Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — Second Reading 
Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8370] 
Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I move  
That the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill be now read a second time 
. In speaking to the second reading of this bill I first extend my thanks to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. The committee has worked hard and given full consideration to the public submissions received. 
Most immigration advisers provide quality services that facilitate the entry of skilled migrants to New Zealand. Some however do not. Like many MPs in this House I have heard many stories of migrants being ripped off misled or taken for a ride by liars crooks and thieves calling themselves immigration advisers. These dishonest so-called advisers threaten and undermine— 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Does that include Taito? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: There will be no comments from the other side of the House about former Ministers please. These so-called advisers threaten and undermine the integrity of New Zealand’s immigration programme and they must be weeded out. The passing of this bill means that anyone providing immigration advice both onshore and offshore must hold a licence. Those who do not with some exceptions will be prosecuted. 
It is important to review the main aspects of the bill as considered by the select committee and the proposed changes that the committee has recommended. I turn first to the issue of the independence of the Immigration Advisers Authority. One of the major amendments to the bill is the establishment of the Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal which will be independent of the authority and administratively supported by the Ministry of Justice. The tribunal will consider all complaints about immigration advisers filed with it by the registrar and it will have disciplinary powers to impose sanctions on those immigration advisers. 
The implementation time frame for the bill has been reduced from 5 years to 3 years and I think that that is an excellent amendment. All offshore advisers must now be licensed after 3 years 1 year after their onshore counterparts. Some submitters were against the exemption for offshore education advisers. They thought students deserved the same protections offered by this bill as other migrants. That is an on-balance judgment but the exemption is to remain in place due to the competitive conditions of the international education sector at this time. The bill provides a process to remove the exemption for offshore education advisers should the need arise and competitive conditions permit. 
Exemptions for members of Parliament and their staff employees of the public service and foreign diplomats are now quite appropriately included in the bill and I thank the select committee for making those amendments. The select committee has limited the exemption of employees of the public service to only those who provide immigration advice within the scope of their employment. Practising lawyers remain exempt under the bill and this exemption has been elevated into the primary legislation. I note first that the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act of 2006 has enhanced complaints and disciplinary procedures for lawyers compared with those under the Law Practitioners Act of 1982. The New Zealand Law Society has indicated that it will work closely with the Immigration Advisers Authority when developing practice rules for standards of professional conduct in client care and ongoing legal education for practising lawyers who provide immigration advice. 
The bill requires the Minister of Justice to consult with the Minister of Immigration when considering those practice rules submitted by the New Zealand Law Society for approval. It is my intention that those Ministers will have careful regard for the need of migrants to have quality assurance in their legal advice. Should the arrangements fail to work satisfactorily the select committee has indicated that the exemption for practising lawyers should be reconsidered—a most balanced position. 
The select committee recognised that it would not be in the consumers’ interest for not-for-profit organisations to stop providing information to migrants because of the costs involved in getting a licence. Therefore an exemption is provided for individuals employed by or working as volunteers for citizens advice bureaus or community law centres. These organisations already have the appropriate safeguards to ensure the ethical conduct of individuals working for them. Individuals employed by or working as volunteers for any not-for-profit organisation will therefore not be charged a licensing fee. Further exemptions may be made by Order in Council and the process for recommending an exemption by Order in Council has been clarified. I believe that any further exemptions will need to follow a robust decision-making process. 
The list of classes of people prohibited from being licensed has been clarified so that a prohibition on licensing is linked to the term of disqualification under the companies legislation. The select committee recommended that individuals who have exercised powers of discretion on immigration matters such as former immigration officers and I say to Dr Smith former Ministers or Associate Ministers of Immigration would be prohibited from being licensed for a period of 12 months after they leave that role. What then will retiring National Ministers do for a living? This change will prevent former officeholders trading on their reputation and the perception of insider knowledge. I thank the select committee for making that suggestion. 
The bill has been clarified to allow the registrar to take into account a person’s disciplinary record in other occupations or professions—for example a lawyer who had been disciplined under the Law Practitioners Act of 1982. The bill now clarifies the process for cancellation and suspension of licences. The decision to suspend a licence during an investigation is now made independently by the Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal rather than the registrar. This is a serious sanction; therefore it is important that an independent body makes that decision. 
Changes have been made to the complaints and disciplinary processes. The complainant must specify one or more grounds that form the basis of the complaint. The decision of the registrar to dismiss a complaint because of its trivial nature or because none of the grounds of complaint are disclosed can now be appealed to the tribunal. In relation to sanctions the bill clarifies which payments must be made to the Crown and which must be made to the complainant or another person. 
In respect of inspection powers the bill clarifies that inspection powers may be used when investigating complaints. Inspection powers may be exercised in respect of former immigration advisers and when an entry warrant is required as part of an inspection the application for the warrant must be in writing—all very sensible stuff. 
I refer now to offences and penalties. There are changes to the way that offences are presented under the bill to ensure proper enforcement. Offences have been redrafted so that where the registrar has informed a person of a relevant fact—such as that the person is required to be licensed within the preceding 12 months—that person will be deemed to know that fact which is a knowledge offence. Changes are also made to clarify the nature of the offences. The defence of reasonable excuse has been clarified. A person has a reasonable excuse and does not commit an offence if they did not know that they were performing the act that constitutes the offence and if they took all reasonable care and due diligence to ensure that they did not perform such an act. 
The rights of appeal have been clarified. The right of appeal should be exercisable only by the person who was subject to a sanction. Following the notice of decision being communicated to any person subject to a decision an appeal must be made by giving notice in writing within 20 working days after that date. 
In conclusion the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill is critical to managing the growing immigration advisers industry. Immigration advisers help to facilitate the entrance of migrants to New Zealand and many—no doubt most—do an excellent job. However the liars crooks and thieves who seek to undermine our immigration programme must be weeded out. They must face consequences. This bill will help to achieve that goal. I believe that the bill is welcomed not only by migrants and by the broader community but also by most in the immigration consulting industry itself. As such I commend the bill to the House. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 It is not often I agree with the Hon David Cunliffe the Minister of Immigration but we do need migrants in this country. Of course we need them to replace the thousands of New Zealanders escaping from this Labour Government in New Zealand at the moment. In the last 12 months 22000 people have headed off to Australia to get away from the controlling tentacles of this Labour Government. 
In speaking to the second reading of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill I will not repeat the detail the Minister has given on what the bill does. In many ways for the National Opposition it was a matter of some judgment that we exercise in supporting this bill and its second reading. The dilemma is that the bill sets up yet more Government bureaucracy. This country is just being weighed down by a massive growth in Government bureaucracy but on balance we accept it is important that immigration consultants and advisers are registered. 
I congratulate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee on its examination of the legislation because originally as the Government had introduced the bill this bureaucracy was all to be part of the Department of Labour. I think that would have been very unfortunate because that department has a few problems on its hands. It is not one of our most successful departments in my view. It made a lot of sense for the select committee to recommend that the complaints and disciplinary tribunal now be established within the Ministry of Justice and the bill has been altered accordingly. Having that kind of independence from the Department of Labour is a smart move and I congratulate the select committee on doing that. 
Also National listened to what the people making submissions had to say about the bill. It is worth noting that I think all submitters including immigration consultant groups supported the thrust of the legislation—that immigration consultants and advisers should be licensed. So National’s having listened to that helped it to support this legislation. 
One issue that the Minister mentioned still needs further thought—that is the restraint of trade. To suggest that certain people should not be able to be immigration consultants or advisers for a period of time such as former Ministers or employees of Immigration New Zealand is an unnecessary constraint of trade. I was once an Associate Minister of Immigration. I have no desire to be an immigration consultant. I guess that after having handled as a constituency MP so many immigration cases I have no desire to be an immigration consultant. But to have legislation imposing that kind of restraint of trade is not necessary and I think that my good colleague Pansy Wong may move an amendment during the Committee stage so that members have the chance to reconsider that issue. 
So with some of those concerns about the risk of adding yet more to the massively burgeoning bureaucracy under this Labour Government I think that there will be pluses from this legislation—as long as the establishment of this process to register and license immigration consultants is kept efficient. National will support this legislation but we will be making sure that as it is implemented the bureaucracy and bureaucratic requirement is kept to a minimum. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I stand to speak in this second reading debate on the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill. This is one of the bills that it gives me a great deal of pleasure to have been part of putting together. Although not a lot of members of the public will listen to this debate with great interest—many would ask what Parliament is on about in terms of licensing immigration advisers—I am pretty sure a significant number of electorate agents of MPs up and down the country will be sitting listening tonight and applauding this Parliament for the work it has done in this area. 
I say that in great seriousness. The workload for many many MPs with constituencies is heavily weighted towards immigration. Certainly up and down the country our electorate agents do sterling work in dealing with the mess that is created in the area of immigration. Much of that mess will be taken care of we hope with the passing of this bill. 
The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee heard a lot of evidence. I congratulate all those members who sat on the committee during the hearing of that evidence and the consideration of the bill. The select committee members did that with a great deal of self-interest in terms of trying to clean up the mess that MPs’ offices too often have to clean up. I could probably sit here and read out a list of names of the consultants and lawyers in my patch who cause us great strife but I have only 10 minutes. I also know that the Standing Orders really do discourage us from naming members of the public in the House but I am tempted. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Even though that lawyer over on that side of the House David Bennett fought valiantly for his union interests in terms of the legal profession we did very carefully consider whether lawyers should be brought into the coverage of this bill. I think it was a very close decision on that one for those of us who are not lawyers. We looked across the Tasman where for instance lawyers are in fact caught by the regulatory process and we were tempted—sorely tempted. I cannot say it was the power of argument from David Bennett that swayed us; it was more the advice we had from officials in terms of looking at the recent change of law in respect of lawyers. 
The members of the select committee have sent out a clear warning to members of the legal profession that we trust them to take care of this issue in their own way under their legislation but that a future Parliament will not look kindly upon them if they fail to do that job properly. I say that with all seriousness. Many of the lawyers who came before the select committee who were practising as immigration consultants rather than as lawyers encouraged us to have lawyers covered by this bill. But in the end we accepted the advice of the officials and lawyers are exempted by the bill. 
One of the other good parts about the select committee process was the series of submissions from the not-for-profit sector. In particular I congratulate the people from the Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux who made an excellent submission and the people from the community law centres who put their case very well and asked for the exemption to be specifically placed in the law rather than taken care of later by an Order in Council. I absolutely agree with that position. I think the select committee made a wise choice there. We heard about the significant amount of work that citizens advice bureau volunteers do in the area of immigration advice. We did not want to interfere with that. Volunteers would have been in the situation of having to exit from that area altogether if they were not exempted. We can imagine the flood of work going into MP’s offices that would have occurred if that had happened. I offer my congratulations to the Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux on its very good submission and to the select committee members on taking note of it as we have in our report. 
The select committee looked at the whole question of offshore education advisers. Again many questions were raised. I remember Pansy Wong raising this issue a great deal in her work on the committee. Once again we wanted to be convinced that there should be an exemption if you like for those people to leave them out of the coverage of the bill. We will have to wait and see and it will be a matter for future Parliaments to consider because—as Pansy Wong said—quite a considerable amount of immigration advice goes on behind the scenes with those people. But we took account of the fact that we operate in an international environment and that to regulate in this area would have put us outside the mainstream as far as the rest of the world was concerned. We certainly do not want to put our very good international education industry at risk. 
