Bennett David: Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — Second Reading 
Bennett David: Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — Second Reading 
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DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 The Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill is legislation National has no problem in supporting. The reasoning behind the legislation has not been looked at tonight though. The immigration advice industry is one that does not have the ability to self-regulate. If one looks at industries such as the legal or accounting professions one can see they are essentially self-regulated. This industry does not have that ability so the Government has had to come in and regulate it through this programme. That is why there has been a little bit more bureaucracy than we would want to see; essentially if we want to have regulation of immigration advisers then we have to do it through the Government. 
Another issue that the Maori Party has brought up has been immigration in New Zealand in a wider context. This bill will not actually deal with that issue. The wider immigration debate that the Minister David Cunliffe will be looking at I am sure will have much more effect on that issue. But there is one thing I think we have to look at in this modern world which is that immigration is inevitable. We live in a part of the world where there are 4 billion people on our doorstep. If even 1 percent of that group wanted to come to New Zealand there would be a huge demographic change. If we go to the western seaboard of the US we see its demographics have changed completely. That is inevitable for New Zealand. It is only a matter of time before we have such change in this country; it is part of our growth as an international country. 
There are some other facets of the legislation that I think we need to look at. The lawyers exemption is a good exemption. Lawyers are probably under a stricter regime than immigration consultants because of the Acts they have to go through. Therefore giving lawyers an exemption is not a problem because they have a stricter regime to follow anyway. 
The community groups exemption originally was not on a non-profit basis. National brought in that profit test. It a very good test because it separates community groups from non-community groups. Non-community groups are those that are advising as a business enterprise. 
However the definition in this bill of community groups that have been given exemption is very narrow. It should have included places like the Waikato Migrant Resource Centre which is a community group that does probably as much work as the citizens advice bureaus would do in that area of providing immigration advice. Yet it has not been given that exemption. There should be a lot more exemptions through that not-for-profit category. 
The students exemption is also an important one. We have to maintain our student base in the international context. We cannot afford to put too many limits on students coming into New Zealand. The exemption for advisers to students is something that is realistic and will do good for our industries in the education sector. 
Overall I think this legislation reflects the industry that we are dealing with. The industry is not able to be self-regulated so regulation had to be done by the Government. There are a number of exemptions that represent the practical realities of the industry. I think it is inevitable that we will be looking further at immigration in this House as it is something we have to deal with as a country over time. Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker.