Woodhouse Michael: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Woodhouse Michael: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6683] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on Part 2 of the Immigration Bill. As I did not have the opportunity to speak on Part 1 I begin by congratulating the officials and the various Ministers who have worked on the bill to this point and also those hard-working members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee of which I am one. Of course as I was not here in the previous parliamentary term I did not face the dubious challenge of wading through the several thousand submissions I am sure the committee received on the Immigration Bill. 
I will not pretend that I know terribly much about the bill but I want to make a few comments in relation to Part 2. However I will preface that by talking a little about the purpose clause. This is reforming legislation to establish a stronger more flexible and more enduring legislative foundation as we know. But really this legislation is about managing risk. It is the risk that the wrong types of people micro-organisms or pathogens will enter this country and put its people and its biosecurity at risk. Once here the risk also is that those people will be here for the wrong duration or for a different purpose from that for which their visas were extended. It is also worth recognising that the technologies have changed quite a bit not only since the Immigration Act 1987 was implemented but also I am quite sure since this process started in 2004. It has been a long time in gestation. 
The issue in Part 2 is the ability of the immigration authorities to use biomedical and automated systems for identifying people—for example iris scans. We heard the Green Party member Keith Locke express his serious disquiet about those technologies and the way they could be used or misused. Indeed the Green Party mentioned those concerns in its minority view. I think it is worth reflecting on technology generally and the way in which society has introduced it whether it is fingerprint technologies introduced many many years ago or DNA testing for criminal inquiries and genetic identification. These new technologies carry with them legitimate and sometimes significant concerns about the way in which they could be used or misused. I think that is the concern that the Green Party and perhaps some others have so I am pleased to see that the bill contains protections around the use of that information and in particular the department’s responsibility to complete a privacy impact assessment and to identify the potential effects that the use of this information may have on personal privacy. 
It is another matter altogether whether in practice those processes and protections are strong enough. I think from a legislative perspective having looked at Part 2 and realising the risks to the country the bill as laid out provides very adequate protection. I am sure it will be incumbent on the Minister—and I have every confidence that he will do this—to ensure that those technologies are used appropriately. I certainly wish the Minister all the best in that endeavour. Obviously the country wants an Immigration Service that is of world standard and that has the best technologies and the best processes. I do not think we can say that that has been the case in recent years for reasons that are well documented and do not need to be gone into again. I think we need to back our Immigration Service and give it the tools and the technologies it needs to improve that performance. These sorts of biometric tools are definitely part of that. 
The other area of Part 2 that I want to touch on briefly is the issue of classified information. This is another area where the Green Party has some concerns. But again it comes back to that fundamental risk management strategy. The risks in this area are exceeded by the benefits. I think that we need to measure those clauses in that context. Yes there are concerns in terms of natural justice and the issues of equity when we are considering the risk assessment of certain immigrants but I think on balance the need to keep certain information classified is well understood and I support it. That is all I want to say about Part 2; I commend that part.