Decentralisation of citizenship section

Press, 25 February 1977, Page 21

Decentralisation of citizenship section

Tn a move designed to streamline procedures and to ease pressure on its head office staff, the Department of Internal Affairs has decentralised its citizenship section. ' A spokesman for the citizenship section in Wellington said that the move to decentralisation—whereby applications for citizenship can be lealt with at offices at Auckland, Wellington, Christchirch. and Dunedin—in effect gave the section hands wthout actually (ncreasing the staff. There are about 9500 applicatibns now in the pipeline by British subjects and aliens seeking New Zealand citizenslip. while the number actually dealt with in the vear wljich ends on March 31 will be close to 5300. In the years preceding 1974. when New Zealand revised its immigration regulations, the section in Wellington dealt with about 2500 citizenship applications annually. However, since 1974. the

number of applications — and particularly from United Kingdom residents living here — has risen sharply. The spokesman said that in th* year after the revision of the ”regulations there were ■more than 10,000, and that ■ now, entering the third year ! after the revision, there had I been no decline in the num- ; ber of applications being j handled by the citizenship! \ section of the department. | The average time taken to I “process” an application was about 14 months — depending on the number being handled at any one time. The procedure involves checking on the status of the applicant with the Labour Department, the police, and with the Security Intelligence Sendee, and occasionally a random check with one of the three New Zealand sponsors who are required to support an application. Such checks are a statutory’ requirement under the terms of the 1948 British Nationality and New Zealand ‘Citizenship Act.

Under decentralisation, most of this checking will be carried out at the regional level, and while this will greatly assist the head office in Wellington, it may create a few extra problems for the other Government agencies concerned. Final authority will, however, rest with head, office and with the Minister. [ Very few of the applications for citizenship were i declined, the spokesman said. In most cases where they were it was without pr Judice. and there was not! 'ng to prevent an individual from reapplying at a later date.

The reasons for an application’s being declined could be because of an individual’s poor work record, trouble with the law. character not being up to standard, or in the case of an alien, a poor knowledge of English. The applicant would usually be told the reason, but when the Minister of Internal Affairs declined to grant citizenship he did not have to explain why.