Call to Create Fund for Migrants - New Zealand
By Rebecca Todd - The Press (New Zealand) - The Government should create an emergency fund to help struggling migrants during the recession, migrant advocates and Opposition MPs say.
Migrants made redundant while on temporary work permits are being forced to leave New Zealand within weeks of losing their jobs while others are finding themselves on the streets because they have no money to get home.
The Press reported this week on a German family who ended up sleeping in a migrant centre in Christchurch after the father lost his job as a master painter.
Joerg Schoenberger’s trade had been taken off the skills shortage list since arriving in New Zealand, leaving him with little choice but to return to Germany.
Wigram MP Jim Anderton and Christchurch East MP Lianne Dalziel are taking up the case for migrants caught between the recession and changing immigration rules, and plan to put a case to Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman.
Anderton said skilled migrants who moved their families to New Zealand and lived and paid taxes here for several years deserved better treatment.
‘There’s some need for emergency financial assistance for those in this category who through no fault of their own came here in good faith, had good well-paid jobs and then comes the recession,’ Anderton said. He wanted redundant skilled migrants to be given open-ended work visas allowing them to work in areas other than their specialty until the recession lifted and their skills were required again.
This would not necessarily put them in competition with Kiwis for jobs as migrants were often more open to moving around the country for work.
‘The impact of the recession on temporary and permanent migrants occurred in a way not anticipated by us or them when they came here,’ he said. ‘They came here on advice, so we can’t then blame them when things go wrong.’
A spokeswoman for Coleman said he had not received direct approaches for an emergency fund ‘and it’s not something we are actively considering’.
The minister said the skills lists worked well to identify labour market shortages.
If employers wanted an overseas worker whose position was not on the list they could still make a case if they believed no suitable New Zealanders were available.
‘If new temporary permits are not being issued to migrants whose permits have expired, it will be because there are New Zealand residents or citizens available to do the job,’ he said.
Otago University economics lecturer Murat Genc co-authored a research paper released last week which showed that migrants significantly boosted New Zealand’s economy.
It warned of ‘an emerging situation affecting potentially thousands of law-abiding and productive skilled workers’.
Ad Feedback Genc said the cost to New Zealand of skilled migrants being forced to return home during the recession would far outweigh the cost of short-term financial assistance to keep them here.
‘Forcing them to go back really doesn’t make sense from an economic point of view,’ he said.
‘In the long run, people will not be that keen to come to New Zealand if they think something like this might happen to them and it’s not that easy to recruit these skilled migrants.’
This week, the Daily Mail in London highlighted another case featured in The Press of a Scottish family who had to leave when the father was made redundant and his aluminium joinery trade was removed from the skills shortage list.
