I caught most of Labour Minister David Burch's press conference on this evening's news where he addressed, among other things, the appallingly slow Department of Immigration.
The Minister suggested a couple of strategies to address the time it takes to process work permit applications:
1) Shutting down the Department for a month and just clearing the backlog.
2) Put on a night shift (already being done to a limited extent)
I have another suggestion, a very simple one that I think is also very fair:
1) Establish a realistic and appropriate period for Immigration to process a properly documented application, say 6 weeks.
2) If Immigration fails to process the permit in 6 weeks, the application is automatically approved.
Why should public sector inefficiency be inflicted on our private sector, making them less competitive and driving up their costs?
Posted by Christian S. Dunleavy