sunnynelson

Hi All

I now qualify for NZ citizenship and intend to stay. Any views about the pros and cons of becoming a citizen?

regards

Sunnynelson

Paladin

I think if you are British you would end up carrying dual passports as NZ is one of the countries that does not require you to relinquish your current citizenship to take NZ citizenship.

Dave

kiwichild

I think you should take out citizenship. You will always be able to live there then. Once you have citizenship of NZ you are entitled to live and work in OZ if you feel like a change. You might have to apply for PR there now, but points and all that no longer an issue.

I have 3 citizenships and 3 passports: NZ by birth, UK by descent, and OZ by naturalisation.

JAJ

Lots of "pros", and if you're a British citizen you can have dual citizenship so I don't know if there are any "cons"

sunnynelson

Thanks for the info, its looking positive if i can keep my UK passport

Cheers

Richard

planty

Hi just wondered, when your UK passport is due to expire do you have to send it back to the UK? And what about the visa's?

kiwichild

NO. You get a new passport from the British High Commission in Wellington. If you explain to them that you need the old passport returned so you can verify your entitlement to restamping of visas in your new passport, I'm sure that won't be a problem.

kiwichild

You can access further info from this link:

http://www.britishhighcommission.gov...=1082828874020

downunderpom

We were PR in Oz for 7 years, and when my parents decided to leave (against my vociferous objections). I was 17, so unable to take out Oz citizenship for myself. My parents were of the opinion that "we're all British, deep down, so there'll be no problem coming back, IF you want to, later on." and they decided not to bother getting Oz citizenship. It would have been so easy......

Needless to say (check my earlier posts) when I tried to come back to Oz I had a real struggle. After five years of banging my head against a brick wall, and fighting with the idiots at DIMIA who decided to be awkward, I decided to come to NZ instead, seeing as NZ wanted two highly skilled applicants, while Oz obviously didn't.

If you have (or intend to have) any kids, IMO you don't have the right NOT to take out citizenship. That way your kids will, unlike me and my sister, have the choice, later in life, of where they want to live. I was brought up in Oz, from ages 10 - 17, and always considered Oz to be 'home'. Now it can never be home again, and I still feel very bitter about that, despite now living in a country which is AT LEAST as good as Oz, for my purposes, and Mrs DUP's.

I will take out NZ citizenship in 4 years 7 months, when I qualify. If the rules change between now and then, and dual citizenship is no longer an option, then I will give up my UK citizenship. I've made my choice of where I'm going to live for the rest of my life. I will, at that stage, no longer need a British passport.

JAJ

I don't know what the situation was then, but as far as I am aware these days in Australia, 16 and 17 year olds can apply independently for citizenship if they meet normal residence requirements. Normally DIMA do expect at least one parent to countersign the application, however if parents refused without giving any reason then it would be looked at on a case by case basis.



And before this sends others into a panic, it is very unlikely the law on dual citizenship in the UK or NZ will change anytime soon.

downunderpom

30+ years ago this information was very hard to come by. The 'authorities' I spoke to said that you had to have reached the age of consent (18) before you could do anything as an 'adult'. So, no chance of taking out Oz citizenship, as my parents had made up their minds.

And c'mon, JAJ! I don't even HINT that there's any chance of the rules on dual citizenship changing!! Still, now that you come to mention it, governments are made up of individuals, who sometimes have axes to grind, so while I agree that the chances of this happening are somewhere between slim and anorexic.... there is a chance of the rules changing, if a xenophobic parliament were to be elected.......

JAJ

Policy may even have been different then. Hard to say now. As for your parents, it's a shame they didn't make the effort to get citizenship (did they think dual citizenship was prohibited or something?)



Like what happened in Zimbabwe a few years ago?
http://www.citizenship.gov.au/info/zimbabwe.htm

downunderpom

Just wrote out a long response to this and then lost it!

Oh well... to repeat...

Like I said earlier, my parent's attitude was "we're all British, deep down". In the early 60's and 70's that was, in the main, true, although I had loads of mates at school who were European by extraction. (And no, I never did consider myself 'European'! ) My dad had had a tough life, and at this stage he just wanted a quiet life. My mother was a procrastinator, which drove me nuts. She would always put off to next month what she couldn't be bothered doing today! So, once her mind was made up to do nothing, nothing could change it! I think she was also secretly under the impression that if we took out Oz citizenship I would be drafted and sent to Vietnam. As I was heading for University at that time, it wouldn't have happened, but even if I HAD been called up, my dad being Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot, having to defend our country has never been an issue in my family, and it would not have been an issue for me. I won't go into the politics of the Vietnam war, here. I have my own opinions on the "rightness" of that particular conflict, with which I won't bore you.

And, with regard to Zim, when I lived there for nearly three years, it was called "Rhodesia"! But yes, I agree that this sort of thing can, and does, happen. History has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Especially when a dictator comes to power. Still, we know what happens to ALL dictators, eventually - which is where "history repeating itself" is a good thing!

Dave in Auckland

I think you'd be foolish to choose NZ over UK citizenship if that did become the case. A UK passport confers far more benefits & advantages, don't forget the EU would be closed to you for residence and if you have kids they's be limited to a 2yr OE in Europe/UK. Better to keep NZ PR & a UK PP if a choice had to be made.

kiwichild

Once you have NZ citizenship you can live and work in OZ if you want to. You can even become an OZ citizen without all this points thing. You can hold 3 passports quite legally, I do (OZ,NZ,UK).