Dawn Chorus for Wednesday, December 27

The pre-Christmas collapse of labour hire firm ELE Group has thrown up to 1,000 migrant workers into an awful limbo of being unable to get work elsewhere or the unemployment benefit. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

TL;DR: The collapse of ELE Group just before Christmas has again highlighted the unfairness and unsustainability of bringing in hundreds of thousands of workers on temporary work visas that keep them locked to one employer and locked out of our welfare system.

Hundreds of mostly Filipino construction workers, some with families and rolling on temporary visas for up to ten years, now face weeks without pay or the dole while they plead for special visas amid ongoing construction worker shortages. NZ Herald John Weekes NZ Herald-$$$ Anne Gibson

Elsewhere in the news this morning:

• A 300-home Kāinga Ora development in Wellington (Arlington) that was set to cost $1 million per unit and be built in 2023 has been put on hold because of escalating costs amid a funding and operational review; The Post-$$$ Tom Hunt

• ASB and BNZ joined ANZ in cutting fixed mortgage rates just before Christmas, passing on some of the 100 basis points of falls in wholesale interest rates in recent months and setting the housing market up for a fresh surge in 2024 as pro-landlord tax arrangements are finalised; RNZ and,

• Maersk announced on Christmas Even it would resume shipping through the Suez Canal and Red Sea after a US-led military deployment of warships was created to protect the movements of container ships and tankers from rocket and drone strikes from Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. Reuters

  

  Demolition of the Arlington social housing in 2020. The build of the replacement housing is now on hold. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty Images

Full paying subscribers can read and hear more detail in my Dawn Chorus podcast above and below the paywall fold. Join our community of paying subscribers to get access to ‘Hoon’ webinars, our private chat system and be able to comment on articles. Paying subscribers also support the public interest journalism we do at The Kākā on housing affordability, climate emissions and poverty.

ELE collapse highlights unfair and broken visa system