Parmar ParmjeetDr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT): Sorry Mr Speaker I see there's no microphone here. So thank you Mr Speaker—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): I can hear you well now.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR: Ha ha! Thank you. I'm taking this call on behalf of ACT to support this bill in its second reading. This is the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill.I note that this bill went through its first reading in the last term and then it was reported back as well in the last term—the term that I skipped. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee did the job on this bill. They did what they were supposed to do—they heard from submitters—and I note that there were 322 submissions on this bill. In my view 322 submissions means that there was a significant interest in this legislation—and 22 submitters appeared online and spoke to their submission. So I want to acknowledge all those submitters and thank them for their contributions. I also want to thank the previous Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee.As we have heard this is actually a very small and technical amendment what this bill does—it is to the Immigration Act 2009. As we have heard before this is 96 hours' provision which is there for the judges to make a decision on warrants of commitment that in this bill is to be changed to—because 96 hours is four days that is to be changed to seven days. And if it was not reasonably practicable for the District Court to consider an application for a mass arrival warrant of commitment within seven days it says the detention could be extended by a judge to 28 days.Now I use this term detention" as we have heard from the Minister of Immigration that there were some concerns in the select committee about this term. It has been made clear that "detention" doesn't mean putting people in prison. I fully understand what submitters said because what was really interesting to see in the select committee process—as I read in the report—is that most of the submitters actually opposed this legislation. The reason for that was that humanitarian angle: that was about how women children disabled people will be treated because the impression was that they will be locked up in some kind of prison. That has been made very very clear that the "detention" word in here doesn't mean they will be in some kind of prison.Now it's also important that we take note that yes geographically we are far from other countries. The risk is lower—or negligible we can say—because in the report I note it said that "since 2015 85 asylum seekers were detained in New Zealand [detention] facilities." and that "no asylum seekers have been detained in custody since early 2020." The report was done in mid-2023 and I assume that this is still true and we haven't had any asylum seekers since early 2020 detained in custody. