As some of those arguably most affected by immigration law, Queenstown business operators on Wednesday had the chance to make their views known to the Minister of Immigration.
The opportunity came after the minister, Jonathan Coleman, spoke at the Crowne Plaza hotel, updating locals on Immigration New Zealand's plans to cut back on visa application red tape.
With an eye to making New Zealand more attractive to skilled workers, tourists and students, visa-processing times are to be slashed. Measures such as issuing multiple-entry visas for Chinese have already been implemented.
The plans were welcomed by business owners who rely on the resort's large international workforce getting working visas.
During question time, a number made it clear that they would like to see further changes made.
Local restaurateur Drew Harmer asked the minister whether, once people had passed health and police checks, it was necessary for them to do so again when extending their visa.
"I know that with my staff ... if they want to extend it they would have to go through quite a large cost again that quite a lot of people would find prohibitive, to stay, and we want to keep them here."
While the extension of police certificates is now allowed in some cases, the minister indicated he hoped to cut much of that red tape.
"We're making them jump through a whole lot of loops, especially the students," Mr Coleman replied."
"Hopefully, we will be able to eradicate a whole lot of that stuff at the start of the process."
Speaking later to the Queenstown Times, Queenstown Resort College chief executive Charlie Phillips confirmed there had also been times "when work visas had been problematic" for the college.
One initiative recently put in place to stop employers and employees being "left in the lurch" is a policy of making decisions 30 days before temporary visas expired.
This was joined by an "interim visa", which allowed prospective visa holders in employment to continue working while their application was processed.
Mr Coleman said he also recognised the "ongoing tension" between getting New Zealanders into jobs, with unemployment at about 6.5%, and bringing in needed skills.
Immigration New Zealand would first determine whether the required skills were available locally.
"If we can't [provide suitably qualified people] we need to make decisions very quickly to allow you to bring the labour in".
Another attendee asked if Immigration New Zealand was going to do anything to send a message people causing "continual public nuisance of violence and alcohol" were not welcome.
"It's hard to comment without knowing the individual cases," Mr Coleman responded.
"But I can tell you, I sign a lot of deportation issues, almost every week, so I can assure you that we're removing all sorts of people."
With 3000 deportations or assisted voluntary departures a year, "pretty much, if you go to jail, you get deported", he said.
