28/07/20 - An immigration handbrake is released

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Former immigration minister Iain Lees-Galloway will not be missed by migrants, after an attempt to cut immigration and put Kiwis first created a whole host of even bigger problems, Dileepa Fonseka writes

When Iain Lees-Galloway left his immigration portfolio many migrants used just one word to define his demise: karma.

There was a lot of pity from the pundits for Lees-Galloway having to step down on Wednesday, both for the knock-on effect this could have on everybody else having an affair in Parliament and the terrible time he had in his portfolio.

Who would want to swap places with a minister whose portfolio receives more individual complaints than any other and where your every move is supposedly subject to a New Zealand First "handbrake"?

Yet those inside government tell a different story, and say Labour was just as insistent on pulling up the immigration handbrake as their coalition partner. The Greens meanwhile, seem to have been opposed to the other parties' policies but did not have a vote in Cabinet.

Labour and New Zealand First came to power on the back of big promises to cut the number of migrants coming into the country. They didn't.

The Government continued to let them in, but never gave them an official right to stay - similar to the type of policies seen in the Middle East, including centres like Dubai, where hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are brought in to do menial labour.

In Dubai, the situation is made clear to migrants when they arrive and they don't pay tax because they're just being imported for their labour. 

Where once the developed world needed software engineers, it now needed rest home carers, construction site labourers and pastry chefs.

Until Covid-19 started affecting migration flows, the Government was issuing an average of 28,584 temporary work and student visas per month, 25 percent more than its National predecessor's average of 22,942 per month from 2009 to late 2017.

Competition for migrant labour around the globe was fierce at the time. Thanks to ageing populations across the developed world young people who wanted to move out of India, the Philippines or South America and start a new life had a number of different options even if they weren't doctors, lawyers, IT professionals, or engineers.

Where once the developed world needed software engineers, it now needed rest home carers, construction site labourers and pastry chefs. 

Despite talking a big game before getting into power both Labour and NZ First soon realised what others before them had: turning off the flow of migrant labour into the country was not going to work without the country taking a big hit to its headline economic data and eroding the profit margins of employers.

As a country we couldn't offer higher wages than our competitor nations. However, we could offer migrants the chance to - eventually - become New Zealanders through a points system that had successfully admitted thousands of immigrants before.

Advertisements to foreign students and official visa documents continued to promote temporary visas as a way they could eventually live in New Zealand (a "pathway to residence"), because we needed them. 

A broken handbrake

New Zealanders don't really understand this part of the story. They think migrants are grateful for us for giving them the opportunity to live here.

Talk to many of them and they think the situation is the other way around: we invited them over and we want them here.

Faced with a set of irresolvable set of campaign promises, Lees-Galloway pulled the handbrake successive governments have. Only this time it broke. 

That handbrake was the planning range associated with the New Zealand Residence Programme (NZRP) that sets a target for the number of residency applications that can be approved.

However, his attempt to manipulate it created a huge imbalance between the number of residency places available and the number of people here on temporary visas - directly leading to the largest backlog of residency applicants onshore in our recent history.

At the end of June there were 38,787 skilled migrant applications stuck in the residency queue. When Labour took office that was just over 10,000. 

The number of actual people concerned is probably even larger than this because there can be more than one person attached to a single application.  Some have been stuck in the queue for more than two years when it used to take a few months.

Since the early 2000s our country has set that residency target at between 45,000 and 50,000 per year. National reduced it to approximately 45,000 per year. Labour cut it even further to 37,000 - even while the number of people coming here on temporary visas was rising

To put that imbalance in context, back in 2008 there were a potential 125,000 applicants on temporary visas when the residency target was 47,000: a ratio of 2.65 to one. At the end of last year there were 290,000 on temporary visas and the target had been lowered to 37,000: a ratio of 7.84 to one.

This left Immigration New Zealand itself in an impossible position. There were more people legally eligible to become permanent residents than there were places for them. 

Doing its best to fulfil Cabinet's instructions, INZ started to look for ways to meet that target. First it started applying more stringent criteria related to 'arranged marriages'. This led to a massive backdown from the Government as the whole issue turned into a racial firestorm and looked likely to cost Labour votes in the Indian community.

