14/12/09 - Australian migration to NZ doubles in 10 years

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Monday Dec 14, 2009

More than 14,000 Aussies shifted here to live in the past year.

The number of Australians moving to New Zealand has nearly doubled in the past decade, official immigration statistics from Canberra reveal.

The latest figures show 14,352 Australians made the big move in the 2008-2009 financial year.
The previous year, the number stood at 14,160, whereas in 1998-1999, just 7468 migrated to New Zealand.

The figures - in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship publication Emigration 2008-2009 - show that in the past decade, the number of Australians crossing the Ditch to live has increased steadily. New Zealand remains one of the main countries Australians choose to shift to.

Other preferred places include Britain, the United States and Hong Kong.

This year's report shows the number of Australians who left the country for good was the highest ever.
Just over 81,000 emigrated during the financial year - an increase of about 5.3 per cent over the 2007-2008 year.

The report said most were young and skilled workers.

Business New Zealand chief executive Phil O'Reilly said many people coming to New Zealand were chasing a particular job or opportunity that they could no longer find in Australia.

Others, he said, were New Zealanders who had moved across the Tasman to work and were now returning home.

"Infrastructure and mining opportunities over there have been slow, and if you've got a trade or better, it's much more likely that you'll get a job here even during a recession."

Mr O'Reilly said having many young people choosing to come to New Zealand to find jobs was only a temporary trend.

The challenge New Zealand employers faced was to get people to stay and to get them to think of it as a career as opposed to a job.

"You're more likely to leave your job if you don't like it. "[But] if you have job prospects, promotional opportunities and you like the community and people, you're more likely to stay," Mr O'Reilly said.

Statistics New Zealand figures show that in the year ending in October, 21,200 residents moved to Australia either permanently or long-term.

In the previous October year, that figure was 34,600.

Migration to Australia has been trending down since the figures for the year to December 2008 showed 35,600 people had shifted over.

Australia's Immigration and Citizenship Minister, Chris Evans, said the report's figures reinforced the fact that there was an increasing global demand for young, highly skilled people in the international labour market.

Australians moving to New Zealand:
1998-99  -   7,468
1999-00  -   8,961
2000-01  -   9,657
2001-02  - 10,024
2002-03  - 11,333
2003-04  - 13,685
2004-05  - 13,772
2005-06  - 13,915
2006-07  - 13,917
2007-08  - 14,160
2008-09  - 14,352

(Source Vaimoana Tapaleao NZ Herald)

13/12/09 - Police swoop nets 280 illegal immigrants

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Sunday Dec 13, 2009

LOS ANGELES - Immigration agents arrested 280 people in California in their biggest push yet to round up suspected illegal immigrants with criminal records in local communities, authorities said yesterday.

More than 400 agents and local law enforcement officers fanned out across the state in the three-day search led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"These are not people who we want walking our streets," enforcement director John Morton said. "We're going to focus on those people who choose to pursue a life of crime in the United States rather than pursue the American dream of education, hard work and success."

More than 80 per cent of the people arrested this week had prior convictions for serious or violent crimes, according to the enforcement unit. Seventeen people will face federal charges for re-entering the country illegally after being deported.

The arrests carried out this week were similar to those made in previous years by fugitive operations teams, which were created in 2003 to help reduce the number of immigrants who failed to obey deportation orders.

(Source AP)

12/12/09 - Mentors' skills help migrants

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Saturday Dec 12, 2009

New Zealand firms are urged to make the most of skilled immigrants who choose to settle herehoto / Sarah Ivey

This Friday is International Migrants' Day, a time to celebrate the contribution immigrants make. But what are the steps businesses can take to ensure New Zealand finds itself in a win-win situation?
Vaughan Granier, an HR manager who arrived recently from Dubai, has a story that many skilled immigrant professionals share.

Despite a great CV and international experience, he at first found it very hard to find appropriate work, sending out more than 80 CVs. The advice he got was that in Auckland's smaller job market, a major factor for success was to network.

"The job market I have come from has never relied on networks for sourcing employment. In New Zealand it is very much a relationship-based environment."

So Granier shifted his approach. "Initially I applied just through websites. I stopped doing that and I started meeting people, going to their offices, asking for time, making a point of direct contact, so that if my CV ever arrived on their desk, they had a face and personality they could match it to. "Although I can't directly say that is what made a difference, it was a significant shift in how I was approaching the job market."

