Parent visa category gets altered

The parent category visa programme will reopen with capped numbers and cost increases.

The visa, which enabled parents to join their adult children in New Zealand if they were a resident or citizen, was temporarily closed in 2016 by former immigration minister Michael Woodhouse to clear a backlog of applications. The visa was criticised for being a burden on taxpayers.

Under new settings, the need for parent applicants to have guaranteed lifetime income would be removed and a focus put on the ability of their skilled migrant child to support them.

The financial requirements will also increase and parents will still have to meet health and character requirements.

In May, the education and workforce select committee was told there were more than 5000 expressions of interest from parents looking to reunite with their children in New Zealand. However, under the reset there will be a cap of 1000 people.

The current scheme was to close this week and reopen in February 2020, with new criteria.

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said this would allow those who had submitted an expression of interest (EOI) under the old settings to consider what they wanted to do.

It is understood a delay in reopening the visa was related to getting consensus from NZ First. Yesterday, Lees-Galloway said the Coalition Government was committed to attracting and retaining highly skilled migrants. Reopening and resetting the visa category would ensure businesses could get the skilled workers needed by providing a pathway for their parents to join them, he said.

The moratorium had created unnecessary and unfair uncertainty for people.

‘‘The new parent category settings will increase financial requirements, focusing on their adult child’s income rather than the circumstances of their parent and align with the ‘highly-paid’ settings under the skilled migrant category and the recent changes to employer-assisted temporary work visa settings,’’ Lees-Galloway said.

A single person sponsoring one parent needs to earn twice the New Zealand median income – about $106,000 a year – and, if sponsoring two parents, $159,000 a year.