Maori Council Hammers Business And Industry Over Foreign Workers Saying “cut It Out”

The Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council has put a shot across the bow of business and industry telling them to “cut it out” when it comes to calls for changes to visa categories to allow the bringing in of more foreign labour because they are finding it tough to find local workers. The call comes after the tourism industry, having laid off an estimated 40,000 workers during COVID19, is now saying that workers are hard to come by;

“I have never heard so much nonsense coming from this industry as I have right now. For the Park Hyatt, for example, in Auckland to say that “The shortage of labour is becoming quite scary, it’s going to be a very, very difficult time … the recruitment pool seems to be really shallow” is an absolute joke and is completely disrespectful to those New Zealanders looking for work. In fact they should walk those comments back.” Tukaki said

“The whinging that is going on right now that New Zealanders are not applying for the roles being advertised is also a joke – and let me tell you as someone who has headed one of the worlds oldest and largest employment companies this sort of talk about how very few kiwis are applying has more to do with the recruitment practices of this industry than anything else.” Tukaki said

“Then we have the situation unfolding in the horticulture and fisheries sectors – given the thousands of workers laid off in the forestry sector and other aligned industries it can no longer be the case that other industries cry foul and turn to the hiring of foreign labour in place of New Zealanders – and given the rate of Maori unemployment is higher by 4% on average than non-Maori we must be preferencing work programs and training for our people” Tukaki said

“These industries cry foul all of the time – they whine and whinge when unemployment is low and workers are hard to come by and then irony upon irony they whine and whinge when tens of thousands of new people have hit the unemployment lines running the old tired stories.” Tukaki said

Tukaki has called on the Government to hold the line on the worker visa categories and made it clear that jobs must be tagged to New Zealanders first.

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