Menéndez March Ricardo; Penk ChrisRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you very much Mr Chair. So we're now in Part 2 of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. Let's make it clear: no amount of amendments can take away from the fact that this is a rights-diminishing bill. Our opposition to the bill may be called by some self-righteous and by others boring; we simply call it being on the right side of history and in line with human rights experts people who work with refugees and asylum seekers who despite their best work to try and make this horrible bill less harmful—have actually constructively worked with many members of the Opposition to put forward amendments. We should not conflate the fact that human rights experts and those organisations are not in favour of having a detention regime; they're simply trying to encourage us to make the detention regime not harmful.So I want to pick up on some of the comments from the Minister in the chair the Hon Chris Penk. He tried to give some assurances around the wellbeing of children using and quoting that there's the operational manual. But the operational manual can be actually changed at the whim of the Government of the day. It actually is by no means a method to protect the rights of children. If the past Government was to be used as an example that was one where even immigration lawyers were not able to keep up with the very rapid changes that were happening in the immigration space. To say that we will protect the rights of children—Hon Shane Jones: Security! Security!RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —that are being detained because there are some provisions in the operation manual—actually it's incredibly vulnerable. Because if we were to let someone like the member to my left—who keeps parroting just insult and nonsense—take charge of this legislation who's to say that he would for example not change this bill—it's not change sorry; the operational manual and instruct officials to worsen the rights of children. So to simply assume that the operational manual is good enough to safeguard the rights of some of our communities who have been affected by war by genocide by persecution is a disservice to not only the submitters but actually to a genuine commitment to upholding the rights of children.That takes me to one of my own amendments which indeed as the Acting Minister of Immigration referenced draws on the feedback from World Vision and the Red Cross around the need to make it really clear in the bill that children won't be detained under any circumstance. So in relationship to children while the bill—and the parts with the detention" in the bill—doesn't stipulate necessarily the very specific types of facilities or for example doesn't stipulate that those facilities may be fit for purpose for children I then want to know what engagement he has had since taking on the role around the potential facilities that could be used in relationship to their suitability for children. Children have specific needs that adults do not. Detention can have a very specific harmful impact on children. Therefore the types of detention centres that would be used could actually result in quite big harm when it comes to children being in those detention facilities.So firstly if the Minister thinks that the operational manual is good enough I want to seek assurances and commitment that that operational manual will not be changed for the purposes of the rights of children so long as his party is in Government. Because I think that commitment around not touching the quite fragile operational manual is really really critical. So I want to get some assurances and commitments around that because the Minister is relying on a really fragile document that can be easily changed to justify how children will be protected. Secondly I want to check and get confidence that the types of facilities that he's explored will be suitable for children.I will take other calls around some of my other amendments but while we're on the relationship with human rights and the rights of children the Minister touched on some of our international commitments that we have made in relation to the rights of children. If we were to test our international commitments—for example how we treat disabled people under the acceptable standards of health—it has been traversed in this House that these international commitments mean very little when it comes to domestic immigration law because we have section 392 of the Immigration Act. Actually that basically ends up cancelling most of our human rights commitments because for example the Human Rights Commission isn't able to actually take up any of those human rights breaches when it comes to immigration matters. So I do want to test whether he's sought advice around the interactions of the clauses that he wants to add in Part 2 and in relationship how those interact with section 392 of the Immigration Act because there is an interaction there. I'll take another call Mr Chair—thank you very much Mr Chair.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Ricardo Menéndez March.Hon Member: Why?RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: I hear the word "why". Why am I taking calls? Why am I one of the only members who's taken many calls in this debate? It's because we're introducing a bill I may remind the member that will allow for the detention of asylum seekers—this should not be taken lightly. We should not be making jokes actually about the detention of people who have gone through war and genocide. I see the members of the National Party smiling but I hope they know they're making levity of the fact that we're talking about communities affected by this piece of legislation who actually have faced some of the most harrowing experiences.So continuing on my line of questioning I was touching around the relationship between the clauses that he's adding and section 392 which is around the relationship between the Immigration Act and Human Rights Act 1993. I think it's really important that we get some insurances about how those two will interact.Now I did have other amendments to this bill. One of them which I'll speak at length to is around making it really clear and clarifying in the bill that that we could agree basically to residency and reporting requirements as an alternative to detention for members of mass arrival groups as the officers is appropriate—like others who may be liable for arrest or detention or of subject to a warrant of commitment. So I did want to test the Minister's exploration of seeking alternatives to detention and making that clear in the law. This is something that Community Law and the New Zealand Law Society have suggested. What that would allow is to test for example if at the time of a mass arrival group—say the facilities that that initially had been intended to be used. I know that in the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee the Minister talked about for example managed isolation and quarantine - style facilities like hotels or the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre—if for some reason those facilities were not to be available say that homelessness was really high emergency accommodation was being used and at the same time we were experiencing a really major international artist visiting our shores and at the same time filling the quota refugee space. I'm using those examples not as hypotheticals; I've seen first hand—for example when Taylor Swift visited not many years ago—how actually it was really hard for homeless people to find hotels. So for example if the Minister had told us—Hon Member: What are we talking about?RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —previously that hotels would be used—and yeah people on my left-hand side may be looking confused but that may be because they themselves have never worked with homeless people and may have never experienced what it is like to be told at the front lines that emergency housing is literally not available because we've got international artists. So for example—Hon Shane Jones: Stop making it up.