Hodgson Pete: Immigration Bill — Third Reading 
Hodgson Pete: Immigration Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I am not sure I will need all of my 10 minutes in this third reading debate on the Immigration Bill. I acknowledge the speaker who has just resumed his seat the Hon Nathan Guy who gave us an overview of the legislation. I will make some remarks that I hope are not repetitive of what the member has just said. This is the first time in over 20 years that we have looked at a complete rewrite of the immigration legislation and in that time the movement of peoples across borders has increased hugely. This is partly because of immigration per se—people migrating—and partly because of the explosion in tourism numbers. There are now 2.5 million people who cross our borders every year and that number will continue to increase. As a nation we need to keep our borders open and safe so immediately there is tension because an open border will be less safe than a closed one. But there is no way that this country can operate without having very very open borders. 
Indeed there is another tension in immigration. On the one hand the Immigration Service sets out to be a gatekeeper and on the other hand it sets out to be a recruitment agency. Those two issues are directly in conflict but it must do both. There is a need for New Zealand to keep itself safe from people who purport to be something they are not such as people who might have criminal intent or might have deployed misinformation to represent themselves as being a good possibility for a work visa or for permanent residence. However we are in a competition for talent with the rest of the developed world and an increasing part of the developing world. There is a global quest for talent. New Zealand does pretty well in that global quest simply because we are a relatively attractive country in terms of lifestyle and so on. We are not a high-wage economy so people do not come here; they go to California to make a bucket of money but they come here often from California after they have made a bucket of money. We are part of that global quest for talent. 
For all those reasons the legislation needed a complete rewrite. It began pretty much under the watch of the Hon David Cunliffe although there was some early work done by Minister Dalziel before she left that job. The Hon David Cunliffe was the Minister who introduced the bill into the House and it is worth noting the efforts that occurred at that time with both him and more particularly with officials. Having arrived in the House the bill was referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which was chaired by the Hon Mark Gosche. The Hon Mark Gosche is no longer a member of this Parliament but he is a fine guy. I am sure that members on the Government benches who were on the select committee such as the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith would hold that view too. Mark Gosche is a fine man. When he turned his mind to immigration most people on the committee would agree that he was the person who led the quite significant changes that occurred to the legislation in the course of that select committee. The Hon David Cunliffe would point out that as the bill passed through his hands a bunch of changes were made. In a sense those changes and the direction of those changes occurred under the chairpersonship of the Hon Mark Gosche and with assistance from across the House of those folk who were on the select committee. I was not on the select committee but I am sure I am entitled to congratulate it on what was a pretty hard look at quite a big piece of legislation. I think it is useful to put on the record that the select committee process as far as I am aware worked really well. 
The bill then came back to the House where it languished for some time when officials made a bunch of other changes that resulted in a very large Supplementary Order Paper. That is not an unusual thing but it led to a further set of consultations with Labour members and I acknowledge the Government the Minister and the officials for that. We ended up arguing over the details of some of that Supplementary Order Paper. In particular my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel with her legal background was able to carry that argument well into the detail. That Supplementary Order Paper was then put in front of the House and a couple of mistakes in it were picked up by Lianne Dalziel and changes were made in the course of the bill making its way through the House. 
That was an example of cross-party analysis to try to get legislation that had the right level of tension in it. Immigration law has to be harsh in one respect because it has to say no to people in a way that is if you will full and final and it has to be fair because we demand fair processes in this country and we are obliged to maintain fair processes because of our obligations under some aspects of international law especially as it affects refugees. We have international obligations and national obligations and they are both for fairness but we have an obligation to ourselves to make sure that if we catch crooks we can throw them back to where they came from. That is what I mean when I speak of tension. It is just an inevitable part of any immigration law. 
That concludes my remarks. The Minister of Internal Affairs who spoke at the start of the third reading of the bill took us through what the legislation does. I have spoken mostly about process. I have spoken favourably even glowingly of some folk who have been involved in this legislation—other than myself as I had a very minor role. I think the House can take comfort that although I am sure someone will find fault with it soon enough this legislation has been subject to the sort of inquiry and detailed examination that we would hope all legislation is subject to.