Migrants caught out by law change
The Government should reject a national bus company’s request to fill 110 bus driver jobs with migrant workers, a bus driver union says.
Ritchies Transport Holdings made a request to Immigration New Zealand on March 3 seeking permission to hire overseas labour to fill 80 bus and coach driver roles for Auckland, 15 for Dunedin and 15 for Queenstown.
Because bus drivers are not on the Government’s skill shortage list, Ritchies must obtain permission from Immigration New Zealand in the form of an Approval in Principle to fill the vacancies with overseas workers.
To be successful Ritchies would need to demonstrate that it could not find suitable workers in New Zealand.
Ritchies director Andrew Ritchie said it employed about 1400 bus drivers but it ‘‘always wants more’’.
Finding talent was a struggle due to ‘‘enormous’’ growth in public transport across New Zealand in the past 12 to 18 months, leading to a national shortage of bus drivers, he said.
However, First Union transport and logistics secretary Jared Abbott said that if anything, there was an oversupply in New Zealand.
‘‘We’ve probably got more bus drivers than we need.’’ Abbott said.
‘‘To call it a bus driver shortage is ridiculous.’’
Bus drivers did not want to work for Ritchies because it was known as a low paying company, he said.
It recently won a number of new contracts which were tendered at a price so low it required drivers to be paid a wage which was not attractive to local talent.
Abbott said the Government should reject Ritchies’ application.
Ritchie disputed the suggestion the company was simply after cheap labour. ‘‘It’s not about batting down wages or any of that nonsense,’’ he said.
He would not discuss what kind of pay drivers could expect.
It had advertised in New Zealand for drivers and also worked with Work and Income to try to fill the roles.
‘‘This isn’t the wholly and only way to recruit staff, this is just another way to get people into the industry.’’
Ritchies had previously lodged applications for overseas workers to fill engineering jobs, he said. This was the first time it had sought approval to fill bus driver jobs with overseas workers.
‘‘We certainly do employ local people and lots of them and that’s our first preference without a doubt.’’
He did not mind which part of the world workers came from as long as they had past bus driver experience.
‘‘That’s a prerequisite really.’’ Drivers would work a minimum of 40 hours a week and could work up to 55 hours if they wanted.
Most of the roles were for urban commuter routes. The Auckland jobs were for the Swanson and North Shore regions.
Immigration Minister Iain Lees-galloway said he would not comment on a live Approval in Principle process.
Earlier this month the Government declared a regional labour shortage of fruit pickers in Hawke’s Bay, meaning overseas visitors who did not have a work visa would be able to apply for a variation to their visitor’s visa allowing them to undertake seasonal work in the horticulture and viticulture industries for six weeks.
The declaration runs out this week. Migrants who uprooted their lives and families to set up businesses in New Zealand are about to be kicked out, despite investing hundreds of thousands of dollars here.
Three migrant residency applications were denied by Immigration New Zealand because they did not meet a provision added to the approval process by the former National Government.
In late 2013, long-term business visas (LTBV) were abolished. Many migrants used LTBV visas to relocate to New Zealand in the hope of being granted residency under its entrepreneur category.
Under the LTBV, migrants had to have a business plan approved by Immigration before they arrived. To be granted residency that business had to be profitable within two years. The migrants who have been denied residency all met that target.
In 2014, the then-government replaced LTBV with an entrepreneur work visa. The change required LTBV holders wanting residency to prove they had met sales forecast in their approved business plan, as well as post a profit.
The LTBV migrants denied residency were never notified of that change.
Jan Kruit was granted an LTBV in 2013. He and his wife Margreet sold their home in the Netherlands and sent all of their belongings here to start a lawnmowing business. They left their adopted son behind.
After posting a $103,000 profit in 2015 they both applied for residency, but were denied.
Aged 70, they will be deported when their temporary work visas run out in September.
Margreet said she felt ‘‘cheated’’ by the Government.
‘‘All the problems in Europe, with the bombs, it is scaring me. My life is here and not in the Netherlands anymore. Please do not send us back. All my money is here, our investment is here, my life is here and my friends. My
‘‘At the beginning I think this is a very fair country. But, now I think it is unfair.’’ LTBV migrant Xi Chen
heart is here.’’
The Kruits were not alone. Xi Chen, called Susan by her Kiwi friends, migrated here from China with her two children, then aged five and 10.
Her export business turned a $300,000 profit in its first year and another $400,000 in its second year.
But she could not handle the workload of running a business and parenting two children simultaneously, and her elder child returned to China.
Immigration denied her applications for residency for her and her now 10-year-old son, saying her business was an illegitimate exporter.
‘‘[Immigration] makes me feel like, ‘I just want your money but I do not want you’.’’
She had been granted a temporary visa but would not be able to re-enter if she left New Zealand to visit her daughter.
‘‘At the beginning I think this is a very fair country. But, now I think it is unfair.’’
Swedish business owner Maria Lundqvist gained an LTBV to bring her education business to New Zealand. Her family sold everything they owned and migrated here.
She, too, posted a profit within two years but was denied residency because she did not meet the sales target provision National introduced.
Had she known they would not be granted residency, she and her husband would not have migrated here, she said. Their visas expire in August.
Immigration adviser Tuariki Delamere said the added requirement was an ‘‘immoral’’ ‘‘escape clause’’.
‘‘[These migrants] kept their side of the bargain. They honoured and complied with what the Government required of them. However, the previous Government did not keep their side of the bargain.’’
Migrants granted LTBV visas before the sales provision addition in 2014 should not be subject to it, he said.
In an email sent to Immigration Minister Iain Lees-galloway and Commerce Minister Kris Faafoi on Monday night, Delamere requested the migrants’ residency applications be reassessed.
Lees-galloway would not say whether the migrants’ residence would be reconsidered, or if the sales provision would be altered to exclude LTBV migrants.
However, he promised the Government would act. Concerns over the entrepreneur work visa had been raised, he said.
‘‘This is but one example of the mess in immigration left by the previous Government that we’re determined to put right.’’
Former immigration minister Michael Woodhouse said the National-led Government ‘‘recognised the value of migrants’’.
He said he did not have the details to comment on the LTBV migrants’ situation.