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thewanakasun.co.nz
THUR 16.04.20 - WED 22.04.20
PAGE 6 EDITION 970
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Immigrant workers could become a ‘humanitarian crisis’
PHOTO: QLDC
QLD Major Jim Boult is worried we may have a ” humanitarian crisis” on our hands.
PHOTO: Wānaka Sun
3000 immigrants in the QLD could be in dire straits, left high and dry with no income and no way of getting home.
Pat Deavoll
editor@thewanakasun.co.nz
n a video update, Queenstown Lakes District (QLD) Mayor Jim Boult expressed his concern over the fate of the districts 3000 – 4000 migrant workers. 4285 have registered on the QLD database (as of April 13) to receive a Civil Defence grant of $240 per week to tide them through unemployment during the lockdown. “By the time you pay your rent, your food bill and top up your phone there is not a lot of change out of that and they have to live pretty frugally,” Boult said. “Let's not forget that these folk got the district to where it was before coronavirus,” he said. “The workers who staffed the hotels and the bars and the restaurants and like - they are a very vital part of creating our industry. Most of them are out of work.” Boult said the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) had always estimated there to be around 3000 migrant workers in the district at any one time. But if anything the estimate was conservative. It could be 3500; it could be 4000, he said. “We found out on April 13 we had 4285 of
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these folk registered on our database. Currently, they are receiving a grant through Civil Defence of $240 per person per week to live on. “What is worrying me is that going by the numbers we are seeing we will end up with about 4500 of these people on the list looking for assistance and at $240 times 4500 that's $1,080,000 per week has to be found to fund the issue.” When the lockdown finishes the Civil Defence money goes away, he said, and there will be no income for these people. “Also, at the moment, they cannot be evicted from their accommodation. After lockdown finishes, they may well be evicted. “I am anxious that we will have something approaching a humanitarian crisis on our hands with folk unable to be fed and nowhere to live.” Boult said that “right now” a fair bit of his time was spent convincing the government that it needed to pick up the problem. “A few people have said “pop them on planes and allow them to go back to their home countries”, but unfortunately we don't have too many planes flying around the world at the moment, and these people don't have any money (to pay for flights), so it would have to be funded by the government. It is an option, and I'm
hopeful that some will be offered this option to go home, but it is a real problem.” Seasonal work contractor Gary Ford said his crew from Vanuatu were the lucky ones in that they had work harvesting the grape season and somewhere to stay for the lockdown. But many seasonal workers had finished their regulatory six month stay in New Zealand and were due to go home but were now stuck in limbo. And there were many workers in the tourism industry made redundant and left high and dry, he said. “We have some Vanuatu boys come in for our whole season, on rotation throughout the year. We get them in April, and they generally go home late October and then we have some others that come out in November who go home in April. “The people we brought out for the moment all have work. The big problem there has been a cyclone going through the islands, and so they have that worry, and with no flight going they don't know when they are going to be able to go home or what they will do once the harvest is over. “We are about halfway through the grape harvest. It's been erratic because normally we run bigger crews, but because of MPI’s social distancing rules, we have to match eight people with a plot. It's a
slower-paced harvest which is good in some ways because the work tends to wear people out and make them more susceptible to illness. “At the moment we have quite a few backpackers because we haven't been able to get all the boys out from the islands.” Backpackers are particularly lucky because they have somewhere to stay for lockdown, had to have an address and a bubble. When not harvesting, they are at that place, Ford said. “They are also lucky they had somewhere to work within the rules with MPI as to how we work social distancing. “I think those in the grape industry will be busy. But there are a lot of seasonal workers around the Queenstown Lakes District left high and dry,” Ford said. Boult said: “Our migrant workforce aren’t eligible for any other support from Work and Income and may play an important part in our region’s recovery. “Remember: your migrant workforce are also eligible for the wage subsidy if you have laid them off, you can re-employ them and apply for the wage subsidy to ensure they retain some level of income. We expect to see more demand for welfare in the coming weeks as the 12-week subsidy nears the end.”