Tisch Lindsay: Immigration Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Tisch Lindsay: Immigration Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) 
: 
 The Minister in her address said that there will be another Immigration Amendment Bill coming into the House next year. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No I said we were reviewing the Act next year. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: If the Minister is reviewing it it means there will be another piece of legislation to come in. We have here legislation that has not been thought through. The Minister has admitted—just now again—there will be a review. There will be another piece of legislation coming in again next year. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Not next year. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Well the year after. The point is why does the Government not do it right and get it right the first time? The issue that we are constantly faced with is a Government that comes in with ad hoc legislation just to make some points because there happens to be a little issue at the time. 
I refer back to the National Party’s minority report on page 11 in the commentary because our position has not changed. We said: “The National Party has concerns that this legislation could be applied in such a way as to compromise some fundamental human rights principles. Its lack of transparency in procedure could lead to corruption. While it is recognized that there is a need to better match the skills of residence applicants with skill requirements in the New Zealand economy National members believe that this can be done in a more transparent manner that does not compromise New Zealand’s international reputation.” 
Nothing in the debate that we heard in the Committee stage would affect and change our position on what we thought was very important legislation. We are very concerned—and this was debated at length during the Committee stage—about section 10(3) in clause 5 which says that no review proceedings may be brought in any court in respect of a refusal or failure to issue a visa. What we are seeing here is that the Minister is going to have the power to allow people to come into New Zealand by invitation. The bill not only gives the Minister the absolute power to choose who can apply for residence but absolute power to decide who is granted residence—that is what it says. That is the issue. The Minister will decide who may apply and who is granted residence. 
We felt that that was wrong and we debated it at length. The absolute power that the Minister will have will mean that no one can appeal. If we look at subsection (1) of section 10A inserted by clause 6 we will see that it states: “No person is entitled as of right to an invitation to apply for residence.” It goes on to say that no one will have the power to appeal. One would have thought that people who have the skills who can add value and who want to make New Zealand their home should be given the opportunity to come to New Zealand to be able to invest here live here and raise a family here but what this bill does is to bring in discrimination. It has been seen in the select committee reports that have been talked about this afternoon and also in reports that the Law Society has issued. The Auckland Law Society said that it was concerned that this legislation could lead to corruption. 
The bill gives the Minister of Immigration absolute power to choose who can be invited to apply for residence in our country which is a huge power to give to a Minister. The Minister can extend that power to officials within the Immigration Service—the very same officials who are being investigated for the possibility of lying in unison. There was even a question today about officials lying in unison and this bill is giving them the power. This legislation gives those officials plus the Minister extraordinary power which National believes is unwarranted. 
The Auckland District Law Society also went on to say: “We are ashamed that this kind of legislation is in front of Parliament.” and that is pretty powerful stuff. We argued that this legislation offends against the concepts of fairness natural justice and transparency. We voted against this right through the process and we are going to continue to vote against it. 
I just want to look more closely at clause 6. What we should be doing is giving powers that will be in the public interest which will lead to a win-win situation for our communities and for New Zealand but section 10A inserted by clause 6 gives the Minister and officials the power and we are saying that that is not right. 
We did support the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper but there are major concerns that a Supplementary Order Paper that looks at the very important areas of security and protection for our communities was lodged on the morning of the debate. One would have thought that if that Supplementary Order Paper was so important and if the Minister wanted support from this Parliament to pass this sort of bill she would have had the courtesy to have said to all parties: “This is the bill. We believe it is in the public’s interest to have this bill before the House.” But no what happened? Opposition parties did not get it. National did not get it. I understand that New Zealand First did not get it. ACT did not get it—no way! But what party did get it? There was one party that was privy to it and that was United Future. 
As I said we were supporting the Supplementary Order Paper and one would have thought that if the Minister wanted the support of this House to be able to promote this bill it would have been in the Government’s interest to bring in the Supplementary Order Paper earlier so that we could have looked at it more closely. National is not opposed to immigration. We want to get a win-win situation. We want people here who can add value. 
There are a lot of immigrants in the area that I represent. For instance if we look at the health field we will see that a lot of doctors in the Piako electorate are from South Africa and they do a very very fine job. Mr Jones talked about some New Zealand doctors being unable to get work but out in my area there is actually a shortage of doctors. If we did not have immigration and if we did not have those doctors from South Africa in Piako then our communities would suffer. So we do support immigration. We support those people who can bring those skills into our communities but we are deeply offended by a system in which a Minister can say who can apply for residence. That places too much power in the Minister’s hands. 
I recently had occasion to deal with a big employer in my electorate who had some immigrants who had residence but who could not speak English yet they had been to a polytech and had a certificate to show that they were literate and that they had the numeracy skills to be able to work. The point I make here is that we want immigrants who can add value and we encourage that sort of thing but unfortunately there have been abuses of the system and that needs to be tightened up. I say to the Minister that that is why we supported the Supplementary Order Paper but there is nothing that we have heard in the Committee stage that changes National’s position. We are voting against this bill.