Immigration adviser and managing director of The Regions, New Zealand’s only nationwide immigration and recruitment service provider supporting dairy farm owners and migrants, Ben De’Ath has been travelling the country with the petition.
The petition calls for the Government to change its policy requiring low skilled work visa holders to stand down after three years.
Hamilton-based De’Ath said the nationwide series of 14 seminars, starting in Northland and finishing in Southland, are aimed at encouraging dairy farmers to unite and take a stand against immigration policy.
Not only is the policy unfair on hardworking migrant workers but it puts farmers in an extremely dire situation in an industry already experiencing a skilled labour shortage.
“NZ can’t afford to have a one-size fits all immigration policy, not when it comes to the dairy industry.
“Rural communities are not the same as cities like Auckland. Their employment needs are different and that means policies need to reflect this.”
De’Ath said The Regions works with dairy farmers to recruit experienced, hardworking and reliable migrant farmworkers, mainly from the Philippines.
“These farmworkers come to NZ for a better life and to provide invaluable assistance to NZ’s dairy farming industry.
“The Government’s current short-sighted stand down policy will do insurmountable damage to an industry already facing extreme challenges with a shortage of skilled labour.”
De’Ath started out hoping to get 2000 signatures but with seminars still to be held in Southland he already had 6000.
“Southland and Canterbury will by far be the two most impacted regions under this new policy so we are hopeful by the time we finish up in Southland we’ll now get up to 8000 signatures.
“That’s an overwhelmingly positive result.”
De’Ath said Canterbury and Southland are the two regions experiencing exponential growth and most heavily reliant on immigrant workers.
“In Canterbury everybody has gone to the Christchurch rebuild and in Southland there’s a chronic human population shortage.
“These regions are relying on immigrants to maintain their communities and schools and convince banks not to leave their towns.
“That’s just to maintain the communities, not even to grow. It’s not like we are asking for a lot, just for the Labour Party to deliver on what it campaigned on.
Lumping Canterbury and Southland with Auckland and Wellington is just ignorance, he said.
“We need data to properly structure policy.
“Meat and wool make up 35% of NZ’s commodity exports so if I know that then Winston (Peters) and Jacinda (Ardern) know that as well.”
“We want the Government to realise this is not the way forward for NZ’s largest contributor to the country’s economy.”
Otago Federated Farmers president Mathew Korteweg said immigrants are an integral part of the region.
“With 2% unemployment there’s just not enough people to service all our needs.
“If this new policy comes in and immigrant numbers are reduced it’s going to be very hard to build sustainable industries.
“It’s very unfair on an industry that offers so much to both regional and national economies.”
Korteweg said farmers certainly don’t look at immigrants as just numbers filling gaps.
“It’s not that immigrants are the easy option. They are bringing skills to the industry and farmers acknowledge and respect that in the running of multi-million dollar businesses.”
In Mid Canterbury the story is the same.
With unemployment running at a 10-year low at just 1.9% immigrants are a key part of the district’s social, cultural and economic prosperity, Ashburton District councillor Selwyn Price said.
“Obviously, there’s what the workers bring to the district but there’s also their families and social and cultural aspects.
“They make a real, positive impact on the district. They are keeping our rural schools open and creating a lot of social events. They are really enlivening our district.”
Price said Filipinos make up 10% of Ashburton District’s population.
Migrants become a real asset to a community because they most often come with families and are looking to stay in the area and build a new life, a sharp contrast to Kiwi millennials who tend not to stick around for too long, reinventing themselves many times.
“To lose them (migrants) would be dreadful for the families and their communities and quite simply devastating for the district.
“It’s just in nobody’s interest at all, not business-wise, socially, economically or culturally to make changes to policy that will impact so heavily on both the immigrant population and the district as a whole,” Price said.
