More workable visa system
Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway was perhaps unwise to evoke in Parliament the image of stakeholders ‘‘levitating with happiness’’ over his announced changes to the temporary work visa processes. On such a practical issue, one doesn’t want one’s metaphors to waft too airily into yogi-styled mysticism. Or, should the first thing go wrong, to invite Exorcist comparisons.
But Lees-Galloway is entitled to detect a distant purring, particularly from the regions where the complexities and inadequacies of the existing visa system have been maddening. The changes will make it easier to hire foreign workers.
This is balanced with a compulsory accreditation system for the employers – welcome not only for migrants needing assurances about their new bosses and jobs, but also for many employers with demonstrably good track records who have been struggling with an amnesiac system that reassesses them – oftentimes sluggishly – upon each and every application they need to make.
And almost everyone seems to be beaming at the sidestepping of the Anzsco skill classification system which in several areas – especially midlevel dairy workers – has been woefully myopic when it comes to recognising what the nation’s producers insist are necessary skills that they’re willing to remunerate as such.
Lest there be any doubt that it’s often the small enterprises that have suffered, the Government puts the number of businesses that will benefit at more than 25,000, and the number of workers at more than 54,000.
The new system is plainly more reactive to regional variations in demand, too.
The conditions on a migrant worker’s visa will vary to take account of the local employment realities. So low-paid workers in lower-supply regions will be able to get a visa of up to three years, whereas in the cities and higher-supply regions it will be a single-year visa.
Not that the larger cities are indifferent to the impact. They need infrastructure for growth and simply don’t have the number of people with the right skills to achieve it. In this context it is futile to argue that we shouldn’t be in this situation when the fact remains we are.
Shortcomings in the new protocols will inevitably come to light. The new system should be able to be fine-tuned more easily than the one we’ve been living with. It’s certainly less labyrinthine.
A harder sell, at least to the wider public, is the Government’s assurance that the new streamlined processes will simultaneously increase expectations on employers to train and employ more New Zealanders. This, we’re told, includes the requirement for the authorities to be satisfied that there are no New Zealanders available for a job before a visa is granted.
Voices will always be raised that in order to put our own citizens into these jobs, we need not only to sync up training, but also be doing more to ensure the jobs are sufficiently attractive and fairly recompensed. Which is true. In that respect there’s an element of short-term solution in these visa changes.
But as many a horticulturalist miserably watching their strawberries and asparagus crops go bad for want of pickers can attest, a distressing number of farms and businesses are facing critical personnel shortages right here, right now.
And it’s like they say: in the throes of a heart attack, short-term solutions start looking pretty good.
The new system should be able to be fine-tuned more easily than the one we’ve been living with.