Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme leads to rampant fraud and exploitation

An investigation into New Zealand’s Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) scheme has uncovered significant shortcomings, including delayed responses to known fraud and worker exploitation, costing migrants up to $50,000 for job opportunities.

Despite early warnings from immigration lawyers and staff about the selling of job ‘tokens’ in Asia, it took Immigration New Zealand (INZ) three months to tighten application checks.

This oversight facilitated a surge in deceitful practices, with dodgy employers and offshore agents profiting immensely.

A review into the AEWV scheme was completed last week and criticised INZ’s ‘light touch’ approach and its transition to a high-trust model, which inadequately addressed the risks of exploitation and non-compliance, leading to an influx of migrants arriving to non-existent jobs and other examples of migrant exploitation, according to a report in State media outlet RNZ.

Nearly 2,000 complaints have been lodged against accredited employers, highlighting a system fraught with exploitation, worsened in the aftermath of COVID-19 and cyclone-induced visa changes.

Immigration lawyer Alistair McClymont told RNZ:

‘It was a boom for these people exploiting it,” McClymont said. “You could make an honest declaration in your accreditation application that you were financially sustainable just by having a $1 profit for each of the last two 12-month periods. So a company that’s made $1 profit in two years, suddenly has the ability to sell 20 job tokens on the open market for $30,000 each. If they [INZ] are going to be verifying this 24 months later, how much damage are they going to cause during those 24 months? And what are the consequences for that employer?

‘I mean, we know employers and advisors that have made up to half a million dollars in a very short time through abusing the system. I’ve heard rumours of some people that made a half million bucks, closed the business down and moved to Australia.’

The Coaltion government acknowledged the need for immediate reforms to address these failures put in place under the previous Labour administration and to better protect migrant workers.