Article Type: Media Articles

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: This column is about my clients Raj and Manjit*, who married in 2022, and Sonia, Raj’s ex-wife.

Raj is a New Zealander. His first wife, Sonia, came to New Zealand from India two months after their marriage in 2015.

Soon after Raj and Sonia began living together in New Zealand, there was conflict. The couple separated in February 2016, but continued seeing each other.

Sonia applied for a protection order in 2018, claiming that Raj had abused her physically, psychologically and sexually.

For his part, Raj denies abusing Sonia and claims that her allegations are made up. Although the police were called to intervene between them, Raj was never charged with any crime. The temporary protection order against him was discharged, and Raj and Sonia divorced later in 2018.

Raj began a new relationship with Manjit in 2022. The couple married in October last year and Manjit came to New Zealand on a visitor visa in March 2023. On her application form, she declared Raj as her husband.

After arriving in New Zealand, Manjit applied for a work visa as Raj’s partner. During Immigration NZ’s processing of this application, INZ told Manjit she cannot be approved on any partnership-based visa, because Raj is not an eligible supporting partner.

Raj is banned for life from supporting Manjit’s visa applications, because – unknown to both of them – Raj’s ex-wife Sonia had been approved residence under the Victims of Family Violence (VFV) category.

How could this happen?

In approving a VFV application, INZ can accept a statutory declaration from a victim of family violence as evidence that violence has occurred. Two further statutory declarations are required from professionals such as social workers, doctors, nurses or staff members of women’s refugees.

But INZ never asks the so-called perpetrator of family violence his side of the story. It’s a safety issue, INZ told me.

So, it is quite possible – even likely – that a New Zealander such as Raj will only find out that he is banned from supporting a new partner once his new partner applies for a visa.

Is this fair?

It’s fair to prevent New Zealanders from bringing a new partner to New Zealand if they abused their last partner.

But Manjit is also a victim here.

Manjit’s relationship with Raj is genuine and stable. She came to New Zealand to live with Raj in this relationship, but suddenly, her life was thrown into turmoil.

She still holds a visitor visa but can only apply for a student visa to stay longer. She may not be able to stay permanently.

If Manjit has to return to India, it will bring shame on her and her family. This is her second marriage, and she believes her community will judge her if she returns to India on her own.

What can be done?

The Ombudsman looked into this issue after receiving six complaints from New Zealanders in 2018, whose former partners had been approved residence under the VFV category without their knowledge.

In March 2021, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier concluded that it was unreasonable for INZ not to allow former partners of VFV category applicants to comment on allegations of family violence against them.

He recommended that INZ review its policies so that New Zealanders are informed of allegations of family violence if it is safe to do so, and so that they are given the chance to rebut these allegations.

In 2021, INZ promised to review its Partnership Category – which bans New Zealanders whose former partners were approved under the VFV category from supporting further applications – but until now, the review is still “in progress”.

No options for changes have been put to any Minister of Immigration, I was told by INZ.

That needs to happen, in my opinion.

In the meantime, clients like Manjit and Raj need to ask the Minister for a “special direction” to approve an exception to the current policy.

And Manjit’s life is on hold until she knows whether she can stay living with her husband in New Zealand.

*All three names have been changed.

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: What might be some of the immigration changes being discussed at the National-ACT-NZ First talks?

All three potential coalition partners put out immigration policies before last month’s election – it’s anyone’s guess how many of these policies will actually become law.

Here are some of the ones I like the look of:

Long-term visitor visas for parents of NZ citizens and residents

This was included in both National and ACT’s manifestos. Both parties proposed a five-year multiple-entry visitor visa for parents of NZ citizens and residents.

National wants parents to have ‘acceptable standard of health’ and to hold medical insurance before they are approved its Parent Boost Visa, while ACT wants to charge a $3500 annual fee to cover parents’ healthcare costs while they are in New Zealand.

