Exploiting people is immoral enough, but it is also counter productive for the entire economy.
We can’t keep exploiting migrants for economic growth…
Economist warns against relying on immigration to keep economy growing
An economist says our reliance of immigration to keep the economy humming has come back to bite us “on the backside”.
Cameron Bagrie says about two-thirds of our GDP growth over the past two years has been down to simply adding more people via migration, which peaked at a net gain of 64,100 in 2016.
“One of the downfalls of running a pretty strong net migration-infused economic model for the past 10 years… is I don’t think we’ve invested sufficiently domestically in skills training, staff development,” he told The AM Show on Tuesday.
“Lo and behold when you shut the border – which is what we’ve needed to do – suddenly that comes back and bites you on the backside.”
…and the exploitation of migrant workers is so far spread that it goes all the way into Government contracts as well…
Housing minister asks Kāinga Ora to review processes after illegal workers detained
The minister of housing has asked Kāinga Ora to review its processes after eight people were found working illegally on Government-run building sites.
The eight workers were detained for working without valid visas in an immigration raid on April 27.
They were found on east Auckland construction sites connected to the Government-run Tāmaki Regeneration Project (TRP) and have been served deportation liability notices. Two have already been deported.
…we have to stop subcontracting our obligations in construction out to a free market that is this exploitative while handicapping our own skill base.
We need a Ministry of Works that actually builds State Houses while ensuring workers rights are protected and the skills base preserved and expanded upon.
We need the State to do this because the Free Market has failed.
Exploitation corrodes all it touches.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
Let’s not forget the exploitation of the No Zealand underclass… caught between suppressed wages and rising housing costs thanks to neo-colonial migration…
I think that is actually at the heart of this situation, and has been addressed in the article. In fact, to “old school” tradesmen like myself it’s been bleeding obvious what the agenda has been, and there has been plenty of talk about it.. None of that comment will reach the newspapers, or get mentioned on TV in NZ. The news/information networks are far too entrenched in the colonial power structure to ever let that kind of talk become widely read/heard…
Based on the activity I’ve seen from this govt over the last few months, i wouldn’t be surprised to see a revised “ministry of works” being brought into existence sometime soon… This government has perfected what I call the “feint followed by the sneaky left hook to the jaw” approach, so the next year will be interesting…
The hardest part of effecting the change will be dealing with the mountain of tory propaganda that the colonial press/broadcasters will flood us with, and there is already a huge pile of utter bullshit that has become “accepted wisdom” out in the estates… The last thing needed is to have people on the sidelines pointing out the bleeding obvious…
Stephan
You got most of it. Well put.
Tradies and workers are under cut by cash workers and it is pathetic that the main contractor is not prosecuted if they and their subcontractors to use illegal cash labour.
No wonder we also have a big problem with quality and fraud in NZ building. It has become a Wild West industry.
When overseas folks come to NZ and work as teachers and doctors they need to be able to speak English and pass exams to ensure they are fit to work in NZ and can communicate on the job sites. Meanwhile in the Wild West building industry, they are certifying foreign builders with NZ qualifications who speak little to zero English (how do they even pass their course work?). These builders can then sign off unlimited building projects in NZ once they are registered as builders here.
It is also a dual industry with local workers getting prosecuted from work safe and councils, and needing to do extensive regulation, while other builders and tradies do what ever they want and somehow avoid prosecution even when dead bodies turn up on worksites! https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/illegally-working-overstayer-dies-on-the-job-acc-payment-made-to-widow-in-china/OWADEJMGCUYM36WLF6YNKUA2SE/
Know a registered tradie and they are put through the ringer by council while around Orewa it’s full of Asian led builders who do what ever they like with zero safety or regard for environmental controls. The council just ignore them and don’t bother with any enforcement on their job sites!
Fill is removed illegally, no sediment controls, etc etc, in the built up areas of Orewa, while on his job site in the middle of nowhere and doing things correctly, it is costing them tens of thousands of dollars to comply.
Dual world!
And we need the dishonourable Faafoi to stop kicking the can down the road with every can that confronts him, or get out of the way and let someone who is able to pick them up take over
Firstly our immigration experiment seems to be a failure on all levels. Productivity is low, NZ seems to have declined in most social measures from poorer academic results to more poverty and environmental destruction.
I also do not agree that it has helped NZ’s economic growth being a good thing, GDP is a fake measure of prosperity. For example an Earthquake in CHCH increases our GDP but most people don’t want to have constant earthquakes happening. Same as our immigration aka has been providing an fake level of economic growth, that is actually mostly a debt, aka the people coming to NZ are competing against NZ for housing, healthcare and jobs which is driving the quality of most down.
I’m sure in some cases immigration is positive, but NZ just giving out visas willy, nilly and for fake paperwork, is very destructive to NZ and going to get worse, going forward.
It has even got to the point, where most human interest stories in our media are about migrants who need to get to NZ or have come to NZ, and that any government or woke led conferences talk about migration as the sole way to get skills here. (Neglecting to say how only 1/4 of migrants coming to NZ are for skills, most are coming to NZ off the back of family relationships and many piggy backers are big users of NZ social welfare systems from health care to schooling to social welfare, aged care and pensions).
Weirdly NZ was told we needed low level skills as Kiwis were too lazy, now we are told we need high levels skills, maybe because kiwis are too dumb to supply them?
Statistically NZ has higher skill levels, higher English and communication levels and lower corruption levels in our country than most of the migrant countries we are recruiting from! It seems NZ is very keen to keep recruiting more residents here with low level skills, low English skills and higher corruption levels. All good for neoliberalism!
Sometimes we get a high level of skills coming here, but for the same reason that high skilled people leave NZ is the same for both migrants and locals, not being paid correctly and not being supported to do a good job, not being listened too etc http://werewolf.co.nz/2014/12/public-health-the-silent-crisis/. So maybe the issue for brain drain, has always been wages and conditions?
Only the desperate, social welfare users and criminals seem to stay in NZ and they bring more and more relatives with them while the highly skilled migrants depart.
We have now got a crisis level of brainwashing about migration and the complete absence of thinking about Kiwis as being able to solve our problems. Even very smart people seem to think that everything is about attracting migrants and it’s become about arguing about the type of migrants while not even thinking about local people to solve their own problems. Another reason for a skilled person to leave, they apparently have no role anymore in their country.
Funny enough NZ seemed better off training Kiwis for areas like health care and teachers and police and all other jobs as ours social measures were higher with that approach! Migration has been used to prop up neoliberalism which is why business love it so much.
The pay freeze approach shows how out of touch our government has become with what has always been wrong with NZ – not supporting those skilled people, who actually go out to work each day and work their arses off.
Instead the government under neoliberalism wants more networkers and consultants come in, who deliver reports on how to cut wages and services to the public at double the cost. Then more networkers and consultants telling the government to get lower wages by recruiting staff from overseas as their current workforce quits NZ and costs too much (not mentioning the grandparents,kids and spouses also get to come to NZ and thus need more resources than the existing worker already here) … and then more consultants and networkers to say how to save money as our houses, roads, health care and social welfare systems balloon out of control.
Comments are closed.