When Granier did apply for his present position through Seek, the recruiter handling the appointment had already met him. Granier also joined a professional association, and a more informal network of qualified HR professionals. Through these groups, by reading extensively on workplace practice and law, and by meeting with a mentor, he rapidly developed local knowledge of the HR sector.

Granier's experience shows how hard it can be for well-qualified and skilled immigrants to find suitable work and make a genuine contribution to the economy. The big picture is that New Zealand does not make the best use of the skilled immigrants who choose to settle here.

According to the OECD, International Migration Outlook (2007) "nearly 50 per cent of all skilled migrants to New Zealand [are] inactive, unemployed or confined to jobs for which they are over-qualified".

Some of Auckland's leading business people, including David Rankin of Auckland City Council and Chris Quin of Gen-I, have signed up to do something about this, by volunteering in a mentoring programme initiated by the organisation OMEGA.

OMEGA director Justin Treagus says, "While many new skilled immigrants can and do manage to navigate their way through the unique job-entry barriers they face here, it may take them many months; months where they are unemployed and confidence is eroded.

"By linking them with someone who knows the landscape, it is that much easier for them to apply locally-appropriate strategies to their job-search. We find that over 80 per cent of the skilled immigrants who are mentored through OMEGA's programmes, find work relevant to their qualifications and experience."

The Mentoring Programme matches people who share the same skills and industry knowledge. Mentors make a commitment of 16 hours over 16 weeks.

"Essentially the mentor provides the skilled immigrant with a bespoke point of reference," said Treagus. "Because the local person knows their sector, they are able to provide guidance, suggestions and moral support."

The business people who have signed on as mentors have accepted a collective responsibility to ensure skilled immigration benefits New Zealand. Recognising and retaining skilled immigrants and the diversity they offer to the workplace helps ensure a productive and vibrant country.

A recent Department of Labour study showed that immigrants contributed 68 per cent more in taxes than they received in benefits. For local-born New Zealanders the corresponding figure is 13 per cent.

Overall the immigrant population had a positive net fiscal impact of $3.3 billion in 2005-06, compared to New Zealand-born population at $2.8 billion. Treagus believes this evidence is compelling and is asking Auckland's professionals to make a contribution: "With International Migrants' Day this week, mentoring a skilled immigrant can be a way to make a difference."

An Information Breakfast about the OMEGA Mentoring Programme will be held on Friday, December 18; see www.omega.org.nz

Overcoming barriers

1. No local experience: This is the single greatest job entry barrier for skilled immigrants new to Auckland.
2. Little social capital: New arrivals find themselves with knowledge gaps on local market information for their sector. Further, they do not know how to go about accessing professional networks, or even realise that many parts of the Kiwi job market place a high value on who, rather than what, you know.
3. Specialists vs generalists: Many immigrants with specialist skills take time to work out that they must become generalists. They find that many workplaces call for a spread of general skills, and struggle to offer this or even make the transition to a different way of working.
4. Lack of local lingo: Many skilled immigrants take some time to change the way they market themselves, and sometimes have to adopt a more personable style of communicating their skills and experience.

Ways to beat them

1. Update your CV with local experience: It might mean taking a lesser or slightly different role, but the aim is to gain local experience and then re-start your career. Through the next two points you will gain the chance to offer local references.
2. Volunteer: Everybody needs an excuse to get out of bed. Volunteer your skills and experience in not-for-profits to build your networks and bolster your local experience.
3. Go temping: The right job hasn't turned up? Become a temp and prove your skills and experience. You will continue to earn an income, and at the same time prove your worth to a company that might want you back.
4. Go out: Take a break from job hunting via computer and actively try to meet fellow professionals and potential employers. Nothing beats face-to-face encounters in New Zealand.

(Source Ruth Osborne NZ Herald)

12/12/09 - Immigration checks Delhi bribe claim

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Saturday Dec 12, 2009

Immigration NZ is investigating a serious allegation of corruption in its New Delhi office, where an officer is said to have demanded a $282,000 bribe to get 47 Indians into New Zealand.

The allegation has been made by Vinay Deobhakta, a Tauranga lawyer who was trying to get the group into the country.

He said the application was stalled until he was contacted by an Auckland woman who said she had a relative working in the New Delhi office.

Mr Deobhakta said he was told the application would fail unless he paid $6000 a person. He secretly recorded the conversation and has provided a copy to Immigration NZ.

Mr Deobhakta said he and an associate had paid the Auckland woman a $100,000 deposit.
The group is still in India.

