New Zealanders can now easily become the permanent residents of Australia. The income and health check requirements of the New Zealanders has been ditched to make an easy pathway for permanent residency. 

This will help in clearing the backlog of the 11,500 permanent resident applications of the New Zealanders. More than 300,000 New Zealanders will benefit from these changes. 

The bar for New Zealanders has been lowered by the Australian government for permanent residency. This will benefit the New Zealanders who have applied before 10 December under subclass 189 visa. 

These applicants are not required to present the documents related to income, health and residence durations. This will help the Australian immigration to clear the application backlog from two years back. 

New Zealanders representative in Australia, Joanne Cox stated that this new streamlined system will hopefully ease the process of permanent residency for more than 300,000 New Zealander who are waiting for their application assessment results. 

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced in July about the improved pathways for permanent residency and citizenship. In his statement he also said that he doesn't want people to remain temporary residents in Australia forever. 

The new applications for permanent residency under subclass 189 have been paused on a temporary basis because of the new pathway for the New Zealanders which will strengthen the ties between two nations. 

This means that the government is planning to clear the backlog of applications between this pause period of December to July 2023. 

This also means that the government acknowledges this group of New Zealanders who are long term residents of Australia and are contributing to Australia’s economy. 

Many conditions like income threshold of $53,900 and medical conditions which were banned in Australia before were removed in this new pathway. 

Also New Zealanders can access the benefits of permanent residency like National Disability Insurance scheme, social security payments and many others more quickly than others. 

 According to Cox, the existing system was unfair for New Zeaanders as they have to follow the same conditions as the others while they have the movement of freedom. 

Cox also stated that the 189 visa conditions of income and medical were nonsensical as they were already eligible for Medicare and paid the Medicare levy. They can be referred to as permanently reside in Australia rather than permanent residents. 

Cox also mentioned that this is a good decision to speed up  the process and clear the backlog unless something goes wrong.