Then INZ started simply spacing out its processing so that its whole quota wouldn't be met too quickly. This created another problem because residency applications have to be processed in the order in which they are received, so a person earning $100,000 was stuck in the same queue as someone earning much less, and the high-wage earner could just leave to take up another job in a different country.

So they created two queues - "priority" and "non-priority" - but there has still been little movement according to Official Information Act responses received earlier this year. 

The problem is brutally solving itself after Covid-19. Many of the people in this queue were in Covid-affected industries, lost their jobs and now have no right to stay in this country.

Others are hanging on for their lives and hoping they aren't part of a second wave of redundancies. If they are, then a whole decade will have been wasted in some cases.

It has created a situation ripe for migrant exploitation. Now it's more important than ever for these migrants to keep their position on a specific employer's payroll. If they don't then they'll lose their place in the queue and have to re-apply - which could mean a wait time of another 18 months.

Living on the street

Covid-19 also threw up a whole host of other immigration issues that the Government seemed to take a lot of time making a decision on.
Lees-Galloway was granted sweeping new immigration powers near the beginning of lockdown to change visa conditions and allow people to switch employers, but didn't use them.

There were no migrant benefits (although Carmel Sepuloni as Social Development Minister was more responsible for this one) which left some surviving on cans of beans, or living on the street during lockdown. There was also no ability for migrants to find a new job if they lost theirs (Lees-Galloway was responsible for this one), not to mention the thousands of temporary migrants locked out of the country after spending a decade here. 

Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) too were left in limbo, as were their employees, when the harvest season ended and they were left with workers who couldn't return home. This opened those workers up to exploitation, including one alleged instance captured on tape during a Newsroom investigation.

The RSE workers at the centre of it weren't impressed with Lees-Galloway's performance. They sent him an email with all their accusations - and the infamous tape recording - long before Newsroom was alerted to the situation. The former Minister seemed to be unaware of it when he tweeted that he would do something about the events detailed in Newsroom's story.

Jason Sheardown, an advocate for one of the RSE workers, could barely suppress his rage.  

"I won’t forget that moment when I was sitting next to Lyn in the hospital while she was on the drip and I read Iain Lees-Galloway’s tweeting about safety and support. I still haven’t heard from him," he wrote to me on the day the workers were forced to leave.

"No response from the minister when I provided the evidence. No response from the minister when we wanted legal representation or legal aid. It’s all at our cost and it’s all our problem."

There has been palpable anger in migrant communities and amongst liberal voters towards the way the country's immigration system has been run despite Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's personal popularity amongst both groups. 

With the Greens having carved out a clear disapproving stance against it all, there's a possibility immigration issues could make a real difference in electorates like Auckland Central, which have a liberal bent and where there are more overseas-born residents than New Zealand-born ones.

Unless the new Labour guy is better- so I asked Lees-Galloway's successor Kris Faafoi what his priorities were in the role.

Kris Faafoi appears unlikely to lead any dramatic change in policy as the caretaker Immigration Minister.

His answer started with "Errr..." wandered into "keeping the border safe from Covid" and ended with: "We've got to make sure the economy is recovering as well...so getting that balance right."

What about the nearly 40,000 applications stuck in that residency queue? "Yeah. Well. Look. It's been like that for some time."

Did he think Lees-Galloway had done a good job?

"Of course I did, but you know, you've got to move on."

(Source; Newsroom, Dileepa Fonseka Dileepa Fonseka is a political reporter based in Wellington who covers housing, infrastructure, immigration, transport, local government and the Provincial Growth Fund.)

15/07/20 - Breaking News update from Immigration New Zealand

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For the latest update from INZ, click here

14/07/20 - Immigration Minister's message to work visa holders offshore: stay where you are for the time being

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This is the first indication from INZ what may happen with temporary work visa holders who are still waiting to come to New Zealand. Click here.

09/07/20 - Behind our compassionate Prime Minister's mean policies

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This story was originally published on Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.

Our Prime Minister is lauded overseas for her compassion, but her Cabinet is refusing to properly support tens of thousands of jobless migrants and beneficiaries struggling through the Covid-19 crisis, Bernard Hickey argues.

