On behalf of Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, Minister of Immigration, Minister for
ACC and Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety thank you for your
email. Please consider this email as an acknowledgement.

Thank you for taking the time to write and please be assured that your
comments will be read by the Minister. However, there may be no further
response to you.

Please also note that this Office is closed from 20 December and 6 January
and this email will not be monitored during that time period.

Kind regards,

Office of Hon Iain Lees-Galloway

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On behalf of Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, Minister of Immigration, Minister for
ACC and Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety thank you for your
email. Please consider this email as an acknowledgement.

Thank you for taking the time to write and please be assured that your
comments will be read by the Minister. However, there may be no further
response to you.

Kind regards,

Office of Hon Iain Lees-Galloway

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good afternoon

We acknowledge receipt of your official information request dated 2 January 2020, for

1:- Whether there is any plan of government to increase this threshold from NZ$41,000?. If yes could you provide the necessary documents and please tell what will be the change and from when will it be effective.

2:- Between Aug 2017 and present has NZ Government discussed about increasing this threshold or any other discussion . Please share any documentation for that .

3:- If the answer to point 1 and 2 is no, will NZ government consider reviewing this threshold as part of INZ regular operational changes. if yes then when and if not then is there any reason why it will not be changed?

This is a very important factor to determine if a visa applicant is meeting health requirements as INZ medical assessors check this threshold in their decisions. Hence, it affects large number of visa applicant cases and their future in NZ.

We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible and in any event no later than 20 working days after the day your request was received.

Please note that the days in the period between 25 December 2019 and 15 January 2020 (inclusive) are defined as non-working days in the Act. This will affect the maximum time period for providing a response to your request.

If we are unable to respond to your request within the appropriate timeframe, we will notify you of an extension of that timeframe.

Yours sincerely,

Office Hon Iain Lees-Galloway
Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety
Minister of Immigration
Minister for ACC
Deputy Leader of the House | MP for Palmerston North
P: 64 (4) 817 8713 | E: [Iain Lees-Galloway request email]
Authorised by Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, Wellington

-----Original Message-----
From: A KS [mailto:[FOI #11970 email]]
Sent: Thursday, 2 January 2020 5:10 PM
To: I Lees-Galloway (MIN) <[Iain Lees-Galloway request email]>
Subject: Official Information request - Question Regarding Ministerial review of INZ Assessment Costs of Medical Conditions while determining if a visa applicant is unlikely to impose significant costs on New Zealand's health services

Dear Iain Lees-Galloway,

I have a question regarding the assessment costs considered by Immigration New Zealand when it checks if a visa applicant is unlikely to impose significant costs on New Zealand's health services or not.
If we check the Immigration NZ ops manual section A4.10.2 (Effective 15/12/2017) , It mentions the cost as NZ$41,000.

However if we check the previous archived instructions, it is evident that this cost was initially NZ$25,000 and it was changed to NZ$41,000 from the INZ instructions Effective 26/11/2012. It implies that this figure has remained same for more than 7 years and we are in 2020 now. The Reserve Bank of NZ CPI calculator shows that since 2012 the wages have increased by 20% which implies that healthcare costs would have increased a lot as well since 2012.

Therefore could you advice

1:- Whether there is any plan of government to increase this threshold from NZ$41,000?. If yes could you provide the necessary documents and please tell what will be the change and from when will it be effective.

2:- Between Aug 2017 and present has NZ Government discussed about increasing this threshold or any other discussion . Please share any documentation for that .

3:- If the answer to point 1 and 2 is no, will NZ government consider reviewing this threshold as part of INZ regular operational changes. if yes then when and if not then is there any reason why it will not be changed?

This is a very important factor to determine if a visa applicant is meeting health requirements as INZ medical assessors check this threshold in their decisions. Hence, it affects large number of visa applicant cases and their future in NZ

Link to 2012 instructions when this threshold was NZD 25000 https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanua...

Link to 2012 instructions when this threshold was changed to NZD 41000 https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanua...

Link to current INZ instructions 2017
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanua...

Link to RBNZ inflation calculator
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy...

Yours faithfully,

A KS

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This is an Official Information request made via the FYI website.

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[FOI #11970 email]

Is [Iain Lees-Galloway request email] the wrong address for Official Information requests to Iain Lees-Galloway? If so, please contact us using this form:
https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

If you find this service useful as an Official Information officer, please ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA or LGOIMA page.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

________________________________

hide quoted sections

Good afternoon,

I refer to your official information request dated 2 January 2020, for:

We acknowledge receipt of your official information request dated 2 January 2020, for

1:- Whether there is any plan of government to increase this threshold from NZ$41,000?. If yes could you provide the necessary documents and please tell what will be the change and from when will it be effective.

2:- Between Aug 2017 and present has NZ Government discussed about increasing this threshold or any other discussion . Please share any documentation for that .

3:- If the answer to point 1 and 2 is no, will NZ government consider reviewing this threshold as part of INZ regular operational changes. if yes then when and if not then is there any reason why it will not be changed?

This is a very important factor to determine if a visa applicant is meeting health requirements as INZ medical assessors check this threshold in their decisions. Hence, it affects large number of visa applicant cases and their future in NZ.

We are writing to advise you that we will be extending the time available to answer your request. The response will be with you no later than 11 March 2020.

