O'Connor Damien: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingText is subject to correctionO'Connor Damien: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3109. Text is subject to correction.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman):Before I start I would just like to say to the new member Clayton Mitchell over there: do not apologise for getting passionate in this House because no matter how hard you try Phil Goff and I will try to make you look like a moderate. This is the place where we should have passion because the issues we bring here to this House are very important—none more so than that of migration.Labour supported this bill going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee because in principle we absolutely support the protection of migrant workers in this country and their conditions. But we have to know that the legislation is going to be effective and I have not heard so much hypocrisy in this House for a long time. Yesterday in this House the Minister of Immigration refused to stand up and protect Chinese migrant workers who had been brought into this country to take asbestos out of trains. He said: “I’ll fall in behind contract law because they are employed by a company that is not a New Zealand company. Therefore those migrant workers don’t have to have New Zealand wages and conditions.” That is an outrageous act of slavery endorsed by the Minister in this House yesterday. And then he has the gall to come into the House today and say: “We’re passing legislation to protect migrant workers.” That is why Labour cannot support this because it is absolute hypocrisy.We supported the establishment of the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme bringing into this country people from the Pacific Islands to help us out. We supported the ongoing utilisation of worker permits for people in the tourism industry. The dairy industry is now hugely reliant on workers who come into this country. In the meat industry we supported them. The core of this economy is supported by migrant workers. There are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly we have not done a very good job at establishing a high-wage economy. New Zealanders have opted to go offshore rather than stay here. In general terms the jobs that the migrant workers come into are low-paid work—low-paid work. We are reliant upon that. But there is still the unfair and unjust situation that in some of these industries they can rely on migrant workers for up to 5 years giving them no security—sometimes allowing their families to come in which is good so they have some form of normality—and then telling them after 5 years to pack their bags and go home. I think that is as unfair as anything we are trying to address in this piece of legislation but the Government is not doing anything about that.As a former Associate Minister of Immigration I am someone who takes pride—and I know there will be many others on all sides of the House—in trying to do a very fair job in this really difficult area. There are 4000 to 4500 individual cases of migrant workers seeking an exemption to the rules because they believe they should be here. I think that is a fair system and I think we do our very best for them. But we have got an economy dependent on migrant workers. This Government is moving to try to protect them and we applaud the principle of that—in fact I acknowledge that this Government has brought in legislation to protect foreign workers on foreign-owned fishing boats working in New Zealand. But when the Minister yesterday could not stand up and support the upholding of rights for those Chinese workers I cannot believe anything the Government says. I cannot believe that the passage of this legislation is about a genuine attempt to bring fairness into the workplace.There are some terrible rorts going on and they have been in the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme and across migrant workers. I can tell you that workers who raise issues in the workplace are then threatened that they will go back to their home village and no one will be employed in the next year if they continue to raise these issues. Outrageous—outrageous strong-arm tactics over migrant workers. They are vulnerable they do need protection but they need it through legislation that is genuine and is backed by a Government that upholds rights for all migrant workers not just for those it selects because they are in its chosen industries. When the Minister upholds the rights for those Chinese workers getting asbestos out of trains I will believe the Government but until then this is an act of hypocrisy.