Buying your way into New Zealand?

Kim Dotcom

A huge story in New Zealand right now is the arrest of Kim Dotcom, a wealthy investor who is being held on charges of reproducing and distributing infringing copies of copyright works – including movies, television programmes, music, software and books.

It’s a big story which has many facets, but in terms of immigration there are a couple of points of interest to me:

1) Dotcom was allowed into the country despite serious previous criminal convictions

I don’t have an issue with taking a decision on previous convictions, especially as full details were given to the immigration officials making the decision and the German system had wiped them anyway.

However in this case the immigration department has created a situation where they have drawn accusations of allowing Dotcom to buy his way past the good character test. Initially he was declined but somehow passed the good character test after paying $10 million to the NZ government. This looks even more shabby when  another government department had decided to block Dotcom from buying land because in their opinion he failed the good character test.

We won’t even get into the revelations that Kim has  diabetes, a slipped disc and hypertension but apparently had no problem with medicals.

The Immigration Minister knew about the decision but was not involved, however the Prime Minister John Key has come out in defence of the decision saying:

“I think because they deemed under the clean slate legislation he effectively didn’t have a record and he wasn’t trying to hide anything, those convictions were a long time ago, so they let him through,” he said.

The idea that admitting your crimes should confirm good character is a little difficult to swallow as is the inconsistency shown in these decisions.

Political support for Dotcom after he splashed cash around is extremely worrying. The government has already reduced the English Language requirements for investors (they only need an IELTS score of 4 now) moving away from concentrating on skilled workers to encouraging investors, and this could be a worrying sign that they are willing to bend the rules more if the right amount of money is on offer.

2) John Banks, then Auckland Mayor, provided Dotcom with immigration advice.

It transpired through the reporting that John Banks, then Mayor of Auckland, had admitted to giving Dotcom immigration advice in relation to his Residence application.

As Mayor of Auckland Mr. Banks may not have been aware that in providing immigration advice he would have been committing a serious criminal offence punishable by up to 7 years in prison – arguably more than Kim .com will face in the USA.

A perfect example of a much needed piece of legislation that was very poorly written and implemented (the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007) was introduced in 2008 that prohibits anyone not licensed or exempt from providing immigration advice.

Mr. Banks is not registered as a licensed immigration adviser and does not appear to fall into any of the classifications of an exempt person as Mayor (although bizarrely as an MP he does as if this somehow gives him magical information on immigration law and policy).

Move2NZ as an independent migration commentator has written to the Immigration Advisers Authority to ask what their response to this will be. Their reply has been that they are thinking about it and will respond next week. Hmmm.

• Join in this discussion on the move2nz forum

We’ll see what the IAA does/says and what other tidbits of information come out about this case in days to come.

Mike

Racism, sexism or just failing skilled migrants?

Here’s an interesting story that has come up in the Herald:

Female mechanic claims sexism

A qualified mechanic says she is being rejected by employers because of her ethnicity and gender.

Indian migrant Rushika Patel, 30, faces deportation if she cannot find work in the next six months.

Patel graduated in July last year with a degree in automotive engineering and has lost count of the jobs she has since missed out on.

The Glenfield resident says she is being rejected because she is an Indian woman trying to enter a male-dominated industry.

• Read the whole story here

What do you think about this?

This story to me highlights a deep unfairness in the New Zealand Immigration system. Not the kind of whinging “life’s not fair” many would expect, more a case that good people acting in good faith have not been given a fair go.

Here’s how I view this problem being created:

• NZ decides it needs qualified mechanics but does not have enough;
• The skills is officially added to the Immigration department’s Immediate Skill Shortage List for all areas of NZ;
• The immigration department encourages people from overseas to come to NZ to fill these shortages;
• People come confident that their skills are needed, paying fees and levies to the government, bringing all of their wealth to NZ and investing their futures here;
• Many people arriving discover the disconnect between immigration requirements and employer needs – realising that although immigration accepted their qualifications NZ employers will not;
• If the person’s skills are not recognised they must then  pay international fees (in this case $60,000) to gain NZ qualifications on the understanding that they can then get work;
• Applicants rightly assume that only recognised qualifications accepted by industry would ever be used in these circumstances and so confidently pay the fees and also tens of thousands to support themselves while they study;
• Once qualified the person can only work (in this case) as a mechanic. They can’t start a business, claim benefits or work in any other field. While unemployed and looking for work they have no source of income or assistance from NZ;
• After all of this if they don’t find a job within 12 months they can be deported.

Now flick this around and imagine that you as a New Zealander were being encouraged by the UK or USA to come and work on the basis that you and your family might be able to stay permanently.

When you arrive you are told your qualifications aren’t good enough and you’ll have to pay $60,000 to up-skill. Then you are put on a course which will give you a qualification employers will not accept.

How would you feel if at the end of this process you were deported back to NZ having been effectively stripped of all of your savings? I’d call that unfair but that is exactly what is happening here.

Unfortunately the facts are not widely understood by mainstream New Zealanders – most people view migrants as taking limited jobs rather than filling gaps, helping employers grow and creating additional jobs for kiwis.

If this system was set up correctly it would ensure that:

• New Zealand gets the skilled workers we need to fill shortages and create jobs;
• There is good and transparent information to help people make good decisions before setting out to NZ on issues like qualifications, skill shortages, employability and chances of success.

This would create a situation where NZ gets what it needs and migrants are able to make informed decisions.

Unfortunately the current system is not delivering. It is becoming less and less transparent, bureaucracy has increased, errors and inconsistencies have crept in (such as people are being charged tens of thousands of dollars in international tuition fees to take courses which are not accepted by employers) and many migrants are being stripped of savings and sent packing.

