Newsflash

The initial introduction of the 2021 Residence Visa in December 2021 was a technical disaster.  Immigration New Zealand  who has had past problems with IT upgrades promised that it could handle large numbers of applicants.  In fact INZ’s website  crashed within hours of  applications for the new visa opening up on Wednesday 1 December leading to confusion […]

On 24th November 2021, the Government announced that New Zealand will reopen the border to the wider world from Sunday 1st May 2022.  This has been a long-awaited announcement which comes as welcomed news to many currently stranded overseas but comes too late for those wanting to be home for Christmas, or still need to go through the highly-criticized

2021 Resident Visa: more details are revealed Our recent blog introduced the new one-off 2021 Resident Visa – a pathway to residence for people already living and working in New Zealand. The full instructions have now been released about this category. Pacific Legal is able to provide more details and to help guide you through the process.  

What you need to know for now   What On 30th September 2021, the Government announced a new one-off residence pathway for some temporary work visa holders who were in New Zealand on 29th September 2021.  This announcement comes as welcomed news given the selection of Skilled Migrant Category Expression of Interest has been suspended for over

Mandatory employer accreditation deferred until mid-2022 After stressing about the importance of higher paid in higher skilled roles as part of its immigration “reset” the government appears to have a temporary change of heart. We were preparing for mandatory employer accreditation and this is still on the cards but it has been delayed until an unspecified

Some offshore residence applications are likely to follow  A quick recap Offshore temporary visa processing was largely halted after our border closed  and March 2020 and formally suspended from 10 August 2020. This has left around 50,000 unprocessed applications. Residence applications were still able to be processed but were low priority. This has led to

Most employers are very supportive of their migrant workers. We are on the record strongly supporting the need for employers to have access to migrant works to fill skills gaps. This can be done safely. Businesses and migrant workers are both suffering as a result of current gaps. Helping employers to comply Many employers also

As of July 2021, the biggest change to employer supported visas in years is underway. 6 current visa classes, including Essential Skills work visas and various Work to Residence visas, are being replaced by a single new Employer Accredited Work Visa (EAWV). If you employ migrants, how prepared are you for these changes? Key dates: From 30 June

Pacific Legal Director  Richard Small was recently interviewed on TVNZ’s breakfast program  about the situation of work visa-holders both in New Zealand and those separated from loved ones offshore. A link to the article can be found here https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/05/23/advocates-criticise-immigration-reset-as-migrant-scapegoating-call-for-kindness/

Free travel is back to and from Australia and the Cook Islands and from Niue and the Cook Islands. New Zealand has begun to establish safe zones for quarantine free travel. The first of these was for inward travellers from the Cook Islands (from 21 January 2021) and Niue (from 23 March 2021). On 18