By rnz.co.nz and is republished with permission.
A rural contractor says the government has two weeks to follow through with its December promise to allow 200 skilled machinery operators into the country to help with the busy autumn harvest.
It comes as the government announces it has got a voucher for pregnant journalist Charlotte Bellis in MIQ – and has urged her to travel from Afghanistan to take it.
Brook Nettleton from BlueGrass Contracting in Waikato says if workers don’t arrive in the country within the next fortnight crops will deteriorate to a point farmers will not be able to milk their cows.
Nettleton told Checkpoint he was hoping to get five to 10 workers from Scotland, Ireland, England or anywhere else they were willing to come from.
They had been pressing the issue since last August and in the early days his business was told the workers were not critical enough, he said.
A few contractors in the area got together and then Rural Contractors and Federated Farmers went to the government and it was announced in December that 200 foreign workers would be allowed MIQ places.
“We haven’t got any – not a single worker.”
They were two weeks away from one of the biggest harvests of the year, the maize silage, and if it did not get harvested it would put huge pressure on the rural and farming sectors in Waikato, he said.
Maize silage needed to be harvested in a seven to 14 days window, otherwise it would deteriorate.
If there was a drop in quality, it would have to be used as winter feed or conditioner instead of much needed milk solids.
“It’s real serious.”
Each foreign worker would cost his business $8000 to $9000, which covers flights, an MIQ spot and wages while in managed isolation.
Foreign workers had been secured last October and they were willing to come but now most have moved on to other work in their home countries.
“They’ve been hanging on the end of a string wanting to come to New Zealand.”
Some had worked for him in the last three to four years driving harvesters. “But they’re gone.”
He has an empty nine-bedroom house on the property and the workers could have self-isolated there.
It was difficult to get New Zealanders to do the work because it can be seven days a week with long hours, he said.
His message to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who is due to make an announcement on MIQ on Thursday, is: “They [foreign workers] need to be on a plane within a week to 10 days ….we really need them here by the end of February at the latest.”
The deputy prime minister and the agriculture minister declined Checkpoint‘s invitation to be interviewed on the issue.