We are extending your request under section 15A 1(b) of the Official Information Act 1982 as consultations necessary to make a decision on the request are such that a proper response to the request cannot reasonably be made within the original time limit.

You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.

We will respond to you sooner if we are able to.

Yours sincerely

Private Secretary Ministerial Servicing
Office Hon Iain Lees-Galloway
Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety
Minister of Immigration
Minister for ACC
Deputy Leader of the House | MP for Palmerston North
P: 64 (4) 817 8713
Authorised by Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, Wellington

Email disclaimer: Please note information about meetings related to the Ministers' portfolios will be proactively released (this does not include personal or constituency matters). For each meeting in scope, the summary would list: date, time (start and finish), brief description, location, who the meeting was with, and the portfolio. If you attend a meeting with the Minister on behalf of an organisation, the name of the organisation will be released. If you are a senior staff member at an organisation, or meet with the Minister in your personal capacity, your name may also be released. The location of the meeting will be released, unless it is a private residence. The proactive release will be consistent with the provisions in the Official Information Act, including privacy considerations. Under the Privacy Act 1993 you have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. If you'd like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, or are concerned about the release of your information in the meeting disclosure, please contact the sender. You can read more about the proactive release policy at https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas...

-----Original Message-----
From: A KS [mailto:[FOI #11970 email]]
Sent: Tuesday, 28 January 2020 3:42 PM
To: I Lees-Galloway (MIN) <[Iain Lees-Galloway request email]>
Subject: Re: OIA Ack | A KS, fyi | 2 January

Dear I Lees-Galloway (MIN),

Thanks for acknowledging my request.
I saw that in your response you mentioned the 3 questions from my request.
However in my FYI query, there is a lot of text before 3 questions which you didn't mention in your email and it provides the context of the query,

I am afraid that by missing my request text, my FYI request may not be answered fully.

Therefore, could you please add the following text to the request which you have missed so that Hon Minister can see the full FYI request and respond.

-------------------------------- Missing Text in your acknowledgment email------------------------------

If we check the Immigration NZ ops manual section A4.10.2 (Effective 15/12/2017) , It mentions the cost as NZ$41,000.

However if we check the previous archived instructions, it is evident that this cost was initially NZ$25,000 and it was changed to NZ$41,000 from the INZ instructions Effective 26/11/2012. It implies that this figure has remained same for more than 7 years and we are in 2020 now. The Reserve Bank of NZ CPI calculator shows that since 2012 the wages have increased by 20% which implies that healthcare costs would have increased a lot as well since 2012.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yours sincerely,

A KS

-----Original Message-----

Good afternoon

We acknowledge receipt of your official information request dated 2 January 2020, for

1:- Whether there is any plan of government to increase this threshold from NZ$41,000?. If yes could you provide the necessary documents and please tell what will be the change and from when will it be effective.

2:- Between Aug 2017 and present has NZ Government discussed about increasing this threshold or any other discussion . Please share any documentation for that .

3:- If the answer to point 1 and 2 is no, will NZ government consider reviewing this threshold as part of INZ regular operational changes. if yes then when and if not then is there any reason why it will not be changed?

This is a very important factor to determine if a visa applicant is meeting health requirements as INZ medical assessors check this threshold in their decisions. Hence, it affects large number of visa applicant cases and their future in NZ.

We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible and in any event no later than 20 working days after the day your request was received.

Please note that the days in the period between 25 December 2019 and 15 January 2020 (inclusive) are defined as non-working days in the Act. This will affect the maximum time period for providing a response to your request.

If we are unable to respond to your request within the appropriate timeframe, we will notify you of an extension of that timeframe.

Yours sincerely,

Office Hon Iain Lees-Galloway
Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Minister of Immigration Minister for ACC Deputy Leader of the House | MP for Palmerston North
P: 64 (4) 817 8713 | E: [Iain Lees-Galloway request email] Authorised by Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, Wellington

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[FOI #11970 email]

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

If you find this service useful as an Official Information officer, please ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA or LGOIMA page.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

________________________________

hide quoted sections

Dear A KS

 

Please find attached above the response to your email of 2 January 2020.

 

Kind regards

 

 

[1]Crest Office Hon Iain Lees-Galloway

Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety

Minister of Immigration

Minister for ACC

Deputy Leader of the House | MP for Palmerston North

P: 64 (4) 817 8713

                       Authorised by Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, Wellington

 

Email disclaimer: Please note information about meetings related to the
Ministers’ portfolios will be proactively released (this does not include
personal or constituency matters). For each meeting in scope, the summary
would list: date, time (start and finish), brief description, location,
who the meeting was with, and the portfolio. If you attend a meeting with
the Minister on behalf of an organisation, the name of the organisation
will be released. If you are a senior staff member at an organisation, or
meet with the Minister in your personal capacity, your name may also be
released. The location of the meeting will be released, unless it is a
private residence. The proactive release will be consistent with the
provisions in the Official Information Act, including privacy
considerations. Under the Privacy Act 1993 you have the right to ask for a
copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to
be corrected if you think it is wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of
your information, or to have it corrected, or are concerned about the
release of your information in the meeting disclosure, please contact the
sender. You can read more about the proactive release policy at
[2]https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas...

 

 

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References

Visible links
2. https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas...