KEY POINTS:
Pukekohe market gardener Ganpat Hari is in a hurry because he's "got to get back to the gang". He's supervising lettuce-pickers on the land where his family has been growing vegetables since the 1940s and works alongside the pickers six days a week.
Hari finds it hard to get enough workers and needs at least 20 working the fields each week.
The labour shortage is a problem common to other Pukekohe growers.
"People I employ end up having to work extra long hours or I have to pull in inexperienced contractors to get the work done," Hari says. "It all makes the operation a lot slower."
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has indicated he is open to considering temporary work schemes for Pacific people, a move which could help employers such as Hari.
Vince McBride, director of the Pacific Co-operation Foundation, welcomes such a mutually beneficial solution as Pacific Island countries have the labour force and need the income.
The foundation, a partnership between public and private sectors in New Zealand and the Pacific Island countries, is bringing experts to a two-day conference in Wellington next week.
The conference will include speakers from the World Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat and Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.
McBride says the subject needs to be debated widely because some people find the idea of bringing in workers to be threatening, especially those worried about the risk of overstayers.
For Pacific countries, high unemployment and growing populations are making the problem acute.
The increasing proportion of dissatisfied younger people is a destabilising force in already rickety economies which continue to be propped up with overseas aid and remittances.
There are at present limited opportunities for Pacific Islanders to do short stints in the horticultural industry, but leaders of Pacific nations, under pressure to open up their economies to free trade, are pushing for labour reforms that would give greater access to New Zealand and Australia to enable their unskilled unemployed people to make good money overseas to bring home.
For New Zealand, it is a matter of how to deal with labour shortages, particularly in the vulnerable horticulture and viticulture industries.
Chris Ward, Horticulture NZ business manager, says horticultural exports earn $2.2 billion a year, yet they can be compromised at the eleventh hour if there are not enough pickers. The horticulture and viticulture industries are working on a seasonal labour strategy to find solutions, including the possibility of increased use of short-term labour from the Pacific islands.
Ward, who says Pacific Islanders are generally regarded as loyal and trustworthy employees, sees potential for such a scheme.
Pacific Islanders are likely to stick round for a season, unlike less committed working tourists who mainly do it for fun and "shoot off when the surf's up at Mt Maunganui".
Tongan-born Maka Fatai has been working for Hari for the past four months. His pay of $16 an hour is better than that at his previous job as a commercial mover where he was on $13 an hour. And he loves the outdoor work and its variety.
Fatai, who sends some money back to a nephew in Tonga each year, says Tongans he knows would love the opportunity to come and work for such rates.
The few who have worked in the Pukekohe fields on Immigration Service-approved short-term contracts have returned to Tonga happy to have the cash in their pockets, Fatai says.
Such schemes are welcomed by Bharat Bhana, president of the Pukekohe Vegetable Growers Association, who wants to see more of them.
Bhana says that about 15 years ago Fijian work gangs were allowed into the country for six month to help at the busiest times. "It worked brilliantly," Bhana says. "People in New Zealand don't like the work we do."
The possibility of overstaying lingers as a potential problem.
Gilbert Ullrich, chairman of the New Zealand Pacific Business Council, supports the idea of using Pacific labour but believes the risk of overstayers must be addressed.
Ullrich says there is a strong temptation for the workers to stay past their designated return dates, prompted by the failing economies of their home countries where the Chinese increasingly dominate the employment market.
Ullrich says a seasonal labour scheme needs safeguards, such as bonds from New Zealand employers.
Aucklander Melino Maka, chairman of the Tongan Advisory Council, has another suggestion: hand over the bulk of their earnings in the airport departure lounge.
"Only give them enough money for day-to-day living, then a lump sum at the airport ... they can return to Tonga and maybe have enough to set up a small business."
Maka says it needs to be emphasised to workers that if they do a runner in New Zealand and are caught, they will never be allowed back.
Even if Maka's suggestion were taken up, another concern remains. The Council of Trade Unions is worried about the risk of a "cheap labour force" being introduced.
Secretary Carol Beaumont says it is more important to get New Zealand's own unemployed to fill labour shortages by offering more flexible hours to suit older workers, or those with children, and better pay and conditions.
Beaumont is also concerned that labourers brought from overseas might be vulnerable to exploitation, as has occurred overseas.
New Zealand already brings in temporary workers on seasonal work permits or on employer approval-in-principle schemes (AIPs) where foreigners can be offered work that can't be met by the local labour force.
Department of Labour figures for the 2005-06 financial year show nearly 2000 workers came here on AIPs from a wide range of countries, including Fiji (90), Kiribati (17), Samoa (60), Tonga (7) and Vanuatu (11), filling jobs such as fruit-growing, nursery work and market-garden labouring. In addition, a seasonal work permit pilot scheme which began in December has been extended to September, due to demand.
More than 2000 permits have been granted, with growers in the Western Bay of Plenty, Nelson, Marlborough, Central Otago and Hawke's Bay making use of the extra workers.
Department of Labour deputy-secretary Mary Anne Thompson says the department is looking at ways to redress seasonal shortages in horticulture and viticulture and has approved a larger number of temporary workers, including people on working-holiday schemes.