Whatever the final policy looks like, it will help to reunite Kiwis with their parents. Currently, overseas parents can only stay up to six months at a time on special category visitor visas, or nine months on a general visitor visa.

National plans to attract more international students

National plans to attract more international students by increasing the number of hours they can work each week from 20 to 24.

The National Party also plans to expand work rights for international students and their partners. This may mean relaxing Post-Study work visa requirements, so that more students qualify for open work visas once they have completed a New Zealand qualification.

I support this change – one of the best ways to recruit international students is to offer work visas after completing studies. New Zealand benefits from the tuition fees they pay (up to $50,000 a year for some post-graduate courses), as well as their later contribution to the labour market.

Conflicting work visa policies

Potential coalition partners ACT and New Zealand First have conflicting work visa policies, neither of which is likely to come to fruition.

ACT wants to abolish labour market checks – that is, the efforts that New Zealand employers are required to make to hire New Zealanders before they can hire workers from overseas.

NZ First, on the other hand, wants to make it tougher to hire overseas workers.

It wants to replace the Accredited Employer work visa category with a Critical Skill and Labour Shortage Visa to ensure that Kiwi workers are at the front of the job queue.

ACT is unlikely to support that policy, but National may have more success convincing its coalition partners to remove the median wage requirement for most Accredited Employer work visas, or at least freezing it at the current level.

Most overseas workers need to be paid $29.66/hour to be approved Accredited Employer work visas, and this threshold is supposed to increase to $31.61/hour in February 2024 – the increase won’t be implemented, I predict.

New visa categories

National’s immigration policies include three new visas:

• Digital Nomad Visa, a visa allowing people who work remotely for an overseas-based employer to stay in New Zealand for up to 12 months;
• Global Growth Tech Visa, a residence visa intended to attract people with ICT skills who have worked at a top global tech company earning at least $400,000 per year; and
• International Graduates Visa, which allows graduates from one of the top 100 universities to be approved three-year work visas.

These new visas look great on paper (or electronically, if you prefer), but it remains to be seen how attractive they will be to their target audience overseas.

In the first year of these new visa categories, numbers will be capped at 250 places (Digital Nomad Visa and Global Growth Tech Visa) and 500 places (International Graduates Visa).

Two policies I’m not a fan of

I don’t like the idea of NZ First’s “rural visa scheme” which obliges migrants to stay in communities of less than 100,000 residents for two years after they have been approved residence.

Can you really force people to stay in the countryside? Maybe in China in the 1960s, but not so easily in 21st century New Zealand.

Both National and ACT want to increase visa application fees the way that Uber increases its fares when everyone wants a taxi at the same time.

ACT says: “We will get rid of the complicated and burdensome system for temporary work visas and replace it with demand-based pricing, to let employers decide if their need is worth the price instead of clunky bureaucracy.”

People who are willing to pay more for their partnership residence application to be processed first will pay up to $8668, more than three times current pricing, based on National’s proposal.

Sadly, I can’t see NZ First objecting to this.

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: There is a huge immigration scam going on right now – and it is being enabled by Immigration New Zealand (INZ).

INZ’s “ask no questions” approach to the Accredited Employer work visa is leading to migrant exploitation and an influx of unqualified workers for non-genuine positions.

Now the Minister of Immigration, Andrew Little, has launched an inquiry into the way INZ is running the Accredited Employer programme.

Here’s how the Accredited Employer scam works

Tick the right boxes, and INZ will approve an employer’s accreditation application without any checks.

If an employer wants to hire six or more migrant workers, they need to apply for “high volume” accreditation.

A company which has no staff at present can easily be approved “high volume” accreditation to hire six or more migrant workers. Again, just tick the right boxes on the application form.

Next, the employer advertises the role for 14 days and then informs INZ that no suitable New Zealand candidates applied. As a result, INZ approves a “job check”, which permits the employer to hire the same number of workers they advertised for in New Zealand.

