Work and visitor visas: Immigration New Zealand sets up team to pick up pace – RNZ

An incident management team has been brought into Immigration New Zealand to speed up work and visitor visas.

Immigration New Zealand says demand for visitor visas is about three times higher than expected when the border reopened at the start of the month. (File image) Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Minister of Immigration Michael Wood said the team was set up last week and was looking at issues such as IT.

"Generally speaking, visa processing is going very well," he said.

"We do want to see that improved and increased particularly across visitor visa and work visas areas. So this just assists us to get the resources in to try and unclog any points where it's being held up and get the process moving as quickly as possible.

Immigration Minister Michael Wood Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver

"Periodically these are set up to in order to lift performance in areas we want to see that happen. It'll be in place as long as it needs to in order to bring the processing up to the level that we want it to be. You'd anticipate between a few weeks and a few months."

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said the team could leverage the scale of ministry resources to deliver results.

In a statement, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) said employers and applicants should expect to see more measures in place to help with processing over the coming weeks and months.

INZ general manager Richard Owen said demand for visitor visas was about three times higher than expected when the border reopened at the start of the month.

"Our new visa processing platform continues to bed in," he said.

"We're processing Employer Accreditation applications in 10 days or less and are on track to do the same for Job Checks, following significant improvements.

"We have more work to do to process work and visitor visas at the speed employers and applicants expect, and to prepare for the surge in student visas from September.

"To support these efforts, we have established a Reconnecting New Zealand (RCNZ) Incident Management Team (IMT), with authority to make decisions to ensure a smooth processing of applications."

National Party immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford said it was a highly irregular move that would have to address failings in IT, visa processing delays, and staff turnover.

"For an IMT to be called into Immigration New Zealand suggests that it is very, very serious - this is not your run-of-the-mill everyday situation, where you get this crack team being sent into your government department. This suggests there's something seriously wrong."

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Work and visitor visas: Immigration New Zealand sets up team to pick up pace - RNZ