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Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007

Regulation of immigration advisers - Immigration advisers to be licensed, unless exempt

12: Exemption, or removal of exemption, by Order in Council

You could also call this:

“Governor-General can make or remove rules about who needs a licence to help with immigration”

The Governor-General can make rules to exempt some people from needing a licence to be an immigration adviser. They can also remove exemptions that already exist. These rules are called regulations.

If the Governor-General wants to exempt someone, the Minister must recommend it first. There are two types of exemptions:

  1. Category 1 exemptions are for groups where licensing doesn’t really help consumers and there are already good ways to make sure they do their job well.

  2. Category 2 exemptions are for people in jobs that already have their own rules about how to behave and can punish people who don’t follow those rules.

The regulations might have some conditions that exempted people need to follow.

Most people who are exempt can still apply for a licence if they want to. But lawyers and people with category 2 exemptions can’t apply for or have a licence.

The Governor-General can also make rules to remove exemptions for some or all people who were previously exempt. These rules might have conditions too.

These regulations are a type of law called secondary legislation.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM407313.

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11: Persons exempt from licensing, or

"People who can give immigration advice without a licence"

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Part 1 Regulation of immigration advisers
Immigration advisers to be licensed, unless exempt

12Exemption, or removal of exemption, by Order in Council

  1. The Governor-General may, by Order in Council, make regulations—

  2. exempting any person or class of persons from the requirement to be licensed as immigration advisers:
    1. removing in whole or in part the exemption provided for in section 11(h).

      1. Regulations under subsection (1)(a) may be made only on the recommendation of the Minister given in accordance with section 13.

      2. Exemptions under subsection (1) must be classed as one of 2 categories:

      3. category 1 exemptions, exempted on the basis that—
        1. there is little consumer benefit to be gained by requiring members of the exempt class to be licensed; and
          1. there are sufficient processes in place to ensure competent and ethical conduct; and
          2. category 2 exemptions, for persons in professions or occupations that, under their own statute, have their own disciplinary procedures that could apply to the provision of immigration advice, and prescriptive requirements as to conduct.

            1. An exemption under subsection (1)(a) may be subject to any terms and conditions specified in the regulations.

            2. Subject to subsection (6), a person exempt under any of paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d), (f), (g), (h), and (i) of section 11 or a category 1 exemptee may, despite being exempt, apply for a licence and, if the licence is granted, operate as a licensed immigration adviser.

            3. A lawyer or a category 2 exemptee may neither apply for, nor hold, a licence.

            4. A removal of the exemption provided for in section 11(h) by regulations made under subsection (1) may be in respect of all or any 1 or more classes of person to whom the exemption relates, and the removal or retention of the exemption may be subject to any terms and conditions specified in the regulations.

            5. Regulations under this section are secondary legislation (see Part 3 of the Legislation Act 2019 for publication requirements).

            Notes
            • Section 12(8): inserted, on , by section 3 of the Secondary Legislation Act 2021 (2021 No 7).