I will comment on the other thing raised by Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith around the coverage of people who were formerly Ministers or people who had worked in the immigration area for the Department of Labour. We heard submissions from in particular representatives of the Federation of Ethnic Councils I think it was—or certainly representatives of the ethnic community—about their concerns about people who have worked for the Immigration Service and who almost immediately after they have left the job have set up as immigration advisers and have advertised the fact that they are former Immigration Service officials. Those people are seeking an advantage if you like by portraying to their prospective customers that they have the inside running having freshly come out of the Immigration Service. We also know from personal experience as MPs that some of the people who have come straight out of the Immigration Service have actually performed very badly as immigration advisers. 
 The issue is not that we do not want former Immigration Service officials to use their knowledge down the track but we want to take away the perceived advantage that they have with their customer base and the sort of impression they give that they can get immigration cases through where others cannot because of their contacts within the Immigration Service. So it was an important issue to consider and it is no doubt one that will be debated in the Committee stage. But I think on balance we got it right even though there was some disagreement in the select committee and in the report. 
Equally to go back to the concept of exemptions—and the not-for-profit sector obviously succeeded in its desire to have that exemption—we also had to look at the question of MPs their staff and public servants who were exempted entirely by the original bill and to ask whether that should be the case. We have changed it so that the exemption will apply to MPs and their staff—and so it should—but we have narrowed the definition of public servants who can give advice without being covered by this law. I think that is also a sensible and wise decision. 
As Dr Smith said one of the other important changes made by the committee was to make sure that the appearance of independence by means of an immigration advisers complaints and disciplinary tribunal was not only an appearance but also a reality. I believe that the move to have that administratively supported by the Ministry of Justice answered the criticism—the valid criticism—of most submitters. In fact I think all submitters asked us to look at that. 
Bringing the implementation time frame down from 5 years to 3 years is absolutely necessary. We have had for far too many years dodgy practices poor operators bad rip-offs and all sorts of shenanigans going on in the area of immigration advice. Virtually anybody could just hang up a sign and say he or she was an immigration adviser charge enormous amounts of money and quite often take things like passports and documents off their customers and never return them. The stories are legendary and very sad. Many many people have ended up in this country illegally because of the poor advice and poor service of the people whom we seek to regulate here. 
I thank the select committee for its good work and I also commend the bill to the House and look forward to its passing. 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 I would like to speak very very briefly in support of the second reading of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Another lawyer! 
KATE WILKINSON 
: I confess that I was a lawyer practising immigration law somewhat. 
I have to say that the bill is not perfect by any means but I certainly do not intend to repeat what previous speakers have said; they have gone into great detail as to what is in the bill and we do not need to repeat that. 
Immigration advisers have a pivotal role to play and I do not think we can overemphasise that. People rely on immigration advisers when making life-changing decisions. Many want to come to New Zealand and be as privileged as we are to call it home. They may sell up their belongings sell their houses and travel miles and miles to get here relying on advice that says that when they get here they can live here study here work here or visit here. The integrity of our whole system relies on the integrity of those immigration advisers. By licensing those advisers albeit with some exemptions this bill puts some checks and balances in place—some competency standards some complaint procedures and some disciplinary procedures. 
My colleague Dr Lockwood Smith mentioned the level of bureaucracy that may arise from this bill and I am somewhat concerned about this issue. We must be wary to ensure that it does not like many other departments grow and grow into a monster. I hope that the bill will improve and raise the standard of immigration advice in New Zealand but that the cost of such a standard is not overshadowed by another bloated bureaucracy. 
That is all I really need to say in taking this brief call. We support the second reading of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Much has been said on this Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill and I share the view of my National colleague so I do not intend to repeat the detail but this bill has been a long time in coming. It is an important bill because although some immigration advisers are obviously very good and on top of their game some others tend to give the impression that they are somewhat lacking in the knowledge and detail of how they apply their competency—if they have any at all. 
I have to say to the Hon Mark Gosche that it is not only constituency MPs who sort out the mess that is quite often left by poorly informed poorly educated or lazy immigration consultants. Just recently I had the case—I say recently; it was late last year—of a very fine guy and a family. He showed me the accounts he had got from a particular immigration adviser and the advice came down to: “I do not know and I cannot help at all. Try someone else.” He went to someone else and was told that the first adviser had put him totally crook that he should now do something different and that the second adviser would do it for him. That got him nowhere and ultimately in his desperation he came to see me. It took about 10 minutes to fix it yet this guy had paid the best part of $20000 in getting that advice. 
An immigration adviser has an important role. It is an important role for immigrants but it is also an important role for this country as a whole. We do not want immigrants coming here who are being mucked around and who are being made illegal immigrants in some cases when they have come here in good faith to play a working part in and to make a valued contribution to the country. 
National MPs have touched on the issue of our having too much bureaucracy. I do not believe that this bill has produced too much bureaucracy. In fact it is better to have a little more bureaucracy than to have too many illegal immigrants or frustrated immigrants or to have people’s lives mucked up because of incompetent people. This bill imposes a standard and it imposes a disciplinary regime. 
It is true that we looked at the situation of lawyers and some of us were very very cautious in giving lawyers the exemption that this bill does in fact award them. But the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee made it quite clear that we want to see lawyers toeing the line acting properly and professionally and taking care of their disciplinary measures under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act. If they fail on that account then we believe that Parliament must relook at the lawyers’ exemption. 
