Government’s new migrant exploitation regime ‘underwhelming’ says Green Party

The Government has announced its final set of planned changes to combat migrant worker exploitation, but opposition parties say the plan ignores the best tool for combatting migrant exploitation: allowing migrants to change employers.

Associate Minister for Workplace Relations Priyanca Radhakrishnan said the new Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill would introduce tougher penalties for migrant exploitation and provide more legal options for authorities to take action against it at an early stage.

“What we’re trying to do is to ensure that we have a broad suite of measures to address this. It’s not the panacea, there will be other work and we will look at that as and when it’s required.”

But Green Party spokesperson for Immigration Ricardo Menéndez March said the changes were “underwhelming” and likened them to putting a cluster of ambulances together at the bottom of a cliff.

“It is not good enough to put in measures once exploitation happens, what we should be focusing on is preventing exploitation from happening in the first place.”

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March said the Government had not made changes to the biggest issue that could address migrant exploitation: the ability for a migrant to leave their current employer for another.

“It is underwhelming that we’re sitting under all this research – and the lived experience of migrants who have come to our select committee to share their experiences – and yet we continue to deliver policy that won’t go far enough to protect migrant workers from exploitation.”

A Kantar poll of 964 temporary migrants was released alongside the changes and revealed one in five migrants believed they would be deported if they lost their job.

Three-quarters of migrants believed it was essential for them to stay in their job to access residency.

“We need to address the policies that lead migrants to being exploited in the first place, such as employer-bound visas which create a massive power imbalance where the employer has huge control over a migrant’s life,” March said.

Radhakrishnan defended immigration policies that stopped migrants switching employers, but said the issue of allowing migrant workers to change jobs was one for Minister of Immigration Michael Wood to address.

“[We] want to make sure that, when people come into New Zealand to fill a certain gap, that that is the gap that they’re filling as well.”

ACT’s Immigration spokesperson James McDowall said the Government had arguably contributed to future migrant exploitation by putting in place a new employer-led Accredited Employer Work Visa.

“By tying even more migrant employees to employers, and by making the visa difficult to obtain for new migrants, the Accredited Employer Work Visa can easily make migrant exploitation worse.”

Radhakrishnan said the Government’s changes also included a tougher penalty regime around migrant exploitation and new penalties for lower-level offences.

“Introducing infringement offences will ensure that even lower-level offending such as refusing to provide employment documentation, are dealt with before it becomes more serious.”

However, March said the Government had not actually made the case that tougher penalties would make much of a difference to preventing the problem of migrant exploitation.

“There is no conclusive evidence that tougher penalties will stop exploitation from happening in the first place.”

Radhakrishnan said individuals convicted of migrant exploitation would be put on a public register and disqualified from managing or directing a company.

She also announced a new community-led pilot programme to educate migrant workers about their rights.

“Research released today shows that migrants most at risk of exploitation lack basic knowledge of their employment rights.

“We are making this information more accessible to migrant workers and those who employ them.”

Radhakrishnan announced the changes at the headquarters of Asian Family Services in Auckland, a non-profit organisation that provides multilingual counselling support across a number of different Asian communities but doesn’t receive Ministry of Health funding for services beyond those targeting problem gamblers.

In an opinion piece for Stuff Ganesh Nana and Jenesa Jeram of the Productivity Commission argued there was a near-complete consensus that allowing migrants to switch employers was a key part of preventing migrant exploitation.

“Migrants on tied visas are at heightened risk of exploitation as they are dependent on their employer not only for their livelihood, but their right to stay in New Zealand,” they wrote.

Migrant worker groups have also previously highlighted ways in which employers could get around some aspects of the Government’s proposed changes, including by running companies in the names of relatives or associates.

The process behind these changes started in 2018 when a review into migration exploitation was launched.

The review was published in August 2020 and last year the Government brought in its first set of changes around migrant worker exploitation which included an 0800 number for reporting exploitation, a migrant exploitation visa – which protects migrants reporting exploitation from potential deportation for six months – and support services for victims of migrant exploitation.

Radhakrishnan said there had been 959 reports of migrant exploitation in the year leading up to July 2021 which compared to 173 the year before, evidence that these earlier measures had worked.

However, 119 people were granted Migrant Exploitation Protection(MEP) Visas in the year to July and McDowall said if the migrant exploitation problem was as large as the Government said it was then that number was too low.

“The MEP visa isn’t working as expected.”