Is this how kiwis want New Zealand to be? A honey trap for highly skilled workers?

Or do we want a system that delivers huge economic and cultural benefit to the country. In 2006 the same number of migrants currently in the quotas contributed $8.1 billion to New Zealand’s economy. Think about that – without increasing the number of migrants how many jobs could be created? How many struggling businesses supported?

In this situation a family has received poor information which has lead them into a situation where they could lose all they have worked for through no fault of their own. Fairness should be a cornerstone of immigration policy ensuring that people are given all of the information they need when they need it to make informed decisions.

When there is a risk they should know what that risk is and what their chances of success are just as any kiwi heading overseas would want.

I would argue that these unfair situations hurt New Zealand and should be corrected to make sure that our immigration system provides exactly the workers our employers need but cannot find locally.

Is that too much to ask?

Mike
Site achitect, www.move2nz.com

NZ Recruitment: beware the dark side

Migrants are often viewed by disreputable companies as easy money and traditionally less ethical recruitment businesses have targeted skilled workers on the basis that they are often poorly informed, cashed up and (best of all) in another country thousands of miles away making it hard for them to come and complain.

New Zealand Immigration policy has made the job offer such a core requirement for the majority of applicants that many people are caught in a catch-22 situation where they need to interview in New Zealand to get a job, but can’t fully commit to their move without a solid job offer.

As a result many people are desperate and willing to pay large sums of money for the promise of employment.

Unfortunately like most promises of this kind you rarely get what you pay for. Rather than the job offer you are much more likely to end up in the same position without a big chunk of cash as many of these businesses will keep taking more and more money until you give up.

Finding work in New Zealand
It’s never been that easy to get a job in New Zealand and almost impossible for most people unless they are willing to come here and meet potential employers.

The recruitment industry is fairly large and links jobseekers and employers together. While most companies just link people together (and take a large payment from the employer for doing so) there are some consultants who perform important services around vetting and psychometric testing for specific roles and of course some actively head-hunt top staff.

What links these businesses together is that they are generally reputable and the employer almost always pays for the new applicant not the jobseeker. Charging the jobseeker is very unusual in New Zealand (and generally a bad sign), charging the employer and the jobseeker (‘double dipping’) is a really bad sign.

The dark side
Before the recession hit New Zealand there were more and more companies targeting vulnerable and desperate migrants promising they could find them a job without the need to come to New Zealand.

Move2nz came across one such company – NewjobZ – in 2005 soon after launching and quickly realised they were hiding their fees, slipping nasty surprises into the small-print and not providing services for the majority of their paying customers. Those paying clients they did work with were generally just passed to other recruitment companies who worked normally, could be found for free in the yellow pages, and properly charged the employer when landing a job offer.

Luckily complaints to the Commerce Commission closed this bunch down long ago.

Times have been hard for many recruitment businesses since the recession hit at the start of 2009 and almost all recruitment companies moved completely away from working with speculative migrants – those without a visa allowing them to start work – as employers (and immigration) wouldn’t accept them.

Things are starting to pick up again however with a 10 percent increase in jobs being advertised of the past year and the looming rebuild in Christchurch which is expected to require 8,000+ migrant workers to help out.

Paying for a job

Today I am here to tell you to beware – the first sharks are back in the water.

The first sign I received was an email from a move2nzer – an IT professional from India – who had been working with a reputable licensed adviser. The adviser referred him to a recruitment business who charged a ‘job search fee’ of NZ$1,350 to look for a job.

Interestingly not only did the immigration professional know about this fee, they actually sent out the first invoice. Of course once the fee was paid the recruiter stopped answering emails – it appears it was just a scam.

Thousands of miles away from New Zealand the migrant is stuck. They could complain to the Commerce Commission but are unlikely to see their money ever again and are no closer to getting a job offer.

As the adviser was involved you might think the migrant could complaint to the Immigration Advisers Authority about this, but actually the IAA and Tribunal only cover immigration advice and (unike the law commission who watch lawyers) are not interested if a licensed adviser is found to be less than professional when operating any other service.

Sign #2
The second sign was spotting advertising from a very sharp website aimed at the UK market that was so close in operation to the old NewjobZ I had to check who was running it to make sure it wasn’t the same crowd. Here’s how it works:

1. You upload your CV onto their database of ‘thousands’ for free;
2. If you get a job offer and accept it there is an admin fee of $1,295;
3. The employer also pays a fee if you are placed.

Some might think that’s good – a job offer even though the recruiter is ‘double dipping’ from the jobseeker and employer. But the devil is in the detail. If the employer doesn’t want to pay (and they say “many” employers do not) then you do. In this circumstance:

“…you agree to also pay us a Successful Placement Fee of between 2 and 4 weeks of your expected gross annual remuneration, dependent on circumstance. Fees must be paid within 7 days of receipt of our invoice”

So you end up with a very vague additional bill of between probably $2,000 and $7,500 due within 7 days of starting work – i.e. before you start earning in New Zealand – and have no real ability to check that the employer actually refused to pay.

I should also point out that because of the 90-day ’fire at will’ policy introduced in New Zealand back in 2009 you can be fired at any point in the first 90 days of employment (whether you have agreed to this in a contract or not) without reason. Previous examples have shown that if this happens you will very probably still have to pay the fee charged by the recruitment business. Money gone, no job.

But wait, there’s more.

With a little digging we also spotted that one of the directors of this company is the founder of one of the largest immigration businesses around.

Reading the small print it turns out that when you upload your free CV you are actually signing up and agreeing that if you get a job offer you will use the immigration services of this immigration business!. That means another bill of several thousand dollars you didn’t know about.

Buyer beware!

