move2nz Seminars - UK 2009

UK Seminars Cancelled

Sadly move2nz has had to cancel our 2009 UK tour

In May new laws to govern professional immigration advisers were brought in to protect migrants.

As we are not immigration advisers and don’t give immigration advice we did not expect that this would affect our work, but on 14th July Mike was served (hand delivered by a lawyer) warning of prosecution with penalties of up to 7 years in prison and/or up to $100,000 fine.

The notice stated that we had broken the law, but did not explain how - we are still working on getting clarification. Unfortunately the wording of the new law is vague. Having contacted the new Immigration Advisers Authority (IAA) in February for a general okay they appear now to be taking a much more aggressive approach.

The Law
Section 7 of the Act defines 'immigration advice' as:

"using, or purporting to use, knowledge of or experience in immigration to advise, direct, assist, or represent another person in regard to an immigration matter relating to New Zealand, whether directly or indirectly and whether or not for gain or reward;"

• we are a settlement support agency but cannot get formal exemption; but
• we are not Immigration Advisers (and do not have files, case studies of clients who we have assisted with their Immigration Application etc.) we cannot get a license to cover us either.

We have fallen into a gray and very dangerous area somewhere between a rock and hard place.

Seminars
Our Seminars have always been presented as proactive settlement support and we had arranged for government staff to present on immigration (for the third year running).

We argue that 'immigration' is a very small part of the much wider field of 'migration' and that our work is exclusively in this wider area. We are not immigration advisers and do not give immigration advice.

However a lot of our Seminar content naturally touches on related issues affected by immigration status like health, education and employment - for example how your immigration status affects access and costs for health services.

I believe it will be months before we get a resolution on this ridiculous situation and in the circumstances we have no choice but to cancel the Seminars or live in fear of prosecution despite significant losses to our small organisation.

Although 'settlement support' work is exempt from this Act there is no definition of what this means and as a result we have also had to close our Migrant Centre which has over the last three years provided free settlement support to over 10,000 families.

We apologise for having to cancel these events. Over the past three years they have helped a huge number of people prepare for migration and we have seen hundreds of them successfully come through our Migrant Centre in Christchurch.

Sadly these events were the only ones providing information on many areas directly relating to settlement (rather than buying services). Families like you planning to come to New Zealand in a very difficult time will not now have access to unbiased information from a non-commercial source to you make good migration decisions (from employment prospects to how to handle telling relatives about your plans and a whole range of other areas that make such a difference to migration success).

Next Steps
We shall be refunding all tickets purchased. Please bear with us as we move through this process - you will receive a refund.

move2nz.com will continue and become an even better source of information and networking. I hope that you continue to use and benefit from the site.

Thanks to our sponsors for supporting this tour and for their support of move2nz.com’s unique and vital work: providing realistic information and support for skilled migrants choosing New Zealand as their new home.