This bill is essential. This country must handle its immigration problems and its people sensitively and fairly. Some of the immigration advisers we have handling these issues at the moment are a long way short of handling them competently and fairly. New Zealand First supports this bill. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou i tenei po. A i nga rima tau kua hipa i te putanga o te Komihana Whakatau Tikanga Tangata ara a Greg Fortuin; nana te korero he wero tonu a hunga manene nei mo te noho i Aotearoa nei. I korero ia mo tona mana tuku iho mai i Awherika i te Tonga a e penei ana tana: “My heritage is a gift I had no say in. I’ll always be proud of who I am but I’ll embrace the identity of my new homeland. It’s just damn difficult to know what the identity of my new homeland is.” 
Koia nei kei te putake o tenei take. I te wa i korero Te Torangapu Maori i te panuitanga tuatahi i korero tonu matou mo te hunga manuhiri e hara mai ana ki Aotearoa nei mai i marakiraki i matongatonga i nga topito katoa o te ao. Ko te korero i korerohia ara ko tera o roto i nga whainga matua o Te Torangapu Maori e ki ana mena ka whakatuwherahia te kuaha ki taua hunga me kaha tiaki me kaha tautoko tatou i a ratou. Ka mutu i a tatou e manaaki ana i a ratou kaua tatou e whakatutu i nga taiapa ki te hunga manuhiri kia kitea pu nei e taua hunga i te ahuatanga o to ratou kainga hou. Ko ta matou ke e penei ana. Ko te tiaki ko te manaaki i te tangata he mea tuitui kia noho tahi i runga i nga kaupapa me nga tikanga kei roto tonu i te taonga nei o te motu Te Tiriti o Waitangi.  
Kei te putake o tenei pire ko nga korero rangatira nei hei awhi i enei manuhiri kua tau mai ki Aotearoa nei. Kati me pehea e taea ai te whakakaha nei i te i ingoa o Aotearoa hei wahi noho ki te kore tatou o Aotearoa nei i te mohio ko wai hoki tatou?  
Kua oti ke i a James Chang tenei take te titiro. I hara mai ia ki Aotearoa nei i a ia e tamariki ana. Kua ata tirohia e ia ko te noho o te hunga Ahia i tenei whenua. Hei tana mahi rangahau ko te wahanga tuatahi hei tirohanga ma te hunga Ahia ko tera e pa ana ki te noho i Aotearoa nei me te noho ano nei no tenei whenua tuturu koe.  
Me noho ko Te Tiriti o Waitangi ki te putake o to tatou paho ki te ao nei ae he whenua motuhake te whenua nei. Ae ra hoki! Ko taua Tiriti tonu i tangohia mai e te Minita Matauranga i te marautanga o nga kura; ko taua Tiriti tonu na te waimarie i whakahokia e te tumuaki o te Tahuhu o te Matauranga; ko taua Tiriti tonu i te 26 o Hongongoi i te tau kua hipa i puta te whakatau o nga Mema 50 o Reipa me ki ko te katoa o nga Maori o taua ropu tonu kia ukui katoa i nga ture o te motu. 
Kei reira tonu kei  
Hansard 
 te korero i te marama o Hongongoi i te tau kua hipa ara 111 i whakaae ki te ukui i nga whainga matua o te Tiriti o Waitangi ko Reipa 50 Nahinara 48 Aotearoa Tuatahi e 7 United Future e 3 Act e 2 Progressive 1 a 10 noa iho i whakahe. Ko nga Kakariki e 6 me te 4 o Te Torangapu Maori.  
Koia nei Te Tiriti i korerohia e Takuta Ranginui Walker me tana ki koia nei te whainga matua tüturu ake mo nga take kaiheke. Hei ta Ranginui Walker ma te Tiriti ka taea e nga manene o tawahi te uru mai ki Aotearoa ahakoa no hea ratou. Ko te hohonutanga o te Tiriti he mea hei momo kirimana o te noho tahi o nga tikanga e rua ara ko te Karauna me te Maori. Kei tona putake ko te tumanako tonu ko tera e ki ana ko te tikanga a te Tiriti nei ka korero ngatahi te Maori me te Karauna mo nga take katoa e pa ana ki te noho o iwi ke ki Aotearoa nei.  
Kei te noho tino marama te tangata whenua ki nga whakatau o te hunga na ratou te Tiriti i tamoko i te tau 1840. I marama tonu nga hoa haere e rua i nga panga nui ki te whenua ki te ao Maori. I te mohio tonu te hunga hanga i te Tiriti i tona timatanga ka whakatauria e taua Tiriti ko nga kawa a-noho mo nga uri o te Whare o Wikitoria hei whakanui i nga tikanga nga ture nga taonga tuku iho o te tangata whenua hei karo i nga mahi taurekareka ka whai mai i muri.  
Ko ta tenei pire he whakariterite i nga tikanga mo te hunga e tuku korero nei mo nga take kaiheke. Hangai tonu ana te pire nei ki nga kaitohutohu i Aotearoa nei i tawahi ranei kia orite o ratou tikanga whakahaere. He mea nui tera ara kia orite nga tikanga whakahaere ka mutu hei te wahanga komiti nei ka kokiri matou ko tetahi pepa hei whakapiri atu kia pumau tonu te whakaaro kia kaha tautoko nga kaiawhina i te hunga kaiheke i to ratou mohiotanga ki Te Tiriti o Waitangi me ta ratou ako i nga tikanga me Te Reo Maori. Ki ta matou o Te torangapu Maori he timatanga pai tenei penei i ta James Chang e korero nei kia hanga i tetahi wananga a-noho a-tikanga hoki hei awhina i te hunga kaiheke ara ko te hunga korero i tetahi reo i tua atu o te reo Pakeha ki te ahuatanga o te ao Maori. Tera pea he whakaaro pai tenei mo etahi atu o nga iwi kua noho ki Aotearoa nei mo nga whakatipuranga e wha e rima ranei.  
