Mallard Trevor: Immigration Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Immigration Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 03 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1969. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I find it a bit rich that Simon O’Connor finished his speech by talking about the rule of law in New Zealand when we all know that this bill the Immigration Amendment Bill has been brought in this week as a dog-whistle diversion in an attempt—in the way that the Australians do on a regular basis—to divert the attention of the public away from the goings-on of the ACT member John Banks.  
Jami-Lee Ross 
: Go back to TradeMe. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Here he goes again. The poor man’s Paul Quinn is interjecting. What is his name? Lee-Jami Ross. Lee-Jami Ross the poor man’s Paul Quinn is interjecting. We have lost Paul Quinn— 
Dr Cam Calder 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think the honourable member is well aware of the correct name of our honourable colleague here. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I am actually not. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Just hang on. We had this before. We actually like to hear the names of who the speakers are so I just ask members to respect the courtesy extended and call members by their full names. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Can you remind me? 
Hon Member 
: Jami-Lee not Lee-Jami. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Sorry Jami-Lee Ross not Lee-Jami Ross. I apologise to the member. The point that I was making is that Paul Quinn made better interjections than that member and he ended up so far down the list that he got dropped.  
This is a dog-whistle bill. I spent some time as a Minister on the committee that looked at these matters. We saw very carefully what the threats are and the threats are pretty well summarised: “We’ve upgraded our operating manual … in the way that we’d deal with a mass migration issue if it came to New Zealand and we’re confident we understand our legal position. I don’t want to go into detail but all I will say is that we’ve got the capability and we’ve modelled that we understand what we need to do. We haven’t proposed major changes because we don’t think that’s necessary …”. I agree with that. Do you know who said that? John Key. John Key said that not 1 year ago. He was telling the truth then and is it not a pity that some of the people opposite did not listen to him before they got their dog whistles out and started blowing them?  
We know what the story is. People do not come here on cabbage boats the way that John Key—John Banks sorry. I am mixing them up now. They are so far into each other’s pockets it is hard to tell what the story is. The way John Banks describes migrants to New Zealand is as people who come in cabbage boats. Well that is insulting. That is absolutely insulting but we know that those boats hardly make it from Indonesia to Australia. We know that people drown all the time from those boats. We know that people are rescued from those boats all the time between Australia and Indonesia. There is not a snowball’s chance in Hades of those boats making it to New Zealand.  
The Prime Minister has had those briefings. The Prime Minister knows what the truth is and we here also understand what politics is all about. It is the Australian Liberal approach to politics: if you are in trouble throw a bit of muck. Pick on the brown people—pick on the brown people. And that is the approach that National is taking with this legislation because that is its normal approach when there is trouble. It does not matter whether it is the days of Muldoon when it started the dawn raids. National was in trouble in those days so what did it do? It went and raided Polynesian homes. Well it is not quite as politically acceptable to do that now. National is slightly more politically correct. But what it is doing here is trying to raise a non-existent brown-Asian threat in New Zealand and it is raising it in an attempt to avoid the resident of the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong—at whatever price he paid and whoever arranged it. I will make it clear: it was not a cabbage boat; it was a plane that he went on. But what is also clear is that he got a discount. He said yesterday he did not. Today he admits getting a discount. Therefore what is happening is a diversion from the activities of John Banks.