The Indian Weekender, Friday 8 July 2022

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
India’s digital infrastructure is rapidly improving. From education to healthcare,
it has positively impacted lives across sectors. Technology has played
a vital role in fighting the once in a century COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to
technology, the pace of India’s vaccination received a great impetus.
– Indian PM Narendra Modi
Editorial
New Immigration
Minister must fix ‘living
together’ mess
The new Immigration Minister, Michael Wood, will do a great service to both
– the migrant communities and New Zealand by fixing the “living together”
mess within the partnership visa – a mess that is largely created under the
previous term of this Labour government.
That there is a mess within NZ’s immigration rules for partnership visas is beyond
any doubt and best depicted on numerous rejection letters sent by immigration
officers where it acknowledges that “a relationship exists” yet it is not considered a
“partnership” for a partnership visa as per immigration instructions.
Ideally, once an immigration officer is convinced beyond any doubt that a conjugal
relationship exists between the two individuals, then there should not be any
constraint preventing them from issuing an entry visa.
However, if the immigration officers are constrained by the immigration instructions
to deny entry to individuals whose relationship with a New Zealand-based person is
proven beyond any doubt, then the obvious question arises about the nature of
immigration instructions received by the department.
This is the question being raised consistently by different key stakeholders,
including this newspaper, which has been leading the advocacy for the complete
abrogation of the “living together” requirement for partnership visa, purely because
it does not reflect the modern multicultural New Zealand that we have become in the
last two or three decades.
“Living together” before a ritualistic conjugal union is not an option in many
cultures. Therefore, NZ’s current immigration rules for partnership visa places an
unrealistic and unfair requirement on many individuals to produce evidence of “living
together” to be allowed entry into NZ and a union with their respective partners.
NZ’s well-intentioned immigration officers do understand the messy situation
where even after being convinced that a relationship exists are not able to issue a
partnership visa. Over the years, an ad hoc system has emerged where immigration
case officers were issuing an “exception” and granting a “General Visitor Visa (GVV)”
based on relationships on a case-by-case basis and allowing people to enter the
country and live together with their partners and meet the conditions of Partnership
Visitor Visa (PVV) or Partnership Work Visa (PWV).
However, that system was disturbed in mid-2019 when Immigration NZ’s then
Mumbai office arbitrarily decided to stop giving “exceptions” whereby refusing to
consider applicants as couples for visa purposes despite having social and cultural
approval of the same.
Clearly, it smacked arrogance by NZ’s immigration rules to not consider the
otherwise genuinely socially and culturally approved couples as a partner for the
visa purpose. Following a community outrage and persistent media attention, the
previous Immigration Ministers have made some cosmetic changes in the partnership
visa system. One of the measures then introduced was to expand the ambit of
Culturally Arranged Marriage (CAM) visas which allowed people to come to NZ after
getting married overseas (with NZ’s citizens and residents).
However, despite the government’s boisterous claims, entry under a Culturally
Arranged Marriage visa remains minuscule as a significant majority of people fail to
fall within the highly restrictive definition of culturally arranged marriages.
In the absence of direction and empathy from previous immigration ministers on
this pressing issue affecting largely the migrant communities, the partnership visa
system has gradually slipped back to the old ad hoc system where immigration
officers arbitrarily approve entry via an exception and issue General Visitor Visa.
Yet there is no accountability when an immigration officer chooses to grant an
exception and issue a general Visitor Visa (GVV) and when they outrightly decline a
partnership visa application despite being convinced that a relationship exists.
The new Immigration Minister, Michael Wood, can fix this anomaly once and for all.
With a stroke of a pen, the minister can issue an immigration instruction that can
remove the culturally inappropriate requirement of “living together” for the purpose
of a partnership visa.
And this would not compromise NZ’s immigration system in any manner as the
immigration officers are anyway acknowledging that a genuine socially approved
relationship exists.
It’s only that NZ’s immigration rules are less reflective of cultural diversity and
demand a one-size-fits-all outcome.
It is widely assumed and accepted that Minister Wood is deeply empathetic and
considerate towards the ethnic migrant minority communities and hopefully aware
of the cultural diversity in defining a conjugal relationship.
It’s time for Minister Wood to shine as the new Minister of Immigration and remove a
bottleneck that is affecting both – brand-NZ and the migrant communities adversely.
If it makes it easier and politically more palatable, all political parties, including the
National Party, Green Party and Act Party, have officially said that there was no need
for a law change, and instead, the Minister of Immigration can issue an instruction to
fix this living together mess in NZ’s partnership visa system.
IN FOCUS : Picture of the week
This week in New Zealand’s history
July 9 1986
Homosexual Law Reform Bill passed
Indian Weekender : Volume 14 Issue16
On her first visit
to the UK since
the COVID-19 pandemic,
New Zealand Prime
Minister Jacinda
Ardern met with British
Prime Minister Boris
Johnson at Downing
Street in London for a
bilateral meeting – and
to confirm an extension
to the reciprocal Working
Holiday/Youth Mobility
Scheme that NZ currently
has with the UK.
Wellington Central MP Fran Wilde’s private member’s bill, which removed criminal
sanctions against consensual male homosexual practices, was passed by 49
votes to 44.
July 10 1967
New Zealand adopts decimal currency
Pounds, shillings and pence were replaced by dollars and cents − 27 million new
banknotes and 165 million new coins. The new money was valued at $120 million
(more than $2.2 billion in today’s money) and weighed more than 700 tonnes.
July 11 1877
First woman graduates from a New Zealand university
Kate Edger became the first woman in New Zealand to gain a university degree
and the first woman in the British Empire to earn a Bachelor of Arts (BA)
July 11 1983
Lorraine Downes crowned Miss Universe
Lorraine Downes became a household name overnight and spent the next 12
months travelling the world accompanied by a chaperone, carrying out the duties
of Miss Universe.
July 12 1889
First women’s trade union formed
The first women’s trade union in New Zealand emerged in the late 19th century in
response to poor working conditions in the clothing industry.
July 14 1853
New Zealand’s first general election begins
For such a symbolic moment, the events of 14 July offered little drama – the
first member of New Zealand’s inaugural Parliament, Hugh Carleton, was elected
unopposed at Russell in the Bay of Islands.
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