In my experience no matter what promises are made and no matter how much you have paid eventually almost all migrants will need to attend interviews in New Zealand to stand a chance of finding work – employers will quite naturally want to meet you before taking a risk on offering you work.

Paying for a job or jobsearch might sound like a good idea but very rarely works out. You are much more likely to end up:

• in the same position you were (but with a lot less money);
• paying exorbitant hidden fees;
• passed on to another business that you could have found yourself for free; or
• being tied in to a contract with all sorts of extra costs and requirements.

My advice as always is to contact employers direct – preferably by phone – unless you actually have to go through a recruitment company (for example when applying for jobs in local government). No one else can really tell you how employable you are and no one else is likely to offer you a job.

See move2nz’s employment page and articles for details and think before you part with your money.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous 2012.

Mike Bell
Site architect – www.move2nz.com

This article and many others can be found on move2nz.com – helping migrants become Kiwis since 2005.

New Zealand sinks into negative migration

Statistics New Zealand’s October 2011 report on international travel and migration is out and it makes for worrying reading.

While the official report warbles happily about more tourists attracted by the Rugby World Cup it is strangely quiet on a red-hot political topic: the number of New Zealanders leaving for Australia.

Some alert journalists have picked up on this, but even the most hard-working journo simply reads the full report looking for a headline. A little effort turns up the worrying cause and implications of this unprecedented situation: where more people are leaving such a popular country than arriving.

1) New Zealanders crossing the ditch
Kiwis are leaving New Zealand in almost record numbers and the report confirms a 20% increase over last year.

Actually numbers heading to most locations around the world are down on the last couple of years but with one highly notable exception: Australia. Numbers are up by 41% on last year with 49,460 (well over half of all outbound kiwis) choosing Australia as their new permanent home.

Many migrants are worried about this and rightly asking why so many Kiwis are leaving.

What official statistics confirm is that there is a normal cycle of New Zealanders heading to and from Australia every year. While the numbers leaving right now are high what we are seeing appears to be simply a big rise in the high point of that cycle and nothing that hasn’t happened before.

So why has NZ hit negative migration for the first time?

2) Current Migrant numbers
A quick check through this year’s Statistics NZ report to October shows that international migration – people coming in and out of New Zealand from other countries – is largely unchanged since last year with just a 2% rise.

Numbers from China, Ireland and France are up (1,391, 700 and 566 respectively), while arrivals from Australia, India and Fiji are down (1,200, 838 and 241 respectively).

But this apparent stability is false simply reflecting that the huge changes quietly made in 2009 and 2010 have now had time to settle down to ‘business as usual’.

3) The real reason for negative migration
Go back a year to the October 2010 stats report and you can see what has really happened.

Imagine that the number of people coming in and out of New Zealand is a pool of water. Up to a million New Zealanders live overseas in a normal year but the pool stays nicely full despite the ebb and flow because a steady and controlled flow of migrants tops it up. Even in a year like this when large numbers leave (and in 2008 even more Kiwis left NZ) the pool doesn’t empty.

But what would happen if you made big cuts in the number of migrants?

When you hit the high point of the cycle with a lot of people leaving you run the risk of the pool running dry and that is exactly what has happened.

Very few people are aware that from 2009 the government began cutting migrant numbers, concentrating on reducing the number of highly skilled workers needed to fill New Zealand’s skill gaps.

In January 2010 the number of applications accepted by the immigration department through the Skilled Migrant residency category were slashed by 30%.

The October 2010 Statistics NZ report confirms that international immigration was down by 3,809. Not only were migrants from Europe down by 12.2% (2,812) but numbers from the UK (NZ’s biggest contributor) had fallen by 36% (3,350) from 9,183 to 5,833.

Government reports have blamed everything from the global recession to (somehow retrospectively) the Canterbury earthquakes.

To get to the bottom of this I entered a request under the Official Information Act but got fluff and nonsense back with no solid figures or data.

What government reports never mention are the systematic, ruthless but silent cuts to the number of skilled workers being allowed into the country.

This is confirmed by the immigration department’s first ever failure to meet it’s own quota for the year to July 2011. They didn’t miss by a little, they missed by 10% or 4,263 people, and nothing has changed since.

After the first quarter of the 2012 year the immigration department is on track for even greater failure next year as shown by the graph above but according to the Minister has no intention of changing the quotas it is failing to meet!

4) Just the beginning
New Zealand is and always has been a very popular country for migrants looking for balanced family life and a clean green accessible environment to play in. Unfortunately that is changing.

I have spoken to thousands of migrants and know that lifestyle trumps high wages as a priority. However families still need sufficient income to achieve their goals of a good work/life balance, comfortable home and great recreation.

New Zealand is my home. I love it here and I would never live anywhere else, but over the past three years I have sadly watched this country change beyond all recognition.

A good a practical immigration system has been broken and twisted into something which is no longer ‘migrant friendly’. Vulnerability of migrants and immigration bureaucracy has massively increased while transparency on applications has become a thing of the past.

The New Zealand government is forcing globally mobile migrants to take their skills elsewhere as I mentioned in June with New Zealand cutting its skilled immigration programme while Australia and Canada have increased theirs.

Skilled Migration Comparison

Making it harder to get in and stay is one thing, but at the same time New Zealand has become less attractive to globally mobile workers.

• Wages have dropped while the cost of living has rocketed meaning that the numbers no longer add up in New Zealand for many migrants. For example a nurse in New Zealand currently earns a little over half of what the would earn in Australia and many Australian nurses are currently striking for even better pay and conditions.
• Changes to employment law have stripped migrants of any ability to get the rock solid offer of work they need for visas.
• Two major draw-cards for migrants are being systematically dismantled: the amazing ACC with protection and far reaching social benefits, and the best education system in the world which is now being forced into the same tragic and dysfunctional model as the UK.
• Even the clean, green countryside is disappearing with agricultural pollution, mining and now oil spills which are likely to be the precursor to another ‘Deepwater Horizon’ disaster as NZ allows oil companies to drill even deeper test wells without controls or safeguards.