Employers don’t have to prove to INZ that they need this many new workers from overseas or that they can afford to pay them.

So INZ approves work visas to migrant workers whose positions are not genuine and sustainable. The workers come to New Zealand and get sacked within 90 days – which is perfectly legal. INZ accepts employment agreements with a “90-day trial period” clause.

Those workers have paid up to $30,000 to overseas recruitment agents – payments to recruitment agents are legal, INZ told me.

Some of this money ends up in the pocket of the dodgy New Zealand employer offering a fake job. That part is illegal.

You think I’m making this up? I’m not.

I asked INZ for statistics of the number of Accredited Employer applications approved.

They shocked me.

Thirty percent of these job check approvals stated that overseas workers do not require any qualifications or work experience to fill positions offered by New Zealand employers.

INZ has approved more than 2800 job checks to allow employers to hire workers without qualifications or work experience to work in high-skilled or mid-skilled occupations (that is, ANZSCO Skill Level 1-3 occupations).

What does this mean?

It means that INZ is willing to approve work visas to people from overseas who may not have the skills to work here.

Skilled workers such as chefs and carpenters need either a qualification or three years of relevant experience to be considered qualified according to the ANZSCO database, which INZ is meant to refer to.

Under the old Essential Skills work visa policy, INZ used to require employers to prove that they were offering genuine and sustainable positions (i.e. real jobs, which they could afford to pay for) to trained workers from overseas.

However, in the Accredited Employer category, INZ won’t look into whether a job is genuine or sustainable and won’t ask an employer why they want to hire unskilled workers to fill skilled positions or why no unskilled New Zealanders were available to fill those positions when they advertised.

INZ is doing something, though

Instead, INZ has parked its ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – it now plans to investigate 15% of Accredited Employers to find out if they are meeting their obligations.

It is also responding to complaints from Accredited Employer work visa holders.

INZ’s parent body, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), had received 694 complaints about accredited employers by May this year, so it has plenty to investigate.

What INZ needs to be doing

What INZ needs to be doing, in my opinion, is:

• Checking whether the positions offered are genuine. Why does a company which employs no staff suddenly need 10 workers?
• Checking whether a company can afford to pay for these extra workers. In many cases, it cannot.
• Requiring a reasonable level of qualification or work experience before approving a job check.
• Checking to find out whether a work visa applicant’s qualification or work experience is genuine.

These things hardly happen at present. The last time I asked, INZ told me it only verified one out of every 30 Accredited Employer work visa applications.

This is not surprising considering INZ doesn’t require any qualification or work experience in 30% of job check applications.

Come on INZ, you are meant to be preventing migrant exploitation – not making it worse.

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: The Government last month announced a re-set of the Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) from 9 October onwards, reducing the points pass mark from 180 points to six points.

Currently, applicants can claim points or bonus points for up to 12 “employability and capacity building” factors. From 9 October, they can only claim points for one of three combinations:

• High employment income plus skilled work experience in NZ; OR
• High-level qualification plus skilled work experience in NZ; OR
• Occupational registration/licensing plus skilled work experience in NZ.

In a handful of cases, people with exceptionally high incomes, who have PhDs or who took six years to gain their full licence/registration won’t need to claim points for skilled work experience in NZ to be approved residence.

So, who are the winners and losers in the new SMC?

Winners: People with well-paid jobs in New Zealand

From October, only people with well-paid jobs can be approved residence under the Skilled Migrant Category. Low-skilled workers must be paid $44.49/hour (1.5 x median wage) or higher, while mid and high-skilled workers must be paid $29.66/hour (current median wage) or more.

Under the new SMC, no points will be awarded for skilled employment – it’s a core requirement for the main applicant to have a skilled job or job offer from an employer accredited by Immigration New Zealand (INZ).

INZ will still use the ANZSCO database to determine a job’s skill level, with skill level 4 and 5 (lower-skilled) roles requiring the higher pay rate.

