Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise not with any level of pleasure to speak on this bill. It's a disappointing bill. It's a disappointing process. I bring with me the memory of having acted at the District Court in Auckland when first this law came into effect and when first we began to interact with the returnees most of whom were made homeless most of whom began to suffer more and more extreme mental health harm. And our communities including the court community began to—in somewhat of a panic and certainly without Government support—respond to those needs. So if anyone wants to talk about public safety being prioritised through policies like this or laws like this I think that they may be lying to themselves if not to the public.It's enormously regrettable that the first time this law comes back to our Parliament for debate not only is it again being debated under urgency but it is to affirm one of its most abusive aspects rather than to look at the policy more broadly and now with the benefit of hindsight—with all of the harm indicators and the risk alerts which were raised with us the first time now having come to fruition being ignored. The Green Party first abstained our vote on this bill when it first came to the House under the John Key Government for it was done under urgency. We won't be abstaining this time. We will be voting against it because we now can see the harm in its full realisation to not only those who are returned and sanctioned retrospectively but to the communities that are being left alone to handle that harm to handle these people cut away from their families from their culture from their whānau. Cut away without support dumped in New Zealand because of a deal made by a previous Prime Minister because of this law which ignores the principle of legality the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and all of the evidence that tells us how to in fact keep communities safe how to in fact keep people from a life of crime how to in fact keep people from addiction and from mental health harm. It ignores all of that so that politicians can look tough on crime.And that context is important: the context that a previous Prime Minister chose to act upon that deal with Australia—didn't stand up for the rights of New Zealanders didn't stand up for our community safety issues that we are all now debating—and chose this law. We don't have this kind of agreement with anybody else because you know what? We don't have jurisdiction to sanction those who have committed acts in another jurisdiction in New Zealand. This was a political move. It was never about public safety. Otherwise we'd have an agreement like this with every nation State every place where someone else does something wrong under any process. Whoever decides to deport whoever else who's served their sentences who's served their parole we would be sanctioning them too. This was just a political move. And remember: when people ended up on Christmas Island that Prime Minister chose to lie to the House and say that they were rapists and murderers when they weren't.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Yeah yeah yeah. The member—yes I think I can anticipate what the member is going to say. The member will stand withdraw and apologise.GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: I withdraw and apologise. Thank you Madam Speaker.So here we are with a High Court finding that it isn't in fact clear enough in that previous law whether or not that House wanted to pass law that breached the principle of legality. We've come back to Parliament to debate this law—not the merits of it not the impacts of it but to make it clear that we do want to breach the principle of legality. That principle is based on the ways that laws are made fair. Laws are to be knowable and they are not to sanction anyone retrospectively. So if you've done a thing at a time when it was not illegal when there wasn't a sanction for the thing you did in the jurisdiction that you did it for you are normally not allowed to be sanctioned because that wouldn't be fair. The law wouldn't be knowable. It wouldn't make sense. And we don't do it in any other context. But we made a political deal with Australia and we decided we were going to do it in this context.OK so that happened and so we have this law. We've had it harming our communities for some years now. And you talk to any of those District Courts that have to deal with the homeless with the people we've disenfranchised we've cut away from community—the people we've chosen not to support knowing Australia has dumped them here. We've chosen not to keep communities safe not to help people with their addiction issues with their mental health issues with their social welfare issues; we've just dealt with the criminality. And here we are saying it will apply retrospectively that bad lawmaking is OK in the political context of the returning offenders no matter what the High Court says no matter what the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act says.In fact we had a review of this law in 2019. The Green Party didn't have a member on the Justice Committee then but we read the submissions and we know that the New Zealand Law Society gave us some actual practical measures to ensure that the framework didn't infringe unduly the rights of those to which it applied. Surely our focus as a lawmaking body should be to uphold people's rights? At least not to breach them unduly. And yes we have courts and they don't bind us. Yes we have independent expert bodies like the Law Commission the Law Society the Human Rights Commission and yes none of them bind us. But to say that this brief debate without a select committee stage is all we're going to do and ignoring the findings and recommendations of all of those expert bodies that also have a role in our democracy—we're not the only dictatorial little house that sits within that democracy. To ignore all of those findings and to say we will rule according to what makes us look tough on crime in an election year—let's not ignore that politicised context here now—that we will ignore the harm and the rights breaches we will ignore the principle of legality we will ignore the racism in the policy Australia is applying itself we will ignore the fact that it is Māori and Pasifika—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member has for the second time prompted me to get to my feet. The member should be very careful when she uses words that are unparliamentary. The first time it was very clear—an allegation made which was unparliamentary that was the first time. The second time—the member should know by now that any mention of racism should be treated with the utmost care and respect in this House. So I do ask the member to take note.GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Thank you Madam Speaker. I do want to notice that all the evidence shows that those being deported by Australia under this policy do happen to fit a certain racial descriptor so—but that data is collected. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): And I will warn the member for the last time that arguing against a Speaker's ruling is a very unwise thing to do in this House. Golriz Ghahraman has one minute 39 seconds.GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Thank you Madam Speaker. So we're passing a law that will apply retrospectively to a community already harmed—a law that will not keep us safe that has not kept us safe that has increased crime in New Zealand to uphold a policy in Australia. What we could have done instead of course is to introduce a law that would in fact review this policy that would send it to select committee where we would hear from those communities where we would hear from the experts and actually take them seriously. Look at what in fact prevents crime. Look at what Australia is doing on its face as not quite right not quite right for New Zealand and say What can we do in receiving the returning offenders to keep our community safe to minimise that harm and to uphold our principles our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the integrity of this House?" Unfortunately this bill in every way undermines those principles. It does although make politicians look tough on crime."