Government under fire over visas
Rural businesses affected by the severe seasonal labour shortage say the Government is not listening to their concerns, after it was revealed that 126 people involved in The Lion King play had been granted visas under the ‘‘other critical worker’’ category.
Owner of farm work agency, Hanzon Jobs, Richard Houston, said he felt his industry had been ‘‘disregarded’’.
Kiwifruit grower and packer, Seeka chief executive, Michael Franks, said labour would be ‘‘very tight’’ next month, which meant people were working long hours and he was concerned about possible health and safety implications.
‘‘It’s clear that the Government is not listening to us. I predict it’s going to get tighter, particular after Easter when we open our night shifts and we get our processing business up to speed,’’ Franks said.
Seeka’s eight packhouses across the country normally employed 1200 Registered Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme workers from the Pacific Islands. Currently, it had 458, of whom 300 were part of the tranche of 2000 Pacific Island workers let in under a border exemption in January.
‘‘We spent $1.85 million on those 300, which is a cost you have to pay before you get them into work,’’ Franks said.
Despite ongoing work to attract local workers, the reality was there were not enough people to hire, he said.
Houston said rural contractors had lost fulltime staff this season because there had been too much pressure put on them as a result of the shortage in seasonal labour supply.
‘‘It makes us feel just disregarded. There is no faith in the system, no common ground, and you have to suck it up,’’ he said.
The value that highly skilled agricultural drivers would bring into the economy would be ‘‘way more’’ than The Lion King.
‘‘We wanted one person to drive a fodderbeet drill and we applied for that [in August last year and was declined in September]. They were going to drive an expensive piece of equipment and plant a crop that was going to feed 50,000 cows.
‘‘Those 50,000 cows affect communities, family’s lives. It affects the fertiliser reps, the staff on the farm and the local school.’’
The application was turned down and Houston said he was told he could find someone locally. However, the overseas worker had 15 years’ experience and would have been a huge asset to local farmers, he said.
Rural Contractors chief executive Roger Parton said 210 visa applications were made for machine operators and 176 had been filled, after the Government further relaxed border restrictions in late September.
Thornhilll spokesman Nick Bibby said the agricultural labour supply company was short a few hundred workers.
Exports of crops like apples and pears would be down as a result, he said.
His clients previously had big growth plans that had been put on hold as a result of the labour shortage, and would be badly affected for two years.
‘‘I don’t really have an opinion on whether they should have let The Lion King crew in but when we were told that only 2000 RSE workers could come in, the rationale was a lack of MIQ space. If it’s apparent now that there was MIQ space, that’s a little bit concerning,’’ Bibby said.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister, Kris Faafoi, said he and Agriculture Minister, Damien O’Connor, were meeting rural industry leaders every two weeks and were aware of the difficulties it was facing.
The border exemption for 2000 RSEs was the single biggest exemption for any single class of workers since the borders closed. That combined with a further 1300 exemptions for the wider sector, including vets and machine operators, indicated the level of importance the Government placed on the sector, he said.
The exemptions were substantially more than the entertainment sector had been given, he said.