Civil Contractors New Zealand made a submission on Immigration New Zealand's proposed changes to the Accredited Employer Work Visa (phase one and two).
In the submission, CCNZ:
- Requests the roles removed from the Construction and Infrastructure Sector Agreement in April 2024 be restored with urgency.
- Requests the skill level of experienced migrants entering New Zealand to work in the civil construction industry be properly recognised.
- Requests the ‘maximum continuous stay’ reduced in the announcement on 7 April 2024 be restored to 5 years from 3 years.
- Supports a tiered accreditation system that rewards good employer behaviour.
- Opposes the proposal to automatically assign all triangular employers to the lowest tier.
- Recommends that, rather than use the term “Tier” to define behaviour and compliance, the term “level” or something similar is used as the term “tier” has a different meaning in the civil construction sector.
- Supports the highest level companies being subject to no external checks and requirements.
- Supports the second highest level companies being subject to no external checks and requirements, subject to suitable third party verification.
- Opposes minimum threshold requirements for a proportion of domestic workers. If it has been proven there are no available local employees to fill the roles through a job check, why is a certain percentage of local workers proposed?
- Opposes job check requirements being imposed on proven good employers.
- Opposes the use of wage thresholds.
- Opposes MSD having any right of veto for employers who have demonstrably met the criteria to be classified as highest and second highest levels.
- Supports increasing the maximum AEWV duration to at least 3 years (instead of 2 + 1) for levels 4 and 5 roles.
- Opposes removing the ability for employers to support family members for an AEWV.
- Supports the removal of regional settings.
- Opposes employers being responsible for arrangements between migrants and agents.
- Supports flexibility for visa holders whose employment has ended prematurely.
- Urges Immigration NZ to use the compliance levers that already exist before trying to introduce new levers.
- Calls for efforts to reduce complexity and improve processing times.