Fenton Darien: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6773] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 8 of the Immigration Bill. Part 8 is an interesting part and it absorbed quite a lot of time of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee because of the clauses around the powers of immigration officers. In fact there were a large number of submissions on that issue and a great deal of concern and suspicion about it although I think and I hope that the select committee’s recommendations have managed to allay those concerns. 
Part 8 is a heavy-handed part of the bill—it is about compliance and information—although I have to say that many parts of the bill sound pretty heavy-handed when one reads them. When it comes to immigration there are some things we have to do that maybe do not always sit comfortably with us all and much of the debate tonight has been around that. 
The purpose of Part 8 is “(a) to confer on immigration officers the power to obtain information in order to allow the Department to—(i) detect immigration fraud or misrepresentation: (ii) identify persons failing to comply with immigration-related obligations including by breaching the conditions of their visas: (b) to confer on immigration officers the powers to assist in locating persons who are or may be liable for deportation: (c) to authorise the Department to share information with other persons and agencies to enable those persons or agencies to effectively administer and comply with legislation or to check eligibility for publicly funded services: (d) to confer on members of the police the powers described in paragraphs (a) and (b).” 
As I said the amendments sound fairly heavy-handed but they are absolutely necessary and they build on previous legislation. In going through the select committee process for the bill we saw that many of the things people were feeling fearful about are actually not new but are powers that have been described in previous legislation. 
One of the parts of Part 8 that I will talk about is clause 244(3) which states: “An immigration officer may—(a) enter any part of the employer’s premises in which the officer reasonably believes a wages and time record or any other document referred to … is kept; and (b) require the employer or the person appearing to have the record or document under that person’s control to produce that record or document for inspection; and (c) copy or require a person to provide a copy of any part of any record or document that is required to be produced to the officer.” 
There was a lot of discussion—and I think it comes further on in the bill—about the responsibilities of employers in employing people whom they may well in good faith have taken on to their payroll believing that they had the right to work in New Zealand. There was a lot of feeling from employers that the sorts of powers whereby immigration officers can come in and search their premises and demand wage and time records are a bit unreasonable. We had a lot of discussion about that issue in the select committee and we looked at a whole range of things we could try to implement to make it easier for employers to find out whether people they are employing are legally in New Zealand. We looked at whether the Inland Revenue Department could offer some sort of complementarity and so on. I support that idea. I do not want to see employers being punished unnecessarily but this is a very important part of Part 8 because we do not want to see in New Zealand the rise of illegal immigrants workers being exploited in workplaces workers being taken on by employers and not being paid the minimum wage and other requirements of New Zealand law and workers who are not being treated properly. We have seen a little bit of that— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Like cleaners. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Yes we will talk about cleaners tomorrow; it will be very interesting. It is a good day tomorrow to talk about cleaners. 
We have had some instances of underground sweatshops in New Zealand. We have had some examples of that in the past. We do not want to see sweatshops growing in New Zealand. We do not want to see a situation where workers are taken on by employers and used because of their vulnerable situation. We are at risk of that at the moment because we have many migrant workers who are in a very vulnerable position whereby they have had work permits they have been made redundant they have been given a month or whatever it is to leave the country and they are waiting to hear whether they are able to stay in the country. Many of them are saying: “I would rather work underground in New Zealand than go back to my country because I left my country some time ago. I gave up my job. I gave up my family. I have set down roots in New Zealand and my children are at school.” In those circumstances workers are very vulnerable. I would hate to see a growing underground sweatshop economy develop in New Zealand. 
I support Part 8 of the Immigration Bill. Even though it might be inconvenient for employers to have to go through the process of having to prove that workers are here legally and are able to work I think that inconvenience in the end is for the good of the employers the workers and New Zealand as a whole. Thank you.