Bates Carl; Kuriger BarbaraCARL BATES (National—Whanganui): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's my pleasure to rise this evening and speak in this third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. I just want to acknowledge the work of the Minister of Immigration in getting this through the House something that wasn't able to be achieved under the previous Government. We're now getting it delivered and getting this risk management framework essentially in place to ensure that in the circumstance that we have the occurrence of a mass arrival we have a framework and a structure to deal with it. Essentially that's what this bill is about.There's been a lot of talk this evening about taking it seriously. I think it's important that everyone who's watching this debate this evening—and watched the first and second readings and the committee of the whole House stage—appreciates how seriously the Government and the members of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that would have been responsible for this on the Government's side are here this evening. We are engaged in making sure that we get this framework in place. As part of that process there have been four amendments that have been brought to the House and passed by the committee to date under the Minister's leadership. They are important to making sure that we have the right framework in place and the Minister spoke to those earlier this evening.Let's look at what this framework is essentially about. Currently should there be a mass arrival event there'd be 96 hours in which the legal profession would have the ability to come together and support those asylum seekers to do the necessary processes in order for their applications to go in and their status to be determined. And it's simply not practical. It's not practical because we're talking about people and their families—men women and children who have travelled across the seas in boats that are probably unlikely to be in any good shape for that journey. They are highly likely to be malnourished highly likely to have significant mental health challenges or social challenges from that crossing and upon arrival on our shores they will need those challenges supported—before we even start talking about the legal process that they'll be going through.Along with that we're talking about whether or not there are actually enough lawyers in place to be able to support that mass arrival process in the first place and the reality is there simply aren't. There's about 40 lawyers as I understand it across the nation who would have the ability to be mobilised to support an event like this. Should it occur for example on a Friday night that they land at Ninety Mile Beach—as was suggested earlier this evening by my colleague the MP for Napier Katie Nimon—in the grand electorate of my colleague the MP for Northland that would take a couple of days out of that 96 hours before the lawyers had even got the opportunity to start working. It simply isn't practical.I don't want to see this happen. None of us want to see this happen. It's unbelievable actually that our colleagues across the House—and I'm not speaking about my Labour colleagues but some of the others—have made suggestions that we actually want this to happen or the sort of attitude that we're not taking this seriously. I tell you what I find extremely difficult to take seriously: this idea that we should somehow have a whole lot of lawyers on standby a whole lot of places on standby ready to support this should it occur so that it can happen in 96 hours. At the same time those same members opposite are talking about how this is unlikely to happen in the first place.It's a little bit like Budget week's come early because it seems to me that those members opposite think that there's a bottomless pit of money that could be spent on hiring a whole lot of asylum seeker lawyers training them up and having them ready to support an event that is highly—or not highly but certainly unlikely has a low probability of happening; not something that we want to happen but something that we need to make sure there's a framework in place for. The idea that we should just resource them that we should just appropriate it I just can't take seriously. It is simply nonsensical to suggest that as a Government we should be doing that.There is a reason why there are a small number of lawyers in this country that would have the ability to support a mass arrival a group should it arrive on our coastline and that's because it's unlikely. There's not a huge amount of this work. If we had to be in a situation that we didn't pass this legislation that we didn't put in a framework that enables us to manage this risk however unlikely it is we'd be in here under urgency trying to pass a piece of legislation that would end up being retrospective and those same members opposite would have a problem with that. It's because those members opposite simply do not understand how to make decisions create practical frameworks and ensure that we've got the sort of legislation in place to support this sort of event should it happen and I'm sure we're going to hear much more of that unnecessary bravado from members opposite in the days to come this week. I commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call and I call the Hon Rachel Brooking.