The Government wants to redirect money used to police Easter trading hours into protecting migrant workers.
Simon Bridges. Photo: NATIONAL PARTY
Minister of Labour Simon Bridges says there has been an increase in the exploitation of these workers, particularly in the hospitality, horticulture and viticulture industries.
Mr Bridges wants the Labour division of the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment to increase its focus on the serious ill-treatment of seasonal workers from overseas.
At a parliamentary committee on Thursday he signalled he wants labour inspectors to spend less time enforcing Easter trading laws and more time on migrant exploitation.
"We have significant enforcement resource that goes into Easter trading and into enforcing that. Well, I'm not saying that's stops, but actually rather than proactively going out maybe we can be doing that in a smarter way, and there's resource that can be shifted from doing that into this migrant workers area."
Mr Bridges is also looking at law changes that would enforce tougher penalties where there is evidence of exploitation of migrant workers.
Darien Fenton, the Labour Party's spokesperson on labour issues, says it's great that the minister has finally woken up to the serious and growing problem with migrants.
However, Ms Fenton says the department should be given more funding to hire more inspectors - rather than just being told to reprioritise. She says there are just 35 inspectors for the whole country at present.
Hospitality New Zealand disagrees with Simon Bridges that an increasing number of migrant workers are being abused in its industry. Chief executive Bruce Robertson says it supports more policing, but believes most of the abuse is happening at the fringes.
"It is more frequently occurring amongst migrant businesses who are not as familiar with New Zealand law.
"I think there's been some publicity given to a couple of instances which has highlighted the issue, and it's entirely appropriate the minister have his staff have a good look at this area."
Mr Robertson says Hospital New Zealand wants a fair playing field for all businesses - which means everyone has to abide by the rules.
