Dowie Sarah: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingText is subject to correctionDowie Sarah: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3104. Text is subject to correction.]SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill):Obviously I rise in support of the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). Following on from the excellent contributions of Government members to the annual review debates I can say that this bill is a pragmatic solution to an issue by highlighting unacceptable behaviour putting in place harsh penalties and putting in place measures that will stamp out obviously this abhorrent practice. This issue of course is the exploitation of migrant workers.As my colleague Mr Young alluded to immigration underpins New Zealand society and you do not have to look back too far in your own history to see that. With a name like Dowie I have Scottish ancestry. I do not quite roll my Rs like the Scots do but nevertheless some farmers and people here have told me that I have got a bit of a twang. I am quite proud of that. I am from Southland.Tim Macindoe: It’s one of your most endearing features.SARAH DOWIE: Absolutely. And Southland of course as we are aware is one of the better provinces in New Zealand. Migration obviously adds to our diversity. It is going to be interesting for me now that I have a New Zealand First member in our province because if it was not for migration to our area our population would be going backwards. So it is going to be very interesting for our people to have somebody who holds New Zealand First principles in respect of migration. Our migrants come to us sometimes through tourism and they love the place and then they want to stay. They come through education especially in Southland with the Southern Institute of Technology our fantastic polytechnic. That allows us to forge friendships and it attracts a greater skill base. As I have alluded to already Southland requires that greater skill base especially in the primary sector.But when migrants are taken advantage of it is just not a good look. It is not a good look for our reputation internationally. We like to think of ourselves as a fair society and we want to have laws that protect that. It is certainly not good internally either. By exploiting migrants—paying them less making them work long hours taking away their holidays—it means that businesses that are operating within the parameters of the law are extremely disadvantaged and that is not good for production or for our economy. The predominant way to bring attention to this matter is being quite clear and making exploitation an offence. That is what this bill does. Employers who exploit migrant workers will face a jail sentence of up to 7 years or a fine not exceeding $100000. That is 7 years and/or a fine not exceeding $100000. That is a tough penalty and it sends a very very clear message.Furthermore this bill makes resident class visa holders who are exploitative employers—and they are often a group of people who engage in this behaviour—liable for deportation if the offence was committed within 10 years of gaining residence. This sends a message that says now that you are in the country it is a privilege to be here and we expect you to comply with our legislation and our practices and uphold our fair society. So we are sending a message that this is just simply inappropriate behaviour.The exploitation of migrant workers has come to the fore through articles in the New Zealand Herald. My colleague Mr Young read out a report from the New Zealand Herald that highlighted some terrible terrible situations that some of our migrant people were placed in. There was also an issue that was found in Queenstown where an audit was carried out by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment late last year. I have got some statistics here. Thirty-five audits were carried out in Queenstown at the end of last year targeting businesses that in turn target migrants for employment with 18 of them found to have broken employment laws. Again that is unacceptable. Workers were missing out on holidays they had no employment agreements and they were being paid less than the minimum wage. Those businesses I am happy to say are now complying with the law and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment resolved 1563 complaints made nationally by exploited migrants. More than $2.6 million in arrears was recovered. I think that is a fantastic result for the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.It is not great that we had the problem in the first place but obviously now the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and its labour inspectorate are targeting industries. They are monitoring industries to make sure they are complying with the law where there are migrant workers working in them. Some of those industries are hospitality horticulture dairy construction fishing and viticulture. So they need to be monitored. I have already alluded to Southland obviously. Agriculture has traditionally been a mainstay for us. It is a major source of growth and demand in our province. It is not just labourers whom we require. We require skilled owners farm managers and farm workers to help with that industry and to continue our great record in respect of our production and generation of export receipts.Here are a few statistics about Southland. I said that if it was not for migrants our population would be going backwards. We now have around 2000 Filipinos in our community adding to diversity interacting with our people and children in schools. These people are on farms and want a better life for themselves but we cannot have them exploited especially when they are located some way out of a city centre and feel somewhat isolated.In 2000 non-New Zealand citizens made up 36 percent of Southland’s arriving migrants whereas in 2013 they made up 61 percent. So that is fantastic for us. It really does add to our diversity in the Southland region and it is much richer for that. It is again reflective of the needs of our primary sector and is obviously a reflection of our growing tourism and wonderful education systems that are attracting people first to the province and later they are deciding to stay. It is a fantastic result for us.Internally we do not want to see lawful businesses driven out of the market. We certainly want our international reputation to be preserved. As an example an employer who pays $5 less per hour of a worker’s entitlement for a 40-hour week is saving $20000 per annum. You can see that that effect would basically mean that a legitimate business just cannot compete. So this bill forms part of a reform package to encourage victims to come forward. This is because there are also changes to the immigration instructions that allow immigration officers to overlook breaches of the terms and conditions of work-related visa conditions if the person cooperates with Immigration New Zealand or the labour inspectorate. That is a positive; I really cannot see the Opposition’s points with respect to that. What I also like about this bill is that it extends the search powers of immigration officials and that is appropriate. They can now search employers’ premises to talk to the people who have issues to help build a case to gather evidence and to hopefully move that through to a successful prosecution.I want to end by thanking the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for its work on this bill and of course the Minister of Immigration the Hon Michael Woodhouse for bringing this bill to the House. He is a Minister of Immigration who listens very well to the issues surrounding immigration especially in Southland and I look forward to working with him further in respect of Southland’s issues.