentally” to those people. (I think she should be sacked for gross stupidity apart from anything else). But I was not told that by the people who oversaw the investigation – because I didn’t have a right to know.
By claiming this is an “Employment issue” – the ombudsman neatly and effectively stonewalls most of my complaint – and the far more serious elements of it: why INZ staff can get away with lying – not just to applicants and their families, but to MP’s and also it seems to the ombudsman herself.
I think that’s called a Whitewash isn’t it? Or a cover up?
And finally, the ombudsman sums up with the most unbelievably gobsmacking ending I think I ever seen in answer to a complaint:
“I am pleased that your complaint has culminated in a satisfactory outcome”
Well, after almost a week on from receiving this letter – I am still shocked by this. I really do not know what to say (and as you can see – I usually have quite a bit to say on this subject). How on earth do you answer someone telling you that you are satisfied with something when you are obviously going to be bloody furious?
The fury of that alone is still burning. How bloody dare she?
You now what: as an “immigrant” in New Zealand, I may not have the right to advise people, I may not have the right to free speech, and I may not have the right to insist that INZ treat all applicants with decency and fairness, but I damn well DO have the right to decide for myself whether I am “satisfied” with the outcome of this farce. Similarly, the ombudsman may have the right to “discontinue this matter” but there is no way in hell she has the right to determine for me and my family that this outcome is anything like satisfactory.
Unbelievable.
So, how has this process affected my feelings about having emigrated to New Zealand?
Well, I really wish I could say that it hasn’t changed my perception and view of the place. But honestly – with this and with the IALA crap – my opinion of New Zealand is not much better than my opinion of the UK. I think when you have to scratch the surface of life here, such as when faced with having to deal with obstinate and lazy INZ staff, you find a level of corruption and dishonesty which is completely at odds with New Zealand’s reputation. Much like the 100% pure label that is getting a well deserved drubbing right now – the reputation for being upfront, uncorrupt and decent isn’t actually true in many cases.
I guess what it comes down to is that if you follow the (legal) advice of our local MP and “Don’t Rock The Boat” as an immigrant – then your life here will be very pretty and lovely. But the minute you stand up for something because you have been wronged, our experience shows you will be reminded quite severely that you are an “immigrant” and told to shut up and stop making a fuss.
I personally think this shames New Zealand, and is the very reason why Mary Anne Thompson was allowed to get away with fraud and dishonestly getting residence for her family. At the very highest levels there is a huge lack of willingness to deal with the problem department that is INZ. Everyone knows its broken, and needs fixing, but no one has the guts to do it. And if you as an immigrant try and take a stand – you will it seems face a bewildering lack of concern for what is happening.
It lets down future migrants, it lets down the people of New Zealand, and it also lets down the many staff at INZ who do their jobs properly, fairly and honestly. The fact that the same person is still in cahrge of family applications in London, is still bullying applicants, still doing a crap job, and gets to carry on doing it is scary.
I know I am not the only one who faced these issues. And thankfully – it is not (yet) illegal to publicise these issues on the Internet. So for the time being – the only support immigrants will get is knowing that they are not alone.
Do I think people should complain?
Hell yes! But because I also believe that INZ will not do anything, and obviously the ombudsman doesn’t give a toss either – I also think its worth making the details available on the Internet. Start a blog, put the information up on a forum or do something else, but get the information out there. I’m happy to publish people’s stories anonymously if you do not want to be named. In many cases lately – the people who get bad decisions from INZ overturned are the ones who go to the media. That says a lot about what is going on.
On this matter, and for me though – this looks like the end of the road. I will be writing to the ombudsman to express my disgust at the pointless exercise, but it looks like no matter what INZ staff do, no matter what lies they tell – nothing will be done about it. But I still have the right to tell them what I think of them. For the moment at least.
Medical Assessments – back to the grindstone.
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
Well, once again, even though INZ say clearly they won’t even look at an application for a gazillion years – they have already sent my brother’s paperwork to the Medical Assessor and asked for some further tests. Now one difference we did notice is that this time, the letter was sent by a “support officer” whereas with my parents application, it was an immigration officer who sent out this letter. Im wondering if that means they are using lower grade staff to do a lot of the background work before the Immigration Officers take up the case and make the decisions. Sensible if they are – except I understood that it was up to the warranted officers to make the decision as to whether an application had to go to the MA or not.
I’d check – but that would be “systematic”.
The other thing which I am being gently “optimistic” about is that they aren’t asking any questions about the epilepsy – which would suggest that they are comfortable with this aspect of my brothers health. I would like to be wildly optimistic and say that this means the epilepsy is in the clear – but the last MA – having got conformation that my dad’s Diabetes was not an issue then went looking for other things to make a fuss about. So we can’t quite tick that one off just yet.
What they want to look at is Liver Function. It seems on the forums that a lot of people are being picked up on this. My brother does have lowered function, but then Epilepsy medication will over time bugger up your liver to a certain extent. It does not however tend to result in needing transplants or anything hideous.
Most people in this situation of needing renewed LFT’s take Milk Thistle supplements and avoid alcohol for a while before the second blood tests. I’m quite a fan of Milk Thistle anyway, and Brother has been taking a daily since the original set of tests were done and the LFT’s came out higher than normal. (Sometimes having someone in the family who can read blood tests results is handy!). And thankfully – the second bloods were taken before the Alcohol-Fest which is Toast Martinborough.
They also want to test for Hepatitis C. At first I thought this was a re-test and was quite worried, thinking that there must have been a bad test result. Which would be odd. But looking back at the original medical – they don’t actually test for Hep C as standard, only Hep B.