E te Kaihautu hangai tonu ana to matou titiro i tenei pire kia pumau te wahanga o Te Tiriti o Waitangi i roto i nga tohutohu a te tari hekenga a-iwi. Ehara i te mea ko te tangata whenua anake e hiki nei i te Tiriti ki tona taumata. E ai ki ta Te Komihana Whakatika Tangata rangahau kei te tipu tonu te maramatanga me te tuturutanga o te Tiriti i te ngakau o Aotearoa whanui. 
Engari kei te rongo ano hoki matou i nga nawe i nga awangawanga o te hunga tuku korero ki te Komiti Whaiti ara ki te Komiti Transport and Industrial Relations. Ara nga maharahara nui mo te koretake o nga tohutohu ki te hunga tono ko te noho maharahara rangirua ranei na nga mahi huna a nga kaiawhina tae atu ki te tono kia whakaritea tonu i nga taumata orite. Ko tona tumanako ka ata titiro Te Ropu Tohutohu a-Kaiheke nei ki enei nawe ki enei maharahara i a ia e whakahaere ana i nga tikanga whakaae a ko te hanga me te whakamatau o nga taumata orite tae atu ki tetahi kawa mo nga kaiawhina. 
Hei ta te Kaunihera Wahine a-Motu i ta ratou tuhinga me kaha tonu te whakawhitiwhiti korero me te wananga i enei taumata. I tapirihia atu e te komiti whaiti tetahi atu korero ano ara he tutohu tonu kia tu he tira whakatau nei i nga nawe me nga tikanga whakahau. No reira ka whakatauria e te pire tetahi Taraipiunara Whakatika Nawe Whakahau Ano Hoki hei ropu i tona ake mana. I te taraipiunara me nga wananga mo nga taumata orite ko ta Te Torangapu Maori e ki nei me rongo i nga tumanako me te reo o te tangata whenua. 
No reira koia nei kei te putake o tetahi Korero Tapiri nei ka whakatakotoria e Te Torangapu Maori. Ko ta matou ko te whakarite i tetahi Kaunihera Maori hou ko tana mahi ko te ata wherawhera i nga take hangai tonu ana ki te haerenga mai o nga manuhiri me tona panga ki te Maori. 
Ko tetahi wahanga o nga mahi o tenei Kaunihera Maori hou ko te ata arotake i te ture hekenga e ai ki ta te Tiriti titiro ka mutu na tona piringa ki Te Ropu Kaitohutohu a-Hekenga Nui ko tana mahi ko te tohutohu i a ratou i roto i te ahuatanga o Te Tiriti me Te Reo. Ma te Kaunihera nei ka mahea ake nga maharahara o te ao Maori ara ko era kua roa e noho tarewa ana. He aha era? Ko te aukati i te ao Maori i nga korero tautohetohe i nga wananga mo te noho a etahi atu i tenei whenua! 
I nga tekau ma rua tau kua hipa neke atu i puta te whakatau o te Kaunihera o te Kotahitanga o te Hahi Weteriana me te Perehipitiriana e penei ana tana: 
 “ 
Recognising that Maori Treaty rights have had no place in the development of this country’s immigration policy conference request the Government to place an embargo on further immigration until te iwi Maori have a partnership say on future immigration policy. 
” 
Kia kitea mai ai i nga painga o te nohotahi me whai wahi nga hoa haere ki te korero kia rongo ano hoki tetahi i tetahi. Ko tenei piri he mea pai tonu hei whakatika i nga uauatanga o nga 160 tau kua hipa ara ko nga mahi aro kore mahi aukati i nga whakatau a-kaiheke nei. Ko tenei pire he mea kua roa e taria ana kia tau noa nga maharahara e hia ke nei ara ko era e aukati nei i te Maori i nga whakatau a-hunga manuhiri kore korero ki te Maori kore paku aro mai. 
Hei whakamutu atu tera pea koi nei te whakatinanatanga o tenei mea o te rangatiratanga he whakaaturanga o tenei mea o te manaakitanga me te wa tika hei whakanui i te wairua o te nohotahi e tumanakohia ana i roto tonu i Te Tiriti o Waitangi. No reira ka tautoko matou i tenei pire ka mutu ka akiaki tonu i etahi wahanga i te wananga a-komiti nei. Kia ora tatou. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Deputy Speaker and to us this evening. Five years ago the outgoing Race Relations Conciliator Gregory Fortuin described the challenge as an immigrant of being a good citizen in Aotearoa. He talked of his birthright as a South African and I quote: 
“My heritage is a gift I had no say in. I’ll always be proud of who I am but I’ll embrace the identity of my new homeland. It’s just damn difficult to know what the identity of my new homeland is.” 
And this indeed is the crux of this issue. When the Maori Party spoke at the bill’s first reading we talked about migrants coming to Aotearoa from the north the south and all corners of the world. We talked about the policy of the Maori Party which is that if we open the door to migrants we should also work hard to look after them. And looking after them is not about making it damn difficult for the new arrivals to know what their new homeland is like. What we are really saying is that looking after them is about being united and bound through the values and aspirations embedded in our founding document the Treaty of Waitangi.  
The focus of this bill is the provision of quality immigration advice to assist these visitors who have arrived here in New Zealand. Yet how can we enhance the reputation of New Zealand as a migrant destination without promoting and recognising who we really are? 