Australia is well aware of the international battle for skills and has recently opened two new visa centres in Christchurch and Auckland.

As NZ citizens do not need a visa and (in my experience) getting a visitor’s visa for Australia  takes a travel agent a matter of seconds these centres are clearly aimed at attracting more of New Zealand’s skilled migrant population over the ditch.

With higher wages, a stronger economy, similar cost of living and better job security many migrants from western countries are now clearly finding their sums add up to Australia rather than New Zealand and Aotearoa is clearly losing the international battle for skills.

5) Christchurch Rebuild
Pushing globally mobile skilled migrants elsewhere seems crazy to me. New Zealand already has massive skill shortages in certain areas like medical, engineering and IT and this is getting worse.

By my calculations cuts to skilled migration have lost New Zealand well over a billion dollars in direct income let alone the indirect value of taxes etc.

There is also the matter of the Canterbury rebuild requiring around 8,000 people from overseas. While numbers heading permanently into Christchurch have dropped by 25.5% this is in line with government cuts and not something to worry about.

What is increasingly apparent is that these jobs will be temporary. Migrants will be expected to travel half-way around the world with their families for a few years of poor wages but without the offer of permanent status – after their contribution they will be expected to leave.

Summary
This fall into negative territory should be a warning flag to New Zealand – not only that Kiwis are leaving but that immigration has become a broken a twisted wreck, choked by bureaucracy and making it increasingly safer to go elsewhere instead. If New Zealand does not change this pattern soon it will take many years to put this right.

Move2NZ has been waving a flag for three years now to warn about this, let’s just hope that it is not already too late.

Mike
Site architect move2nz.com

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Links

• Stats NZ – International Travel and Migration: October 2009
• Stats NZ – International Travel and Migration: October 2010
• Stats NZ – International Travel and Migration: October 2011

Please fix New Zealand’s broken immigration system

Recently Tammy put together a comparison between the different political parties immigration policies on move2nz.com for migrants in the run-up to New Zealand’s general election on the 26th November.

Many migrants can vote and need to know the difference between the parties to decide how.

National has not yet released their immigration policy but we have a fair idea of what it is from the last three years: cuts to skilled immigration, a move away from permanent residency to temporary visas and an emphasis on who can bring in cash rather than  skills.

Today I saw a piece on Labour’s recently released immigration policies (including an Immigration Ombudsman which would mean people like Charmain Timmons won’t continue to suffer as they are.

Forget politics, lets look at results and the results over the past three years have been appalling for both New Zealand and migrants interesting in coming here. I wrote a comment on the article and include it here:

Properly managed migration only brings in skills we can’t find in NZ.

It boosts our ageing population, adds $1.9 billion in direct income (plus $5.1b in indirect income) every year, helps NZ business grow and creates tens of thousands of jobs for kiwis.

Unfortunately since 2009 a reasonably effective immigration system has been quietly turned into a broken and twisted wreck. Massive new bureaucracy, delays, errors plus the loss of any transparency has seen New Zealand lose some of the best and brightest applicants to Australia and Canada.

The core of effective skilled migration is knowing where the skill shortages are. The govt is using the WINZ database rather than collecting this information and it is a false economy leaving many businesses unable to hire perfect applicants they need with the knock on effect of losing NZ employees their jobs.

The decision to slash numbers of the most highly skilled workers allowed into the country from Jan 2010 by 30% has so far lost New Zealand over $750 million – cash which would be fairly handy right now – a figure expected to rise to $1.8 billion by next year.

Minister Coleman’s choice has created huge skill shortages in certain areas such as medical, engineering and I.T. which cannot be filled by short-term training. Changes were made as recently as July to block skilled trades workers and allow in more PhDs.

NZ had a good system before the current Minister broke it. Can we have it back please?

Simply repairing this damage would help NZ businesses get the staff they need, create thousands of jobs for kiwis and bring hundreds of millions of income back into the country.

Continuing as we are sends the benefit NZ was getting to Australia.

Mike
site architect, move2nz.com

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame immigration staff who have no choice but to apply the policy they are given. I’d just like the politicians keep the good, only throw out the bad and come up with new ideas to improve the benefit New Zealand gets from immigration as well the as the experience migrants have. Is that too much to ask?

Mike

Immigration New Zealand: weird selections continue

Please note that I am not a licensed immigration adviser and the following is intended as general immigration commentary, not personal advice.

Big Skilled Migrant Selection for migrants with Work Experience

Between 45,000 and 50,000 visas are granted every year through New Zealand’s Permanent Residency programme. The Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) is the route for skilled workers and their families, making up approximately 58% of this programme.

Expressions of Interest (EOIs) for residency through the SMC go into a pool and every fortnight the immigration department pull a number of these out for processing to mee their annual quota of between 25,000 and 27,000 SMC applications approved.

In Move2NZ’s October newsletter I reported on the smallest Skilled Migrant selection made since the programme was introduced in December 2005 with just 496 applications collected for processing.

Falling numbers
From January 2007 through to May 2009 on average 774 SMC applications were selected each fortnight, but numbers have been falling since to an average of just 563 through 2011. This drop has lead to the immigration department failing to meet its quota with just 21,212 applications approved, well short of the 25,000 minimum as can be seen from the graph aside.