Losers: People living overseas

Currently, people outside the country who score 180 points can lodge expressions of interest and be invited to apply under SMC. From October, that won’t be possible unless they have an offer of skilled employment in NZ from an INZ-accredited employer.

Winners: People with well-paid work experience in NZ

From October, only people with highly paid work experience in NZ, gained within the last five years, can claim points for this factor. Currently, skilled work experience from any country, gained at any time, may score points under SMC, and there is no minimum pay threshold.

Losers: People with work experience outside NZ

Under the existing SMC, people with skilled work experience outside NZ can claim up to 50 points (of the 180 points they need to be approved residence), but they will score no points for this work experience from October onwards.

Winners: People with occupational registration or licensing

Until now, claiming points for occupational registration or licensing hasn’t been possible. From October, applicants can claim between three and six points for their licence or registration if they work in an occupation which requires this.

Losers: People with diplomas and certificates

Someone with a diploma or a certificate can score 40 points for their qualification under the current SMC. From October, they’ll score zero points. Only recognised bachelor’s degrees or higher qualifications will score three to six points.

Losers: People with skilled partners

Currently, the main applicant can claim up to 40 bonus points for their partner’s qualification and employment in NZ. Under the new SMC – zero points for having a skilled partner (although they can still include their partner in their application).

What’s there to like about the new SMC?

It appears to be simpler and easier to understand, with fewer factors to claim points for.

This should help staff at INZ, who sometimes get tied up in knots deciding whether to award points for factors such as skilled employment and skilled work experience overseas.

With fewer factors to consider, INZ hopes to reduce processing times to eight weeks from five months (and two years previously).

The other thing I like about the new SMC is that it rewards people whose work experience and skilled employment are in NZ.

That is, people who have contributed to New Zealand’s labour market, and who are still contributing, will get to stay.

Most of them, at least.

People whose jobs aren’t paid highly, who don’t require occupational registration or licensing and who don’t hold a bachelor’s degree will miss out.

I’m already advising some clients with diplomas to consider upgrading their qualifications while they are working full-time – that way, they will be able to claim points for their qualification as well as their NZ skilled work experience.

Or, if people score 180 points under the existing SMC, they should lodge expressions of interest quickly – the cut-off date is 15 August.

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: In February, Reva* became pregnant in India. She came to New Zealand in March. This month, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) wrongly told her she had to disclose this to her employer.

INZ’s actions encouraged a New Zealand employer to break the law and also caused Reva anxiety and distress.

Reva, who is my client, has allowed me to share her story in the hope that INZ will not do the same to other pregnant women.

What happened?

Reva came to New Zealand on a visitor visa sponsored by her sister, a New Zealand resident.

Reva’s sister works as a caregiver in a retirement home in Dunedin. She introduced Reva to her employer, who offered Reva a job in late March. Reva works as a registered nurse in India.

In April, Reva applied for a work visa. By this time, she had found out that she was pregnant, and she declared this on her work visa application form as required.

A senior INZ officer gets involved

A senior immigration officer at INZ Manukau (who I will call Madhu) noticed this declaration and asked Reva to obtain a letter from her prospective employer confirming that the employer knew that she was pregnant.

I told Madhu that my client Reva hadn’t informed her employer that she was pregnant. At that point, Reva was in her first trimester, and she didn’t want to tell her new employer that she was pregnant.

“The female members of my family have a history of miscarriage in the early stage of their pregnancies. So it was very hard for me to decide to disclose it especially in the first trimester when the risks of miscarriage are even higher,” Reva told me.

INZ Manukau’s Madhu insisted that Reva’s employer be informed about her pregnancy.

“As per employment laws in New Zealand, potential employees are required to disclose relevant information to their potential employers that may affect them during the course of their employment,” she wrote again to Reva.

“We are concerned that … in the event the employer decides to terminate your employment for withholding information, you may not have ongoing employment in New Zealand.”