Mr Deobhakta said he believed corruption was an issue in the New Delhi office and wanted a full inquiry.

The Department of Labour, which oversees Immigration NZ, confirmed its internal investigations unit was investigating the allegation.

A spokesman said its New Delhi office had stringent audit and verification systems in place. All work in the office was carried out under closed circuit TV and recorded.

The spokesman said visa applications were randomly assigned to case officers and a senior officer cross-checked all decisions before they were confirmed in the New Zealand system.

(Source Patrick Gower NZ Herald)

26/11/09 - Silver Fern visa to target talented graduates

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25 November, 2009

The Government's new Silver Fern visa will attract young highly skilled people to work long term in New Zealand, Minister of Immigration, Jonathan Coleman has announced today.

"The new Silver Fern policy enables young people with proven potential to come to New Zealand for up to nine months to seek skilled employment. Once they find skilled employment, they will be able to stay for a further two years, while they apply for residence. This will create a pathway to residence for young skilled people, who want to come to New Zealand to further develop their careers, and potentially to settle permanently.

"The National-led Government made a pre-election promise to attract higher-level skills to New Zealand and today's policy announcement delivers on that promise," says Dr Coleman.

"In the global competition for skills, we need to encourage young, career-minded people to choose New Zealand as a long term destination.

"Two permits will be available under this policy: a nine month ‘job search' permit, and a two year work permit once skilled employment is secured. The policy is designed so that people who meet the requirements upfront will be likely candidates for residence under the Skilled Migrant Category.

There will be an initial limit of 300 places and the policy specifically targets people aged between 20 and 35 years old.

"I think it's important to acknowledge that migration is a key economic enabler. It gives New Zealand businesses international connections, and provides skills to transform our economic landscape.

"However, it's all about attracting the right skills and matching those skills with the employment needs of our economy. I am confident that the Silver Fern visa will achieve that, because the young migrants eligible under this policy will need to prove their value to New Zealand employers," says Dr Coleman.

The Silver Fern policy will be implemented in April 2010.

(Source publication from Jonathan Coleman, Minister of Immigration)

26/11/09 - Young and highly-skilled get new pathway to citizenship

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Thursday Nov 26, 2009

Young, highly skilled graduate workers can come to New Zealand under a new visa policy which would eventually lead them on a pathway to becoming permanent residents.

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman said the new Silver Fern visa, to be implemented in April next year, aimed to attract the young and highly-skilled.

"In the global competition for skills, we need to encourage young, career-minded people to choose New Zealand as a long term destination.

"It is important to acknowledge that migration is a key economic enabler. It gives New Zealand businesses international connections and provides skills to transform our economic landscape. However, it's all about attracting the right skills and matching those skills with the employment needs of our economy."

Under the policy, young people with proven potential will be able to come to New Zealand for up to nine months to seek skilled employment.

Once employed, they will then be issued with a further permit to stay another two years while they apply for residence.

"The policy is designed so that people who meet the requirements upfront will be likely candidates for residence under the skilled migrant category," Dr Coleman said.

The policy targets those between 20 and 35 and will have an initial limit of 300.

In other changes to work policy taking effect on Monday, Immigration New Zealand said the minimum income threshold of $33,675 for essential-skills work-permit holders before their children can be considered domestic students was not meant to stop children of migrant workers from attending school.

"The policy is not designed to prohibit children from attending school, but to ensure that parents who wish to bring their children to New Zealand while they work on an essential skills work permit will have the income necessary to care for their children," said Lesley Haines, acting head of Immigration New Zealand.

These children could apply to study as international students, who pay annual school fees upwards of $10,000.

But Ms Haines said they were unlikely to be able to afford it.

"It is most unlikely that any parent earning less than $33,675 would be able to afford international student fees and expenses for their children.

"However, if they can afford to, the children will be assessed under student policy," she added.

Immigration New Zealand will also make changes to its long-term skills-shortage list from today.

Six occupations - boat builder, fitter, air conditioning and refrigerator mechanic, fruit or nut grower, market gardener and mixed crop farmer - are no longer deemed to be in long-term shortage and have been removed from the list.

But five new occupations - physicist, life scientist, medical oncologist, supply and distribution manager and diesel motor mechanic - have been added to it.

Employers wanting to recruit migrants in occupations not on the list can still do so if the employer is able to demonstrate that no suitable New Zealanders are available in that location to fill the job, Immigration New Zealand said.

