Woodhouse Michael; Rurawhe AdrianHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): The member who just resumed her seat left out five very important words about the submissions that the committee heard by business and that are these: One year not two." They were very clear that their support was not for the sort of powers that the Minister wants to grant himself for two years. They were unanimous that one year was any amount and therefore members who agree with those submitters should be supporting Erica Stanford's Supplementary Order Paper at the committee of the whole House. Now the Immigration Act 2009 gives the Minister of Immigration extraordinary powers unmatched in any form of Government or the public sector in New Zealand. The Minister is basically granted the power to allow people to come or not come or stay or leave at his or her discretion setting out the plethora—the myriad—of immigration instructions that are required for Immigration New Zealand to operate. But even then the Act enables the Minister to make a decision to say yes or no to a visa application regardless of those immigration instructions and not give reasons for why the Minister is making those decisions. Now that is unprecedented in any part of Government. One couldn't imagine the Minister for ACC for example saying "Well that claimant has a claim on the boundaries of accident or non-accident but I'm going to direct ACC to grant cover and to pay the entitlements to which that person would then be eligible." Doesn't happen. In fact there is a very strong separation between the ministerial the governance and the operating side of almost every part of Government—but not so immigration. So in the light of the significant powers that the Minister of Immigration is granted through the Immigration Act 2009 the Minister wants more power. In 2020 in the middle of a pandemic when the country was locked down when people were stuck either offshore or onshore—non-New Zealanders—and could not have their visa applications processed because Immigration New Zealand itself wasn't able to function in the way that they did that law was appropriate. Not so much now.Indeed I have a huge regard for the people who work for Immigration New Zealand and it pains me to see the confusion and the disarray and the lack of ministerial leadership that is currently the case with Immigration New Zealand. Because they don't know whether they're the decision makers or the Minister's the decision maker or the grounds of what decisions are being made—and fewer decisions are being made. Put aside the principle of whether or not this bill is necessary to continue and look at the reality of the quantum of the work that is being embarked on by Immigration New Zealand. Now in four visa categories only in the full 2019-20 year a year that was affected for at least seven or eight weeks by COVID—maybe more maybe 12 weeks—they nevertheless in those four key categories of resident student visitor and work visas processed nearly 700 visas. They made 700000 rather decisions. This year they are on track to make in those same four categories—wait for it—just 269000 decisions. So more than 400000 fewer decisions are going to be made by Immigration New Zealand this year than last year. Now as far as I can tell there hasn't been a material reduction if at all in the number of staff that work in Immigration New Zealand and so why on earth should we be giving these powers to the Minister? Now one of the reasons the Minister has the discretion that he or she has under the Immigration Act is because every application is different. We're guided by those instructions but nevertheless there is a chime to exercise a discretion and say actually despite the instructions this is the right thing to do and the Minister and delegated decision makers at Immigration New Zealand can do that. Only they're not doing it now. It doesn't matter that those individual decisions for an applicant might warrant an examination by an Immigration New Zealand staff member or the Minister. Whole classes of visa decisions are going to be made.Now the National Party does hold its nose and agree to a limited extension to those powers but two years is far too long. This House should be supporting a shorter time for those powers.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Dr Duncan Webb five minutes."