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: I'm not making it up—you go work at the front lines with homeless people. So Shane Jones may just want to get a sense of reality of what it is like to actually work with migrants and homeless people before throwing his constant pretty useless remarks in relationship to this bill and dismissing a bill that touches some of our most—Dana Kirkpatrick: That's unnecessary.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: "It is unnecessary"—the ongoing remarks from Shane Jones are. So you know you may want to choose actually who you take seriously here.But anyway going back to the requirements around detention: does the Minister not think that it is important to have alternatives to detention in the case of those intended facilities not being available? Like I said we have had incidents of those. In relationship to those can I just confirm—because the Māngere resettlement centre has been used as an example of a facility that has been used—how confident is the Minister around the staffing and resourcing capacity of that resettlement centre to absorb a large group that could be arriving by sea when for example they may be already trying to accommodate other people arriving from other parts of the system? Is he confident that the level of resourcing right now would actually allow that specific facility that has been talked about in the select committee—not just in the process of this bill but we kind of talked about it in the briefing of the Immigration New Zealand processes and policy and operations. So that was another question that I have. So for that specific facility I want to know what level of correspondence he's had with the resettlement centre. I want to check whether the resettlement centre has given him the 100 percent reassurance that the resources that they have will be enough to absorb that and if not whether he's actually engaged with the hotel industry for example and has gotten really strong assurances from the hotel industry around their absorption capacity should they already be used for other issues such as emergency housing which we know they have been used for.Thirdly I want to test whether this bill and the facilities that have been alluded to which are going to be used in this bill would stand the test of time should we experience another major public health crisis.Hon CHRIS PENK (Associate Minister of Immigration): Thank you Mr Chair and thank you to the member for a very thorough dissertation on the points that he wanted to raise in relation to Part 2. I'll take them as best I can in the order that he raised them.The first is in relation to the Immigration New Zealand Operational Manual. He suggested I shouldn't rely on it. Indeed I'm not—the Government's not relying on it—I was referencing it as part of a suite of legal obligations as they currently stand. Yes it's possible that the operational manual be changed in the future but we also have domestic legislation; we have international instruments that are not so easily undone. That is the point.The fact that there is existing good practice now shouldn't count against the fact that we should derive some comfort from that. As I say though we don't rely totally upon that and I assure the committee that it is not only in relation to that particular document that we would regard the requirement to preserve family units treat children well and so forth. Of course if the operational manual were to be changed in a way that were inconsistent with those domestic and international legal obligations then that would be a decision that would be reviewable in a legal context—an unreasonable decision one might conclude by way of judicial review and so forth.Second on the question of whether the facilities that would be employed are suitable for children. I'm tempted to make the point that the least suitable possible facilities for children would be a rust bucket of a vessel at sea trying to make its way illegally across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean even the Tasman Sea. I can vouch personally for the fact that these can be quite hostile maritime environments particularly in a situation where exploitation may have taken place to place these people in this position in the first place. It's no light matter that children should be dragged along with such an endeavour—highly unsuitable—and of course that's the context of the mass arrivals bill that we're engaging in.Now of course that's not to say "Well therefore it doesn't matter how suitable the facilities might be on their arrival to New Zealand." I'm not saying that for a second but I do want to make that obvious point about context.In terms of the facilities that would likely be used the discussion yes has focused partly around managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) - style facilities—and I'll return to those in a moment in the member's questioning around their suitability their capacity. But first I want to reference the possibility—indeed the likelihood—that the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre might well be employed in this way.I've had the opportunity to visit the centre a number of years ago along with various parliamentary colleagues at the time including Erica Stanford then being the Opposition spokesperson I think for immigration. I had no particular reason to go except that I was interested and I thought it was suitable for New Zealand representatives to know the kinds of conditions in which refugees being processed in a usual manner might be housed and accommodated.I'm pleased to advise the member—or perhaps remind him and advise the committee—he might well already be aware that there are facilities within that centre that provide education for children. Obviously on a temporary basis it would be contemplated in the situation of a mass arrival but nevertheless the presence of young people is contemplated catered for to some extent with that school and also that there are specialist medical facilities. The fact that we have those goes a little way to answering perhaps the suitability of retaining or detaining persons who have arrived in a mass arrival event with complex needs whether by reason of the fact them having arrived in that manner—health medical needs—or by reason of the fact simply of them being children.So there's a specialist element in that—again emphasising though the inherent lack of suitability of the fact that people who are young people might be brought into this very risky and dangerous type of endeavour.As for MIQ-style arrangements I don't imagine that any assurances that I would seek in May 2024 would be particularly meaningful in a future month or year or decade. Of course we don't know when it might be if at all that this bill would be—or Act as it will be; if it's being applied it would be an Act at that point. We simply can't know what the future would hold. Again the New Zealand State would have to manage as best it could in the circumstances just as it did in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the processing of persons from overseas or New Zealanders and the employment of those arrangements in the first place in the MIQ kind of way.The member raised the scenario of Taylor Swift coming to New Zealand for a concert and exacerbating the very serious point about homelessness. I'm tempted to make an unserious point about the dangers associated with Taylor Swift coming to New Zealand for concerts but I fear I would be losing votes or at least the support of various key people in my professional and personal life. So we'll leave that point and simply observe that actually to solve the problem of homelessness is a much bigger endeavour of the Government than merely this bill. Indeed if the member wants to have that debate we welcome that in the context of our "Going for Housing Growth" policy.But for now I thank him for raising those various points in relation to Part 2. As I say these matters have been considered well traversed canvassed at select committee; we've got Amendment Papers where we think it's appropriate to meet them and other points that again were already raised by the Hon Phil Twyford."