OPINION: Over the last year since the March 15 attacks, our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has become a paragon of virtue for many on the centre-left around the world: a symbol of compassion and competence in a leadership landscape dotted with clownish buffoons and would-be dictators more interested in themselves than the welfare of their citizens.

Ardern has featured on the front pages of The Guardian, The Washington Post and Time magazine as a beacon of kindness and sensitivity in the wake of her instinctively authentic and literal embrace of New Zealand's Muslim community in the immediate aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings. Her decisive and clear leadership almost a year after to the day to "go hard and go early" in locking down New Zealand's 'team of five million" in late March to "squash" Covid-19 has sealed the deal in the eyes of many, both overseas and here.

She is the anti-Trump, a mirror image of Boris Johnson's calamitous decision to initially opt for 'herd immunity'.

Our Prime Minister is clearly a master communicator able to convince more than 90 percent of New Zealanders that one of the toughest lock- downs in the world was the right thing to do. Now it seems to be paying off, not just in public health terms and an earlier loosening of restrictions than in other countries. And opinion poll support for both her and the Labour Party has surged to record highs.

So why is our Child Poverty Reduction Minister allowing her Cabinet and Government to ignore the advice and pleas of both official advisers and her coalition support partner to properly support tens of thousands of stranded and jobless migrant guest workers and over 350,000 people on benefits?

Why would a paragon of compassion allow tens of thousands of children to live in crowded, unhealthy shacks, garages, vans and motel rooms without enough food to eat?

A team of five million?

In recent weeks the Prime Minister has taken responsibility for Cabinet decisions not to use a clause in the Social Security Act to pay benefits to migrants on temporary work visas. It means that thousands of people in the tourism, hospitality and construction industries are now stranded here with no way to earn a living to pay for food and accommodation.

Their visas restrict them to working for a particular employer, which means when they are sacked they can't work for anyone else, unless and until their visa conditions are changed for a new employer. The Government has changed the law so the Immigration Minister, Iain Lees-

Galloway can do that, but he again signalled on Tuesday the Government is still looking at whether to free up migrants to work for other employers, or whether to help them with extra benefits.

Lees-Galloway even agreed with Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters that these jobless guest workers should go back to where they came from, even though most either can't find flights, couldn't afford them, or legitimately hope they can gain full permanent residence, as was suggested to them by Governments of both flavours over the last decade.

The Prime Minister has pointed to token relief offered by Civil Defence and Emergency Management (CDEM), which includes cans of food.

Newsroom's Dileepa Fonseka reported last month how CDEM assistance consisted of two cans of baked beans, two spaghetti tins, along with onions, potatoes and canned chickpeas. Rice, flour, and sugar were provided in small ziplock bags.

He reported how one migrant worker's family of seven – three children and four adults – worked their way through the rations in one day while locked down in a cold and mouldy two-bedroom $350 per week converted Auckland garage. When she called up a couple of days later for a food parcel top-up, she was told the pack was meant to last her the entire length of lockdown.

Over 300,000 guest workers and students on temporary visas are ineligible for the benefits. Many have been sacked by employers who retained a government wage subsidy and did not pass it on. They are now destitute and stranded without funds to pay for food and accommodation.

Beholden to an anti-migrant politician?

The Prime Minister has denied in public that New Zealand First has blocked attempts to pay migrant workers benefits, let alone access a special $490/week benefit for resident workers who have lost their jobs because of Covid-19. But it's clear from sources behind the scenes that New Zealand First's opposition to allowing migrants to get benefits or be able to easily apply for jobs residents could apply for is holding up resolution of the issue.

It is also seen to be behind the Prime Minister's resolve to not reform the main regular benefit payments to more than 350,000 New Zealanders, despite an official advisory group's recommendation to make a one-off payment and large increases costing over $5 billion to immediately improve the conditions of beneficiaries, tens of thousands of whom look after children classed as living in poverty.

The Welfare Expert Advisory Group also recommended the removal of a range of sanctions for beneficiaries who leave a job, have another child or don't have drug tests.

The Government's support partner, the Green Party, has pushed for these increases in benefits and removal of sanctions, but to no avail, even as the Government's previous arguments about fiscal affordability dissolved in a hail of spending from a $50b support package in the Budget, including $20b that hasn't even been allocated.