(Source NZ Herlad, Lincoln Tan)

26/11/09 - Would-be migrants facing two-year wait

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Thursday Nov 26, 2009

About 4000 would-be migrants applying under the family category are being told they must wait for up to two years after paying their application fees to Immigration New Zealand before they can be allocated to a case officer.

Many are elderly parents wanting to live with their New Zealand citizen or resident children, and even after being assigned a case manager, have to wait another year or two before their applications are processed.

Licensed immigration adviser Tika Ram, who has five clients in the queue waiting for officer allocation, says the agency's practice is "outrageous and unfair".

"Some may not get to live long enough to see their applications approved," he said.

"Immigration New Zealand gets $700 for every application and 4000 applicants means it has received $2.8 million in advance payment for doing absolutely nothing and that's a breach of trust," said Mr Ram.

"If this was the case, the agency shouldn't be taking the fees up front, and it should at least make the effort of telling clients that they will be facing a two-year wait before the money goes in the bank."

A family member of a 74-year-old applicant who has been told that she has to return to Fiji to wait for a case manager to be assigned, says it has resulted in "extreme stress" for the grandmother.

"Two years is a long time for a woman her age, and she is extremely worried about who is going to care for her during that time because she has no one to return to in Fiji," said the woman, who did not want to be named for fear of jeopardising the woman's application.

Immigration New Zealand says although between 4950 and 5500 places are allocated annually within the family-capped stream, it is not regarded as a priority.

"The Government's annual residence programme gives priority to skilled and business migrants and the partners of returning New Zealanders," said Lesley Haines, acting head of Immigration New Zealand.

"Demand in the family-capped stream considerably exceeds annual supply of spaces, so applications are queued until places became available."

She said applications under the category take around 18 and 24 months to be allocated a case officer, and then processing time will vary depending on individual circumstances.

Allan Hughes, head of the watchdog group Kiwi Immigration Watch, said a two-year wait for a case officer was totally absurd.

"It just shows that nothing has changed with Immigration New Zealand under National, and that Coleman is truly struggling to get a grip on the agency," said Mr Hughes, a former Immigration NZ compliance officer.

But a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman said the minister did not find the waiting time unreasonable.

"There is no point allocating an application until places become available," she said.

"In Australia, waiting times are between 18 months and 10 years on parent application, and for Canada, the processing time is almost three years."

New Zealand accepted between 45,000 and 50,000 permanent residents annually.

About 60 per cent were skilled and business migrants, 30 per cent were re-uniting with families, and 10 per cent were admitted for international or humanitarian reasons.

(Source NZ Herald, Lincoln Tan)

24/11/09 - China plan to build 'little NZ'

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Monday Nov 23, 2009

A $400 million "little New Zealand" to be built in China will create up to 600 Kiwi jobs and open up "unprecedented" tourism, education and immigration opportunities, say Maori involved in the project.

Awataha Marae in Northcote is one of several New Zealand groups that have signed a co-operation deal with a major Chinese company to embark on the project at Qufu City, in China's northeastern province of Shandong.

Stage one is due to open in June.

"The Chinese will get to experience a slice of New Zealand without even leaving their shores, and it will sure tempt them into wanting to see and experience the real thing," said Anthony Paetawa Wilson, managing director of Awataha, which has been awarded the rights to manage the park.

Mr Wilson, who has recently returned from Qufu, where he signed the contract with the Chinese government-backed company New Zealand Gardens Qufu, refused to say who the other New Zealand organisations or individuals involved were.

He said they would be formally announced in Wellington today.

"It will open up opportunities never before seen between New Zealand and China at various levels, and will be of direct benefit to our Maori people as we seek to employ at least 400 to run the village."

Awataha will oversee the construction and management of a 2ha Maori village - the main feature of the park.
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Mr Wilson said management contracts, the international school and the agreement that official souvenirs will be carved in New Zealand could provide a further 200 jobs for Kiwis.

He said that with a projected 1.5 million visitors in the first year alone to the park, which will include Chinese and Asian tourists, the level of interest in what New Zealand offered could result in "billions of dollars" worth of benefits to tourism, education and investments.

"Next to the free trade agreement, this park will provide people-to-people and country-to-country link at an unprecedented level."

Open Polytechnic chief executive Dr Caroline Seelig said her institution was appraising courses and programmes to fit into the project.

