Does last weekend’s apology foreshadow another one?
When Jacinda Ardern apologised on behalf of the Government for its part in the 1970s dawn raids, she hailed it as ‘‘a new beginning for Pacific peoples in New Zealand’’.
Which begs the question: in another 30 years, will there be another prime minister standing in front of a migrant community, apologising for the inhumane and unjust treatment they suffered in 2021, at the hands of the then Government?
Because that’s exactly what’s occurring right here, right now, to migrants whose skills we are glad to accept, just not their families, from whom they have been separated for more than a year, with little hope of seeing them.
These are people who have come here in search of a better life. They are doctors, teachers, IT specialists, filling desperately needed jobs in our communities.
There’s no doubt that we live in extraordinary times; closing our borders was necessary in keeping us safe, but at the expense of creating a humanitarian crisis in our own country?
The issue can’t all be planted at Covid’s door. The Labour Government, with its exceptional mandate to govern, has chosen to use Covid-19 as an opportunity to change immigration settings, in a grand experiment to raise lowskilled wages and increase productivity.
This was outlined in the immigration reset speech, which Tourism Minister Stuart Nash delivered back in May, standing in for a sick Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi.
Nash outlined a clear new direction; Covid-19 had brought challenges and disruptions but also presented an opportunity to change shortcomings in the system, he said. New Zealand wanted to move away from relying on low-skilled workers to attracting those with higher skills.
In essence, low-skilled workers were ‘‘bad’’, high-skilled workers were perceived as ‘‘good’’. Employer requirements would be ‘‘strengthened’’.
‘‘As we focus on reopening New Zealand’s borders, we are determined not to return to the preCovid status quo,’’ Nash said.
Since then, there’s been no clear direction on this reset. Minister Faafoi, looking increasingly under siege, keeps insisting that the changes are coming, only to flipflop on immigration settings.
Last month, with the stroke of a pen, around 50,000 people had their visa applications returned because Immigration New Zealand couldn’t process them.
Why? Because they couldn’t grant a visa to someone who was unlikely to meet New Zealand’s entry requirements because of Covid-19 border restrictions. Those 50,000 were sent to the back of the queue.
Meanwhile, New Zealand remains in the clutches of a raging labour shortage. A recent Auckland Business Chamber survey of 1000 firms revealed an immediate need for 6700 jobs. The vacancies were spread across a wide range of employers, but some sectors featured more than others. One large construction firm had 700 vacancies, with another advertising 600, while one recruiter had jobs for 984 aged care nurses.
The Government’s reaction to this skills shortage is to blame the previous National Government which it claims brought in far too many migrants. It argues there are certain sectors that are ‘‘addicted’’ to low wages. This includes hospitality, horticulture, aged care.
Government ideology forces those sectors to limp on. Restaurateurs don’t open as much as they did, and often close early because there aren’t staff to work shifts, while orchardists are ripping trees out of the ground and chemically burning off flowers to keep their apple crops down because there aren’t enough Kiwis to pick them. That’s resulted in financial losses.
While New Zealand’s apple industry had steadily increased in value over the past 10 years, and was looking set to become a billion-dollar industry, this year the gross national crop was 14 per cent down. That’s a $100 million drop in export dollars. Covid-19 has its part to play in that but so has Government policy that’s tinkered with immigration settings and affected people’s livelihoods.
The fact that earlier this week the prime minister announced that seasonal workers from Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu will be allowed into the country without having to go through managed isolation is too little, too late. The Newshub-Reid Research poll result will produce kneejerk reactions like that when your party drops 9.7 per cent in the polls.
And, while immigration lawyers scream out for direction from the Government, it continues displaying the opposite of what the reset immigration speech intended – a clear direction. Instead, the Minister and Immigration NZ are now mired in kneejerk announcements as business screams for more workers.
The plight of those migrants separated from their families has already sent signals to the outside world: fortress New Zealand may have kept its population safe, so far, from the ravages of Covid-19 but the door is firmly shut to those wanting to come here. The word is out to the world’s best and brightest – New Zealand is closed for business.
And, if employers are screaming out now for more labour, what’s going to happen once our borders do open and the 189,000 temporary work visa-holders are forced to leave, and Kiwis take the OE they’ve been desperately waiting for?
The worst may be yet to come.