Ni-Vanuatu seasonal workers

Seeka chief executive Michael Franks told the Ōpōtiki News last week that any workers from overseas who were out in public would have had no contact with the group who had been infected.

"We have had an instance where Ni-Vanuatu people who are not even contacts with Covid-19 have suffered some abuse in town for walking around in public. They've been called out by some locals. They're not even part of the RSE group that is affected."

The workers were to be sent to the Northern territory to work on mango farms and orchards.

However a farewell ceremony set for this morning was hastily cancelled with government minister Bruno Leingkon saying the Council of Ministers still needed to approve the pilot programme.

A Council paper was prepared by the Department of Labour over three weeks ago but the minsiters were only meeting today on the matter.

One issue is that the government had proposed not to resend ni-Vanuatu into Australia but transfer those already there to the Northern Territory.

Some of the men's families have lost shelter and crops yet received no aid, says Central Organics owner Maree Denniston. She's set up a Givealittle page to help them get essential services.

For over a decade, 20 ni-Vanuatu RSE workers have spent seven months of the year harvesting apple and cherries at Maree and Chris Denniston's Central Otago orchard.