I have been thoroughly disgusted at the inflexible and borderline incompetent handling of immigration throughout this government's term.
We were hit by this ourselves recently when trying to bring a new person onboard to our business (Right in the middle of Auckland endless lockdown last year).
They met all the criteria to move from a student visa to a work visa but then determined that they needed a fresh police check despite the fact this person had not left the country since the last one was issued and that any police check should have been issued from NZ because that is where this person had been the last 2 years. Instead of allowing them to work even part time in the interim, they moved this person to a holding status which prevented them working at all! As you can imagine getting an overseas document in the middle of pandemic is a nightmare. Despite our desperate pleas (we were staff down) there was ZERO flexibility. This despite the fact the government was happy to demand that everyone in the country be entirely flexible and comply with all their requirements throughout the pandemic, and were happy to be flexible when it was politically expedient or media focused on a particular issue or case, overall, there has been no flexibility on their part in relation to immigration and the difficulties that the pandemic had on many people with cases pending.
What is even worse is that dozens and dozens of doctors, nurses and other health professionals, were unable to get their immigration statuses changed or extended and ended up leaving the country, at a time where doctors nurses and other health professionals were under immense pressure, is just totally braindead.
All this whilst lecturing other countries on how they handle their own immigration cases.