With the SMC being such an important part of the Residency programme this has been a major cause of the entire programme to fail in meeting targets – in 2010/11 just 40,737 applications were approved – well short of the minimum 45,000.

Looking at applications over the past five years through the SMC stream you can see why this is.

The graph aside shows in blue the applications approved and in red the applications declined. Because of the significant drop in applications accepted through 2010/11 the department was never likely to meet the quota. Numbers have continued to fall since.

Government sources state that this is because of a drop in interest from migrants, however I have seen no evidence to support this and the number of applications sitting for months in the pool has risen to almost record numbers.

Although the Minister has confirmed there is no intent to reduce Residency numbers or change the current practices this process of declining numbers has continued through 2011/12.

Three months in to the year (which started on 1st July) 2011/12 numbers selected are already down 7 percent on last year, and approvals are down 11 percent. Crunching the numbers and using patterns from the past five years I believe I have generated an accurate projection of the total number of EOIs through the Skilled Migrant Category likely to be selected and approved in 2011/12.

This figure of just 19,417 applications likely to be approved is even further away from the 25,000 minimum quota.

October 5th Selection
As if the immigration department heard last newsletter’s questions the selection made on October 5th was unusual. For one thing the number of applications pulled from the pool jumped to 628 – not enough to make much of a difference over the year (unless selections of this size continue) but a rise none the less. We’ll see if this trend continues.

The second and most surprising thing about this selection was where those extra numbers came from. People reading my commentaries on this blog and move2nz will have heard me talking about the seven groups that EOIs fall into (see table below), and applicants with EOIs in group 4 (those without a job offer and claiming 15 points for work experience) will be celebrating.

Nearly 5 times the 2011 average were pulled from the pool in one go. You have to go right back to January 2007 to see anything like this ever happening before.

For so many applications without job offers to be selected gives hope to many applicants who are not able to travel to New Zealand to obtain offers of work, widening New Zealand’s pool of available talent and putting a little equality back into the process. We’ll keep watching to see if this trend continues.

Here are the numbers from the latest selection:

EOIs selected on Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Group	Selection criteria	Onshore	Offshore	Total
1	140 points or more with job offer	278	34	312
2	140 points or more without job offer	6	61	67
3	100 – 135 points with job offer	74	6	80
4	100 – 135 points with 15 points for work experience	2	167	169
5	100 – 135 points with 10 points for work experience	0	0	0
6	100 – 135 points with 10 points for qualification	0	0	0
7	100 – 135 points without bonus points	0	0	0
	Total EOIs with job offers	352	40	392
	Total EOIs without job offers	8	228	236
	Total EOIs	360	268	628

• Source

More reports to come on what is becoming a completely unpredictable immigration system.

Mike Bell
site architect, move2nz.com

Shocking update on Charmain Timmons’ fight against deportation

As many of you will know move2nz has been supporting Charmain Timmons and her children through a campaign including facebook and a petition to help them avoid deportation from New Zealand which has attracted 1,042 signatures.

Background
Charmain arrived in New Zealand with her husband and two young children in December 2007. Many people migrate because of a problem and sadly some bring that problem with them. Charmain’s secret was that her husband was physically and emotionally abusing her.

In February 2009 the family was granted Permanent Residency in principle but the abuse was getting worse. Charmain asked for help and found the strength to leave the relationship. She got a protection order and started trying to build her life back again, moving and eventually beginning a degree course to become a much needed social worker.

Find out more/take action
You can help, please click on the links below to find out more:
– ‘Like’ the Facebook campaign
– Sign the petition

Charmain’s now ex-husband breached that protection order and was convicted nine times spending six weeks in prison before leaving New Zealand.

Then a bombshell – in a crazy turn of events Charmain was told that because of her husband’s convictions as the principle applicant her Residency was to be revoked. The immigration department told her she wasn’t needed in New Zealand and should leave. Charmain asked again for help, but was poorly advised leading to deportation proceedings against her. Charmain’s final hope was an appeal to the Associate Minister for Immigration, Kate Wilkinson.

In the meantime Charmain’s ex-husband has been allowed to re-enter New Zealand on a two year visitor’s visa as he now has a New Zealand born girlfriend. While Charmain is being kicked out because of these crimes against her the perpetrator is bizarrely being allowed to stay.

move2nz became involved when we saw the headline Government tried to deport bashed wife. For Charmain and her children, now little Kiwis, to be deported because of the crimes against her seemed totally unfair. As we are not licensed immigration advisers it is illegal for us to help directly by advocating for Charmain but we had to do something and so we started our campaign which has now collected 1,040 signatures.

Action since July
I have been in constant contact with Charmain for the last couple of months, exchanging over 90 emails, but there has been no news to report while the Minister reviews the appeal. Charmain and her children wait but in the meantime a government case manager has been communicating with her.

The case manager advised Charmain to start a work visa application, leave the country and then apply to re-enter New Zealand to take up work. Charmain saw that there was no guarantee of being able to get back into New Zealand and resisted this, especially while her appeal was still being heard by the Minister.

What Charmain has told me recently sent me reeling and I had to update about this incredible twist.

Punish the victim – support the abuser
First Charmain’s ex-husband breached the protection order again and told her that he had been meeting with her immigration case manager and now knew everything about her private case. The case manager in question has denied this, however Charmain’s ex-husband does appear to know all about her private dealings with the immigration department.

Then Charmain received evidence that her ex-husband had applied to the family court for custody of their children should Charmain be forced to leave New Zealand temporarily as the immigration department had pressured.

Finally she was sent papers confirming that her case manager had told her ex-husband that he could apply for Residency, and if he did receive custody the case manager could lift the deportation order on the children and issue them with Student Visas instead. The same case manager who had adamantly stated he could not do this for Charmain.

