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Dileepa Fonseka
Dileepa Fonseka is a Wellington-based political reporter covering housing, infrastructure, immigration, transportation, local government, and the Provincial Growth Fund.
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Immigration
Will radical new powers to change visa rules unclog the immigration system or just freeze the current mess? Dileepa Fonseka takes a closer look.
Migrant advocates are hopeful that a new immigration bill will give temporary workers a more secure base, but others fear it will only bring up pre-Covid divisions.
the Immigration Law Project (Response of COVID-19) It will grant the government radical new powers over the future status of 350,000 people on temporary visas for one year. He passed his first reading in Parliament on Tuesday night.
Lawyers and migrant advocates are optimistic that the bill will be used to allow more migrants to stay and change employers or industries. It will allow the government to change conditions through a large number of at-will visas.
Immigration attorney Alastair McClymont said that while “fear and paranoia” about the legislation was justified, the new legislation would also give the government greater capacity to quickly fix major immigration problems without having to rely on a change in important policy.
Another Immigration attorney, Tuariki Delamere, formerly the Minister of Immigration under the Bolger-led New Zealand and national coalition government, said there was no possibility of powers being exercised in that way.
Delamere believed that many on temporary visas would eventually have to leave, unless there were no return flights.
“New Zealand immigration cannot do anything without Cabinet authorization. Iain [Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway] it cannot do anything without the authority of the cabinet, “he said.
“Winston will not allow Labor to decide for themselves. There is no chance in hell.
“I’ll bet you a dollar on a donut when the carpet is removed [from under visa holders]. Winston will step forward and apply for credit for it. “
New Zealand’s first deputy, Shane Jones, made it clear that the Minister of Immigration would be given great powers, but would be subject to a “policy envelope” that would be decided by the government in the coming months.
Winston Peters also insisted that the law would not give the Minister of Immigration the power to make “carte blanche” decisions.
“It does not do that. In fact, there is a political structure around which the minister must exercise his judgment.”
“So we can support this.”
Learning from the last time
Delamere said the new law would avoid the kinds of legal challenges that successfully nullified a massive expiration of residence applications in the early 2000s, when tens of thousands of applications were invalidated with the stroke of a pen.
The law was successfully challenged, but the government finally resolved it by passing a new law. Today that law had been passed before challenges could arise.
“The only visas that I hope will remain largely intact will be the visas of New Zealand citizens’ partners and residence holders,” Delamere said.
“All other visas, skilled work visas, I think will be put on hold until the government determines what skills we really need.”
“And what skills we need today is very different from what we needed two months ago.”
However, immigration attorney Aaron Martin said he was optimistic that many of those with skill visas would still be needed when unemployment increased.
Locals working in hard-hit industries like hospitality and tourism would be slow to retrain and have more resources to wait in the job market until a vacancy appeared in their preferred industry.
‘A major overhaul is required’
Migrant Workers Association President Anu Kaloti said the immigration situation had quickly gone “downhill” recently with long processing times and inconsistent decisions.
He hoped that the new powers would give the government the opportunity to solve many of the problems with the system.
“Something is definitely not right. I am hopeful that the government will use the next 12 months to fix New Zealand Immigration.”
Kaloti said the powers would allow the government to relax visa conditions for people and would allow them to change employers if they were let go.
McClymont said Lees-Galloway had pointed out that the government would be cautious about sending temporary workers back to countries currently experiencing a Covid-19 pandemic.
He suspected that any crackdown would be leveled with new applications. The new legislation allows the government to stop these applications that are submitted during the pandemic.
“Companies should say, ‘Look, yes, there will be a lot of unemployed people, but we need people who have experience and skills to supervise and manage.’
“These are the people who are going to train the new staff … We cannot lose these people overnight.”
DairyNZ Chief Executive Tim Mackle said 2,500 visas for temporary workers on dairy farms would expire in September. And there would be a deficit of 1,000 employees, even if all those visas were extended.
“We are committed to the employment of New Zealanders and have plans for a training and relocation program for people in the dairy sector.”
“However, there is also a need to protect and retain our current migrant staff who are part of farm teams across the country.”
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