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Investor would only have to remain in New Zealand for 21 days under changes to so-called 'golden visa' (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Investors will only have to remain in New Zealand for 21 days over three years to gain residency under changes to the so-called 'golden visa' to attract wealthy investors to New Zealand, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says.

From 1 April, the Active Investor Plus visa will be replaced with two, simplified investment categories.

The first, the 'Growth' category, will focus on higher-risk investments, including direct investments in New Zealand businesses.

It will require a minimum investment of $5 million for a minimum period of three years.

The second, the 'Balanced' category, will focus on mixed investments, with the ability to choose ones that are lower risk.

There will be a minimum investment of $10 million over five years.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (8 children)

The whole Peter Thiel this was such a public controversy that we should use it as a template for citizenship.

Here's an except from the Peter Thiel wikipedia page:

Thiel was a German citizen by birth and became an American citizen by naturalization. He received permanent residency in New Zealand in 2011, which was not made public until 2017. Thiel visited the country on four occasions prior to his application for citizenship and spent 12 days in New Zealand, far fewer than the typical residency requirement of 1,350 days. When he applied, Thiel stated he had no intention of living in New Zealand, which is a criterion for citizenship.[190] Then-Minister of Internal Affairs Nathan Guy waived those normal requirements, under an "exceptional circumstances" clause of the Citizenship Act.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I hate so much that Thiel managed to get citizenship here.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sounds like it should be revoked. Why does 1 minister have the ability to ignore the legal requirements for citizenship? It's obviously the result of bribery or quid pro quo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Basically his application was backed by a bunch of other rich NZ'ers who he invested in, and obviously his net worth and connections played a part. Department of Internal Affairs officials recommended his application be approved to the Internal Affairs Minister. Just the typical rich people things.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

It's worth noting that public servants serve the government. While they may have fallen back on "Department of Internal Affairs officials recommended his application be approved", some (past or present) government or minister was almost certainly involved in setting the policy that lead to this recommendation to approve. It's not so much "we think this should be approved" as it is "based on the guidelines you've given us, it sounds like this application matches".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Reading more into it, it definitely seems like he was throwing money around and courting ministers before he applied.

NZ Herald actually has a good in depth article on it: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-got-new-zealand-citizenship/. It's a fairly long read.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I actually think they should. At some point, it's very likely some circumstance arises where you should have discretion. In fact it seems this clause was used to grant citizenship 28 times last year. Should that discretion be "I want to buy citizenship"? Probably not, but I get the idea of such a clause, and there are probably too many to rely on private bills to handle them (maybe the criteria should be a little looser then use private bills for the others?).

I don't know the answer to this but I do wonder what the downsides are of a single person having citizenship when they probably shouldn't. Is this more of a perception thing than actual harm, or does shaving citizenship allow political donations that otherwise couldn't be made?

Wait, is that the purpose of this new stance of letting people buy their way into residency, that this specifically targets people who are likely to be National/Act donors?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If a single person is making or overriding a decision than the next minister should be able to revoke it.

This way people like Theil will have to continue to bribe all parties in government every few years instead of bribing just once.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I mean, they do apparently have this power. Seems they revoke citizenship from time to time.

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