(Source NZ Herald, Lincoln Tan)

24/11/09 - Tax reform needed to jump-start economy

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Monday Nov 23, 2009

Far-reaching reform of the tax system and a much tougher approach to Government spending than the Budget foreshadowed will be necessary if New Zealand is to narrow the income gap with Australia and other developed countries, the Treasury says.

The economy is seriously under-performing, it says in a report to ministers titled "Getting Started on Closing the Income Gaps".

Both Government and private consumption has run well ahead of income, while business investment has been relatively modest.

Debt levels are high, and land and house prices probably unsustainable.

The Budget was underpinned by an expectation that the recession would trigger a process of rebalancing which would put the economy on a more sustainable path, but that is not panning out.

Instead of the expected 25 per cent fall in real house prices, they are heading back above their 2007 peaks, aided by strong net immigration.

The reorientation of the economy away from consumption towards production and exports is likely to be slower and weaker than had been hoped and that would mean overseas debt reaching even higher levels than those the Budget had forecast (over 100 per cent of GDP) and which the Treasury doubts are sustainable.

"At best our current medium-term economic prospects appear to be fragile, unbalanced growth. There is little in the current policy mix that would make a material difference in terms of closing the income gap."

What would, the Treasury argues, is a combination of ambitious tax reform and "front-loaded fiscal consolidation" - code for belt-tightening in Government spending that goes well beyond the $1.1 billion cap on new spending adopted in this year's Budget.

"You have the opportunity for once-in-a-generation reorientation of the tax system," it told ministers.

"If the opportunity is embraced, far-reaching tax reform could make a powerful contribution to jump-starting a process that, over a decade or two, could close the income gaps."

The less ambitious the approach to other taxes like GST, land tax and capital gains tax, the harder would be the required choices about where to concentrate income tax reductions.

Structural reform could not begin and end with tax, however. Also in the Treasury's sights are privatisation of state-owned enterprises, pricing not only carbon emissions but water, and a greater role for external capital in the dairy and meat processing sectors.

Since 2002, New Zealand has had the fifth-highest rate of increase in Government spending in the OECD.

The report is clearly talking about a significantly more demanding track than the Budget, which envisaged a decade of deficits even with a much lower cap on new spending.Significant and well-foreshadowed cuts in Government expenditure would limit the need for official cash rate increases by the Reserve Bank, it says, which in turn would mean less pressure, all else equal, on the exchange rate.

The Budget had relied on fiscal drag - the process whereby inflation pushes people into higher tax brackets - to reduce deficits over time. "Fiscal drag sounds innocuous. In fact it would mean that by 2022/23 the average wage earner would be paying the top marginal tax rate."

The Budget's priorities had been supporting the demand side of the economy through a recession, while averting a credit rating downgrade.

"Having dealt with that initial situation, some more significant adjustment is now warranted."

A combination of spending cuts and tax reform, the report says, could deliver an economic scenario which looked like this: Materially weaker consumption relative to income and lower house prices, materially stronger investment and employment in the export sector, a materially lower exchange rate for several years, interest rates and a cost of capital more in line with international norms and a materially stronger fiscal position with scope for tax cuts in the future.

(Source NZ Herald, Brian Fallow)

23/11/09 - Silver fern on ePassport released today

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Monday Nov 23, 2009

New Zealand travellers will soon be carrying a stylish new ePassport with the iconic silver fern at borders around the world.

Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy announced the release of the new ePassport from today to enhance security and better reflect New Zealand's identity.

"The new security features will help to future-proof our passport against fraudsters and maintain visa-free entry for New Zealanders into more than 50 countries," said Mr Guy.

"The New Zealand passport has an outstanding reputation around the world and these changes will further enhance that. As a country we need to take advantage of the latest advances in technology to maintain international confidence in our passport."

With English and Te Reo Maori throughout, the new ePassport has a navigation theme with artwork of specific locations in the country. It contains images of travel tools used by explorers in the past and present, and the journey of early migrants from north to south.

Each page is different, making the new ePassport difficult to counterfeit.

The artwork was chosen by a group of New Zealand artists as well as officials in government. A design firm was responsible for developing the art. Over the next few months, the Department of Internal Affairs will be slowly introducing the new ePassport, while using up its existing stock of books.

It has been tested with international border agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security in the United States.

New Zealand's ePassports, introduced in November 2005, have an embedded microchip holding the holder's biometric information and digitised photograph, enhancing security and making it difficult to counterfeit.

The new ePassport books and machines will cost just under $100 million over five years.

The price for a new passport will remain unchanged at $150 for adult standard service.

(Source NZPA)