Mahvash Ikram
Relief is nowhere in sight for those awaiting the result of visa applications, with Immigration Minister Erica Stanford revealing that a multi-million-dollar upgrade to digital systems at Immigration NZ (INZ) is at least six years away from completion.
Stanford told a recent dinner in Auckland, hosted by The Law Association of New Zealand (TLANZ), that she is embarrassed by the situation, which has resulted in thousands of hard-copy applications clogging the pipeline.
But she said the new cloud-based system, called ADEPT, must be implemented correctly.
“It is not just a nice, simple IT system. It’s connected to a big back-end system. They’ve got to do a whole lot of regression testing,” Stanford said.
INZ figures show the bill just for postage and storage of these documents is $3 million a year.
In addition, the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) estimates that keeping INZ’s legacy platforms operating will cost almost a quarter of a billion dollars over the next 13 years.
According to industry experts, the worst affected by the backlog of paper-based applications are vulnerable people, seasonal workers and fishing crews who must return to shore to submit hard-copy documents for manual processing.
The situation will continue until at least 2031, when the visa category relating to fishing crews will be the last to move online.
In March, Cabinet earmarked nearly $340m for the seven-year Our Future Services project to move all visa applications, including 11 categories that are completely paper-based, to ADEPT.
Stanford’s comments were “disappointing” to Elly Fleming, head of immigration at South Island-based lawe firm Pitt & Moore.
Fleming, a member of TLANZ’s Immigration Law Committee, said the government did not understand the how exasperating the back-and-forth was for applicants who were dealing with INZ.
“It means that our clients have to spend more money on our fees because we chase Immigration about lodgement of these applications. It just adds extra stress and financial burden,” Fleming said.
Stanford said the government was working towards moving student visa applications onto ADEPT this year. But Fleming said the government should prioritise “urgent” visa categories such as seasonal workers and fishing crews where applicants were under-resourced and time-poor.
She added it was frustrating that the government did not offer an interim online submission platform while it worked on a long-term and more sophisticated digital upgrade.
Stanford said it came down to funding.
“There isn’t a huge amount of money out there to do anything else, so we’ve got to be really careful with what we do and taking those things and then putting them into a system to have to move them again from another system is really inefficient.”
Time pressures
Fleming believes the hard copy visa applications for seasonal workers and fishing crews should be moved online as soon as possible. Currently, applications and accompanying documents for Fishing Crew Work Visas and Recognised Seasonal Employer Limited Visas are not scheduled to go online until February 2029 and March 2030 respectively.
Fleming said several applicants were based in remote locations making it difficult to lodge paper-based applications.
“The Recognised Seasonal Employer Limited Visa is a hard-copy application, so that’s all people in the Pacific Islands, where typically they don’t have a lot of resources. And for them to have to print, post or courier certified copies of documents, including passports, is really financially exhausting.”
There were also time pressures because workers needed to arrive in time for the season, but filing paper applications that INZ processes manually created delays.
“New Zealand employers need them to be here for whatever the season is – the orchards or vineyards – in time for the picking season or for the harvesting season. So, there is time pressure often, but these applications need to be submitted in hard copy.”
Fleming said things were even more complicated for fishing crews.
“Companies need the fishing crew here, in time for the season for the vessels to be heading out to sea.”
There was significant time pressure for crew members who were at sea when they needed to renew their visas. “A lot of them could be already employed and they’re renewing their visas and they’re out at sea. And you can’t get certified true copies at sea.”
She said they had to return to land to submit the application and other documents.
“When they’re back on shore, we’ve got very limited time to organise everything, including their medicals and whatever else they may need. But what’s most concerning is that they go to Immigration New Zealand, then they sit in the queue for someone to physically scan them and take the payment. All of that that can sometimes take two to three weeks.”
Those in vulnerable situations also needed to file applications in hard copy. Fleming said these were often submitted by charitable organisations that often have limited resources.
Volume versus urgency
In 2024, INZ made decisions on more than 73,000 student visa applications. Although submitted online, student visa applications are processed almost entirely manually, including tasks such as data entry, scanning or returning documents, and submitting documents through portals for external checks.
Student visas and visitor groups will be moved onto ADEPT by the end of this year. Stanford said given the sheer volume of student visa applications, this would significantly reduce delays.
“The next one is going on is student visas. So, we’re trying to get the big ones on the seven-year timetable.”
But Fleming said that showed the government’s priorities were not right. It was the time-sensitive visa categories that should have been given preference over visas with higher volume, she said.
Outdated system
INZ receives nearly 160,000 paper applications, covering 11 visa categories, each year. The applications also have accompanying documents that must be submitted in hard copy.
But even where applications are submitted online, the process is plagued with inefficiencies due to multiple systems, some of which are ageing and expensive to maintain. According to a Cabinet paper submitted by MBIE, these legacy systems will cost INZ $224m over the next 13 years.
“Several of our platforms are at the end-of-life stage and are difficult to maintain. We have frequent outages and slow performance that affects productivity.”
MBIE says INZ faces several challenges, such as dealing with inefficient visa processing, the risk of technology and service failure, unsophisticated risk management and poor user experiences.
The paper states some visa submission and processing platforms are not fit-for-purpose. This means a significant volume of work can be carried out only manually, including tasks such as data entry, scanning or returning documents and submitting documents through portals for external checks.
“The amount of manual work required increases the time it takes to process applications, impacting on processing efficiency and our ability to meet customer expectations.”
Fleming says INZ often does not have enough staff to deal with the sheer volume of work created by paper-based applications.
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