Fenton Darien: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:658;Page:7037] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I will address Part 10 and particularly the provisions on offences by employers. I acknowledge what my colleague across the Chamber has said because he is right about the fact that we spent a lot of time on this proposal in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. We looked at whether there were alternative means by which employers could get the information through the Inland Revenue Department. As Michael Woodhouse has pointed out we went to some lengths in our report to reassure employers about this provision. The whole integrity of our immigration system is affected by how we treat workers whom we bring to New Zealand to work for us and whom we need to fill the skills gaps during the good times. It is also affected by how we treat them when we do not need them. 
I talked about this issue in my second reading speech on this bill. I mentioned a particular circumstance that is occurring at the moment and said I hoped that the Minister was keeping a watching brief on the workers who were brought here to work in the telecommunications industry. They were brought here under work permits promised jobs and told that this was a great place to come. They gave up good employment in the Philippines where they had rights that they do not have here. I will get to that issue in a minute. They have been caught up in an industrial dispute whereby Telecom through its contractor Visionstream has decided that those workers should no longer be employed as employees and should become owner-operators. Migrant workers who are on work permits are unable to take that offer up because they would have to go on to business migrant permits and they are not able to do that. People cannot transfer from one type of permit to another. What is going on with regard to those people at the moment is an absolute tragedy. 
Three Filipino telecommunications workers in Nelson were in that situation this week. It is just a tragic story. Again I say those people were encouraged to come and work in New Zealand by Transfield Services which is an Australian operator and to migrate to Nelson to fill a skills shortage that we had here. Of course they have been made redundant by Transfield Services which as I have said is an Australian company. They have been made redundant with just 4 weeks’ pay even though it is an Australian company and if they were in Australia they would have had minimum redundancy protection—they would have received minimum redundancy pay. From the 4 weeks’ pay those workers have had to buy their tickets home. Because they have been laid off they are not entitled to anything so they are sitting in a house in Blenheim unsure about how they will feed themselves for the next 4 weeks while they wait to go back to the Philippines. 
One of those workers a guy called Librado Andales said he had left a good job in the Philippines that he had held for 14 years in order to come to New Zealand 2 years ago. It was his first time abroad and he was encouraged to believe that this was a good place to bring his children and raise them. He said it was far from his imagination that New Zealand would bring someone to do a skilled migrant’s job and then have that person face this awful situation. 
Transfield Services brought in 300 to 400 skilled migrants. 
Simon Bridges 
: Give us some hand movements! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: It is not funny actually. It is a real tragedy for those people. 
Simon Bridges 
: Oh come on! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: I will report the member’s sympathy back to them. It is a really really awful situation. I have been spending some time with the migrant action group in Auckland as has Jackie Blue. She assured them at the last meeting that I was at that she would be asking the Minister to be more flexible when it comes to workers on work permits who are being laid off but I have not seen any evidence of that. I think members will find that the migrant action group has quite a lot to say in coming months about what we need to do regarding this issue. It is fine to bring migrant workers here when we need them: when we have a lack of skilled workers. It is fine to have in Part 10 of the bill provisions around exploitation. But it is not fine to send those workers back with nothing and to leave them sitting in a house for 4 weeks while they cannot feed themselves and cannot feed their families because we have nothing that looks after those workers. 
Obviously we support Part 10 of the bill. The exploitation provisions are very very important and immigrants deserve to have the minimum requirements that we have in New Zealand under the Holidays Act the minimum wage and the other things that we believe are absolutely fundamental. But as I said I think we really need to think seriously in this House and the Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman needs to think—I would welcome his contribution on this—about the people that we have invited here to do jobs that we cannot find New Zealanders to do. We put those workers on the scrap heap and send them home with nothing. I think that is very bad not only for the workers and their families including their children who have been going to school here but also for New Zealand’s reputation. I would encourage the Minister to respond to that. Thank you.