Adjustment to NZ Pacific Seasonal Labour Scheme damned

Updated June 9, 2009 16:47:15

Changes to New Zealand's seasonal work scheme for Pacific Islanders have drawn the ire of the opposition Labour Party, which says they open the door to exploitation. The changes announced by Immigration Minister, Jonathan Coleman, will see an extra work permit introduced to allow seasonal workers to stay longer in New Zealand, the introduction of compulsory health insurance, and a new system for pay deductions that will be supervised by the Department of Labour.

Presenter: Jemima Garrett
Speaker: Darien Fenton, Labour Party spokesperson; Jerf Van Beek, Seasonal Labour co-ordinator with Horticulture New Zealand

GARRETT: Overall, the New Zealand Recognised Seasonal Employers scheme has been very successful - it has provided badly needed labour to New Zealand's horticulture industry and thousands of jobs for Pacific Islanders. Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman says the changes he announced earlier this week are a huge boost to the scheme. The introduction of a supplementary work permit to allow workers to stay longer, if needed, and the requirement that workers take out health insurance has created little controversy .

But Labour Party spokesperson Darien Fenton says the new system for deductions removes the minimum pay protection provided when the scheme was set up.

FENTON: They could have deductions in their wages, but apart from the deductions for half their fare, to get to and from New Zealand, nothing else could be deducted that took their wages below the $12.50 minimum wage. Now what John Keys government has done is they have moved that provision, so from now, those workers have to be paid $12.50, but deductions can take them below minimum wage.

GARRETT: But Immigration Minister, Jonathan Coleman says you're wrong about these claims and that the deductions are simply going to be more transparent?

FENTON: Well, he's not denying the fact that it will take them below the minimum wager.

GARRETT: Labour spokesperson Darien Fenton. Horticulture New Zealand's seasonal labour co-ordinator Jerf van Beek says the changes to the deduction system will not change what Pacific workers pay for.

VAN BEEK: Deductions were already in place, however they were done through an automatic payment. So the workers still were paying for money that they in those sort of terms they had actually borrowed off the grower to make it possible for them to become part of this scheme. For instance, legal cost, passport cost and other costs that health checks. So those were actually costs that were actually made on behalf of the worker and that the employer had deducted both out of their wages over a period of time, so not in one big hit, but just in smaller automatic payment. Those costs we really could not actually see. They were really transparent. So now by doing the deductions, we now know exactly what the deductions are and whose deducting. So therefore if we think that this is not appropriate, our Department of Labour can step in and say no, we don't agree to that deduction.

GARRETT: Has the government removed the minimum wage protection as the Labour Party claims?

VAN BEEK: Not at all, not at all, that is still there.

GARRETT: Jerf Van beek says Pacific islanders returning for a second or third year under the Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme are earning well above the minimum wage.

VAN BEEK: Minimum wage is not acceptable to us either, because that means that we will always have the also the minimum standard of work that is required and workers that we require and we are not there. Although it seems that we are working mainly seasonal workers, the quality that we can produce as an export country has to be one of the best and we would be willing to pay for that. RSE is not a cheap option. These are not cheap workers and it was never intended to be cheap workers. But because of the productivity that we get out of these people, and the reliability that we get out of these people, it is definitely worthwhile investment for the growers.

GARRETT: Jeff Van Beek, Horticulture New Zealand Seasonal Labour Co-ordinator. In Australia, the long-awaited seasonal work pilot program has been coming under fire from unions who say the Australian government has not lived up to its commitments.

Mr Van Beek says Australian employers are just as unhappy.

VAN BEEK: Why our RSE has worked so well for New Zealand, for the Pacific Islands, for the industry and for government is because we actually sit around the table. The Department of Labour and the Department of Immigration work really closely, work really hard to have everybody around the table and actually develop this process with the stakeholders. I have been talking to my industry colleagues in Australia and they are really frustrated, that they have not actually been consulted to the level that we have been here and there are some issues that are they are making a big mistake with in Australia.

GARRETT: So specifically, where would you say the Australian Government is going wrong in the way its managing its pilot project?

VAN BEEK: We're now a few years down the track and we're we have man hire companies involved, we actually find that that's where actually where the problems occur and it's not all of them. It's not a blanket statement but due that's the case. It's about what are the economic drivers for the industry wanting to engage with Pacific Islanders. If you look at a man hire company. A man hire company makes his business, its economic driver is people, making money out of people, whereas a grower his economic driver is the produce that he produces and the quality of that, that is himself. Self-interest is a grower, feedback in his crop has grown by 25 per cent because of climatic conditions, whatever that might be, he would then actually adjusts his labour amids through that particular fact, that his got lots of crop to produce so therefore he needs less workers. However, a man hire company, a labour company who deals with people and makes money out of people, you actually find that they actually will continue to bring in the same amount of people and then start to look for work for them. And of course that does not work.