Temporary Policy, general discussion 

Our warning for persons applying for Temporary visas of any type (visitor, work, student, etc) is even stronger. You have no rights at all!

 New Zealand’s immigration law contains what legal experts call “privative clauses” that release immigration officers, when dealing with any type of temporary visa application, from all the provisions of Race Relations, Natural Justice and Human Rights legislation that make NZ a civilized, fair and democratic society. This means immigration officers can:

• decline your application for no reason at all,
• decline your application for unfair or prejudiced reasons,
• decline to give any reasons for their decision,
• decline to answer your phone calls or letters, or even acknowledge you,
• delay your application for as long as they like, with or without good reason,
• deny you any right of appeal against their decisions.

These extra-ordinary provisions do not just apply to applicants, but even to New Zealanders who are dealing with temporary visa matters, like employers and family.

 Malcolm Pacific takes every reasonable opportunity to express their opposition to this law. When dealing with individual clients, however, our objective is to help them achieve their objectives in spite of the unfairness of the law, not to make them martyrs to a cause. This means we often need to advise clients to go through apparently illogical or onerous procedures, for their own protection. Given the ability of immigration officials to retreat into sullen and impenetrable zones of denial and silence when challenged over temporary visa decisions, it is particularly important to “get it right, first time”.

 Unfortunately, this also means that, although applying for a temporary visa may seem like a “less important” procedure than applying for residence; it can actually be quite complex and expensive. And, trying to fix an application that has gone wrong because someone attempted a “do-it-yourself” approach can be very tricky, in a “we do not need to answer, or give reasons and you have no right of appeal” atmosphere.

 It is easy to make a “value-for-money” decision in the case of residence applications because it is hard to imagine any residence application in which you would not be well advised to use professional help. Temporary visa applications are more difficult to judge. It is normally only when the outcome is really important to you, your family, or your business, that people seek professional help. If you are going to seek help, always do it before lodging an application; fixing applications that have gone wrong is always harder.