Was INZ right?

I immediately emailed Madhu at INZ Manukau, asking which employment laws were being broken by Reva not telling her employer she was pregnant.

Madhu refused to tell me, although immigration policy requires INZ to give reasons for its decisions.

“It is not my responsibility to update you with the requirements of employment laws,” she said.

I pointed out that it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against a woman because she is pregnant, and there was no legal requirement for Reva to inform her future employer that she was pregnant before beginning employment.

The idea of forcing women to reveal their “baby plans” to their employers once led former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to wag her finger angrily at a TV3 newsreader, Mark Richardson.

However, it seems that Madhu is no feminist.

“I have read all the guidelines you have sent and noted that, as per your comments, it would be illegal for the employer to terminate your applicant’s employment due to pregnancy. That is for the employer to decide.”

Madhu insisted that INZ would not accept Reva’s job offer as genuine unless she provided a letter from her employer. She had checked with INZ’s technical team (her senior colleagues), and they agreed on this point.

Reva was affected by INZ’s unreasonable actions

INZ’s requirement for Reva to obtain a letter from her employer confirming they were aware of her pregnancy affected her health physically and psychologically, she told me.

“I noticed a sudden change in my appetite and had no desire to eat or do anything. My body felt exhausted most of the time and I found it harder to sleep at night. At many times, my heart was beating faster than usual and my blood pressure dropped,” she said.

How did it end?

Reva’s employer provided her the letter and INZ approved her a work visa.

Reva is now bravely complaining to INZ and the Human Rights Commission about her treatment during INZ’s processing of her work visa application.

More than an apology, she would like INZ to train its staff about pregnancy discrimination so that other migrant women aren’t treated like she was.

* Not her real name.

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: How easy is it to lie and cheat your way into New Zealand?

It’s easy, according to Ahmed*, who came here from India on a visitor visa late last year and is now illegally overstaying in New Zealand.

Ahmed told me he paid the equivalent of nearly $5000 to a ‘travel agent’ in India to lodge his visitor visa application to Immigration New Zealand (INZ).

Ahmed’s application included the following false documents created by his travel agent:

• False employment reference
• False employment agreement
• False employment ID
• False payslips
• False bank statements showing salary payments
• False Indian tax records

Did INZ check whether any of Ahmed’s documents were real before approving his visitor visa?

No.

Why not?

Because INZ checks less than one in 100 visitor visa applications to New Zealand, and Ahmed’s wasn’t one of them.

READ MORE:
* Hey, don’t blame Immigration NZ, it’s not always their fault!
* Why does Immigration New Zealand make so many mistakes?
* Dispelling rumours about the 2021 Resident Visa

Ahmed’s faked Indian documents looked real to some immigration officer sitting in New Zealand who has never been to India.

Ahmed also showed visas (real ones) for the United States and the UK. His US visa didn’t show that he had stayed illegally in the US for six years, and INZ didn’t find out. Ahmed also didn’t declare four visa refusals by Canadian Immigration.

Why is INZ not checking?

INZ told me last week that it has decided 282,890 visitor visa applications since the New Zealand border reopened fully in July 2022 after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Of these applications, only 2400 verification checks were undertaken – that’s less than one check in every 100 applications.

Why so few? It’s because INZ has changed its ‘service delivery model’.

Until about five years ago, INZ operated huge offices in countries such as India and China.

For example, about 200 staff worked in INZ Beijing, almost all locally-engaged Chinese. Their job was to verify visitor visa applications – call employers, check whether the visa applicant worked there and was expected back after a tourist trip to New Zealand.

If the applicant was going to New Zealand for a genuine purpose and had reasons to return home afterwards – immigration officers in INZ Beijing would approve the application.

Most of those staff have been made redundant. There are now only 20 staff in Beijing who check visa applications on behalf of staff in New Zealand, who need to make a formal verification request.

