The New Zealand government’s immigration decisions amount to a “white immigration policy”, creating a two-tier system that will entrench inequities, claims the Green Party.

National and ACT are also critical of the moves announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and top ministers at a Business NZ lunch in Auckland today.

The new policy sees New Zealand’s border fully reopening at the end of July, with sector-specific agreements to support a shift away from lower-skilled migrant labour.

Green Party immigration spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March said it would entrench a two-tier system.

“The workers that we called essential throughout the pandemic, many will be missing out on genuine pathways to residency and we are narrowing down pathways to residency for those that we consider high-salary migrants. This will entrench inequities,” he said.

“There are really clear wage gaps along ethnic lines — we’re effectively encouraging specific countries to come and become residents whereas people from the Global South who will be coming here, working in low wage industries, with no certain path to residency.”

He was also concerned about the prospect of international students losing working rights after their studies, and the roughly 16,000 overstayers in New Zealand.

‘Feels like a white-immigration policy’
“When we contextualise that many of the students and workers on low wages are from India and the Philippines, it kinda feels like we are creating a white-immigration policy – whether intentionally or otherwise.

“We’re also missing stuff around an amnesty for overstayers as well as addressing issues around migrant exploitation … we’ve been told by the Productivity Commission and many groups that migrant workers need to have their wages decoupled from single employers.

“These are people who have been living here for quite some time, many who are doing really important work but unfortunately are being exploited. If we’re really serious about enhancing workers’ rights, an amnesty should have been part of the rebalance.”

The new immigration settings streamline the residency pathway for migrants either in “Green List” occupations or paid twice the median wage.

National’s immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford said the broad brush approach was lazy.

“They could be far more nuanced and actually have fair wage rates per industry, per region, but instead they’re taking the easy route and a broad brush approach.

“I think it’s based on an unfair assumption that migrant workers drive down wages which, by the way the Productivity Commission said actually doesn’t happen.”

Families ‘separated for too long’
ACT Party leader David Seymour said the border should be open right now and families have been separated for far too long.

“It’s not opening the border in July, it’s opening up applications in July,” he said.

“Immigration New Zealand says that it will be five months on average to process a visa. The reality is if you’re one of 14 percent of New Zealanders born in a non-visa waiver country then your non-resident family can’t visit this year.”

Businesses are relieved the border will fully open and many will attempt to attract migrant workers here.

Business New Zealand’s director of advocacy Catherine Beard said skills shortages were across the board.

“One of the top headaches that we hear everywhere from every sector is a shortage of talent so we really need to throw the welcome mat open to immigrants. We’re competing with other countries for this talent and it’s really hurting.”

NZ Wine Growers chief executive Phil Gregan said re-opening the border to holidaymakers and tourists was important.

“First, it’s a positive signal that we’re open for business. I think it’s also going to have very positive impacts on tourism, on hospitality and our business on wine reseller doors hopefully.”

The wine sector is reliant on seasonal workers.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Unite Union national director Mike Treen has welcomed the changes made by the New Zealand government in a $50 million reform package to combat migrant worker exploitation.

“It will make it easiest for individual workers to access the support they need to make complaints, get support and change employers if necessary,” Treen said today.

New Zealand had created a system that “creates exploitation again and again” over the years.

READ MORE: New visa will give more protection to migrant workers in NZ

That system had used the “desire of residency” to:

• Bring students and workers to New Zealand and charge them tens of thousands of dollars in fees to subsidise private and public education;
• Allow employers to tie the work visas they get to individual employers so it was im[possible to complain about treatment without risking their chance to get residency; and
• Change the rules on who qualifies for permanent residence after they have come to New Zealand so that they will never qualify and all they can do is keep renewing their visas for as long as possible.

‘De facto New Zealanders’
“These are de facto New Zealanders who have made New Zealand their home for a decade or more. Many have children born here who know no other life,” Treen said.

“They also obviously have jobs that in any reasonable world would be considered “essential workers.

“They are working in health care, on our farms, in our schools. They continue to fill critical roles in our society.

“Employers want these workers to stay.

“Now many of these workers are classified as ‘ordinarily resident’ New Zealanders by the outgoing Minister of Immigration Iain lees-Galloway.”

They were the next category to be allowed back into New Zealand after New Zealand citizens who wanted to return were allowed back.

“In my view, these ‘ordinarily resident’ New Zealanders would have been allowed to become citizens in any fair immigration system and not exploited by the system in the way they have. They deserve to be treated the same as any other citizen,” Treen said.

“Every migrant worker who is currently an ‘ordinarily resident’ New Zealander should be fast-tracked to residency and taken off any visa that ties them to a particular employer.

“The ‘system’ of migrant exploitation and indentured servitude has to be abolished.

“New Zealand will not be able to bring in temporary workers or students in significant numbers for at least four or five years while this pandemic circles the globe.

“We have a chance to get rid of a system that depends on a permanent presence of hundreds of thousands of ‘temporary’ visa holders with no hope of transitioning to residency once and for all.

“This is a chance in a generation to do the right thing to those who have been so cruelly exploited and abused by the state who created this pool of labour in a desperate and vulnerable situation able to taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Dian Septiari in Jakarta

The Migrant CARE advocacy group has called on Indonesia’s Manpower Ministry to cancel a recent agreement with Saudi Arabia to send Indonesian migrant workers to the kingdom in limited numbers, following the execution of Indonesian worker Tuti Tursilawati on Monday.

Migrant CARE executive director Wahyu Susilo strongly condemned the execution of Tuti by Saudi authorities and urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to take significant diplomatic measures in protest against Riyadh, such as scrapping a pilot project to send a limited number of migrant workers to Saudi Arabia.

“President Jokowi must cancel the agreement between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia on the One Channel System [because the execution is] proof that Saudi Arabia does not fulfill the terms and conditions pertaining to the protection of the rights of migrant domestic workers,” Wahyu said in a statement.

READ MORE: The Saudi state-sponsored murder of Khashoggi updates

The assured protection of migrant workers’ rights was an explicit requirement in documents signed by Manpower Minister Hanif Dhakiri and his Saudi counterpart Ahmed Sulaiman Al Rajhi on October 11, the rights activist said.

The One Channel System was a scheme agreed upon by the labour ministers that would allow Indonesia to send a certain number of workers to the Middle Eastern kingdom, bypassing a 2015 moratorium.

-Partners-

Tuti was sentenced to death in 2011 for beating her employer to death with a stick in self-defence against attempted rape.

She ran away but was raped instead by nine Saudi men before the police brought her into custody, tribunnews.com reported.

She was executed on Monday without prior notification to her family and Indonesian officials.

During a recent joint commission meeting between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi requested the cooperation of Riyadh to provide consular notifications in accordance with the 1963 Vienna Convention on consular relations.

President Jokowi also asked Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al Jubeir for assurances that Indonesian migrant workers’ rights be protected.

“Jokowi must be truly serious in responding to a situation like this. When he met with the Saudi foreign minister, the President asked Saudi Arabia to provide protection for Indonesian migrant workers and work to resolve the [murder of journalist Jamal] Khashoggi in earnest,” Wahyu said.

“It turns out the request was simply ignored.”

Dian Septiari is a Jakarta Post journalist.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz