New Zealand Rights?

[Guest samlee]

Hi, I have recently applied for Permanent Resident Visa BN 136 skilled independant. We should hear soon if we have got it!

Any way I was wondering where we would stand with getting into New Zealand? I read somewhere once that you get work rights in NZ if you have an OZ Permanent Resident Visa. Does any one know if this is correct? Obviously my main aim is to get to OZ but it would be nice to know!

Thanks in advance Samlee x :lol:

[Guest ironmaggi]

I only know from a physio point of view but, for us, if you get your qualifications assessed [much more cheaply - no exams either] in NZ then there is a Tran Tasmanian agreement [something like that] so they apply in Oz. However, so many people have used the loophole they're trying to block it!

Hope that helps - enjoyed your post on how to decide - I feel the same - enthusiastic but scared stiff!

[Guest Jackie]

Hi

We did it the other way around and got residency in NZ. After 3 years of being a permanent resident we were eligible to apply for NZ Citizenship. We got that and as NZ citizens with NZ passports we are able to live and work in Australia as New Zealanders. As far as I'm aware the same applies for Australians going to NZ ie you need to be an Australian citizen (not just a resident) with an Australain passport.

Jackie

[Guest bob and ginnie]

In the old days up to Dec 31st 1974, British Commonwealth people (U.K., Irish, Rhodesians, South Africans, Canadians) could enter Australia without a visa and stay for up to a year. New Zealand had free and open entry by British people till late 1975. During that time, all you had to do was rock up at the local Immigration Dep't office and they'd tell you to get a chest X-ray, to determine if you'd had T.B..

Once you'd got your chest X-ray, you dropped it off together with your passport on the counter, come back in a week and you'd have a nice little stamp saying you could stick around in Australia forever and a day.

Free.

Going across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand was a matter of filling in the card that the airline hostess gave you on your 4 hour flight, you'd tick the box stating that you were coming to N.Z. as an Immigrant and you had British Commonwealth citizenship and you were permanently resident once your feet touched the deck after you got out of the plane.

No passport control. No Customs or Quarantine to bother with. Simple!

The same deal was with coming back across the Tasman from N.Z. to Australia. No passport to show, just the briefest of Customs and you were in Australia, permanently resident.

This was the case well into the 1980's and even up until the 1990's until some characters began to stuff things up and both governments brought in passport control and now only Australian and New Zealand citizens can set up shop wtihout restriction in each other's country.

There was a memorandum of understanding between the Australian States in 1999, stating that the qualifications and trade recognitions of one State would be recognised by all the other States in Australia. New Zealand joined this arrangement in 2000 or 2001, soif you can be a hairdresser or electrician or teacher, or whatever, in Queensland you can practice your trade in Western Australia, Victoria or New Zealand, etc. etc..

New Zealand is well aware that many of its new migrants get New Zealand citizenship after two years, only to gain access to Australia. Moves are afoot to extend the waiting period for citizenship to five years, so they get more out of newcomers.