Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6795] 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: A very serious accusation was made during the Minister’s speech. If she ever suggests that I may have something to do with scams involving immigration consultants I invite her to make that accusation outside the House and I will see her all the way to the court. She would not be able to legislate away the fruits of my victory. That is totally irresponsible— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: You just wait! 
PANSY WONG 
: I find that offensive. She is smiling away. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. In response to what Pansy Wong said the comment the Minister has made “You just wait!” is unparliamentary and threatening. It is out of character in this Committee. I ask that the Minister apologise for that comment. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I ask the Minister to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
PANSY WONG 
: That is why this Minister will never get the immigration portfolio into shape. A Minister should be fair objective and accept valid criticism as being nothing personal. I find it very offensive to suggest anything about my conduct that relates to any immigration consultant. I would hastily point out that the Minister used to trumpet—and continues to do so—the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment as one that the Government was happy to work in partnership with. It is now obvious that unless people totally toe the line and agree with the Minister then she will somehow threaten them with regard to whatever action she may have in mind. 
Part 2 is worth taking a close look at. I want to go to clause 6 where applications for residence visas or residence permits made before 20 November 2002 under the general skills category of the Government residence policy that have not been decided are treated as lapsed. One might argue that there are some exceptions and some of them may not be lapsed. The specific ones are listed under subclause (1)(a) and the first is where “the principal applicant—(i) had claimed points for an offer of employment classed as ‘relevant’ under the Government residence policy applying to that application;”. I invite the Minister to take another call to clarify that word “relevant”. Does it apply simply to people’s qualifications or to the jobs that they already have? What is this relevancy in relation to a particular application? That is not clear. I do not think that a lot of the applicants will feel very relieved to listen to those criteria when they do not understand how the officials will interpret the word “relevant”. 
 The other exception is where the principal applicant had claimed 28 points or more under the Government residence policy applying to that application. I find that very very unfair. Basically it changes the rules after people have already entered the race. As I pointed out at the beginning it was announced that the number of points required had been reduced from 30 to 27. If the Immigration Service and the Minister of Immigration had been doing their job they would have said that people who scored below 28 points would not settle well in New Zealand. Why offer the possibility to them? Why put the number of points at below 28 points? People have in good faith put in their applications after looking at the immigration website. They ticked the boxes and found they had 27 points which was the number required by the policy to qualify and then they suddenly found out yesterday or today that their applications would be considered further only if they had 28 or more points. 
I say that changing the rules is not fair. This legislation is retrospective. The Minister has just said that it will not be retrospective and that clause 3 was introduced only to clarify the legislation. I think that with this particular measure one can definitely say it is retrospective.