Mayor Boult last week expressed delight at the Ministry of Social Development’s changes to the Queenstown Lakes undersupply list, making it easier for businesses to support work visas for hard-to-fill roles (see the story on page 3).

He referred to the ‘Taura Here’: “the many migrant workers who have made this place home and add value to our culture and economy every day. The Taura Here are needed and welcomed here and this change from MSD reflects that.”

But as a migrant myself, and having seen friends and peers forced to return to locked down countries where Covid-19 is rife because they lost their jobs or their visas expired, this is too little, too late.

Since the pandemic began, the New Zealand government has made it increasingly difficult for migrants to get work visas. Their validity was shortened to six months for lower paid jobs - which the majority of hospitality and tourism roles are - and employers had to go to great lengths to prove no suitable New Zealanders could be found for the role, which meant the majority stopped offering sponsorship at all. 

There has been little flexibility for those who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, or those in seasonal jobs, such as ski instructors, to transfer their visas to a different role. And aside from the seasonal employment visa, valid until June to support the horticulture and viticulture industries’ picking seasons, there’s been little done to help us stay here.

This latest change makes it easier - but marginally, and still for just six months at a time. We still need to have experience or qualifications for the role we are sponsored for, even if we could receive training, and the job still has to be advertised nationally.

In the meantime, thousands of migrants are unemployed and receiving emergency benefits. The Foreign Nationals Support Programme, which helped close to 8,000 people, closed at the end of November, and its replacement scheme runs until February 2021 to help “while you arrange to get home as soon as you can.” 

If the changes to the undersupply list are not enough to help local businesses fill all the tourism-based roles they need for summer, they certainly aren’t enough for the Taura Here.

Read edition 1004 of the Wānaka Sun here.