So if the children are in their mother’s care, the innocent victim of family violence, they will be deported from New Zealand with her, back to a country they barely remember because of their father’s crimes. But if their care is passed to the man who abused their mother and has served time in prison as a result, they will be allowed to stay permanently in New Zealand with him.

This situation appears to be backwards, punishing the victim of violence while supporting the abuser.

A number of questions have now been raised about the way this case is being handled and the message New Zealand is sending to the world regarding attitudes to family violence and the rights of children.

What do you think about this?
Post your comments, or sign the petition to support Charmain and her children.

Skilled Migrant Category: smallest selection ever

Please note that I am not a licensed immigration adviser and the following is intended as general immigration commentary, not personal advice.

Fig 1 – SMC Selections
(Click for enlargement)

In December 2005 a points system was introduced to help the immigration department select suitable applicants for Permanent Residency under the Skilled Migrant Category (SMC).

Since then migrants scoring more than 100 points have been able to enter an application (their Expression of Interest or EOI) for Residency.

Applications go into a ‘pool’ and wait for a maximum of 6 months at which point they expire and drop out again. If this happens applicants don’t get their money back and so entering an application is effectively a gamble of the $400 fee.

Each fortnight the immigration department pulls a number of applications from that pool using strict criteria to meet the largest part of the Permanent Residence quota agreed each year by government.

As reported on move2nz many times (see links below), the numbers being selected each fortnight have been dropping over the past two years without any explanation from government. The agreed Residency quota has stood rock steady at 45,000 per year since 2001, but as move2nz predicted the immigration department failed to meet this quota last year for the first time ever.

Against this backdrop of what I would call immigration cuts, 21st September 2011 saw the smallest selection ever made by the department with less than 500 applications pulled from the pool.

A period of stability
Between January 2006 (when the first selection was made under this programme) and December 2008 the number selected each fortnight by the department stayed steady at around 770 to ensure that the Residency quota of beween 27,000 and 30,000 a year for the Skilled/Business stream was met.

What this meant was that anyone entering an Expression of Interest had a chance of being selected. Applications scoring 140 points or more are automatically pulled from the pool, but others scoring less with bonus points for employment, qualifications and work experience were also selected. Even those without any bonus points at all were regularly selected.

The winds of change
Although no official changes were made to quotas or policy, from January 2009 a series of changes were implemented which had a huge effect on the Skilled Migrant Category which makes up around 60 percent of all Residency applications.

As can be seen in the graph above (fig 1) in 2008 the average number of EOIs pulled from the pool each fortnight was 774. By 2009 this had dropped to 705 and in 2010 the average was right down to just 557. As a result 5,441 less applications (or nearly 15,000 less people) were selected for processing in 2010.

2011 was tracking along pretty much the same as 2010 until September when numbers dropped again.

Smallest selection ever
On 21st September the lowest number ever was selected from the pool with just 496 applications being collected for processing.

Government reports claim that immigration numbers have fallen because of less demand (less jobs, less migration globally and the Canterbury quakes scaring people off).

Fig 2 – The pool
(Click for enlargement)

The claim that there has been less interest from migrants is interesting as when this latest and smallest ever selection was made the pool was full to bursting with 1,729 EOIs available.

In fact after a low in September 2009 of ‘just’ 830 available, the number of applications floating patiently in the pool has been rising since December 2009 (see fig 2 aside) as I mentioned in a March 2010 report.

The wave pattern showed in the graph aside (with peaks followed by troughs) clearly shows thousands of applications being entered and then spending so long in the pool that they expire without being selected.

Getting answers
I am deeply concerned by the current lack of information and transparency on this issue.

Putting quotas and selection criteria aside, in my opinion migrants should be informed of what the position is before they enter their application. They should be able to expect a transparent, fair and reasonably predictable selection system to ensure that they are not committing to moving to New Zealand without a reasonable expectation of success.

Instead what we have seen over the past two years is that well over 4,000 people are estimated to have paid government fees to enter applications which had little or no chance of ever being selected – that’s an estimated $1.8 million in fees collected from migrants in the skilled/business stream alone who met selection criteria but had no chance of being selected.

To find out what is going on and why the immigration department appear to have stopped working towards the government’s agreed quota for Permanent Residents I wrote to the Minister of Immigration, Dr. Jonathan Coleman on 20th July. It took a while but I have now received a reply, however this directly contradicts information previously provided by the Minister and so I need to clarify details before I update on this.

I have also written to Dr. Coleman’s office to ask where authors of the recent reports on immigration trends got their figures from. This request was never acknowledged and so I was forced to turn it into an Official Information Act request on 16th September. This at least should mean I have an answer soon. I’ll update when I know more.

Mike
Site architect, move2nz.com

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Recent articles

• Immigration: a new flexible approach?
• A letter to the Minister
• Residence patterns in 2010
• Lowest EOI Selection Ever
• Migration Slide Continues
• Immigration commentary
• Govt nonsense on immigration
• Residency numbers falling

Immigration advisers – scaremongering for their own financial gain

By Tammy Bell
move2nz expert on Settlement and migration

Recently I have been researching Immigration Advisers, the number of migrants using them and how they promote their services. What I have seen has seriously worried me, prompting me to write this special report.

Misrepresenting risk

What I am concerned to see on many licensed immigration adviser’s websites are statements literally scaremongering for financial gain.

One of the main reasons move2nz was set up was to ensure migrants had good unbiased information from a source which didn’t have a commercial interest in them. This article is intended to stop unethical businesses pulling the wool over your eyes.

