Arran Hunt: Immigration lawyer discusses the new Chinese tourism visa

The Government makes another step forward in upping Chinese visitor numbers, with a tweak to visa settings and processes. 

From November, the Government will trial a visa waiver status for Chinese passport holders travelling from Australia, allowing them to visit for up to three months.

They must have a valid Australian visitor, work, student or family visa, with the trial lasting a year. 

Immigration lawyer Arran Hunt says the number of Chinese visitors hasn't bounced back post-Covid, but believes this is a step in the right direction.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Get another tweak to tourism. This time we've got a

(00:02):
visa waive, a trial scheme for Chinese tourists if they're
traveling through Australia. So Aaron Hunter's a lawyer at McVeigh
Fleming who specialized in immigration law. Aaron, morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
You, Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Does this work? Is this a game changer or a.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Tweak or what? I think there's probably somewhere in between.
It basically means those have been through the Australian process
who Australia have trusted with a visit of visa or
a student visa or a week visa or a punch of visa,
they can either come to Zeland as part of their
hobbdays or if they're based on Australia, come across here
as a base of their hobbidays.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Okay, so yes, you would do the paperwork if you
were going to be a student or working there. I
get that part. Would you do the paperwork if only
you're a tourist and then go, well, since I've done Australia,
I'll flip through to New Zealand or not, or we
don't know.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I think it's we don't know. I think You're probably
going to have some sort of stats to those who
will come to Australia and go, wow, these islands justin
it nearby. We'll get better try as well. Probably just
for the sake of the small man of costs for US,
Australia aready on the league work for us effectively, it
gives them another chance to bring in more tourists.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Because what is the Australian If I'm filling out of
visa for Australia as a tourist is as arduous as
it is or has been for New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Probably slightly more so. Wow, immigrations Zealand are actually reasonably
nice when it comes to dealing with the applications. Australia
not so much or a bit more hardlined. So I can
get on Australian visa and I think we can pretty
much trust that these people have been vetted quite quite well.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Okay, So, because part of this whole discussion is the
impediment that that is to us boosting our tourism numbers
back to what they were, are we doing the right thing?
In other words, you know, instead of just saying welcome,
please come, and you know the PaperWorks required in other words,
because they're Chinese.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
I think it's part of the what one good step?
It's one if I make many steps of bringing the
Chinese marketbacks in New Zealand that of course lacks, and
going to China marketing all those sorts of areas, it
just takes about one lest area that you're currently in place.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
See the traveling. I know for a within the region,
the this is within their region, and I know they're
going to Europe. Do those countries make the paperworkers arduous
as we do or do we need to do something different?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Oh? I think perhaps we could be a bit less
hardline than some of the applications. Definitely not have an
open boarder at all. An Engta to or China would
be the high risk of those other staying. But perhaps
seeing some point somewhere in between, we have removed a
lot of the requirements of translations. They fact that those
are quite typict done in China. The perhaps needs to

(02:31):
be a softening a little bit to the general visit
at easier.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
I'd tend to agree. Aaron, appreciate your expertise. Aaron Hunt,
who's an immigration lawyer, we've talked to like some numerous
times about this so at least they're slowly but surely
getting better. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen
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