Decisions on what Visa to apply for - advice please

Ok so I am currently in NZ and have been since Oct 2014 on a WHV for 12 months. In Jan I accepted a casual contract teaching English as a second language at a college for adults. In the UK I am a primary school teacher with 5 years teaching experience. Since moving to NZ I am now in a relationship with a Kiwi who also lives in the same town as me.

My intention is to stay in NZ permanently.

My question is this: my visa expires in Oct 2015 and I am beginning to look at options for residency. I would like to teach in a primary school out here and have already had my qualifications assessed by NZQA. Which visa should I go for? Partnership residency is only for couples who have lived together for 12 months which would mean i wouldn't qualify for this until next April. A temp work visa by partnership requires a new medical as it has to be dated within 3 months (i had mine in dec in auckland and INZ have it on file). SMC residency? My points total not including my current casual teaching job and without a permanent job offer are only 105. If my current job change my contract to 12 months fixed term I become 155 points. Originally my plan was to extend my WHV for 11 months until i qualify for partnership residency with my boyfriend but i have since learned there are working restrictions on that visa and i would need to work for all the time i am here.

I have also been following this and a few other forums etc and primary jobs seem hard to come by without already having residency as there are a lot of kiwi teachers searching too!

Any advice or similar situations would be welcomed thanks guys!

Hello. :)

It may help if you separate out your short-term visa requirements from your longer-term work plans.

For now, you would probably agree that you need to take some action, the easiest possible, to get yourself a visa that will allow you to continue working as you are, and that action preferably should be all finished before October 2015 when your WHV will run out.

Partner-sponsored visas require FAR less evidence than the others (because there is ONLY the evidence of living together, nothing concerning qualifications and work experience, to be checked out). You don't yet qualify to apply for partner-sponsored residence, but a partner-sponsored temporary work visa would give you the leeway to put in the extra time for evidence, while taking whatever work is offered, i.e. the existing job or one you would prefer if it turns up. Yes, it would need another medical, but as you've recently passed one, this shouldn't be an issue, should it?

If you go the partnership route, when once you get residence, it is the same residence with the same rights as if you'd gone through SMC to apply for it, entitling you to take any job, skilled or not, start a business, study, drop out if you could afford it... And after two years you could qualify for Permanent Residence. Residence and PR are in your own right, not dependent on the partnership after the residence is once granted.

You couldn't start an application under SMC unless your current employer altered your contract and made you a long-term offer. Even if they did that immediately, and that's quite an IF, gathering of evidence (qualifications, work experience, current employment situation), and then the processing times, make it really unlikely that the whole thing could be gone through before October. Almost certainly you would also need to put in for a temporary work visa because the WHV would run out meantime, which would mean another whole set of requirements and form-filling.

You're right that primary teaching jobs aren't waiting round every corner at the moment. Many people on the forum who have got one have done so by getting known in an area as a volunteer and/or supply teacher, so when a permanent position arose they were a familiar face, but this all takes time and leg work, which can't be done unless legally entitled to live and work in NZ. (Even volunteering is work, as far as INZ is concerned, and needs a visa.)

Thanks so much for your reply - I think my best course of action would be a temp work visa for a year then partnership residency once we have all the evidence to support it. Will be dealing with this ASAP so its all in place before my WHV expires. It also takes the pressure off stressing about my job and contracts etc!

:nice1 Good luck!