Sepuloni Carmel: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 10 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1443. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): This is the first time I have been able to stand in the House and speak in 2015 so can I start by just saying happy New Year to you Mr Assistant Speaker and happy New Year to all of my parliamentary colleagues across the House.Labour initially supported this bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and clearly we support the intent of the bill which is in our mind caring for vulnerable workers. However following submissions it has become very apparent that the bill will not significantly tackle migrant exploitation and there are several issues with the bill that have been pointed out today by my Labour colleagues by Green Party colleagues and also by former colleagues who are no longer in the House.Changes to immigration law to increase penalties for employers who exploit migrant workers will be ineffective without a significant boost to enforcement resources. The No. 1 concern is that we can legislate but if the resourcing is not in place in terms of the labour inspectors then who will be monitoring what is going on? As the Green MP before me Denise Roche said there are currently only approximately 40 labour inspectors operating across the country. That will do little to assist us with looking after and monitoring our vulnerable workers including our new migrant workers. Wein this House all know—and we from all sides of the House are all very aware of this—that migrant worker exploitation is growing in New Zealand. We have seen it highlighted by reports in recent years of Christchurch workers not being paid for holidays and annual leave and not being on employment agreements. We know that the law will still depend on migrant workers coming forward. As many of my parliamentary colleagues have said today that is a highly risky proposition for a worker new to New Zealand whose visa status often depends on their job.There are often other barriers such as English language barriers that hinder their inability to come forward and of course there is that imbalanced power relationship between that employee and the employer which could influence whether or not they come forward with any of their concerns. Even with added protections it is particularly difficult for migrant workers to put their jobs on the line and hope that they will be able to find other work. I am really concerned about the extended powers of search by the Immigration Service—not the Labour Group but the Immigration Service.As one of my parliamentary colleagues said earlier we cannot help but hark back to the dawn raids in the 1970s and be reminded of that—the fear that was struck into new migrants many of them Pacific Islanders at the time. We know that that same fear could be inflicted on new migrant groups now if they have immigration inspectors entering their private residences to undertake extended searches. So if we are talking here about protecting migrant workers then I fail to understand how intimidating them and going into their private residences and provoking fear amongst them is going to in any way assist us with protecting them in the workplace. Far too many migrant workers in New Zealand have their employment rights abused which not only harms our migrant communities but also undermines the wages and conditions of all workers in New Zealand. When considering the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) it is important to remember National’s shameful scaremongering about boat people during debate on the first immigration bill the Immigration Amendment Bill. I am not sure whether anyone has brought that up but I think it is worth reminding us all in the House of that.It is good to see the Government with this bill putting some thought into assisting migrant workers. However the changes proposed still fail to address the core issues. We need to create an environment to enable workers to report abuse. Workers are not going to report exploitation if they risk being deported. The failure to provide visa protection for those on temporary visas undermines the entire intent of the bill. The Government also continues to fail to employ enough labour inspectors as I said earlier to reduce the pressure on migrant workers to report. That is probably one of the major failings with the bill we have in front of us.The absolute discretion clause to make decisions without giving reasons is liable to abuse particularly with clause 8 which makes it clear that the Privacy Act does not apply to reasons for decisions made using absolute discretion. That is concerning.I am going to wind up by just saying that we did support the intent of this bill but we cannot support what we have in front of us right now.