Additionally, National wants to extend the existing Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme and extend the term of working holiday visas.
The proposals, which don’t give great detail or outline numbers of migrants, are outlined in the Primary Sector Discussion Document, leader Simon Bridges launched at Fieldays.
“Farmers and growers are crying out for skilled labour but there aren’t enough workers to meet demand.
“Many are experiencing serious implications of food rotting because of a lack of labour stifling growth and will have to downsize.”
The discussion document said with a fast-growing primary sector meeting world food demands it’s imperative to have the workforce to manage, develop and maintain New Zealand’s agricultural and horticultural businesses.
“Migrant populations have shown an ability to excel in our primary sector,” Bridges said.
“NZ benefits from their contribution. They benefit from their opportunity to grow their skills and support their families.
“There could be an opportunity to create a new visa for the industry. The primary sector visa could be an avenue for skilled and experienced migrants to help get residence and build their futures here.
“A visa would provide the workers with more certainty.”
Separately, the document also mentioned an agricultural visa, but gave no more detail than that.
It said the RSE benefits NZ and the Pacific countries with extra income.
“Workers and their families benefit from getting ahead.
“We gain with additional jobs, for instance, in the wine industry for every 2.5 RSE workers, one full-time job is created in NZ.
“We recognise the increased demand for places under the scheme. We will expand the scheme subject to maximising Kiwi jobs and employers maintaining high standards.”
The document also seeks views on whether the RSE scheme should be expanded to allow African and American people to apply and also whether the scheme should be extended to a nine-month placement, such as specific dairy farming placements.
And on the subject of extended working holiday visas the document said we have a number of working holiday visa schemes including many with South American countries.
“These schemes are an opportunity to broaden the primary sector workforce base and for these countries to benefit from students returning with greater agricultural skills and knowledge.
“There has been a significant reduction in the number of workers on working holiday visas. There is an opportunity to increase the caps and extend to Central and Eastern Europe.”
The document also talked of areas such as biosecurity offences,mobile rural health clinics, water storage, biotechnology and food safety.
National proposed increasing fines from $400 to $1000 for those found to have risk materials and giving Ministry for Primary Industries officials the power to immediately deport anyone found knowingly concealing a concerning item.
“National also wants to ensure importers are held accountable for signing off import health standards on goods that aren’t free of biosecurity risk items. These measures will go a long way to better protecting our border,” Bridges said.
The party also noted the health pressures facing NZ’s rural communities.
“It’s unrealistic to expect a whole lot more hospitals in sparsely populated places.
“We’re proposing a mobile rural health clinic to administer warrant of fitness style health check-ups in remote areas to ensure those in rural communities have easy access to quality healthcare.”
About 600,000 New Zealanders live in rural communities and while it’s accepted not everyone in rural places can live next to a hospital it’s important they have access to modern healthcare, Bridges said.
“National wants to pilot some mobile health clinics serviced by health practitioners, which will travel to remote rural communities on a regular basis, where they can administer general health check-ups for busy locals.”
Federated Farmers dairy chairman and immigration spokesman Chris Lewis said National has picked up on serious and persistent sector concerns with its request for feedback on how to make Immigration NZ more responsive and accessible to employers facing labour shortages.
“For example, complaints about the delays in processing visas for migrant workers desperately needed in our primary industries aren’t being addressed with sufficient vigour. It also seems clear that the student education, hospitality, retail and rest home care sectors are feeling similarly frustrated.”
Lewis said Federated Farmers’ biggest issue is that almost all dairy farm worker visas are now for only 12 months.
“We see longer visas of two or three years as far less bureaucratic and costly at a time of worker shortages. If we moved to this, it would be a reduced workload for Immigration NZ, which would help with their backlog.”
