While New Zealand depends on migrants for strengthening its demographic profile and skills base, it is important to ensure that the country allows only those with good character and ability to contribute to economic growth are allowed into the country.
This was the gist of a recent address by Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse to the members and guests of the New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment at its meeting held in Auckland recently.
He was of course not revealing a secret when he said that employers should be careful and follow appropriate procedures while employing migrant labour.
At least two scams each in China and India in recent months have brought to the fore the operation of unscrupulous and dishonest elements not only in these countries but also in New Zealand.
An increasing number of spurious job offers issued by unauthorised agents, unknown and known employers in exchange for considerable sums of money have prompted Immigration New Zealand (INZ) to get tough, apply elaborates checks and inspections before issuing work visas.
Unscrupulous employers
“Employers need to be vigilant when considering employment of workers from overseas to ensure that they are legally entitled to work in New Zealand. I encourage them to use the INZ online tool ‘VisaView’ to check whether a person who is not a New Zealand citizen is able to work for them,” Mr Woodhouse told immigration advisers, lawyers and others connected with the sector.
He also urged people with any information about overseas workers working illegally to get in touch with INZ so that they can investigate and take appropriate action.
“I want to make it absolutely clear that it is unacceptable to me for foreign nationals to be working here without work visas,” Mr Woodhouse said.
His views were in line with those of a trade union leader who called for tougher penalties and punishment to employers and others exploiting migrant labour (Read our editorial in this Section and our report, ‘Tougher punishment for migrant workers abuse’ under Homelink).
Prospects in Canterbury
According to Mr Woodhouse, rebuilding the Canterbury region will create employment opportunities for New Zealanders and skilled migrants, boosting the growth of the economy.
“INZ is charged with the task of ensuring that we attract the skills and investment we need by working with employers in key sectors to identify, attract and retain highly skilled migrants. The skills area is one I will be asking plenty of questions such as, ‘Are the occupations on the essential skills lists truly skilled, and really essential?’ ‘When industries are successful in having occupations added to those lists, is sufficient coordinated effort embarked on by industry, educators and Work and Income to improve domestic supply of workers?’ ‘Are we setting sufficient expectations on holders of temporary work Visas that those Visas do not automatically lead to residence, avoiding some of the pain and anxiety of the non-renewal of those visas?’
“But while we have all these initiatives in place to boost Christchurch we also have to be on our guard against unscrupulous activities,” he said.
Business migrants
Claiming that the Government’s Business Migration Scheme was a success, Mr Woodhouse said that it has attracted more than $1.3 billion of potential investment capital since its launch in July 2009.
“In my view, there is no better demonstration of the effectiveness of the government’s policies in attracting people with commercial nous, experience and global networks to boost the economy.
“A flow-on effect from attracting the right business migrants has been the creation of more jobs for New Zealanders and therefore playing a significant and crucial part in the Government’s Growth Agenda,” he said.
Mr Woodhouse said that innovative and friendly policies attracted overseas capital and skills to witness higher levels of economic growth and to stay ahead of our competitors in attracting the right people.
Immigration loss
“We all know that net migration has been negative for a while because of the global economic situation, but we are hopeful that the situation will change by the middle of next year thanks to the range of policies we have in place.
A report on this subject appears under Homelink in this issue.
Mr Woodhouse said that the Government is currently reviewing its business and investor policies to ensure that these policies are pitched at the right level to attract the right people to New Zealand.
Innovative policies
He said these polices were aimed at maximising the contribution that investment funds make to our economy and at incentivising the creation of high value and high growth businesses.
“These objectives reflect economic development objectives, and ensure that investor and business migration policies are primarily about supporting New Zealand’s economic goals. New Zealand is in a global contest for skills, tourists, overseas students looking for high quality education, and for foreign investment. New Zealand sorely needs these to invest and grow,” he said.
“The policies we set and the processes we follow will materially determine how successful our country is in that global contest. My job will be to ensure that we are among the winners in that contest, not also-rans. It is too early to make an assessment of whether the policy settings are as good as they can be.”