(Note: A lot of people believe wrongly that you are not allowed to look at the medicals once they are done. You can. And you should. You should also take copies of all medical test results – so you have something to prove your case if you start getting the run-around. You may also need – as we did – to be able to give the full set of medical paperwork to your own doctors for a second opinion.)
There is an annoying aspect to this though. Once again, INZ have made a silly mistake with the application. The paperwork for the MA has a comment on it that the original lab results were not sent to them. As we know we sent them to INZ, it means that INZ forgot to pass them on.
It would be nice if they would just take a bit more care with these things, and at least try to prevent screwing things up. Its not rocket science!
Emigration myths & vitriol
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, Hubby's Views, Jobs & Work, Life in New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
I have to admit that I once voted for Winston Peters. Party vote only, during the 2005 election. I thought he was a good chap to keep in Parliament, in opposition to keep biting at the Govt. and being a bit of a useful trouble maker. In what can only be described as an outstanding political move, Helen Clark made him foreign minister, and silenced him completely. Kudos to Ms Clark. That’s old news though.
Only how he’s out of a job, and trying to get back in. Making ridiculous claims about emmigration that would have anyone purporting to give immigration advice heading to prison for seven years. And since he’s not an MP, he isn’t exempt anymore. Hmm, I wonder if the IAA are listening? Perhaps there’s a cell spare next to Phillip Field?
Kiwiblog has a lot of interesting comments on this. Although since I don’t really do short, I thought I’d be better writing my thoughts up here.
So to be fair, did Winston Peters say anything I could agree with? Well yes;
“We know that the Immigration Service is possibly the most incompetent and dysfunctional government agency of all“
That’s it though.
So what’s he said that’s got me so irrked?
‘When it comes to immigration NZ is being taken for a sucker. People are coming to NZ as migrants – but many use us as a transit camp. These people stay just long enough to get permanent residency so they can bring their families over – often elderly parents – and then they move on to Aussie. We are being left with the care of elderly parents – while Aussie gets the workers. This sort of scam –and others like it – must end.”
Err – nope. While there are indeed many refugee’s who stay in transit camps for five years while fleeing war in their own countries. I wouldn’t classify five years as a ‘stay just long enough’ approach. You have to be an NZ citizen to move to Australia exercising your right as a Kiwi. So people are only doing what every other commited Kiwi is doing.
There are many migrants who have been in NZ for 5, 10 or 15 years, and have not for whatever reason, decided to apply for NZ Citizenship. I don’t see any less commitment from them than from those of us who apply for NZ Citizenship.
As to bringing elderly parents over, well that takes being here for three years as a permanent resident before you can sponsor parents. That process takes two or more years at the moment. Again, a five year commitment to NZ before family are reunited in the same country again.
So are we bringing over our parents to sponge off the NZ taxpayer (of which we are one)? Well, to qualify for an NZ state pension, you have to have been a resident for 10 years, five of those after the age of 50. So in total if you want to sponge off of the NZ taxpayer, you need to have a 15 year plan. Again, doesn’t sound like a sure fire high paying quick win scam to me.
Now there’s probably a presumption of being a taxpayer in that time, however it doesn’t stipulate you have to have been working. Just resident. But if you’re living here, then just like everyone else every $ you spend has GST attached to it.
“Every person we allow into NZ as a permanent resident will sooner or later be a claim on the state pension system. And often they are claiming on our social welfare and health system within a very short time of arrival. “
Sooner or later? Well the oldest age at which you can emigrate as a skilled migrant is 55. Wait ten years, and then you qualify for a pension. Not exactly soon in my mind. As to the later, well heck, contributing to the tax base for 10 years and paying the pensions of existing pensioners doesn’t qualify me somehow?? WTF!
As to claiming on social welfare & health systems in a very short time of arrival. Again, lets just accept tax payers can do that, and think about those elderly parents just champing at the bit to bleed NZ dry in ten years time of $310 a week (or it’s equivalent at the time.)
You get the picture.
If I had $600k+ NZD sitting in a savings account at the moment it would pay me just ~$350 per week interest (which I get to pay tax on of course). A 3% return for a ten year investment? Well, I doubt I’ll be able to retire happily on that.
As to the health system, well again once you’ve waited three years to sponsor parents & two years during the application processing, part of sponsoring your sponging elderly parents is a commitment to ‘reimburse’ the NZ Health system for any costs the Govt. feels like claiming off of you for the first two years while they are here. And they don’t qualify for WINZ in that time either.
Yep – that sounds like a sure fire strategy to ensure someone else pays the cost of care for ‘growing old’ in a very short time.
“These people are feasting on your pension pie. And they will be feasting on it for 10 – 20 or possibly 30 years. The pension pie you and other Kiwis paid for”
It’s at this point that I stop getting all uppity with such inflammatory codswallop and start laughing.
Bake a bigger pie. It’s a principle I picked up from a book I was reading a while ago.(The Power of Nice by Linda Kaplan & Robin Koval, which is happily available via Google books for free!) NZIS are indeed baking a bigger pie, I should be fair and give them credit. Current pensioners are not living off of the contributions they have made through their working lives – that paid for the pensioners at the time. No, it’s those contributing taxes now who are paying for the current set of pensioners to eat their pie. The more taxpayers there are, the bigger the pie. So, if anything Grey Power should be demanding NZIS increase the number of emigrants allowed into the country. Since those are the people who are paying for them to have pie.
Perhaps I’d better go on to plan B – and apply for a job as an MP. Sponging off the NZ taxpayer for 3+ years, with cut price travel, all expenses for living in Wellington taken care of, allowances for this that and the other. I get to vote on my own pay rise, and enshrine in law my future benefits in various forms including a final salary pension not measured against average income.
So I’ve found something else I can agree with Winston on;
“This sort of scam –and others like it – must end.”
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