Robson Matt: Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Robson Matt: Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20109] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 It is clear that the parties are taking positions to pass this bill in its entirety. The amendments that I have proposed as a Progressive member state that I believe the status quo should stay in relation to the time period for people gaining citizenship. I point members to the fact that we have had this position for many years in New Zealand. It could have been 2 years 1 year or it might have been 4 years but presumably when a time period was set between residence and citizenship there was a policy behind it in terms of assessing whether someone was a suitable citizen for New Zealand. 
Now that the period is going to 5 years I have not heard in the select committee or in the Committee of the whole House tonight any valid policy reason for going from 3 to 5 years. The member from New Zealand First who has just spoken hinted that it was pressure from Australia. We have been assured by Australian officials and the Australian Government that there was never any demand. I think the Minister himself may have spoken and said that there was never any demand or blackmail from Australia that we should set a period of 5 years. As far as I can see it is internally generated. 
I draw the Committee’s attention to one aspect of this matter. I for my sins was a member of the Labour Party before 1990. Then we had a parting of the ways when the church was not quite broad enough at that particular time. We were obviously praying to different Gods and ours was not Roger Douglas at that time. The Labour Party that I remembered fought these types of proposal. They came up many times—from whence I do not know but largely from parties of the right to put more and more restrictions on people who were migrants. Much of it was electorally driven at times from the type of speech we heard from Peter Brown suggesting words like “floodgates”. When such words are applied to migrants and refugees people do not have in mind the white European they have in mind a certain type of person usually Asian usually from the Middle East. It is a reprehensible term. 
 That is what drives that type of demand. Economics do not drive it. The only part of economics that drives it is the consideration that if people come here and then leave for Australia after 3 years we are losing them. Well that is true of course but maybe we need to do more to keep them here. Let us take the example of doctors for a start the many doctors who came to New Zealand—and New Zealand First even campaigned for New Zealand doctors. Those doctors have gone to Australia in large numbers not because they were disloyal not because they did not want to make New Zealand their home but because we did not open places for them until under a progressive action of the Minister of Health Annette King—I played a role myself in that Government—we set up a bridging course and more doctors stayed. But others left because we did not open up enough places for their skills through actions taken by ourselves. Now what we are saying to migrants is on the one hand how we love them for coming to New Zealand and on the other hand that they are not good enough; they have to wait 5 years before they qualify for citizenship. 
My amendments are directed to the status quo. There are four of them. I put it to Peter Brown to tell us at some stage how long it was before he was able to apply for citizenship. Was it 3 years or was it 5 years? He may have waited a long time because he had a privileged passport a British passport which allows people to travel without having to face the restrictions that people from Third World countries face. Such migrants go to Australia and the first thing they face is not being allowed out of the airport without having special rights special permits etc. There are two types of passports and two types of backgrounds in New Zealand I am afraid and what we should do is try to iron that out. 
My first amendment which is directed at leaving the qualifying period at 3 years is to omit from clause 4 the term “ordinarily resident”. If members vote for my first amendment that is what they will be doing; they will be keeping it at 3 years. I believe that economically that is justified and in terms of social cohesion it is fair. 
The second amendment concerns citizenship—the birthright of every child. After this legislation is passed how many members want people in their offices who have children who were born in New Zealand and have been struggling for maybe 4 or 5 years—and we should not forget that many of them win their cases and that the law was wrong—because those children cannot go to school and cannot get health care? That is why the right to citizenship for those born in New Zealand was there for years and years and was never taken away. 
And that is why the United States and Canada leave it there. It is because that right protects the child. There are not hundreds of mums getting on Boeing 747s descending on Auckland airport and then clogging up the hospitals. That is a myth. If there are one or two people who do that well—do we have a sledgehammer to crack a nut? How many members know New Zealanders who have deliberately had babies in other countries? I do. I know many who have had babies in the UK.