Thanks, KiwiB.

By the by, as you know, one of the big sources of confusion is that folks yet to migrate, who have been given upfront PR, have PR visas in their passports... which are only converted to PR permits on arrival in NZ. And one of the (official?) sources stated recently that the April date applied to when you wre granted your permit.

But this latest official message, and similar recent ones, seem to put so much emphasis on application dates that -- as you suggest -- many of us have been given good news! It would take an excruitating legalistic leap to interpret 'date of application for residence' as 'date of handing the passport in at Auckland International terminal three seconds prior to conversion to PR permit from PR visa'! In other words, yes, I think they mean 'date of application' to mean 'date the queue officer received (or maybe even date you postmarked) your Application and documents'.