James Chang has looked at this issue. He emigrated here to New Zealand in his early teens. He has studied the impact on Asians of living here. His research pointed to a constructive first step being for Asian immigrants to become more educated about issues related to New Zealand and what it meant to be a New Zealander. 
The Treaty of Waitangi should be the core of our marketing of this country to the world when we say that yes it is a unique destination. Yes indeed! It is that same Treaty that the Minister of Education removed from the curriculum for schools; that same Treaty that the chief executive of the Ministry of Education fortunately put back; the same Treaty that on 26 July last year all 50 Labour MPs including the entire number of Maori members of that party ruled be removed from all laws of the country. 
That is recorded in  
Hansard 
 where it is  
clearly stated that in July last year 111 members voted in favour of removing the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The voting was New Zealand Labour 50 New Zealand National 48 New Zealand First 7 United Future 3 ACT New Zealand 2 Progressive 1 and just 10 opposed it—Greens 6 and the Maori Party 4. 
T 
his is the Treaty that Dr Ranginui Walker referred to as containing the founding principles for matters relating to immigration. According to Dr Walker the Treaty will enable immigrants to enter New Zealand regardless of where they are from. The profound nature of the Treaty is to have a form of social contract that will enable two cultures that of the Crown and of Maori to exist side by side. 
At its very core was the expectation that according to the meaning of this Treaty Maori and the Crown as Treaty partners should consult with each other on every aspect concerning migrants who wish to reside here in New Zealand. 
Maori still have a very clear understanding of the intentions of the Treaty signatories in 1840. Both parties recognise the significant impact on the land and the world of the Maori. Architects of the Treaty were aware at its conception that what the Treaty represented would establish a precedent in terms of how the British Empire recognised the culture rights traditions and way of life of indigenous peoples as a means of fending off subsequent scandalous actions. 
This bill sets up a licensing regime for all people providing immigration advice. It applies to advisers both resident and offshore setting benchmarks. It is the critical importance of establishing benchmarks that will lead us to introducing at the Committee stage a Supplementary Order Paper to ensure that advisers are equipped to support migrants in understanding the Treaty and learning about Maori customs and the language. We the Maori Party believe that a constructive first step as James Chang concluded would be to develop a social and cultural programme that would assist prospective migrants especially second-language speakers of English to understand Maori perspectives. Perhaps this is a good idea for other New Zealanders who may have been here for four or five generations to consider. 
In this bill we are focusing on ensuring that the provision of immigration advice reflects the significance of the Treaty. And it is not just Maori who reflect this significance of the Treaty. Human Rights Commission research shows a growing knowledge of and commitment to the Treaty by New Zealanders generally. 
But we also note the complaints and concerns referred to in many of the submissions to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Huge concerns prevail over the poor quality of advice given the risk to clients who are being left unnecessarily vulnerable by the actions of unscrupulous advisers and the consistent call for the establishment of competency standards. It is hoped that the Immigration Advisers Authority will address these complaints and concerns through the administration of the licensing regime the development and monitoring of competency standards and the creation of a code of conduct for advisers. 
The National Council of Women in its submission suggested that a robust consultation process should occur in the development of these standards and be debated. The select committee added an extra layer recommending a governance entity for complaints and disciplinary proceedings. So the bill will set up the Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal as an autonomous body. In both this tribunal and in the consultation process around competency standards the Maori Party would suggest that Maori aspirations views and voices be part of this process. This therefore will be the substance of another Supplementary Order Paper that the Maori Party will introduce to the debate. We will be looking to create a new Maori immigration council which will examine issues related to immigration and its impact on Maori. 
As part of this brief the Maori immigration council would review immigration legislation from a Treaty of Waitangi perspective and through direct representation on the Immigration Advisers Authority advise them on matters relating to the Treaty and te reo. Such a council will go part of the way to resolving longstanding Maori concerns. What concerns? Being locked out of any debate and dialogue about who else should live upon this land! 
Twelve or so years ago the Council of Conference Joint Methodist-Presbyterian Public Relations Committee concluded that:  
“Recognising that Maori Treaty rights have had no place in the development of this country’s immigration policy conference request the Government to place an embargo on further immigration until te iwi Maori have a partnership say on future immigration policy.” 
For accrued benefits of any partnership to be seen there must be involvement by partners in discussions and hearing from each other. This bill gives us our best opportunity to right the wrongs of the past 160 years of being in a state of ignorance and being shut out of these immigration decisions. This bill may be the long-awaited chance to finally address longstanding concerns where immigration policies have been made at the expense of Maori without consultation with Maori and being completely ignored. 
By way of concluding this may be the embodiment of this thing called self-determination a demonstration perhaps of this thing called hospitality the proper moment to magnify the spirit of partnership that was the expectation in the Treaty of Waitangi. In this light we will support the bill and will eagerly debate parts of it at the Committee stage that follows. Greetings to us 
.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the second reading of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill. The first thing I want to say is that although I really respect our colleagues from the Maori Party and their contributions I strongly refute that this Government designs its immigration policies around endeavouring to defeat the Treaty or for that matter enrolment on the Maori roll. It was a pleasure to serve on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee under the excellent leadership of Mark Gosche and I congratulate the committee. 
I have been an MP for only 18 months but like all MPs I have come across some pretty awful examples of what has been going on in the community without the regulation of immigration advisers or consultants. We have all dealt with what seems to me to be a disproportionate number of immigration cases involving immigration consultants or advisers where we have been left to clean up the mess. Most MPs will have come across cases of immigration consultants overcharging and giving inappropriate advice that ends up costing both the taxpayer and the applicants; and in some cases legal documents including passports have gone missing or they have been held unlawfully. In some cases there has been outright fraud. 