INZ staff in New Zealand now decide almost all visa applications, and few of them speak Mandarin Chinese, Hindi or Punjabi or Arabic. They can’t just pick up the phone to call an employer to ask whether this visa applicant to New Zealand is genuine.

So they don’t.

Surely INZ requires its staff to check documents?

Not anymore. Newshub reported in December 2022 that INZ allowed its staff to do a “quick scan of documents” on visitor visa applications to ensure they were in order. The Minister of Immigration, Hon Michael Wood, said that INZ was still checking applicants’ health and character.

But for most visitor visa applications, no evidence of health or character is required, so no checks are made.

Do you know what the funny (not funny) thing is?

INZ did – eventually – check Ahmed’s bank statements and tax records – AFTER he had arrived in New Zealand and was applying for a student visa (he didn’t take the tour that his travel agent had booked for him).

So, AFTER approving Ahmed a visa and letting him into New Zealand, INZ decided to verify some of his documents.

INZ then found that his bank statements and tax records were false. INZ still didn’t find out about his four fake employment documents because they still didn’t check.

It was too late, of course. Ahmed is unlawfully in New Zealand now. He will certainly work illegally in New Zealand for cash until INZ Compliance eventually catches up with him.

I always give INZ the last word

I like to give INZ the last word. INZ’s General Manager, Richard Owen, told me this:

“Immigration New Zealand (INZ) announced changes to its service delivery model in December 2017 designed to ensure faster, more accurate and consistent visa decision-making. We also consolidated visa processing to fewer, strategically chosen sites.”

“An enhanced risk and verification presence has been a critical part of the new service delivery model,” Owen said.

Enhanced verification? You be the judge.

* Not his real name.

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: Poor old Immigration New Zealand got all kinds of stick last week when it was revealed it had refused residence to a Malaysian woman with a New Zealand husband and four New Zealand citizen children.

It wasn’t INZ’s fault at all.

Remind me again, what happened?

A Malaysian citizen, Sharon Choo, aged 40, was declined a residence visa under the Partnership Category because her husband, Barry Eade, aged 56, was not an eligible New Zealand supporting partner.

Turns out that Sharon was Barry’s third overseas partner … the previous two partners (a British woman and another Malaysian) had been approved residence in New Zealand in 1992 and 2003, respectively.

Barry moved on from those relationships, but, unfortunately, the New Zealand Government didn’t.

You see, two is the limit of foreign partners that the Government allows its citizens to support for residence.

Barry thinks this is unfair, pointing to the fact that his relationship with Sharon is totally genuine, which it undoubtedly is. They have been together since 2008.

Obviously, no one told him back in 2003 that the second partner who obtained New Zealand residence was the last one he could support. (Barry also may have been confused about whether he actually supported his first wife for residence – INZ says he did, but Barry thinks he didn’t).

Who are the victims here?

The victims are Sharon and the couple’s four children, who don’t know whether she will be allowed to stay permanently in New Zealand. She holds a work visa valid until October 2024, with no guarantee that it will be extended.

Sharon might have known about Barry’s relationship history when they got together, but you can’t blame her for not being aware of New Zealand immigration law.

The couple lived together in Malaysia for many years, and it seems that they only thought about coming to New Zealand after their children had begun schooling in Malaysia.

I don’t know Sharon or Barry, but I am sympathetic to their plight.

These are the kind of people immigration advisers like to help.

So, what is the solution?

Here’s what Sharon and Barry can do:

1: Sharon should apply again for residence under Partnership Category.

If, after some detective work, Barry finds out that he did, in fact, support his British wife for residence in 1992 and he is therefore not eligible to support Sharon for residence, ask INZ to decline Sharon’s next residence application as quickly as possible.

INZ has to decline a residence application which doesn’t meet 100% of Government requirements – so don’t blame INZ.

2: Next, appeal to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal (IPT) within 42 days of INZ’s decline decision, providing evidence of Sharon’s special circumstances.

