Work injury ends family’s hopes
A young Danish family is being forced out of New Zealand, despite their children being born here, after a workplace injury and lack of a pay rise meant they could not qualify for permanent residency.
Erika Storm and her husband, Mark Storm, moved from Denmark to Christchurch in 2019 hoping to become permanent residents. But five months after they arrived, Mark broke both his elbows while working as a plumber. He ultimately lost his job because his injury prevented him from returning to work, which resulted in the failure of their application for the skilled migrant category pathway.
‘‘We very quickly became acquainted with a system that only does the bare minimum in terms of care,’’ Erika said.
Mark was still unable to return to work. In the meantime, Erika got a job as a marketing coordinator but has been on maternity leave since November last year for medical reasons.
Last year, Immigration NZ announced a one-off Covid residency scheme but Erika was refused a pay rise of less than 10c an hour to meet the minimum $27 an hour pay rate.
Nicola Hogg, border and visa operations general manager at Immigration NZ, confirmed Mark had submitted an expression of interest (EOI) for a skilled migrant category (SMC), which resulted in an invitation to apply on March, 19, 2020, within four months. ‘‘Mr Storm did not [apply] in this timeframe and therefore the invitation lapsed.’’
Since November 2020, Mark had been on a partner of a worker work visa and both of these visas were valid through to November next year, she said. SMC EOI selections had been suspended since April 2020 due to the pandemic and selections resumed this week. The SMC was pointsbased, where applicants must meet the required points threshold to be eligible to be selected. For the first draw this week this was 160 points, increasing to 180 points for subsequent draws.
‘‘The points system is based on whether an individual has the right number of points for their age, experience, employment and qualifications,’’ Hogg said.
The couple could submit an EOI. ‘‘A workplace injury does not prevent a family from applying for residence if one or both individuals meet the criteria.’’
Erika said they were told no applications would be drawn from the pool, so had no option to act on their EOI nor even a chance to submit the application.
The family was now forced to leave the country – because Erika as a principal applicant would not pass, and if her husband could return to work, he would have to stay employed for 24 months before applying for residency.
Erika said the residency system was broken and things needed to change.