Yummy Fruit Company general manager Paul Paynter said delays in RSE decisions are proving costly for the region. Photo / File
A Hawke's Bay fruit grower says he's "astounded" the Government seemed to be unaware of the impact a dire worker shortage was having on the region's export revenue.
Yummy Fruit general manager Paul Paynter said he and other growers are already making calls based on parts of their crop notbeing able to be picked ahead of the coming harvest.
His comments came after Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi met with industry representatives at the Hawke's Bay Business Hub in Napier on Tuesday to discuss immigration issues and challenges faced by the sectors.
The Government said it would take a pragmatic look at bringing Regional Seasonal Employment (RSE) workers back to New Zealand for harvest time if the industry put forth a proposal and plan for what they required.
But Paynter, who wasn't present at the meeting, said it was frustrating to hear the Government didn't have a clear sense of the situation.
"I'm astounded that they don't already have those numbers, they already know how many RSEs are in Hawke's Bay every year, and they know what the unemployment register says," Paynter said.
"The maths is not very complicated for Kris Faafoi to work out."
Paynter said he first made decisions about segments of his crop not being able to be picked back in May due to the uncertainty of the situation:
"They think it's a problem out in the future, it's not. Those decisions are being made every day out in the field right now.
"Every day right now there's a million dollars' worth of export receipts disappearing because people are making decisions to either remove blocks or designate them for juice picking, which is a loss-making exercise.
"That's costing Hawke's Bay export dollars that don't just drop in the pockets of our fruit growers, they circulate round our community several times."
Faafoi said the horticulture and viticulture sectors have to show they are reacting to the upcoming seasonal worker shortage by prioritising a local workforce first.
He met with industry representatives at the Hawke's Bay Business Hub to discuss the immigration issues and challenges faced by the sectors with a harvest approaching.
"We wanted to hear firsthand from [fruit growers] what the challenges are for the season ahead," Faafoi said.
Although the Government has taken measures to improve the situation by loosening some visa regulations and allowing working holiday makers to stay on in New Zealand, Faafoi said the message was clear that growers would still find things extremely difficult.
"We've tried to keep the expectations in the right place, the border is closed," he said.
He added that once the industry has worked to engage the local population in fruit-picking, they can make a proposal to the Government if more workers from Pacific are needed: "To say 'look, this is what we need, can we do it, and can we keep everyone safe at the same time."
Faafoi said the borders must remain closed in line with a health strategy which has been working, which is something the sectors understood, as well as a limited capacity for managed isolation facilities.
"They're now clear that the decisions from our point of view are complicated ones, but that doesn't mean you don't face up to them," he said, noting how important it was for all that fruit to get picked in three or four months' time.
"We wanna make sure that we maximise that because the economic recovery is really important," Faafoi said.
"It's not just about the pickers here, it's the jobs that are downstream from that."
He said the Government is focused on decisions being made in a timely manner, with plenty of pressure on both the growers and the Government.
"We heard around this table that if decisions aren't made soon, then harvests in February and March get impacted."
New Zealand Apples & Pears CEO Alan Pollard said he was feeling positive about what were open and honest discussions from both sides.
"There's genuine desire to find a solution that satisfies both their concerns from a health perspective and our concerns from an economic perspective," he said.
Pollard said the ball was now in the court of the growers to both make sure they fully exhaust local options for their workforce, and get a proposal in to government in the next few days.
He said the Government asked that they better define the gap between expected labour demand and supply, and also put forward a plan to manage the health risk of bringing workers in from the Pacific islands.
Pollard said the horticulture and viticulture sectors would be proposing industry-managed isolation facilities to help bring more workers in.
"Very clearly we have to prove through a proper plan that we can manage those safely with the right security and the right health checks and so on in place," he said.