I acknowledge that there are many responsible immigration advisers who provide a professional and very necessary service but the fact is that some have been exploiting people at a time when they are most vulnerable. One example that came to my attention was of a man who took on an ever-increasing number of cases completely beyond his competence to deal with and who lied to those people relying on his advice about what he was doing. Eventually this caused those people to move into an unlawful immigration status. To cap it all off large numbers of passports went missing and for all anyone knows they have ended up on the black market somewhere in the world. 
In some of the worst cases I have heard of unscrupulous consultants have resorted to threatening the people involved that if they complain they will have them arrested and removed from the country and their families blacklisted or jailed. These victims have handed over their hard-earned savings to these so-called consultants and they lose not only their money and funds from family members but also their chance to gain residence. 
In other cases migrants are given false hope through misinformation or poor advice for outrageously high fees. Some potential business migrants have been very badly ripped off. All kinds of scams have been uncovered over the years including dodgy offers of employment. I came across someone who had been charged $35000 for bad advice where only three or four letters had been written and the application never filed. 
Immigration consultants or advisers are often the first point of contact for intending migrants and when they have bad experiences it reflects badly on New Zealand. If the first contact reveals unprofessional or unconscionable behaviour then we all suffer. Stories of unscrupulous immigration advice can hit the headlines in other countries. This impacts on New Zealand’s reputation overseas and our ability to attract people in a very competitive world market for skilled migrants. These stories also resonate throughout migrant communities that are already settled in New Zealand and our reputation for fairness is eroded. 
The fact is that it has just been too easy for people to set themselves up as immigration experts to take money from unsuspecting people to give them inappropriate advice and in some cases to abscond with people’s money leaving ruined lives behind them. In other cases inexperience or incompetence from well-meaning people has led to cases being mishandled and it has caused an overload of a system that actually works very well. 
The Labour-led Government has refocused New Zealand’s immigration programme to facilitate the entry of those migrants who are best placed to contribute to the New Zealand economy. While doing this we also need to meet our obligations as a good international citizen of course without compromising our country’s security. We have also moved to ensure that new migrants have the support they need to settle effectively in New Zealand. 
I acknowledge the former Minister of Immigration Lianne Dalziel and of course the current Minister of Immigration David Cunliffe. Lianne began the process of this legislation as soon as she became Minister of Immigration. Although some will say this has taken too long there has been a very robust process to bring us to where we are today and doing things well does take time. 
During the select committee process the parties worked together to generally improve the bill. It is gratifying that all parties on the select committee now agree on the need for regulation within this industry. 
I hate to say it but National did have a chance to fix this in 1999 following years of intensive lobbying from the responsible immigration practitioners and from Labour and immigration officials. But National voted against the legislation in 1999. Bill Birch and Max Bradford—do members remember them—Ministers of Immigration in the former National Government insisted that the free market was the best mechanism for immigration consultancy. So the problems continued to worsen throughout the 1990s. However times do move on and so does the National Party it seems or at least in some things. It seems to be adopting more and more of our good ideas. 
The select committee process was a very interesting and constructive one with many concerns expressed by submitters being taken on board and the bill amended accordingly. I will mention some of the amendments that the select committee is recommending. They have been rehearsed by other speakers but these are ones that particularly resonated with me. The first is around exemptions from licensing. In addition to MPs it is vitally important that our electorate staff are exempt because they are the front-line representatives of MPs and deal with a large amount of immigration casework. I take the opportunity here to acknowledge those front-line staff out in the community who work for all of us. They do a huge amount of work and have been dealing with some very difficult issues in immigration in particular. 
The committee also felt that the exemption for other public servants was way too broad so we are recommending an amendment to limit exemptions to public servants who provide immigration advice within the scope of their employment agreement. As mentioned before there was a lot of debate about whether lawyers should continue to be exempt as intended by the original bill. I was one of those in the select committee who was sceptical about this—with all due respect to my lawyer colleagues on the other side of the House. That is because lawyers have been among those who have provided poor immigration service or advice. There was also a view that having a different system of complaints for lawyers could cause a perception that they are subject to a lesser or less accessible standard. However we were assured that the complaints and disciplinary process under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act will be an improvement on the previous system under the Law Practitioners Act. I guess this is a question of watch this space and see whether it works. 
Another area of amendment I want to mention is in regard to the not-for-profit sector which is not exempt from the original licensing requirements of the bill. I join Mark Gosche in congratulating the Citizens Advice Bureaux and the community law centres that put forward a very strong case to be exempted. I think we all accepted that they have a very high standard of service and properly trained employees and volunteers and that they are an essential service to the community and therefore should be exempt from the licensing requirements of the bill. The core of this bill is the requirement for people who provide immigration advice — 
Simon Power 
: Speak from the heart; throw the notes away. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Oh! How about that? —to be able to prove competency and to be fit to practise. That is the core of the bill. This I believe along with the other parts and amendments to the bill will ensure the regulation of immigration advisers and will help put an end to some of the problems that intending migrants have encountered over the years. Good immigration consultants have been crying out for this regulation in what is actually a highly specialised area of expertise in which advice can easily be wrong. They want to see the industry cleaned up. 
Simon Power 
: Throw the notes away; speak from the heart. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: I am. They want to see the industry cleaned up and become an industry that is valued and recognised as contributing to our society and to our international reputation. This Labour-led Government understands that a sustainable well-managed immigration programme is key to New Zealand’s economic transformation. This bill is part of that. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 The Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill is legislation National has no problem in supporting. The reasoning behind the legislation has not been looked at tonight though. The immigration advice industry is one that does not have the ability to self-regulate. If one looks at industries such as the legal or accounting professions one can see they are essentially self-regulated. This industry does not have that ability so the Government has had to come in and regulate it through this programme. That is why there has been a little bit more bureaucracy than we would want to see; essentially if we want to have regulation of immigration advisers then we have to do it through the Government. 