The hypocrisy is front and centre

The meanness of the Government's policies was highlighted by its own announcement late last month of the $490/week payment for workers who had lost their jobs specifically because of Covid-19. It is around twice the main benefit.

Green Party Co-Leader Marama Davidson, who, crucially, is outside of Cabinet, said the main benefits should be increased to match the $490/week Covid-19 benefit.

"We’ve been consistently clear that this needs to happen urgently and desperately. It hasn’t happened yet, but we won’t give up,” Davidson said last week.

“Both New Zealand First and Labour need to come to the table on this," she said.

The key part of that statement is the New Zealand First part.

The Prime Minister has essentially decided not to challenge or over-rule Winston Peters on these issues because it could risk a blow-up just months before election that makes the Government appear unstable. It also betrays a lack of confidence about her ability to turn record-high personal and party popularity into a majority Labour-Green victory.

Tough on Scott, but not Winston

The irony is painful when the Prime Minister pokes her Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, over the way Australia does the same thing to New Zealanders working in Australia who lose their jobs and aren't entitled to benefits, despite paying taxes.

The Prime Minister has played up the united effort of a 'team of five million' beating Covid-19, but they are hollow words to the 700,000 people living here on a benefit or on a temporary work visa when they are receiving an inadequate benefit or no benefit at all.

There is an 'A' team of 4.3m and then there's the rest, a group of second- class people who are treated as undeserving of the Government's compassion. The rest of the world may not notice, but that 'B' team knows the Prime Minister's reputation for compassion is being sacrificed on the Cabinet altar of Coalition cohesiveness and the retention of power in a similar form in the September 19 election.

This story was originally published on Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.

(Source: Stuff, Newsroom)

07/07/20 - Breaking News

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03/07/20 - Latest update from INZ

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28/06/20 - What the Dutch can teach the world about remote work

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If you've been balancing your laptop on a precarious stack of cookbooks, or lamented VPN speed from your kitchen table, you're not alone. Ever since restrictions were put in place to slow the spread of Covid-19, companies have been scrambling to enable colleagues to work from home.

As we adapt to the much-cited 'new normal', some experts are predicting that remote work might be here to stay. This is leaving many nervously eyeing up our makeshift home desk set-ups, and wondering how on earth we can handle the backache.

But for some, remote working is just another day at the office. Thousands of workers in the Netherlands benefit from the country's astonishingly flexible work culture. While the percentage of employed people usually working remotely before the coronavirus outbreak lingered at around 4.7 percent in the UK, and 3.6 percent in the US, 14.1 percent of the Netherland's workforce reports usually working away from the office. The Netherlands has long led the global shift toward remote work, with only Finland catching up in recent years while other countries lag behind.

"When the pandemic started, I suddenly found myself playing the part of a remote-work coach for my wife and our neighbours," says Yvo van Doom, an Amsterdam- based engineer. "I was suddenly answering questions about home networks and video conferencing. It was eye-opening because I'd taken these things for granted."

Across the globe, many companies have found that the shift to remote work has been a less-than-smooth transition. Setting up usually office-based staff with computer equipment, and recalibrating working culture to keep employees connected, has been a significant shift for most. But for the Netherlands, the country's already sizeable remote workforce means that the adjustment has been much less dramatic.

"Dutch people had certain advantages when we went into lockdown," explains van Doom, whose employer Auth0 gives all workers the option for flexible work, offers a budget to create a comfortable and productive home working set up, and helps to arrange coworking spaces if needed.

"We're fortunate enough to be a country where 98 percent of homes have high-speed internet access, and the Netherlands has the right combination of technology, culture, and approach to make remote working successful. I'm judged on whether I deliver value, not on the fact that I sit at a desk for nine hours a day. "

A culture ripe for remote work

As we begin to tentatively imagine a post-pandemic future, there will be many who find themselves looking wistfully toward van Doom's permanent home working set-up.

Results of a recent US poll, conducted mid-crisis, suggest that 59 percent of remote workers would like to continue to work remotely as much as possible once restrictions on businesses and school closures are fully lifted. Major international companies, including Barclays and Twitter, have already suggested that expensive city office space may become a thing of the past. Both have already hinted at an end to the commute for its employees, planning potentially long-term remote work policies for after the pandemic.

