Marcus Beveridge: Queen City Law Managing Director on visa rejection rates falling to a post-Covid low
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What recent data reveals about visa rejection rates in New Zealand?
It's a new data this morning on our immigration settings. Now, visa rejection rates have fallen to their lowest levels post-COVID. Out of a bit over a million applications, 65,180 in fact, to be precise, were declined. That's a rejection rate of 6.3%, which is down from 7.3% the year before. India accounted for the largest share of rejections at 28.5%. Marcus Beveridge is the MD and immigration lawyer at Queen City Law. Of course, he's back with us. Marcus, morning. Hey, morning, Mike. So this drop in rejections, is that material or administrative? In other words, it goes up and down depending on the year.
Yeah, look, the numbers, they're not great changes, but it's just really good to see. And kudos to Immigration New Zealand for Jock Gilray for running a really tight show. They should put him in charge of the whole thing because he really does run a tight ship. I think what it is is a relentless wave of desperate sort of village people down the bottom of a well looking at the land of milk and honey and they can get an MBA from a local market for $10 and a gold Rolex for $20 and always trying their luck. We see it every day on our inbound inquiries too and they slowly sort of erode our rule of law. We've gone from being the least corrupt nation in the world to being the fourth least corrupt. Well done to INZ for getting their systems in order and making fast and efficient decisions and keeping the bad guys out.
So basically we're weeding out the bad guys. So we've got the system we should have always had.
Yes, and in the past there's been computer problems and personnel problems and stuff, but it seems like they've got things humming pretty well. I've just been up in Singapore and Hong Kong trying to lure more golden visa holders down here with the government and with trade commissioners and ambassadors. But this side of it, there is a lot of desperate people. They try and get in here any way they can, and it's really good to see that they're doing a good job.
Is this where the 28% rejection from India, so the butter tsunami, Shane Jones, New Zealand first, is that where this race thing comes from that India could be or potentially is a problem?
How has Immigration New Zealand improved its decision-making processes?
Well, yes, I mean, it always has been a problem. It's always been considered a high-risk jurisdiction. But closer to home, Fiji also has quite a bad rejection rate. Then you get into the crazy stuff like the asylum from places like Afghanistan where there's a 100% decline rate. But, you know, India's always produced... And Philippines, Indonesia, other such countries have always been considered high risk by our officials and they tend to go through their documentation.
The gold visa thing, would you argue it's working?
I'd say it's going fantastically well. We've got some incredible stories, investment into our space technology, major philanthropy. And look, we had a guy approved in one day the other day, and it's just fantastic stuff. And this trip, I mean, the minister was meant to be there, but he didn't turn up for some reason. But no, it was excellent. And there's some great things happening and a whole lot of excellent downstream economic benefits flowing through.
Fantastic. You have a good weekend, Marcus. Appreciate the insight as always. Marcus Beveridge, Managing Director of Immigration Law here at Queen City Law. Talking to a couple of real estate agents this week vis-a-vis the golden visa. There's never been so many mansions for sale, particularly in Auckland, to a lesser degree, Queenstown. If you look at the top end of the real estate market, a lot of people have put their houses, we're talking $10 plus, $15 plus million, waiting for these people with money to come on in.
What countries contribute the most to visa rejections?
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