Hi there,

My partner was recently in NZ on a limited visa which has given us the chance to live together long enough to be able to apply for a partnership based working visa, she has recently returned home as her limited visa required to apply for the partnership based working visa which was successful, now she will return to NZ and bring her birth certificate with her as I understand she will need the original and translation of that for her residency application?

The complicated thing is I have just learnt that she will need to provide a new police certificate for her residency application, but there is no Armenian embassy in NZ or even in Australia and her father will not be able to get one and send it to her as he will not have her birth certificate, we can get one emailed to us from her home country but is that ok if we get one emailed and print it out? or does it have to be original?

So to sum it up, questions are as follows:

1 - Does she really need to take another police certificate even though the one she has supplied with her partnership temporary visa will be less than one year old when she applies for residency?

2 - Do police certificates need to be original or if the embassy emails her one can she print it and supply that?

3 - On the new residence application form (updated April 2016) it says "Applicants under the partnership or dependant child categories only: If a police certificate is not attached to this application because it was previously submitted with a temporary visa application, provide details", then under that is says "The certificate must be less than 24 months old when this application is lodged". Then it asks for the type of application and date of application. So in reading that on the form it really does seem there is some sort of exception for partnership applications to be able to refer to previous police certificates used in temporary applications for the residence application as long as it is less than 24 months old?

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