Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6789] 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: I would plead with you Mr Chairman that this part is very significant and I do not think the Labour Government should rush through this part without giving due consideration to the very serious issues that Opposition members are raising. 
I want to touch on clause 3 but I think clause 4 needs a lot more substantial debate yet. We have heard from the Minister correctly that on 17 June she issued a press statement challenging the High Court decision insisting that the judge got it wrong. On 23 June she instructed her officials to draft this legislation to avoid any doubt and she claimed that she was not even sure that it would be included in this legislation. She is trying to argue on technical grounds that it will not be retrospective. It does not have to be in clause 3 because when we start to examine clause 4 every New Zealander should be very very concerned about this. Even though we might think it will affect only non - New Zealanders—overseas potential migrants—it is giving us a taste of the way people could be treated by Labour supported by United Future. 
Let us look at clause 4. It states that the chief executive of the Immigration Service “may give general instructions as to order and manner of processing applications for visas and permits”. Anyone looking at it might say that that sounds fair enough—the chief executive of the Immigration Service should be able to give general instructions. But let us look further. We find: “(3) In giving any such general instructions the chief executive may have regard to such matters as the chief executive thinks fit.” 
What does that mean? How are we going to examine what sorts of criteria the chief executive might have to take into consideration? This allows anything a chief executive might think fit. It carries on to say that unless otherwise expressed by the chief executive any such instructions would not have to pay regard to the fact that a general instruction may be different from those existing at the time. So it could be contrary to the general instructions given at the time. 
But it gets worse and worse. If potential applicants want to challenge whether their applications have been processed in a certain way the legislation spells out very clearly that there is no ground for questioning whether an application is processed in an order and manner consistent with any general instruction given by the chief executive. Subsection (7)(a) in clause 4 states that “no appeal lies against the decision of the officer concerned whether to an Authority the Tribunal the Minister any court or otherwise;”. Subsection (7)(b) provides that no review proceedings may be brought in any court in terms of questioning any general instructions relating to the order and manner of processing. I can just imagine that from now on every application for a visa or permit will just be turned down when all the officials have to say is that it is not consistent with the “order and manner”. From now on when my hard-working colleague Phil Heatley gets all these immigration application cases and wants to question the decisions the officials and the Minister will tell him they might want to help him out but section 13BA(7)(b)(iv) in the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) rushed through under urgency states that no explanation needs to be given of any decision by the Minister or visa officer to process or not to process. They will say “tough luck” to Mr Heatley. Nobody neither the Government nor the officials needs to give any explanation for refusing to process a visa or permit or decline a visa or permit. Nobody would ever know the rules.