Alleged rape reinforces earlier concerns
Alleged rape reinforces earlier concerns: points to systemic issues with RSE
Chair of the Tonga Advisory Chair Melino Maka today responded to report (www.tonga-now.to ) that a Tongan man on the new RSE scheme had allegedly committed a sexual assault.
“Sadly this was the kind of outcome the Council had feared would occur if the concerns we raised over eight months ago were not addressed.” said Mr Maka.
Earlier concerns about RSE:
In April
and May 2007 the council was accused by Kerupi Tavita,
project manager and a number of others connected with the
RSE project of being alarmist when it issued a press release
outlining a range of concerns about the scheme, especially
its lack of real focus on pastoral care and community
oversight of workers.
- The Steering Group for the RSE comprised exclusively of senior New Zealand public servants with no Pacific community representation or representation from Pacific Governments.
- There was no prior dialogue with the Tongan or other Pacific communities in New Zealand despite an acknowledgement of the importance of these groups in the recent Foreign Affairs Select Committee report into the relationship between New Zealand and Tonga. Yet it is these communities who are expected to bear a large part of the pastoral care burden of the scheme.
- Most new staff resources within Immigration New Zealand are going into border control staff not other areas such as transition support.
- There had not been a proper evaluation of the existing Seasonal Work Permit Scheme nor any community consultation about this. This could have provided useful data for the design of the current policy.
- To date, the Government Agencies involved do not seem open to partnerships with not for profit and community organizations in providing a range of support to workers. This might include social services and legal advice in areas such as employment, tenancy and consumer law which are known pitfalls for many Pacific peoples.
- The project team do not seem to be aware of problems with a previous Work scheme in the 1970’s
In April
2007 Mr Tavita accused the council of “not operating in
good faith and that the motives behind these actions may not
be sincere” In an extraordinary email for a senior
public servant Mr Tavita refused to meet the council to
discuss the concerns as he had early promised and said that
he would ensure that the media and ministers dismissed the
concerns too. TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika website selectively
published only the response to the concerns-not the concerns
themselves. Tonga Minister of Labour Commerce and
Industries, Hon Lisiate Akolo was permitted to launch a
personal attack on the website with no right of reply by Mr
Maka and the council. “Mr Maka’s views has no
substance and will not affect our whole hearted support for
this project.” “The Tongan Government in no way supports
the views of Mr Maka and does not consider his comments
reflective of the Tongan we have spoken to here in New
Zealand let alone in Tonga.”
Victimised RSE workers unlikely to
report other incidents
The Council
complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority but was
told it had no jurisdiction over TVNZ’s website. Sadly
subsequent events have suggested that there was indeed real
substance to the councils concerns. Given the low incidence
of reporting violence and sexual assault to police in Tonga
and isolation of the workers in question, the council is
concerned that other incidents against fellow RSE workers
may simply have gone unreported.
In fact Mr Maka understands that there were a range of unsavoury incidents under the previous Seasonal Work Permit Pilot involving drunkenness due to boredom and isolation, poor pay and conditions and several cases in which workers seriously damaged their sub standard accommodation in protest. Without condoning such actions the Council believes that the failure to consider its concerns has contributed to these problems.
Predictable risk factors:
Mr Maka said that taking Tongan people from poor rural backgrounds, most of whom are unlikely to have travelled before to New Zealand and putting them into isolated rural settings without church or cultural networks, with alcohol as the default release mechanism and without real support is a recipe for disaster. The Pacific Division appears to wants the community organisations for endorsement but not as genuine partners in the design of the scheme. Some resources should have been made available for a basic safety net of social services.
“The Department cannot say that these problems were unforeseen” said Mr Maka, “we are looking at a tragic rerun of events under the infamous 1970 Tongan work scheme and an escalation of danger signs that were swept under the carpet from the seasonal work permit scheme.”
Unpaid public holiday pay
The council is also concerned that the RSE scheme, and seasonal work permits scheme before it, breached the provisions of the holidays act for workers working on public holidays. Few if any are paid on public holidays or have been paid time and half, paid for the day off, or given a paid day in lieu of they work them. The unpaid entitlements may already be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Other problems with Pacific
Division
There have also been recent signs
of other serious problems with the Pacific Division of the
Department. As the Tongan Advisory Council pointed out
before the Transport and Industrial Relations Select
Committee recently the Pacific Divisions breaches of policy
and fairness requirements in the residual places residence
category have led to an unprecedented 75% success rate in
appeals from such applications that Residence Review Board,
double the normal rate of successful appeals. Some of the
comments from the usually reserved Board have been scathing
of the Divisions blatant breaches of policy and procedure.
“The response seems to be more media management and spin instead of acknowledging a serious problem” said Mr Maka. The concern is that without legal aid or other advocacy many hundreds of other applicants may have been wrongly refused residence without knowing how to appeal. The Department’s ongoing refusal to fund basic advocacy for Pacific people means that for most avenues of redress such as the Ombudsmen or the Residence Review Board might as well be located at Scott Base Antarctica because they are completely out of reach.
Need for an immigration
commissioner and independent inquiry
Then
council is calling for the establishment of an independent
immigration commissioner with real legal “teeth” to
independently investigate and report on these issues with
advocates to assist vulnerable people to make
complaints.
In the meantime it is calling on the Government to launch an independent inquiry into the activities of the Pacific Division’s administration of both the residual places and RSE categories.
ENDS