My son is a dual US-NZ citizen and lives in the US with his wife and three kids. They're applying for residency as soon as his wife's FBI police certificate arrives. Medicals and X-rays have been done. I called NZ immigration on their behalf and was told by a nice woman at immigration, 'of course you'll want the children to be in NZ for the start of the new school year at the end of January' - that they don't need to wait for the residency visa to arrive but can apply for an open work visa (partner sponsored) for my son's wife and student visas for the kids. And not to apply until November as the visas only take 25 working days to process. No worries mate! Based on this info they've purchased their one-way tickets to NZ arriving on Jan 1.
We can't find anything on student or open work visas that states the applicant must arrive in NZ within 'X' days of the visas being issued, so we're wondering why NZ immigration said not to submit the applications until November. But my son and DIL are a little nervous about not applying for the visas until November - so they'd like to apply for the kids' student visas this week - and DIL's work visa as soon as her police cert arrives. They'll apply for the residency visa at the same time.
I've done a search here and can't find an answer to this question so hoping someone here will have some info. Many thanks.