Another issue that the Maori Party has brought up has been immigration in New Zealand in a wider context. This bill will not actually deal with that issue. The wider immigration debate that the Minister David Cunliffe will be looking at I am sure will have much more effect on that issue. But there is one thing I think we have to look at in this modern world which is that immigration is inevitable. We live in a part of the world where there are 4 billion people on our doorstep. If even 1 percent of that group wanted to come to New Zealand there would be a huge demographic change. If we go to the western seaboard of the US we see its demographics have changed completely. That is inevitable for New Zealand. It is only a matter of time before we have such change in this country; it is part of our growth as an international country. 
There are some other facets of the legislation that I think we need to look at. The lawyers exemption is a good exemption. Lawyers are probably under a stricter regime than immigration consultants because of the Acts they have to go through. Therefore giving lawyers an exemption is not a problem because they have a stricter regime to follow anyway. 
The community groups exemption originally was not on a non-profit basis. National brought in that profit test. It a very good test because it separates community groups from non-community groups. Non-community groups are those that are advising as a business enterprise. 
However the definition in this bill of community groups that have been given exemption is very narrow. It should have included places like the Waikato Migrant Resource Centre which is a community group that does probably as much work as the citizens advice bureaus would do in that area of providing immigration advice. Yet it has not been given that exemption. There should be a lot more exemptions through that not-for-profit category. 
The students exemption is also an important one. We have to maintain our student base in the international context. We cannot afford to put too many limits on students coming into New Zealand. The exemption for advisers to students is something that is realistic and will do good for our industries in the education sector. 
Overall I think this legislation reflects the industry that we are dealing with. The industry is not able to be self-regulated so regulation had to be done by the Government. There are a number of exemptions that represent the practical realities of the industry. I think it is inevitable that we will be looking further at immigration in this House as it is something we have to deal with as a country over time. Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 This is one of the occasions when one is really pleased to be asked to take a call. It is another example of a Government that when it came into power in 1999 got on with fixing up an industry that as the previous speaker said was—frankly—a mess. I became an electorate MP following a previous Minister of Immigration and I was simply appalled that constituents in the town of Rotorua were told to go to Hamilton for all matters of immigration. They were told not to go to the MP’s office. That was the culture of the previous Government and of a previous Minister of Immigration who worked in our community. So in our community we opened the doors of the constituency office as an outreach for immigration because we saw the shambles in the service at that time. 
Immigration advice was not provided by the Immigration Service but by advisers. These were advisers offshore who had put people wrong in their country of origin and advisers in New Zealand who had perpetuated a culture of very very bad service for new migrants. As other speakers have said it reflected appallingly on New Zealand as the host country the welcoming country when people were told: “You are welcome here we will help you and these are the steps that you have to go through.” In our community we heard of rorts by advisers from particular countries who were charging an astronomical amount of money for people even to get their services and to start to open the gate before they came to New Zealand. It was the previous Minister of Immigration Lianne Dalziel who asked people to give her the names of some of those immigration consultants who were starting to blacken the immigration advisers’ industry. We did that and the Minister acted immediately. 
I would like to congratulate the current Minister who put this Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill—a tidying-up bill—into the House in December 2006 and here we are in March 2007 at the second reading stage. I think the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has done a wonderful job to get the bill back to us. Making prompt work of bills that are needed to fix up an industry is what this Government is all about. This Government identifies the problem and gets on and fixes it. 
One of the things that is very important about this bill is the issue of reciprocity with other countries. This legislation will bring us into line with countries like the UK and Australia and that is absolutely critical. We also need to be constantly vigilant about monitoring the advice given in other countries to our new migrants attempting to come to New Zealand. 
The other aspect of this legislation that I particularly feel is great is the Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal. People have had nowhere to go other than the Minister’s office when they have had knowledge about these sorts of rotten apples in the advisory barrel. That is why Minister Lianne Dalziel realised that we really had to do something. Nothing had been done by the Opposition for 9 years and the situation was simply appalling. We started to put the case together about the countries where those advisers were giving poor advice. It was only electorate MPs who saw the stresses of immigration cases in our electorate offices who could feed back where we needed to put processes in place to get it right. When we had an electorate MP who sent all cases to Hamilton of course members did not know where the systems were rotten so that they could put in systemic change to put it right. We are hands-on MPs out in our community. We saw the problem we fed it into the Minister and the Minister got on and did something about it. 
I am pleased that the Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal is there. It is independent of the authority and I think that that is a very important aspect of the authority which will have the support of the Ministry of Justice. This legislation will clean up advisers in this industry who have poured disrepute on to immigration and who have set a very bad example. 
This is a fantastic bill. I hope that it will reduce by some 40 percent my electorate office time spent on immigration cases. So if that is the case in a place like Rotorua what will it be like in Auckland or North Shore? It is outrageous! 
Darien Fenton 
: South Auckland. 
STEVE CHADWICK 
: In South Auckland we had no option but for people to come to their MP’s office because there were those dreadfully sad cases of people sometimes having had their passports confiscated until they had paid an amount of money and they could not ever return home. Some were even put into caravans and put into jobs by these advisers who said: “This is what you have to do when you come to this country. We’ll confiscate your passport. We’ll give it back when we’ve sorted out your visas and your residency.” They actually impounded passports in some cases for up to 2 to 3 years. 
I am really pleased this bill has come to its second reading. I congratulate all those who have so reasonably put it together and I look forward to it passing as soon as possible. Thank you. 
Amendments recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee by majority agreed to. 
Bill read a second time.