Covid 19 coronavirus: New Zealand government will grant itself visa powers for 12 months

By RNZ

The government is temporarily amending the immigration law to make it more flexible and responsive to the challenges posed by Covid-19.

He will present a bill to Parliament tomorrow, to support “more efficient management” of visa changes.

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Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said the bill would offer “pragmatic solutions.”

“One of the practical challenges is to quickly manage visa changes for large numbers of migrants who cannot leave New Zealand due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.

The bill introduces eight limited-time powers that allow you to:

• Impose, vary or cancel the conditions for the classes of temporary entry visa holders.
• Vary or cancel the conditions for the classes of resident class visa holders
• Extend visa expiration dates for classes of people.
• Grant visas to individuals and classes of people in the absence of an application.
• Waive regulatory requirements for certain kinds of application.
• Waive the requirement to obtain a transit visa
• Suspend the ability to apply for visas or present expressions of interest to apply for visas by classes of people.
• Revoke the entry permit of people arriving on private planes or marine vessels (to align them with people arriving on commercial flights, who may already be denied entry)

Lees-Galloway said that Immigration Law had a very limited ability to deal with applicants as a class or group of individuals.

“The current small number of emergency provisions of the Act were introduced at a time when New Zealand had a much smaller number of temporary migrants.

“We are now discovering that the existing configuration is not sufficient to adequately respond where, for example, a large number of visas must be changed or expanded at once,” he said.

• Covid19.govt.nz – The official government Covid-19 advisory website

Lees-Galloway said a number of safeguards would apply, including that these powers expire after 12 months.