Protected migrants

Immigration adviser licensing was introduced in May 2008 to provide protection for vulnerable migrants against fraudulent, corrupt and unethical advisers. The Immigration Advisers Authority was created to license and police advisers and as part of this introduced a Code of Conduct for licensed advisers.

Now licensed advisers know about this and the IAA has been reminding them of their responsibilities – as recently as July this year sent out a reminder to all advisers:

“that a licensed adviser must not, in a false, fraudulent or deceptive manner, misrepresent or promote himself or herself, or his or her company.

“To ensure that you meet your obligations under the code, you should regularly review your advertising and company website to ensure that the information is up to date and accurate.”

What my research shows is that this message is not getting through to some licensed advisers who appear to be actively misleading potential clients to create fear and increase business.

Examples

Here are some examples taken this week from immigration adviser websites:

1) “Did you know that up to 30 to 50% of non-agent assisted online and DIY applications FAIL?”

Wrong – in 2010/11 only 13.5 percent of non-agent assisted DIY applications failed and in 2009/10 it was just 12 percent. See below how this compares to agent assisted applications, the results might surprise you.

• Overall, 47,931 applications were lodged;
• Using a licensed adviser:
  • 10,394 of applications used a licensed adviser (21.7%);
  • 85.5% of those were successful;
• Not using an agent:
  • 32,058 of applications did not use an agent (66.9%);
  • 86.5% of those were successful.

So last year most people (across all streams) entered their application without the help of an agent and this group had the highest rate of success.

Now to be fair many licensed advisers specialise in dealing with complex and difficult cases and the success rate of simple cases will always be higher than for the really difficult ones. However this does raise questions about many advisers who claim a 97% or better success rate.

Exempt Advisers
(Click for enlargement)

It’s pretty worrying for licensed advisers to claim a success rate that high because either they are lying or some other licensed advisers have success rates much lower than for DIY cases!

One of the issues which has been highlighted through this research is that there is another group with a much lower success rate than either DIY applicants or those using an adviser:
exempt people.

These include among others family members, lawyers, MPs and Citizen’s Advice staff. Nearly 1 in five of these applications (19.5% in 2010/11) failed and that is something that needs looking into!

2) “What the public do not have access to are the extensive Operational Manuals made available by the Immigration Services to migration consultants.”

Wrong – the Immigration department’s Operations Manual is freely available to all, you can search through it here, but you might not know that without sources of information like move2nz.

3) “At a recent meeting with Immigration New Zealand staff in Auckland one of the Branch Managers told us that 98% of Family Visa applications are incorrect, with more than half being rejected straight away because of this.”

I can’t comment on what was said in the meeting, but these details are clearly wrong as in 2010/11 over 92 percent of all applications lodged in the Family Category were approved!

• Overall, 10,352 applications were made in the family category
• Using a licensed adviser:
  • 1,288 of applications used a licensed adviser (12.4%)
  • 92% of those were successful
• Not using an agent:
  • 8,210 of applications did not use an agent (79.3%)
  • 93.8% of those were successful

Again, the majority of applicants did not use a licensed adviser and those not using an adviser had a higher rate of success.

My reply to the claims being made by these advisers (and please excuse my language) is “Total BOLLOCKS”.

Getting to the truth

Searching through immigration statistics is not for everyone, but it’s something Mike and I have got used to and now do a lot. I hope what we have discovered – that some licensed immigration advisors create a false impression of your chances of a successful application to line their own pockets – will give you food for thought before parting with your hard earned cash.

Now I have to reiterate that not all licensed advisers make false claims. In my opinion there are good ones out there and on complex cases (e.g. business visas, instances where applicants have a weakness in their application that needs to be argued and situations where the immigration department has made a ruling you disagree with) it really pays to have a professional fighting your corner.

The vast majority of applicants however have simple applications – you either qualify or you don’t. Apart from checking with a professional if you are worried about something in my opinion very few of these applicants benefit from using a professional adviser as confirmed in official government statistics.

Making a difference: what can we do about this??

Seeing this rubbish being flouted on advisers websites Mike and I really wanted to do something about it – move2nz after all is about making a difference. So Mike wrote to the IAA on Sunday (11th September) to ask about this problem, worried that if licensed advisers got caught doing this they would just get a slap on the wrist and be told to correct it.

We were impressed to get a fast and clear reply back the following day confirming:

“If you have concerns about a licensed adviser and consider that they are misrepresenting themselves, their business, their clients immigration opportunities or NZ’s immigration requirements then this may be a breach of the Code of Conduct and grounds for a complaint to be referred to the Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal.”

The email confirmed that the IAA do not mediate in matters like this, instead the IAA refer cases to the Disciplinary Tribunal which acts like a court to assess the problem and if necessary punish the adviser. This is a much better situation than we expected.

Following a link kindly provided by the IAA we confirmed that in fact one case has already been heard by the Tribunal. Deng, a licensed adviser, falsely claimed she had a Master of Business Administration Degree. The Adviser was found guilty of a breach of the code of conduct, her license was cancelled and she was ordered to pay $1,500.

Now this is a real result and something we would like to see more of!

Summary

The bad news is that we have uncovered licensed immigration advisers misleading the public to build fear in order to raise profits.

The good news is that we have also come to realise that there are laws in place to stop this.

You can make a difference and so can we. If you see a licensed adviser making a claim you know (or believe) to be false you know what to do – make a complaint to the IAA (just fill in the form here) and take the unethical advisers out of the industry.

I’ll be putting together complaints on all my examples (and other sites I picked up as part of my research) as soon as our September newsletter is sent out!

Māori academic says ‘white migrants are racist’

On 4th September a story appeared in the Sunday Star Times confirming that a government report (possibly this one) had found “Māori are more likely to express anti-immigration sentiment than Pākehā or any other ethnic group”.

