A Failure To Plan

A failure to plan, is planning to fail, as the saying goes and arguably that is what appears to have happened here with our border re-opening. As recently as this week, numbers indicate that as few as one in five Visitor Visa applications recieved since the application processed opened at the beginning of August have been approved, leaving tens of thousands of applications in the queue. Getting this right was crucial for so many reasons, including a shot in the arm for our tourism sector along with being able to restore some normality for those wanting to see their overseas relatives again (after two and half years of not being able to do so).

So why the hold up and why wasn’t this predicted and managed?

INZ have responded that demand has simply outweighed their forecasts and that explains why things are taking so long but how did they arrive at those forecasts in the first place? The answer to that is “a best guess”. Immigration New Zealand’s Deputy Secretary, Alison McDonald made the comment in response to media queries on the delays, that the science behind the border opening strategy was based on speaking to other countries that opened before us and taking a bit of a guess as to volumes (you can listen to the interview here). She finishes off that point by stating “it's very unpredictable when you open a border” - and that for me is the key point.

For two and a half years, New Zealand’s borders were closed to migrants with the exception of a very small and highly specific group of applicants. For that duration, family members were queueing up to come here as soon as the gates opened and now that they have, they are either being queued up again or in some bizarre cases being declined for very strange reasons. A case in point is a South African couple, declined a Visa to visit their children in New Zealand for a failure to demonstrate an incentive to return.

Opening a country up after that period of time, is challenging but I don’t think it required a Rhodes scholar to determine that there was a) going to be a significant demand and b) that demand would require some planning and preparation. This is something INZ has never been terribly good at, even pre-Covid. Immigration has always been subject to seasonal peaks and troughs, whether it be for the summer holiday season, Student Visa demand at various intake times or varying demand for seasonal workers…there are always times when the system has to gear up to cater for that increase in demand.

Logically when you open the border after two and a half years, even if the volumes can’t be pinned down to an exact number you would plan for the worst. INZ were predicting a third of the volumes that actually applied…a third? Even a pessimistic view of the reopening would have suggested at least double that. Taking out those that wanted to holiday here, the number of people who would be keen to have family visit (given the volume of migrants approved recently under the 2021 RV programme) would have suggested a number higher than the total that actually did apply.

Instead, it appears we have done, what we do too often and that was to look at other countries and take our lead from that. New Zealand however is unique and has a unique demographic in terms of migrants and tourism volumes and that would lead to a very different prediction to any other country I can think of.

Also quite strangely, INZ suggested that the delays were due to the volume of applications as opposed to the number of staff - one might argue that if you had the right number of staff to deal with the increased volume of applications - well, there would be less of a delay.

They also referred to the continuing “bedding in” of their new IT platform, which has been operating (I use that word loosely) for over a year and in development for a lot longer. Almost weekly that platform is taken down for maintenance and rework and upgrades.

Add to all of this the rolling out of multiple Visa categories all at once and you have the perfect storm for chaos, confusion and growing frustration - all at a time when we need to be signalling to the world that we are open and ready to go, or as INZ might put it “in-flow”.

We still haven’t heard how the ‘Incident Management Team’ have been able to wave their magic wands, however we hold out hope that whatever tricks they have up their sleeves, will speed things up.

I do have a few suggestions for INZ and that includes, deploying some common sense to processing - acknowledging that after two and half years of being unable to spend time with family, grandma and grandpa are coming here for a genuine purpose and aren’t likely to abscond and live unlawfully in the Waitakere ranges. I empathise with INZ in so far as there will be a lot of new officers or offices unfamiliar with Visitor Visa policy, applying the rules by the book - but take it all in to context - unless there are clear alarm bells, get the applications finalised.

I would also suggest that whenever you are about to open the border after any length of time (let’s hope it never has to happen again) that the planning conists of a little more than a back of the napkin, best guess, based on a comparision to countries that have little to no resemblance to this one. Whatever number your policy research people might invent through that process - triple it.

Opening up to the world was always going to be a challenge and definitely unpredictable but there were some things that should have been obvious, namely that demand would always be high and resources would be required to meet that demand. Two and half years, allows for a fair bit of planning.

For those of you looking to visit New Zealand, we encourage you to do so, however it would also be a good idea to make sure that your application is bullet-proof and every criteria covered before you do. With application volumes this high, INZ will be looking at how to get through them quickly and so if applicants aren’t filed right the first time (and there are no rights of appeal) that could lead to a swift decline. Visitor Visas do come with a few strings attached, so some good advice upfront and to lodge the application is correctly is going to save you time and money in the long run.