O'Connor GregHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): I'd like to address questions from both Mr Woodhouse and Mr Omer in what will be my final contribution before we get to the end of this debate and I thank members all around the Chamber for their questions and their contributions. Firstly addressing the points raised by Mr Woodhouse he called literally for us to go back to how it used to be and to streamline the system". Well consistently through this debate we've had a discussion about how the system works and I've yet to actually hear specifically what it is that they would change or streamline or take out of the system. At times I've heard that they want to take out the job check which is checking whether or not there's a New Zealand worker available. We've had differing answers there. Mr Woodhouse has actually said that should stay in there; so we haven't actually heard yet what they should take out.In respect of streamlining it's worthwhile noting the accredited employer work visa (AEWV) is that. It takes the place of six different visa types which by definition were more complex and meant that the processing system was more complex and time-consuming. It is bringing them into one much-simpler category which is easier for employers to engage with so I think that does need to be noted significantly. In respect of the staffing levels one useful bit of information—which I accept may not have come through in numbers that members have seen in front of them—is that the numbers aren't necessarily apples with oranges. The numbers in previous years only included onshore; they didn't include the number of offshore staff. A number of the offshore processing offices have closed and effectively those people have been brought onshore so the numbers don't necessarily match up as you would expect. Again I'll come back to the fact that the core categories under AEWV which have now been set up for sort of six seven eight weeks are now processing at rates that are at or below the thresholds that we set. We said 10 days for an accredited employer and 10 days for the job check. We're at or below for both of those—so actually there's good progress that's been made there—let alone the resident visa 2021 where we're considerably ahead of the processing time frame with 95000 people successfully approved under that category. I really thank Mr Omer for his questions and frankly I'll say this: I think it does show the difference a little bit between the approach and attitude between that side of the House and this side of the House to the immigration system. On that side of the House it is almost purely and exclusively about labour units and how they work within the economy. Mr Omer asked some very good questions about the other important—Hon Scott Simpson: The Minister's better than that.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Well the members have had nearly an hour to ask any questions about the humanitarian side or about the refugee side and it's not something they've shown any interest in whatsoever. So I thank Mr Omer for standing up and asking those questions. Our Government is enormously proud of the work that we have done to reduce and drive out migrant exploitation and it's one of the things that I will continue driving forward. It's our Government which has set up the AEWV which puts that check in place at the very front of the system. It's our Government which set up an 0800 number for migrants to report migrant exploitation. It's our Government which gave the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration New Zealand new powers to be able to work together to conduct investigations and to drive out migrant exploitation. It's our Government which set up a migrant exploitation visa so that migrants in those situations can have a safe harbour to escape those exploitive situations. It's our Government under Minister Priyanca Radhakrishnan who will be moving forward with a migrant exploitation bill later on this year to ensure that exploitative employers can't continue popping up and carrying out those activities. So I absolutely stand behind our record in that area and it is in stark contrast to the previous model which in study after study has been shown to make it more likely that these things happen because it effectively acted as a large funnel for generally low-wage vulnerable workers to come into the New Zealand workforce. Our rebalance is about addressing that and stopping the scourge of migrant exploitation. Equally I'm proud of our decision to increase the refugee quota to 1500 per year. This is a country of opportunity and we should be playing our part in what is a difficult and challenging and sometimes traumatic world for people in conflict zones. When I meet people from those refugee backgrounds who have made their lives here in New Zealand they are people who have often gone on to make a beautiful contribution to our country because of that opportunity that we have offered. What we've also done in recent times has been double from 300 to 600 the refugee family reunification category which enables resettled refugees to be able to support additional members of family to be able to come to New Zealand to help with their resettlement in this country and that is going to make a big difference. It's something we're very proud of. CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): I note that this debate did start at 2.55 p.m."