The article also highlighted Margaret Mutu, head of Auckland University’s department of Māori studies, who agreed with the findings.

Controversially Mutu called on the government to restrict the number of white migrants arriving from countries such as South Africa, England and the United States on the basis that they brought attitudes destructive to Māori.

“They do bring with them, as much as they deny it, an attitude of white supremacy, and that is fostered by the country,” she said.

Of course this is a sweeping race based generalisation which does not form any part of the government report.

Without supporting research it would be entirely unprofessional for anyone (especially a trusted academic) to make statements like this as they would be merely expressing personal views dressed as academic fact. Indeed, in an email to one move2nz.com member Mutu states

“It is unfortunate that they [white immigrants who oppose racism against Māori] are in the minority – as the research in this area has shown”.

To find out more on this subject I wrote to Margaret Mutu about her research on 5th September including the following query:

“From a background of having spoken individually to arguably more migrants from the UK, USA and South Africa than anyone else in New Zealand I am surprised by your statements which are in deep contrast to my own experiences.

“My understanding is that your statements are based on research which confirms that the majority of migrants from the UK, USA and South Africa are racist towards Māori. I would be very interested to examine your findings and to find out more about this research.

“If possible please would you direct me to the source of the research used as the basis of your comments. Having viewed the government research which began this discussion I can see that very different conclusions were drawn and I am anxious to compare the two sources.”

Margaret Mutu’s reply, received the following day was a stock reply and did not address my question:

“My research focuses on the activities of those immigrants from England and their descendants who have and continue to advocate and perpetuate racism as the means to justify their on-going theft of Māori land and resources. In saying this I refer you to the well-tested definition of racism of Paul Spoonely which states: Racism is the attitudinal or ideological phenomenon that accepts racial superiority, and, when present in those in power, justifies them using that power to discriminate against and deprive others of what is rightfully theirs on the basis of their race.

“I was careful to tell the Sunday Star Times reporter that most Pākehā immigrants will deny that they hold these attitudes and assumptions and that is probably because do not believe that their attitudes are racist. When Māori, who are on the receiving end of these attitudes, try to point it out, the reaction is invariably denial. Yet there has been extensive research conducted on this and the most comprehensive is that of the Waitangi Tribunal, where the bulk of this research is published. The country has been remiss in not ensuring everyone is better informed about the findings of the Tribunal. I recommend that you read the Tribunal’s reports.

“I have a number of publications in this area, the most recent of which is my book The State of Māori Rights published this year by Huia Publishers in Wellington.

This answer is of course interesting on many points and I don’t see much point writing back until I have viewed the research quoted.

Mutu’s answer presents sweeping generalisations about UK immigrants and their descendants similar in nature to those presented by racist groups like the white supremacists Mutu alleges I and so many other migrants support.

Mutu’s definition of racism is limited, only covering a single perspective of racism when talking about ‘what is rightfully theirs’. Personally I prefer Wikipedia’s definition:

Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in people’s traits and capacities that are entirely due to their race, however defined, and that, as a consequence, racial discrimination (i.e. different treatment of those people, both socially and legally) is justified.

One comment which I feel holds weight is that Māori issues and culture (especially what is rightfully theirs) is a field almost entirely unknown outside New Zealand. It would extremely difficult for people around the world planning to migrate to hold racist views about a group they have never had contact with and know nothing about.

Of course Mutu may be simply saying (as she appears) that all white people are racist and I expect this is why her comments have been referred to the Race Relations Board for investigation.

Mutu’s definition of racism ignores the many meanings and guises of ‘power’ when using a definition which could easily be applied to her own actions. In fact Mutu stated recently that her comments cannot be racist because she is not in a position of power.

Power is by no means the province of the majority as she implies and this is a ridiculous statement when applied to the universally accepted definitions of ‘racism’.

Unusually for an academic Mutu is blurring and confusing her argument: direction to read Treaty documents and Mutu’s mention of descendants moves away from her comments about recent migrants. I believe it is accepted by all that there were abuses of power by the British and that this is precisely what the Tribunal was set up to account for and set right, however I cannot see how the Tribunal findings could in any way be proof of inherent racism towards Māori in all white migrants any more than this most recent government report could.

This is not the research I was expecting.

Having spent quite a bit of time and effort attempting to get a Māori expert on to move2nz.com to present information to help educate and inform new migrants about Māori issues without success I feel that failure to ensure migrants are fully aware of these issues should be shared between all New Zealanders and is not in any way the sole province of Pākehā like me.

I shall try to read the publication Mutu has mentioned, however the title again does not suggest that the work supports the view she has expressed that all white migrants and their descendants bar a few ‘good ones’ (some of my best friends are Pākehā?) hold racist views towards Māori.

The timing of what appears to be an outrageous and unsupported statement is not surprising as the eye of the world centres on New Zealand. Mutu has publicly confirmed a desire to limit immigration to New Zealand on a racial basis rather than the current system which is based on merit.

Mutu’s call echoes the call of Tariana Turia in 2009 when she accused the government of using immigration to “stop the browning of New Zealand“. From my perspective as a migration commentator I believe it’s past time to conduct research into the significant changes in immigration since Turia and the Māori Party became part of government in 2008. Certainly over recent years immigration to New Zealand (according to government statistics) from the UK has dropped by 50% while there has been no apparent drop in interest or decline of applicants from this source.

In the meantime I think we should look carefully at the government report which started all of this and ask why there is such a fear of migrants. This, and not Mutu’s comments, should be taken seriously and I would be very interested in recruiting an expert to help migrants gain first-hand information on Māori culture, customs and language as part of the migration through move2nz.com.

Mike

move2nz architect