Thomson says the approval of temporary work permits has to be weighed against the risks associated with overstaying.
"We need to make sure people who come to New Zealand for temporary work will not become unlawful. Immigration staff take this into account when considering applications."
Towards the end of last year there were about 20,000 overstayers, a third from Pacific countries.
Thompson says there are already avenues for Pacific people to apply for work and the department is not considering new schemes.
"We have the quotas, people can apply for work permits, and employers can obtain AIPs and then recruit in the Pacific," Thompson says.
When last year the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum adopted the Pacific Plan, with its goal of regional integration, it prompted a tetchy debate over labour access issues.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out temporary work schemes and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark maintains that we do our bit through the Pacific quotas.
Despite Howard's aversion to opening the doors to unskilled Pacific workers, the Australian senate is holding an inquiry into Pacific labour, prompted by desperate labour shortages in rural areas.
Labor MP Bob Sercombe, the shadow minister for overseas aid and Pacific Island affairs, says he supports greater access.
"It's not a saleable proposition to say to Pacific countries that it's okay for Australia to give work to 104,000 backpackers from rich European and North American countries and not them."
The time is right, he says, for a pilot scheme to bring limited numbers of unskilled workers to Australia and possibly extend that to provide opportunities for training.
Australian Peter Mares, research fellow for the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology, says many developed nations make temporary use of unskilled foreign labour.
Each year 500,000 seasonal workers from non-European Union countries are employed in Europe - especially Germany, which issued 260,000 seasonal work permits in 2001.
"Thai labourers toil in the fields of Israel, Moroccans tend tomatoes in Spain, and Chinese workers pluck apples in Japan."
Mares has studied the successful use of migrant labour in Canada, which has engaged workers from small island states in the Caribbean since 1966, and believes fears of overstayers are greatly exaggerated.
Of the 15,123 workers who entered Ontario as seasonal labourers in 2004, fewer than 1.5 per cent were later listed as absent without leave from their job. Some had simply gone home early, and by the year's end all had returned.
Mares says the Canadian scheme was initially skewed to favour workers with children, to encourage them to return to their homelands, but that has since been relaxed.
Benefits to the host country include increased labour reliability, enabling growers to plan production increases with greater confidence and build up a skilled labour force with the same workers returning each year.
The workers earn higher pay rates and send remittances home where the extra cash can be used to improve quality of life.
But Mares points out the cost to host countries of matters such as regulation and administration.
On balance, he thinks it is time for Australia to pilot a scheme for areas where there are urgent labour shortages, particularly horticulture. "It is clear that Australian rural and regional communities have jobs without workers and that Pacific Island nations have workers without jobs," Mares says.
"This creates the potential for the development of a seasonal labour scheme that could benefit communities in Australia and the Pacific."
The Australian Government is making the rules more liberal to encourage working holidaymakers from developed nations in Europe and North America to pick up the slack in rural areas. "However, such workers don't tend to stay long and each intake requires training."
Mares also points to the hypocrisy of Australia cherry-picking skilled Pacific people such as doctors and engineers, even rugby players, while not allowing unskilled workers entry.
His research colleague, Nic Maclellan, visited Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu to prepare case studies on the potential.
"There are certainly hundreds of people ready to go. In Tonga and Vanuatu groups are already talking to potential recruiters."
However, Maclellan says there are concerns about social impacts, such as the health and safety conditions of the workers overseas, and the burden on those left behind.
Maclellan says remittances are increasingly important in Pacific economies.
In Fiji, remittances grew from F$56 million ($51 million) in 1994 to F$306 million in 2004. Historically, Fiji relied on sugar and gold, then tourism and garment manufacturing, but over the past decade the amount of remittances increased to a level where they earn more foreign exchange than all other sectors except tourism.
Maclellan says Pacific countries are angry that the push for trade liberalisation in the region fails to address labour issues.
They have the support of the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat, which in its submission to the Australian senate supports the development of a scheme to allow for the seasonal movement of labour workers as a "highly visible" form of regionalism.
Tuvalu Prime Minister Maatia Toafa agrees, saying that labour mobility is one of the few ways his highly dependent, resource-poor country can contribute to its own economic survival as well as to the economies of Australia and New Zealand.
"If they want to become parties to free trade in the region they have to pay a special price - allow labour mobility."
Adding up the numbers
50,000 people from Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu and Kiribati applied to come to New Zealand last year
Who made it
1100 - successful Samoan quota applicants
650 - successful Pacific access applicants
2000 - successful approval-in-principle applicants
A booming workforce
The number of working-age people in many Pacific countries will increase considerably over the next 10 years
Fiji: 487,450 (2004), 516,624 (2014)
Kiribati: 49,936 (2004), 62,320 (2014)
Marshall Islands: 29,614 (2004), 35,752 (2014)
Samoa: 91,131 (2004), 98,777 (2014)
Solomons: 239,361 (2004), 312,060 (2014)
Tonga: 51,871 (2004), 53,808 (2014)
Vanuatu: 110,976 (2004), 147,281 (2014)
Source: Dr Carmen Voigt-Graf, University of the South Pacific)