She has four New Zealand children aged 5 to 12 who are all at school here and who would suffer if their mother had to leave the country. These are special circumstances!

3:Hope that the IPT accepts that there are special circumstances in Sharon’s case and recommends to the Minister of Immigration, Hon Michael Wood, that she is approved residence as an exception to the policy.

4: Hope that the Minister agrees and approves residence to Sharon as an exception. This is highly likely, but not guaranteed.

One final recommendation

The Government has licensed the occupation of “immigration adviser” because it wants to encourage migrants to obtain sound, trustworthy advice from competent professionals.

Telling your story to a journalist can be useful when you have run out of alternatives, but … Sharon Choo still has options.

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: How easy is it to be approved for an ‘open’ work visa for New Zealand?

The Government has made it more difficult, but it’s still possible for some.

There are three main categories which allow ‘open’ work visas. (An ‘open’ work visa allows employment for any employer, in any location, in any occupation – apart from prostitution.)

Post-Study Work Visas

An international student used to qualify for a Post-Study Work Visa (of between one and three years) after completing any tertiary course of 60 weeks or longer. They could work in any occupation.

Now, you’ll need a three-year bachelor’s degree, a postgraduate qualification, or a qualification on INZ’s Green List before you can qualify for an ‘open’ work visa.

If your qualification appears on the Green List and is less than a bachelor’s degree, your ‘open’ work visa will only allow you to work in the occupation that the qualification relates to.

So, for example, if you complete a New Zealand Certificate in Agriculture (Level 4), which appears on INZ’s Green List, you can only be approved an ‘open’ work visa which allows you to work as a dairy farmer (i.e. someone running a dairy farm, not simply a dairy worker).

These changes to Post-Study work visas are part of the Government’s Immigration Rebalance, which is designed to make it easier to attract and hire high-skilled migrants and to discourage employers from relying on low-skilled migrant workers.

Partner of a Worker work visas

Another plank in the Immigration Rebalance policy is to restrict ‘open’ work visas for the partners of work visa holders.

Currently, if someone is approved a three-year Accredited Employer Work Visa, their partner can be approved an ‘open’ work visa for the same length of time.

The Government planned to change that last December, limiting work visas to partners of Green List workers and partners of highly paid workers.

However, those planned changes were not implemented after receiving negative feedback from employers and immigration industry groups.

“There are many employers in New Zealand who benefit and probably rely upon the flexible open work rights given to partners of work visa holders,” Nicola Tiffen, the chair of the New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment (NZAMI), told me.

Tiffen said many migrants would choose to apply for a work visa in another country if their partner cannot be approved a work visa while living with them in New Zealand.

The Government is considering changes to its plans, which it now expects to implement in April 2023.

I asked the Minister of Immigration for a copy of the feedback he had received … after I waited for a month, Hon Michael Wood told me that the feedback wasn’t recorded.

Let’s hope he does the right thing, in spite of having nothing in writing.

Working Holiday Schemes

No changes have been made to Working Holiday Visas (WHVs), which allow young people aged 18 – 30 from 45 different countries to work for up to 12 months in New Zealand.

Working Holiday Schemes were closed for two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Before Covid, more than 60,000 people a year were approved WHVs, making it New Zealand’s number 1 work visa category.

I’m sure New Zealand employers would love to hire that many migrants again on ‘open’ work visas.

Compared with the Accredited Employer scheme, there are very low costs in hiring people on ‘open’ work visas, and they can start work straight away.

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: I confidently predict that 2023 will be the Year of the Well-Paid Migrant.

In this column, I’ll focus on the pay rates required for success under three major visa categories: Accredited Employer work visa, Skilled Migrant Category and Parent Category residence visas.

Beginning in February, migrants applying for Accredited Employer work visas for most occupations will need to be paid $29.66 per hour – the new New Zealand median wage – or higher.