Long wait over for rural contractors

Rural contractors around the country will be celebrating the Global Workforce Seasonal Visa announced yesterday, says their national President.

Clinton Carroll says Rural Contractors NZ has been advocating for years for a policy such as Immigration Minister Erica Stanford has now unveiled.

The Global Workforce Seasonal Visa is a three-year visa for highly experienced seasonal workers. It enables them to return to New Zealand for subsequent seasons on the same visa if they spend 3 months out of every 12 offshore.

Clinton Carroll says the process of repeatedly applying for visas under previous arrangements – even for workers who’d previously been here - had been a nightmare for many rural contractors.

“None of us, either ourselves or the people we were bringing in, are skilled in the bureaucratic complexities of meeting visa requirements again and again. They make reading a new tractor manual seem easy.”

“This is a real win for our members,” he says, noting Ms Stanford’s media release names rural contracting as the first category for which the global seasonal visa has been developed for along with sheep scanning, winemaking and snow instruction.

“I acknowledge and thank the Minister for the new visa and also credit our CEO Andrew Olsen who has pursued these changes with Erica Stanford and her officials with a dogged determination to get something that worked for rural contractors. It will also now allow him to focus even more strongly on other activities which support and advance our $2b+ industry.”

Clinton Carroll says there is still a wait until 8 December for applications to open for the new Global Workplace Seasonal Visa and accompanying Peak Seasonal Visa. This provides up to seven months for short-term seasonal roles such as meat and seafood processing, calf-rearing and wool handling.

“We’d really have liked the new arrangement in place for the season now getting underway but do appreciate that the Minister last year introduced the Specific Purpose Work Visa as a temporary measure for seasonal workforce needs like ours. That’s generally been working ok but being able to bring in workers over three years will be a God-send.”