Immigration Minister Erica Stanford wanted to scrap annual limits on Pacific migrant workers under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme, but apparently could not get the sign-off from Cabinet.
Stanford made her case in a meeting last month, according to papers released on Wednesday, proposing it would reduce administration costs for RSE employers, while increasing remittances sent back to the Pacific.
Stanford recently announced a swathe of technical changes to the RSE scheme, such as allowing workers to apply for migrant exploitation protection visas, and extending how long an employer could stay in the scheme if they treated their staff properly.
Her office told RNZ Pacific it was considered, but ultimately put aside ahead of the announcement. A decision on the proposal was absent from the decision minutes, suggesting it never got past the committee stage.
The Cabinet paper stated that a limitless scheme would foster a “manageable” increase in workers, though it noted it could further crowd out New Zealand workers – a common criticism of the seasonal worker schemes.
“On balance, I consider this risk low and able to be mitigated,” the proposal read.
“Officials will monitor RSE volumes and proportions of the overall workforce and I expect regular reporting on volumes will help identify if there is a need to resume using the cap.”
A disdain for the cap from the horticulture industry was flagged, in that the process of allocating how many workers an employer could hire was unfair and complex.
RNZ / Nick Monro
Mixed views
It was noted Pacific partners had mixed views on the proposal, but that no partners expressed “strong concerns” about removing it.
Meanwhile, employers regard the number of beds they can provide as their own effective cap, the paper argued.
It suggested employers were generally prioritising New Zealand workers – who still make up three-quarters of the horticulture workforce, thus explaining why the number of RSE workers coming to New Zealand is typically a few thousand fewer than the cap itself.
“Worker volumes have plateaued since 2022 despite cap increases,” it noted.
“Since the cap was first met in 2013, it has consistently been increased in response to demand, suggesting it has rarely been an effective or enduring mechanism for limiting RSE volumes.”
Increasing the cap from 19,500 to 20,750 workers for the 2024/25 season featured in the National-ACT coalition agreement when the current term of government began. That level remains today.
At the last general election in 2023, the ACT Party campaigned on scrapping limits, while Stanford’s National party campaigned on a smaller increase.
ACT celebrated the RSE changes in a press release from its Agriculture spokesperson, Andrew Hoggard, last week.
“Fruit doesn’t wait around for forms to be processed. When it’s ready to pick, growers need workers in the orchard,” he said.
“The government has listened to growers who have been saying the RSE scheme has become too hard to use.”
