Will Ricketts is a member of the band The Phoenix Foundation. Despite the group being flown around the world to promote New Zealand music, Ricketts is being denied New Zealand citizenship. This is despite the fact that he has lived in New Zealand since the age of two. The reason? Over the last five years, he hasn't spent at least 240 days of each year in New Zealand. Because he was being flown around the world to promote New Zealand music. He has been told that he can pay $470 to appeal the decision, but the Immigration department will fight it anyway.
So, the government is happy to use him to promote New Zealand, but don't want him as a New Zealand citizen. This isn't just a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, it's a case of the right hand belonging to a completely different person on a completely different planet! This is obviously a case where discretion should be applied, yet the idiots in immigration refuse to use it.
This brings to mind two of my favourite aphorisms:
1) Slavish adherence to rules and regulation is a sign that one has nothing better with which to occupy one's mind
2) You don't need common sense when you have rules
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