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PARENTS MUST JOIN THE QUEUE

By Lawrence Johnston

MUMS and Dads who want to emigrate to New Zealand to join their offspring, will have to wait till next July, if they haven't already applied by now. The same applies to siblings.
"The situation has arisen because of the unusual number of family quota applicants we've received," said Kevin Cameron, New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) London Branch Manager.
"That means that we'll only be able to process partners and dependent children, so Mums and Dads and siblings who haven't already applied will be queued until the next quota year starts on July 1, and no guarantees," he said.
Those applications that had been lodged with the NZIS by October 11 would continue to be processed.
Those people whose applications had not arrived by then, can still visit New Zealand, subject to the normal terms of visitor permits of nine months maximum stay from the UK.
Particularly siblings who have missed out this time will be encouraged to apply under the skilled migrant category.
Mr Cameron said the problem in the UK was not so bad as in other parts of the world. "We were lucky as we didn't start with a big backlog on July 1 this year," he said.
But even in the UK, the backlog has delayed the rate at which applications could be processed.
"We would normally be processing these applications in three months. They're normally straight forward applications and it's just processing time, whereas now we're sometimes looking at nine months," he said.
Someone sponsoring their mother, father or sibling, must have been a New Zealand or Australian citizen and/or the holder of a residence permit or a returning resident's visa for at least three years immediately before the date when their completed application was received by the NZIS.

The current points passmark where skilled people are invited to apply to emigrate to New Zealand currently remains at a low 100.