Aukje Nauta, an organisational psychology professor at the University of Leiden, who is researching how companies can enhance individuals in a dynamic work context, believes that employers could look toward the Netherlands for inspiration as they consider how best to implement remote-work policies and set up virtual offices.

"Values such as democracy and participation are deeply rooted in the Dutch working culture, so managers place more trust in their workers than elsewhere in the world," she says. "For example, ING bank [an influential Dutch company based in Amsterdam] now has a policy on unlimited holidays implemented for pilot groups of workers, who can take as much holiday as they want as long as their tasks do not suffer.

Employers elsewhere are now learning that employees can be trusted to work from home, and I believe that in post-corona[virus] times, smart combinations of working from home and meeting in real life will emerge more and more worldwide."

But there are also broader economic and social contexts that enable remote work to flourish in the Netherlands.

"Physical infrastructure is well developed, and public and commercial remote-working facilities are plentiful," says Bart Götte, a business futurist and psychologist based in Amersfoort. "Public libraries have reinvented themselves as massive and comfortable modern working spaces, and there are an enormous number of small, quality coffee shops that service the remote workforce. Employers in the Netherlands have also seized the opportunity to cut costs and become more productive - they need less square metres of expensive office space, and strict sick pay legislation in the Netherlands means that they are motivated to make sure that their workers have healthy
working facilities at home."

The explosion of remote working facilities in the Netherlands hasn't just benefited employees of large companies. Around 1.1 million workers in the Netherlands are self-employed, and the normalisation of the virtual office has made it easy for freelancers and small business start-ups to operate without the need for dedicated office space.

"I'm a solo-preneur and currently work from home," says Lara Wilkens, an event producer in Amsterdam. "Working from home is better for the environment, and we have great paid co-working spaces as well as many free places where you can trade a service for a workspace."

'The power to reorganise'

With the Netherlands displaying an admirable level of trust in its employees and an understanding of the digital frameworks needed to support remote work, other countries may now be looking towards the Dutch as they plan a post-Covid future.

Many countries struggle with a culture of presenteeism, with 83 percent of UK employees reporting having observed pressure within their workplace to 'show up' regardless of whether their mental or physical health allows it. In the US, around 15 percent of homes do not have broadband, and one in five employees report feeling guilty about taking time away from the office, worrying that this might make them seem less committed to their job. While the Netherlands displays a combination of attuned infrastructure, investment in a digital future, and culture of trust that makes it an aspirational archetype of a well-oiled remote world, companies in other countries still have much to understand and adapt to as Covid-19 ushers in a less office-based future.

"What we have seen over the last few months is the power to reorganise," says Götte. "We are now working remotely on a massive global scale. I think that we will come out of this crisis more digitally literate, aware that many of us are capable of working remotely, with more autonomy, and perhaps an aspiration to become more independent. Due to the accelerating forces caused by Covid, other countries are in a turbulent learning curve, and people are rethinking old policies, procedures, customs, and values. When circumstances change so massively we simply have to learn by doing, and that is perhaps the most important lesson."

(Source: BBC, Katie Bishop)

26/06/20 - Update Immigration New Zealand

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Click here for a further update from INZ, and where the special powers come from. 

25/06/20 - Government unsure of how many essential workers have arrived

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The government does not know how many foreigners have come into New Zealand under the essential worker exemption and says it would "not be a great use of officials' time" to find out.

While the border is closed to all but NZ citizens and residents, employers can apply to bring in workers from overseas if they are deemed "critical".

A media statement issued on 12 June stated that 237 people had been granted an essential worker exemption and invited to apply for a visa.

But in response to a written question from the Opposition, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway declined to say how many of those people had since arrived.

"I am advised that to provide the number of those who then entered New Zealand would require substantial collation and would not be in the public interest," the response said.

Speaking to RNZ, Lees-Galloway doubled-down on the position, saying officials were too busy to find the "precise number".

"It actually means manually trawling through databases and looking for each individual arrival across the border," he said.

That would not be a great use of officials' time when we've got a pandemic to face."

National's immigration spokesperson Stuart Smith told RNZ that was "unbelievable" given it was only a few hundred people.

"That's not a lot of data," he said. "You could go through with a calculator and work it out yourself. I don't think it's that difficult."

