“This is not as it has always been, Mr Little”

In May 2021, the government set out its grand plan to reset immigration.

“We find ourselves with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take a different path for immigration” - Minister of Immigration [Kris Faafoi]. 

These lofty promises in Labour’s Immigration Reset are a world away from the reality that has been served up with headlines like this now making the news on a daily basis:

"A major criminal investigation is underway after 40 migrants were discovered crowded inside a squalid three-bedroom home in south Auckland".

A once-in-a-generation opportunity has turned into a nightmare for migrants who have paid tens of thousands of dollars to scam artists luring them to our shores with the promise of highly paid jobs that require little or no skill, qualification or English language ability. These scam artists are working in tandem with businesses here in New Zealand and splitting the money they take off migrants who are just trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.

The question we must ask is how was this able to happen?

How has the new Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) system that we were told would reduce migrant exploitation led to levels of terrible exploitation that we have not seen before?

To answer this question, we must look back a few years. While the pandemic was raging, around the world and New Zealand had its borders firmly closed, then Minister of Immigration Kris Faafoi had two years to ensure that when our borders did finally open, our immigration systems and processes would be ready to go to welcome back the world.

With the painfully slow and staged reopening of our borders throughout 2022 it was very clear that this work had not been done. The AEWV work visa was not open until July 2022. With employers desperately crying out for workers and a Reserve Bank Governor stating that "Labour has never been more scare", the new Minister of Immigration Michael Wood was under pressure to get workers in the country and fast.

The new AEWV had more steps in the process, it was more bureaucratic, took more time and cost more money. The minister of immigration believed that all this extra red tape would put an end to migrant exportation. The problem was, and continues to be, that the red tape is in the wrong place.  

While the government had added cost, time, additional steps and more bureaucracy, at the same time they had stopped the verification of businesses and migrants’ documentation one would expect from an immigration service because they were under so much pressure to get workers in the country. 

We are now a soft target for parasites wanting to take advantage of vulnerable migrants.

More than 27,947 businesses have been accredited. Only 609 of these businesses have had checks completed, which amounts to about two per cent. This means for businesses wishing to take advantage of migrants the chance of being caught is almost zero.

Of the 63,800 AEWV applications lodged with Immigration New Zealand up until the end of April 2023, only 2,330 had verification checks completed, which amounts to 3.65 per cent. Vulnerable migrants who may be the victims of scams are not likely to be picked up.

In response to questions in Parliament on migrant exploitation, Mr Little [current immigration minister] stated that “what we are seeing now is reported levels of migrant exploitation that are in fact what they always were”.

Forty migrants living in a three-bedroom run-down home, with no jobs, no money and no food who were forced to call the police after being reduced to begging for food–this is not as it has always been, Mr Little, and it is certainly not as it should be.  

(Erica Stanford is National Party's Immigration Spokesperson)