I mentioned this to Annette the other night, and she encouraged me to blog it.
A while back, I went over to Australia on a work-related thing, but the only passport I could find was my EU passport. No sign of my NZ one. So I figured, who cares, I’ll use the other one. Which was fine, no problem. Off to Oz I go. However, when I tried to get back INTO NZ using this passport, there WAS a problem. No NZ passport, no entry visa. They had to issue me with a temporary 12-month visa, to get me back into the country. Which was interesting, and no big deal at the time. They did it, I’m back, and I have since found my NZ passport.
The other day I get a letter stating that I should be aware that my VISA has EXPIRED and that I should go do various LEGAL THINGS pretty much IMMEDIATELY, or face the terrible possibility of being Deported To My Country of Birth!
The horror!
I was planning to ignore this totally, in the hope that legal machinations actually proceeded to an amusingly advanced point before anyone noticed that my country of birth was, in fact, this one. And was even specified thus on the UK passport. I had high hopes of perhaps being arrested, taken to the airport, and then put on a flight to Timaru.
However, fun as that may be I have decided that I may write some letters and make some calls to cut that off. I really don’t need any red flags on my passport(s), in this day and age – it could cause trouble in future travelling.
What I might go do, however, is buy an “Overstayer” t-shirt.