Trio who employed illegal workers jailed

Three directors of a Hawke's Bay company that employed illegal workers in orchards and vineyards between 2004 and 2006 have been jailed for three years.

Michael Wauchop Porter, 53, Miles Elliott, 45, and Dharminder "Bubbly" Singh, 42, directors of Contract Labour Services NZ Ltd (CLS), had previously admitted a representative charge of conspiring to aid and abet foreign nationals to stay and work in New Zealand illegally.

CLS was set up to provide labour at peak harvest periods in New Zealand orchards and vineyards.

The trio entered guilty pleas on the third day of a trial in Hastings in May, after an agreed summary of facts was negotiated. The trial had been expected to take more than five weeks.

A fourth accused, Surjit "Uncle" Singh, 62, the father of Dharminder Singh, who was employed as a clerk, was sentenced to nine months' home detention when the men appeared for sentence before Judge Russell Johnson in the High Court at Napier today.

The crown said CLS directors attempted to hide their use of illegal labour by operating two sets of accounts.

One set covered employees legally entitled to work and who paid tax on their earnings, while a second set involved the use of false invoices issued to fake sub-contractors to mask the hiring of illegal workers who were paid in cash with no deductions for tax.

CLS grouped the workers into an A list for workers with visas and work permits, and a B list for illegal workers. Crown prosecutor Clayton Walker said the now-liquidated company had employed illegal workers to meet seasonal labour shortfalls and had done so for commercial gain.

One crown witness, a former CLS employee, estimated that up to $100,000 a week in false invoices had been generated at peak periods.

Mr Walker said the offending permeated the whole company structure, starting from the three directors and involving staff at various levels of the firm.

"All were necessarily brought into involvement in the illegal activity," he said.

Illegal workers were told to avoid attracting the attention of police or other authorities and were often housed in remote areas to minimise the risk of being found by the Immigration Department.

Tony Snell, counsel for Dharminder Singh, said it was not a case of people smuggling or sweatshop labour, with many workers being paid relatively good money during picking seasons.

He said the offending had taken place against a backdrop of acute labour shortages and the use of illegal labour had allowed CLS to ensure picking contracts and timetables were met.

Peter Collins, counsel for Porter, said there had been an explosion in horticultural expansion during the period the company existed and pressure was put on the firm because not enough labour could be found locally.

Bill Calver, acting for Elliott, said his client "broadly knew what was going on" although he was not involved in hiring staff, or the financial side of the business.

CLS was not a company that set out to act illegally but came under pressure when demand for its business virtually trebled overnight.

"This was not a conspiracy where a group of people sat around a board table and worked out a plan," he told the court.

Judge Johnson said while there had been commercial pressure to provide labour at peak periods and a number of prominent industry figures had provided references, it would be a sad day when good citizens thought it was appropriate to meet such demands by indulging in criminal activity.

He said it was difficult to quantify in dollar terms the seriousness of the offending but it was clear that the accused had sought to circumvent a labour shortage in a cunning way.

- NZPA