Smith said the response smacked of arrogance and made him question whether the information was even being collected.

"What are they trying to hide here?" Smith said.

"They're not keeping records on things. They don't know who's coming across the border... They aren't managing the border at all."

A spokesperson for Immigration NZ said there was sometimes a delay between people being granted an exemption and them then applying for a visa and making travel arrangements.

She said, as such, the information requested was not "easily reportable".

"We would have to look at each of the individuals to see whether they have put their application for a visa in, whether that has been approved and then also whether they have travelled to New Zealand yet."

New criteria for the essential worker exemption was issued on 12 June, but no requests have been approved since that date.

(RNZ, Craig Mcculloch)

18/06/20 - Why ethnicity diversity is essential in a post-Covid world

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Firstly, the lack of availability of migrant labourers will require swift policy decisions to be made so as to not further compromise the economy.

Secondly, the strengths in having an existing superdiverse society need to be fully harnessed in order to take advantage of the opportunities that are likely to emerge in the post-Covid world.

Recently, StatsNZ announced that New Zealand had reached a population of five million. This has been achieved in the incredibly fast time of 17 years. In the first 10 of those years, the birth rate was an important contributor. But by 2017, New Zealand was experiencing sub-replacement fertility. Essentially, there are not enough children being born each year to replace our current population.

During the past seven years, starting in 2013, immigration has been the main driver of population growth. In those seven years, the net gain from immigration was 330,000, a total which is unheralded in New Zealand’s immigration history.

When New Zealand announced it was going into lockdown, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) figures (31 March 2020) show that there were 221,034 migrants on various work visas in the country, with another 81,864 on study visas (who are also allowed to work).

These are extraordinary numbers which raise two questions.

The first concerns the reliance on migrant labour – and the demand for goods and services from immigrant communities - that now exists amongst many employers and industries. For example, a third of the eldercare workforce of around 30,000 are on a migrant work visa.

We know that skill shortages were acute prior to the arrival of Covid-19 and that the demographics of New Zealand will see a smaller working age population over the next decade (essentially through the decline in the fertility rate). But how will employers substitute for migrant workers?

Some of this demand for labour will soften as the recession hits and there will be some labour transfer as those made redundant move into the jobs vacated by immigrants. But this is only a partial answer. We will simply not be able to upskill or reskill enough people in some sectors to replace migrant workers. Look at the need in healthcare for highly skilled immigrant workers.

An important policy discussion point over the next few months will be around workforce planning and the role that immigration can and should play in the future, otherwise the sudden and almost complete (at least for much of the remainder of this year) demise of migrant labour will provide another constraint on any possible economic recovery.

The second issue concerns the existing and future diversity of New Zealand. Even if there is extremely limited migration to New Zealand over the next few years, this is already a superdiverse society with 27 per cent of the total population born overseas and more than 40 per cent in Auckland.

We are anticipating that by the late 2020s, about 20% of the population will be Asian (36 per cent in Auckland) with about the same proportion being Māori and a growing number of Pasifika.

Whether it concerns an existing workforce or a future one, or whether it involves clients and customers, employers should (if they do not already) understand that ethnic diversity is a major consideration in terms of the current and future economy and labour force of this country.

It was therefore a little surprising to see that in the 2020 New Zealand Workplace Diversity Survey, fewer than half (47%) of the employers surveyed saw ethnicity as an important consideration, while a quarter had no policies or programmes to address ethnic diversity. Those that did were most likely to have policies and programmes concerning Māori and Pasifika.

It is not clear why this is the case but it does suggest a worrying gap in workplace policies and priorities.

Ethnic (and religious) diversity is already a major characteristic of New Zealand and will become more so as the 2020s proceed. Given this importance, and the stresses that Covid-19 is going to impose, it is surely going to be an important consideration in any rebuild or in terms of ensuring the viability of companies.

It is understandable that there are major challenges around financial viability as we emerge from the acute phase of Covid-19 with enormous stresses on individuals, communities and firms.

But my argument would be that ethnic diversity has become more important, not less so, as firms and employers look to engage with the new New Zealand that has emerged.

(Source; HRD New Zealand, article from distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, Massey University, has just completed a book on New Zealand’s changed demography.