Faafoi Kris; Salesa JennyIMMIGRATION (COVID-19 RESPONSE) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Immigration): I present a legislative statement on the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill. [Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! The very senior members down there should know much better. Start again please.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I present a legislative statement on the Immigration (COVID19 Response) Amendment Bill.SPEAKER: The legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and will be found on the Parliament website.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I move That the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported back to the House by 29 April 2021 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 193 and 196(1)(b) and (c).SPEAKER: Sorry can the member just repeat those numbers please.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Despite Standing Orders 193 and 196(1)(b) and (c).SPEAKER: Now is the member aware that that differs from the advice that I have received previously?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I'm looking at my sheet Mr Speaker and I may have to add Standing Order 195.SPEAKER: All right. OK that having been done that's clear and we've now got notice of what the member's going to move later thank you.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. It has been almost a year since Parliament unanimously supported the passage of the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Act of 2020. It amended the Immigration Act of 2009 by establishing eight administrative powers to allow the Government to respond effectively and efficiently to issues arising due to the imposition obviously of the global pandemic. The bill was considered by the Epidemic Response Committee in the previous Parliament. When we in this House considered the bill last year it was not clear how long the impacts of the global pandemic would last for and we hoped it would be brief so that eight powers would expire on 15 May of this year. However the House will be aware that while New Zealand's domestic situation has improved since the introduction of the powers the global circumstances under which the powers were initially passed have not changed as much as we had hoped. New Zealand still has closed borders to much of the world and the global pandemic is still infecting and killing large numbers of people and there is a risk that future variants of the virus could impact on visa operations again.The arguments for continuing to maintain the flexibility that these powers give will remain until border restrictions can be lifted. The bill only changes the duration of the powers of the bill passed last year. It does not propose any changes. The bill therefore seeks to extend the duration of those eight administrative powers and shifts their appeal date to the close of 15 May 2023.It does not propose to change any of the aspects of the powers although it does look to extend the maximum duration of any associated regulations from a three-month maximum to a six-month maximum. I propose this because the frequent renewal of the regulations is costly and the short time span of each renewal of those regulations is causing uncertainty. The time frame for the passing of the bill reflects the upcoming expiry of those eight powers and it will also enable the select committee to consider the case for an extension and obviously to take any submissions from those who have any comments to make about the use of those powers and any potential changes they might like to see because of its use over the last 11 months.The bill does justify an efficient select committee process. As I said it doesn't introduce any new powers. It extends the same settings with a technical change to the length of the maximum duration of the regulations. Last year when the bill was submitted on—and I believe the Hon Michael Woodhouse may have chaired that or was certainly on the Epidemic Response Committee at the time—there were 13 written submissions and the select committee heard oral submissions over two days. We do want to make sure that this does have public scrutiny and public input. As I say it was unanimous when the bill passed last year but there may be some input around how the powers have been used over the last 11 months that the select committee may want to hear. This year stakeholders have already been engaged on the extension of the current powers and there are existing safeguards on the use of the powers that will remain in place. For example the powers relating to classes of persons can only be exercised by special directions made by the Minister of Immigration and they have to be made public and they can be overturned. So in summary this is about ensuring we continue to have the legal and legislative tools we have had in the past 12 months to adapt to changes presented by COVID-19. I won't go into the powers and detail as the legislative statement has been tabled already. But broadly they enable the Government in response to COVID-19 to amend visa conditions for large groups of people. They also extend the visas of large groups of people for varying periods of time and that power certainly has been used. Through regulations it is able to stop people from overseas from making applications for visas while we have our border restrictions and it can revoke a deemed—and that means an automatically granted—entry permission or visa while we have our border restrictions in place; in other words telling people who have tried to arrive on the likes of marine vessels or by private planes that they have to leave. Most of the powers have been exercised over the last 12 months that they've been in existence with the exception of the ability to revoke the entry permission of a person deemed to hold entry permission. Over the last year Ministers of Immigration have exercised the special direction powers a total of 18 times. One of these uses benefited around 20000 people by extending temporary visa entry class visas held by certain employer assisted workers and their family members. And also in February I extended the temporary visitor visas of 9500 people for two months so that they could remain lawfully in New Zealand while they were organising travel home or applying for further visas. The regulations which prevent most people offshore from applying for a temporary entry class visa unless invited to apply they've also been renewed every three months since they first came into effect in August of last year. And these regulations have stopped the inflow of applications which wouldn't meet border exceptions criteria to allow the applicants to enter New Zealand. Most non - New Zealanders who wish to travel to New Zealand now gain approval to do so through qualifying for a border exception then being invited to apply for a visa and a visa is granted on condition that the person has a critical purpose as laid out in the border exception instructions for travelling to New Zealand. As we have seen there are always debates about which critical skills or humanitarian circumstances should be prioritised for entry but I note that New Zealand has been admitting about twice as many people per capita as Australia has.As I said the powers in the current Act are subject to safeguards. The major safeguard is that the powers relating to classes of persons can only be exercised by special directions made by me and I cannot delegate these functions. And the special directions must be tabled with the House of Representatives here in the House and are disallowable. This means they have to be made public and the special directions can be overturned. Together these form safeguards against any Minister of Immigration using these powerful and sweeping powers in ways that Parliament did not intend when the legislation was passed. Generally the exercise of the powers has to be clearly tied to COVID-19 or the effects of the responses to current COVID-19. The two exceptions to those protections are the power to suspend the ability of certain offshore persons from making temporary entry class visa applications and the ability to tell people planning to come here by marine craft or private aircraft that their deemed entry permission will be revoked if they try. Obviously all of the powers are also subject to the two-year sunset clause if the bill is passed which we obviously plan to do. The bill maintains important powers to enable the Government to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak as it might develop over the next two years. So I move that the bill be reported back to the House by 29 April 2021 and that the committee as I said have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting during an evening on a day in which the House has been sitting on a Friday in a week which there has been a sitting of the House despite those Standing Orders 193 195 and 196(1)(b) and (c). I commend the bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to.