8th April 2009
SHEEP SHEARING FARCE THREATENS ANIMAL WELFARE CRISIS
The new immigration rules to bring essential New Zealand and Australian sheep shearers into the country are fast descending into farce, says Jill Hewitt, Chief Executive of the National Association of Agricultural Contractors.
Currently UK officials are expecting expert Kiwi shearers now working in the United States to return home to New Zealand for a three-minute biometric test and identity check and then wait for up to 12 weeks while the British consular service clears their paperwork to allow them into the UK.
"For decades many Kiwi and Ozzy shearers have traditionally followed the same professional circuit each year... the US, then the UK, then back home to New Zealand and Australia. Now these same shearers are expected to waste hundreds of pounds on airfares and lose weeks of valuable work to go through virtually the same clearance process that they needed to complete to get into the States."
"I really cannot comprehend why this process cannot be carried out in the US. The shearers’ identity and fingerprints will not have altered so I really cannot understand why this ridiculous ruling appears to be in place. There seems very little logic and certainly no practical sense. Surely there must be a British or New Zealand consular service or equivalent that the shearers can visit in the US?"
“The start of sheep shearing in the UK is less than a month away and UK contractors are becoming really desperate to get their shearing teams assembled for the coming season,” said Jill Hewitt. “Some of our members have 75,000 sheep ahead of them in the coming months. If they fail to get these people, the welfare of many hundred thousand sheep will be put at great risk. Too few people in the UK are willing to tackle this demanding job so we are now totally dependent on these highly skilled people who can shear over 300 sheep a day.”
"In the past few months, our Members have gone through a long and expensive process to become registered sponsors under the new Border and Immigration Agency rules. New complications are appearing almost every day. I am now seriously worried that shearers will be put off from travelling to the UK. Both contractors and shearers are now so exasperated that they might be tempted to do something illegal. That is the last thing the NAAC and the UK Government want."