RSE workers made into ‘scape goats’
Migrant vineyard workers and the companies employing them are being made into scape goats for Blenheim’s affordability issues, a housing provider says.
Mandy Matthews is the owner of Workers Accommodation Marlborough, a company that manages a year-round portfolio of 23 residential houses in Blenheim and Renwick for vineyard workers.
She leases her properties to a single Recognised Seasonal Employer-accredited vineyard contractor. This winter, when more migrant workers come to Marlborough on the scheme, she will manage 32 houses for 309 workers.
A vineyard contractor said this week discussions between RSE employers and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment centred on shifting workers from residential to purpose-built accommodation.
Matthews said this would effectively end her business. Her five permanent staff would be out of a job, and the numerous suppliers and contractors that serviced her properties would lose out on work.
She also thought the drive to shift workers into purpose-built accommodation to free up residential housing was misguided.
There were empty Housing New Zealand properties in Blenheim, and the kind of accommodation she supplied was not suitable for first-home buyers, Matthews said.
The majority of the properties she managed were four or fivebedroom houses, often with numerous bathrooms. The average price was somewhere between $400,000 and $600,000, and some were higher.
‘‘They’re not houses,’’ she said.
Matthews said there had been no consideration of the type of accommodation RSE workers, who were mostly from the Pacific entry level Islands, might want to live in.
‘‘Has anyone actually asked the workers where they would prefer to live? Would they rather be in small groups in private homes, or would they rather live in a complex with hundreds of people,’’ Matthews said.
‘‘They come over here and they work bloody hard – they deserve somewhere good to live. They pay their taxes, and they’re a huge part of the community.’’
Hortus managing director Aaron Jay, Marlborough’s RSE representative, said the company’s workers liked living at Duncannon, accommodation bought by the company south of Blenheim last year.
‘‘They feel safer, they’re in a big group, it’s more like the communities they’re from,’’ he said.
Jay said the region’s larger RSE employers were all moving towards, or had already bought, purpose-built accommodation. It made sense logistically, and was easier to provide pastoral care, he said.
Matthews said some of the properties she managed would not be listed on the rental market if workers had to move elsewhere.
Some of the additional stock she took on over winter was owned by people leaving Blenheim to go travelling.