Jacinda Ardern says visas being processed quicker than earlier now
Despite Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s unofficial tagline to sell the country’s tourist destinations, tens of thousands of people are still waiting for their visitor visa approvals.
Tourists from the United Kingdom and the United states are permitted to travel without a Tourist visa being a visa exempt country. From May a total of around 300,000 have been granted entry as tourists in New Zealand.
But since August 1 - the grand reopening of New Zealand's borders to everyone else - 61,534 have applied for visas. Out of the total, 26,332 have been approved and 515 declined, leaving 34,687 applications under processing.
According to Chris Wilson, New Zealand is a beautiful country to live in, but it's almost impossible to reach there as the visa application of her fiancé is stuck in the long processing queue, forcing them to cancel their wedding.
According to Micheal Wood, the Minister of Immigration, the immigration department has a pretty big job to complete. And he was satisfied with the current performance of the immigration department.
According to Mr. Woods, the immigration department took more time to process in the start but they are making progress now. And they have processed the load of applications despite there being a backlog in applications.
If continued with the same pace, they will be able to process all the new applications on time, with clearing the backlog.
But the National party is all critics of the Government’s response to visa delays. The Party's immigration Spokesperson commented on the Prime Minister’s comment “We are open for business”, saying that the reality is the Government has locked the front door and yet invited people to the Country.
The increase in immigration department’s salaries and manpower is also alarming for the country's economy according to the National party. The number of NZ immigration staff earning more than $100,000 has tripled from 137nto 367, and the number earning more than $200,000 has doubled from 11 to 23.
Stanford stated that, immigration ministers are pretty hapless as the new immigration department is spending more money , hiring more staff and still processing few visa cases.
With New Zealand's borders shut, the government wants to use this opportunity to reset New Zealand’s immigration policy with new visas and systems. The Government is planning a total reboot in immigration to remove all errors.
