An excellent challenge was thrown out in Sydney yesterday to immigration authorities — to think more like a recruitment agency than a police force.
Anyone who has had to go through a lengthy and debilitating process to convince Immigration New Zealand that they are a worthy candidate to workin our country understands the battleground.
It may have been a truism once that it was a privilege to live and work in New Zealand, but things have changed since the Covid pandemic. Now there are major labour shortages and we are in competition with Australia (and other countries) to fill gaps.
National's finance spokesperson Nicola Willis seized on the observation during the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum. Judging from the approving murmur from the audience, it was obvious that many in business on both sides of the Tasman are hugely frustrated by the difficulties in finding workers.
The challenge — which came from the floor — was not really aimed at immigration authorities as such.
Its real target was a relatively intransigent approach, particularly in New Zealand, where politicians have been too slow to change immigration settings so that major gaps in occupations ranging from nursing to construction workers and agricultural and horticultural labourers can be filled.
Willis contended that data from an MYOB survey — in which 44 per cent of those questioned responded that they were considering moving from New Zealand for "a better quality of life" or agreed with the proposition the "cost of living is better overseas" — suggested the economy could soon face a pinch point.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson later acknowledged the pressures and suggested some transtasman co-operation on the sequencing of big-ticket projects such as infrastructure to draw a line under the "bidding up" of wage rates that was now occurring.
Robertson and the new Australian Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers share a common passion — developing policies on the future of work.
Robertson did the hard yards in Opposition, then convened a tripartite group after the 2017 election which included BusinessNZ and the Council of Trade Unions. The Productivity Commission later did its own inquiry. Robertson has since unveiled an unemployment insurance scheme. But there has been resistance.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson. Photo / Mark Mitchell
In Chalmers' case, he did his doctorate on Paul Keating and later went on to become chief of staff to former Australian Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan.
Chalmers also co-wrote a book on the economic and social policy implications of technological disruption called Changing Jobs: The fair Go in the New Machine Age. The Australian Treasurer is from the right faction of Labor. But both politicians are at ease in each other's company.
It is important that the two treasurers are comfortable with each other.
But the problem is that when it comes to the here and now, in New Zealand's case there needs to be action.
At the Primary Industries Summit in Auckland this week it was painfully clear that people from fishing, horticulture, dairy and even the red-meat industry were screaming out for labour. There were plenty of suggestions, including forming collaborative approaches and easing abatement levels for benefits so there was more incentive for workers to put themselves forward as seasonal workers.
The primary sector faces big headwinds — Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, inflation, labour markets, export markets and coping with major regulatory change.
The sector is the engine room of the economy. But the notion that it can easily diversify away from China is fanciful. China takes 37 per cent of NZ's agricultural exports. The US takes 10 per cent, Australia 8 per cent, the UK 8 per cent and the EU 2 per cent.
Even while we have two new free trade agreements — and in the UK's case will get a decent deal for our dairy over time — that won't happen with the EU.
Some $52.2 billion was brought in through agricultural export receipts in the past year. This is 81.8 per cent of our overall trade. It just does not make sense to trivialise the sector's call to relax rules.
Revisiting migration rules is essential to avoid the stresses on the sector compounding. Robertson has been innovative. For instance, his decision to expand apprenticeships during the pandemic has been a success.
But his innovation has not been enough to deal with the current issue facing the economy: finding workers in a world where they have plenty of other options.
