Is Migrant Worker Exploitation Really What We Think It Is?
We hear a lot about migrant worker exploitation in New Zealand. Governments promise crackdowns. Ministers announce tougher penalties. Employers are named and shamed. The story we’re usually told is simple: a bad employer takes advantage of a vulnerable worker, and the solution is to punish the employer harder. But I think that story is far […]
The Skilled Migrant Changes and New Zealand’s “Permanent Temporary” Workforce
The government says its Skilled Migrant reforms will fix the system. But the deeper problem with New Zealand’s immigration model remains untouched. New changes to the Skilled Migrant Category promise improvements, but they also reveal a deeper problem: an immigration system that increasingly relies on migrant labour while denying many workers a realistic path to […]