Peters Winston: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15085. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): First of all I want to address Mr Bennett who got up and attacked me. I know that Mr Bennett has a love of Russians. I know that he has a love of Russians. A lot of us do but it is no reason to predicate our immigration policy. The second thing I want to say is that this Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) purports to be robust. It talks about clarifying the existing Immigration Act and ensuring the integrity of the immigration system. The Minister of Immigration said that this bill will be strong support for the immigration framework already in place. I would like to know what planet his colleagues are on and what planet he is on because there is no evidence whatsoever to back up these fine words.Once again we are in the land of “Things are going to get better because the National Party says so”. It has had 5 years to sort out a sensible immigration policy. Today the immigration department is a corrupt mess. Very shortly I will name some of the things that back up that claim with evidence. Just the other day the Minister was asked how people get into this country and what is going on and he called it a heinouslie. Then 5 minutes later he was out talking to the media and saying: “Oh well we’ve got 30 cases of people getting here ripping up their passports—but they didn’t come from Lebanon.” What would that have to do with the price of fish?Hon Michael Woodhouse: It’s only half of what was going on when this member was supporting Government.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: If he had studied the programme properly he would have known that it was not restricted to those people. No no no—do not come here with your untrained Dunedin mind and think that you can give a shallow once-over to this very complex problem.It is all window dressing. It is camouflage. What we need is not this bill but a full-scale independent inquiry. We have the United Nations every year talking about people trafficking to New Zealand. The Minister denies it. So do all his colleagues. We know that women are used as sex slaves in this country. He denies it. So do his colleagues. We know that for example people are working in slave labour conditions 16 hours a day in substandard conditions. He has denied it. So have his colleagues. What we want is a full-scale investigation.In 2008 the Auditor-General set up an inquiry under Helen Clark reporting in 2009. I want to say that it said this: “We recommend that the Department of Labour … review the emphasis on target setting in Immigration New Zealand branches to ensure that the quality of visa and permit decisions is not compromised.” Did those members do anything about it? They did nothing whatsoever.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Done.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: “Done” my big toe! Just lately there has been an internal report that says 20 percent of the decisions made by Immigration New Zealand are of poor quality.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Used to be 40.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: What does this Minister do? Do you know what he just said? He said that it used to be 40 percent. He is just excusing his total incompetence of at least one in five—20 percent—and his excuse is that it used to be 40 percent. Minister you should be fired. You are incompetent. You do not know what you are doing.I want to say this too. I refer to the report of the Office of the Auditor-General of May 2009Inquiry Into Immigration Matters. This is what it said on page 49 of its investigation and review of Project Crusade: “The Department told us that the managers involved were held accountable for not adhering to the expected quality standards.” That is an utter lie. I will tell you why. I will just name you a number of people five in particular who were part of that investigation and this is what happened to them. Team manager Sarah Clifford undertaking Project Crusade was promoted to branch manager. She still continues to derive huge financial benefits in various roles in Immigration New Zealand. There is the first person. Then there is Ross Grigg at that time regional manager who has recently been promoted to area manager in the Waikato.Where is the accountability going on in this organisation? All the people who have been fingered by the inquiry are now getting—not demoted not held to account no—promoted. Team manager Kate Woodwards is still in the Christchurch branch and was recently presented with an award for her work. She was presented with an award for her work. What a joke. Immigration officer Dominic Ford was responsible for approving bulk visas. He has recently been promoted to assistant area manager in Shanghai with full diplomatic allowances worth $200000 per annum.What is going on in your corrupt department Minister? Do you not know? Branch manager Rex Heesterman was responsible for visa approvals in the Palmerston North branch as part of Project Crusade. That was the branch they called the visa factory. Itwas just stamping them left right and centre. There was no examination—just get the numbers up. Again Rex Heesterman has been promoted to an area manager role in Tonga as recently as July 2013. Where is the accountability? The Minister comes with this bill. He says that it is going to strengthen an already effective department. What a ministerial joke. Is that the best they can do?Listen to this. These five promotions are a clear example of institutionalised corruption within the department. The Office of the Auditor-General has a look and says that it is all going wrong. It gets told: “Oh no they’ll all be held to account.” They were not were they? Oh no they were not. This goes on and on and on. This department continues to abuse taxpayers’ funds by creating unnecessary diplomatic seconds with very generous allowances and salaries in places like Shanghai Pretoria Beijing and even Viet Nam. The department has recently appointed numerous managers in the Shanghai branch. These are the jobs that thousands of candidates would be willing to do on a locally engaged basis. Shanghai is obviously not such a Third World place that Immigration New Zealand could not attract candidates from New Zealand on a locally engaged basis. This is an utter and blatant example of abuse of taxpayers’ funds.But it does not stop there. Recently the Minister went to a big function in Wellington.Hon Michael Woodhouse: How many New Zealanders worked in diplomatic offices when you were the Minister of Foreign Affairs?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No I was never the Minister of Immigration son—I was far more powerful than that. I was Deputy Prime Minister. I was the Treasurer. I was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I was never as lowly as the Minister of Immigration. But I think that next time I might take that job and fix it up. I could do it in 6 months flat—I could do it in 6 months flat. The first thing I would do is get rid of people who think like that Minister over there.But here we go. Immigration New Zealand had a recent eating and drinking - fest conference in Wellington for all offshore and onshore managers. The Minister of Immigration himself—this man over here Woodhouse—attended the conference. More than 30 Immigration New Zealand offshore managers were flown to New Zealand on taxpayer funds. More than 30 were flown in on taxpayer funds. Who is paying for such lavish abuse of taxpayers’ funds? Has the Minister not heard of videoconferences? Why fly all these people in and then go along and lavishly live and stay in the hotels? The Minister comes along and it is all hunky-dory. I thought he was supposed to be from the party that believes in accountability and efficiency. It is just one scandal after the other.Of course the worst thing was that earlier this year he was asked how many overstayers there are in New Zealand. He said there were not 14 not 1400 but that there were 14000 overstayers in New Zealand. He dismissed that with a contemptuous view so renowned of some accountants. He said it was a low number—14000 to him is a low number. Well I do not know anywhere in Asia where you would find such incompetence in the immigration department. I do not know of anywhere—in fact in all of the Pacific—where you would find such incompetence in an immigration department. But the other day he was told by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’sFour Corners programme that there is a whole lot of smuggling going on  and all the way to New Zealand. No the Minister bounced into the House—straight up no evidence no facts and no research—and he called it a heinous lie. Then outside he gets caught by the media and he says: “Well I’ll have to investigate that. I’ll have to investigate that.”You see he said it was a lie but here is the real point. When I asked the Minister whether he would resign if he was wrong all we heard was not a syllable not a sound not a mutter not a murmur not a squeak. He said: “Oh no no. I won’t resign if I’mfound to be what I know I am.” Incompetent. If he had any courage or conviction he would have said: “Yes I’ll resign. I’ve told the Parliament it’s a heinous lie. If I’m wrong I will resign.” Minister save us all the trouble and resign now.