Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:623;Page:18317] 
2.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: What criteria are used by the New Zealand Immigration Service when deciding on whether to grant permission for foreign workers to be employed by New Zealand companies? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 Generally it must be demonstrated that no New Zealanders are either available or can be readily trained to undertake the work. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How many approvals have been granted to allow foreign fishing crew to be employed in New Zealand in the last 4 years and how many foreign crew members are currently employed here as a result of those approvals? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I do not have those figures in front of me. I will be happy to supply them to the member at the end of this session. 
Dianne Yates 
: What is the Government doing to address the skill and labour shortages the country is now facing? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: A huge amount. The unemployment rate has dropped to 3.8 percent which is almost the lowest in the OECD and more New Zealanders than ever before—over 2 million—are now in work. Part of our plan is to have 150000 people in industry training during 2005 and we are also looking at trying to have 8000 people in Modern Apprenticeships by 2006. The other day the Prime Minister also announced that further initiatives would be undertaken around improving women’s labour market participation. These are more fabulous initiatives from a very fabulous Labour-led Government. 
Paul Adams 
: Can the Minister confirm that an investigation into the pay and conditions of foreign fishing crews operating in New Zealand waters was initiated after questioning from United Future and has now been completed; if so what were the conclusions reached by that investigation? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I cannot confirm the first part of the member’s question. There has certainly been lots of—[ 
Interruption 
] Well I am not sure. I think he is saying that a number of members of Parliament have raised that issue over some time. Yes there has been a report into it. It is currently with me and I will be making announcements in due course. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Given the Minister’s comment about a fabulous policy can he explain how a Christchurch fishing firm being granted permission to hire foreign crew within months of it laying off 42 New Zealand workers and asking them to reapply for their jobs at half their previous wage could possibly be in the national interest while at the same time his colleague the Associate Minister of Immigration claims and I quote him: “The Government’s focus continues to be on improving wages and conditions for New Zealanders working in the fishing industry.”—which now sees almost 3000 foreigners in the fishing industry their having taken New Zealand jobs? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: There is not necessarily a conflict between those two. But can I say in answer to the first part of the question that the member is right—the fishing company did lay off people. I think it was about 3 or 4 months later that it applied for approval for foreigners to come here to work. First the Associate Minister wanted to know whether the labour market tests had been applied; he was not happy that they had been and he withdrew the application until further investigation had occurred. He then found that various organisations had been consulted and he approved the application on that basis. But can I say this: this issue is not satisfactory and it is the intention of the Government to develop a strategy for the fishing industry that looks at not only training within the industry but the issue of immigration in relation to people working in that industry as well. 
Peter Brown 
: [ 
Interruption 
] Will the Minister confirm that the Maritime Safety Authority— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That Minister will stand withdraw and apologise. The member had not started to ask his question technically; however the Minister knows he cannot do that. Please stand withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Peter Brown 
: Will the Minister confirm that the Maritime Safety Authority has examined the situation in Lyttelton where men are living in containers on the deck of a ship that the authority has determined that the situation is unacceptable and that therefore those men have now been signed on as crew; if that is true will the Minister explain what right foreign ships’ crews have to work in a New Zealand dry dock or repair berth? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I can confirm that the Maritime Safety Authority has investigated; I did not know that those people had been signed on. The Immigration Service board of investigations interviewed those people yesterday. It appears that they have been granted visitor visas under the policy for crew joining a ship. It is clear those people are now in breach of the conditions of those visas. They have been instructed to stop working and further investigations are going on around the conditions under which those visas were granted. I should have more to say about that matter tomorrow.