Immigrant workers who aided fraud investigation may have to leave NZ

A group of migrants who have been helping an investigation into immigration fraud may soon be forced to leave the country, RNZ reports. The group were some of the 50 Chinese construction workers who claimed a New Zealand-based recruiter had misled them about their pay and working rights. An arrest warrant was issued for Li Wenshan, who fled New Zealand before charges were laid, and two associates face a trial in December this year; however, 10 workers expected to give evidence have been told by Immigration authorities that they would be expected to leave the country within a month of the trial ending. 

Green Party immigration spokesman Ricardo March said the treatment of this group undermined efforts to combat migrant exploitation. 'These workers are not pieces of evidence, they are human beings, and so to put them in a situation where they are treated as expendable once they're not deemed useful to provide evidence is unjust,' March said. 'And, actually, [it] will undermine the government's intent to create a supportive environment where workers are able to come forward and participate in processes to hold employers to account.'

Unite Union director Mike Treen, who has assisted the men since 2019, is also called for a pathway to residency for this group. Treen said the system of temporary visas had fuelled migrant exploitation and needed to change. 'Immigration New Zealand [INZ] created a system of migrant labour exploitation, and they throw out the people who have helped expose it,' he said.

Worker exploitation has recently been targetted by the Labour Inspectorate and the MBIE, but in a recent interview with Franchise New Zealand, Dr Christina Stringer of the University of Auckland Business School was critical of the new Accredited Employer Working Visa (AEWV) scheme which continues to tie immigrants to specific employers. ‘International research highlights that the linking of an individual migrant to an employer creates a precarious situation,’ she said. Under the AEWV system, franchisee employers are charged over five times as much for accreditation as independent business owners.