Fenton Darien: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 17 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17448. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]11.DARIEN FENTON (Labour) to theMinister of Immigration: What steps has he taken to ensure that New Zealand workers are given priority for jobs in the Christchurch rebuild and migrant workers given temporary visas are protected?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): In answer to the first question the No. 1 priority is jobs for New Zealanders. I work with my colleagues the Minister for Social Development and the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment to ensure appropriately skilled Kiwis are at the front of the queue for jobs. We have introduced the Canterbury Skills and Employment Hub where jobseekers employers the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and the Ministry of Social Development all come together to make sure that New Zealanders are at the front of that queue. But there is no doubt we will also need workers from overseas. So in respect of the second question we have introduced legislation with tough new penalties for exploiting migrant workers—and I have asked officials to turn their turrets on employers not employees—and we have provided support to employers on issues with migrant workers. We are regularly engaging with migrant communities to help them spread the message that the rule of law in New Zealand is important to all workers regardless of their visa status.Darien Fenton: Why has he granted visas for migrant workers to work in jobs like forklift drivers builders’ labourers clerical administrative workers labourers painters and truck drivers when these types of jobs could have easily gone to our out-of-work Kiwi workers with minimal training?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well I repeat my answer to the primary question. We are very focused on ensuring that an appropriate number of skilled New Zealanders are at the front of the queue but the task of rebuilding Canterbury is going to be a massive one and there is no doubt that there are going to be high levels of requirements for migrant workers.Darien Fenton: Why have no prosecutions been completed in the last year under either the Immigration Act or labour laws for migrant workers despite repeated complaints of migrant worker abuse?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: A prosecution is not necessarily a sign of success. It may well be a sign of failure. I know that the labour inspectorate and the immigration compliance team work extremely hard when they receive complaints in order to solve the problem before a prosecution becomes necessary. I am very satisfied that as long as complaints are reported to those agencies that system is working. But if the member has cases where she believes action is not being taken I would be very happy to hear from her.Darien Fenton: Why does Immigration New Zealand not record the number of complaints from workers on temporary visas thus making it impossible for him to know the size of the problem or whether the problems have in fact been fixed?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Immigration New Zealand is not the only source of complaints. They come through the 0800 number on the Immigration New Zealand line. They go to the labour inspectorate. They go to the police. To simply say that Immigration New Zealand is the only source of that data would probably understate and be misleading about the scale of the problem.Darien Fenton: How can he be confident he is promoting Kiwi jobs and protecting migrant workers when Immigration New Zealand is approving migrants in low-skilled jobs not prosecuting breaches and not even collecting the data?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The significant data which I think was mentioned by the Minister for Social Development in an answer to an earlier question showed that there has been a significant reduction in the number of unemployed people in New Zealand since 2010 and that more than half of young male Christchurch residents now have work when they did not a couple of years ago. There is no doubt that Kiwis are getting those jobs but there is also no doubt that foreign migrant workers are going to be required to rebuild that city.