Smith Lockwood: Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — First Reading 
Smith Lockwood: Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:1000] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 The National Opposition will be supporting the first reading of this bill and its consignment to the appropriate select committee. We do that because we accept that there are issues around the immigration consultancy business. As the Minister of Immigration just said all of us as members of Parliament confront from time to time the problems that crop up as a result of unprofessional or incompetent immigration advice that potential immigrants receive and we often have to sort out the resulting mess. 
My having said that if we are trying just to bring some measure of reliability to this industry—to assure potential immigrants that they can have some measure of confidence in immigration consultants—I ask whether we need a bill of this size to do that. That is a big issue that will have to be examined by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Is a major bureaucracy being established here that will grow? We know only too well that too often bureaucracies or regulatory bodies are envisaged as quite small when they start out but my God do they grow! 
Let me give an example of that. When I was Minister of Education I used to run the entire tertiary sector—because in those days I was Minister of the school sector the early childhood sector and the tertiary sector—with a team of about 15-30 people in the Ministry of Education. Now we have a regulatory body called the Tertiary Education Commission that employs over 300 people to do the same job and it does that job far less competently than I used to do it when I was Minister with a tiny little team in the Ministry of Education. It is a classic example of how regulatory bodies just grow like Topsy with no accountability. Ministers think these bodies will do a wonderful job and no longer take a key interest in their activities and then we see a bureaucratic monster develop. So our first concern is that if we look at this legislation and the nature of that regulatory body we see there is potential for major bureaucratic growth. 
Labour loves that sort of thing. We all know that Labour thinks bureaucracy is wonderful. It has employed so many more bureaucrats in the last 3 years that the increase in just the core public sector wage bill—forget teachers police and nurses; I mean just the core sector—is now a billion dollars a year because of the number of bureaucrats this Labour Government has employed in recent times. Labour is not afraid of bureaucracy but we on this side of the House are. 
I think concerns will also be expressed that the regulatory body is within the Department of Labour. I know that it is meant to be separate from the Immigration Service within that department but colleagues of mine will probably express some concern about the visibility of that separateness and the risk of conflicts emerging there. 
But today I want to put a little bit of time into the issue of exemptions. We know that not all those involved in giving immigration advice will have to be licensed and one group of people who are exempt under this bill is—believe it or not—members of Parliament. What do we know about the ethical behaviour of members of Parliament on matters of immigration advice? We know that most members of Parliament are pretty reliable in those areas but my goodness the track record recently of some on the Labour side of the House shows they clearly are not! 
We are about to license and regulate immigration advisers under this legislation but a member of Parliament—a former Minister the honourable Taito Phillip Field—saw nothing unethical about dealing with an overstayer who had sought refugee status with his wife was declined that status and overstayed in this country. As I understand the wife was arrested and deported back to Thailand. That member of Parliament saw nothing unethical in dealing with that illegal overstayer. I do not know why any member of Parliament would think he or she should be involved with illegal overstayers but still Taito Phillip Field seemed to think it was OK to offer that illegal overstayer work in Samoa where Taito Phillip Field’s wife could get him a work permit. He saw nothing unethical in telling that illegal overstayer that if he went to Samoa and worked on that member’s new house he would get him a work permit to come back to New Zealand 3 months later. That person Taito Phillip Field will be exempt from any licensing requirement under this bill. 
That is one of the worst examples and I am not sure that in my time as a member of Parliament I have come across any immigration adviser or consultant operating near my electorate whose ethics are as bad as that. I am not sure that I have come across any immigration adviser who has said to someone: “Look if you tile my house I will help get you a work permit.” Taito Phillip Field also said to a painter that if he painted a house that the member had bought under certain unscrupulous terms from a poor person in his electorate he would help him get a work permit. That sort of person is exempted from the requirements of this legislation and we on this side of the House say: “Well hang on. If we want to sort out the problems around immigration in this country how do we make the system work when members of Parliament have no constraints on them?”. 
At the moment in the case of Taito Phillip Field the Minister of Immigration is refusing to accept any accountability whatsoever in terms of the involvement of the Minister of Immigration in this fiasco concerning Taito Phillip Field because the Prime Minister has set up a commission of inquiry. And what has happened to the commission of inquiry? A key player the guy who blew the whistle on Sunan Siriwan—the guy Taito Phillip Field got to retile his house in Samoa for the promise of a work permit here in New Zealand—the builder who went to Samoa to work on Taito Phillip Field’s house as well which is how he knew about Sunan Siriwan is refusing to speak to the inquiry being held by Noel Ingram QC. 
So what a farce we have. Here we have legislation to try to make the Immigration Service put some decent boundaries some certainty and some professional behaviour around immigration advisers and consultants but Labour members of Parliament who will be exempt from the licensing and regulatory requirements of this legislation are displaying behaviour that is totally unethical. If they were immigration consultants they would probably be charged under various of our other laws but as members of Parliament those Labour members are able to get away with the Prime Minister setting up a mickey mouse inquiry. 
People knew what went on. People knew what Taito Phillip Field was up to. People like the former Minister the Hon Paul Swain knew what Taito Phillip Field was up to because he visited his house in Samoa and met the Thai tiler whom Taito Phillip Field had promised a work permit. What is becoming outrageous now is that this Labour Government will not pay for people who know what went on to get legal advice. It will not pay for people to have legal advice as they give evidence to that inquiry. Therefore it is a farce because people are refusing to appear in order to be interviewed by Noel Ingram QC. So what will we get? A cover-up—a snow job! 
Here we have legislation that will tie our immigration consultants up in bureaucratic knots and Labour members of Parliament who put in hundreds of representations to the Minister—most of which it seems are for people who should not be getting residence or permits to come to New Zealand—are exempt from it. That is just one of the reasons why National has concerns about this legislation. It is typical of Labour’s “look good” kind of legislation whereby Labour sets up a whole big bureaucratic machine and makes it look as if something is being done but in fact the legislation has huge holes that Labour members of Parliament can exploit.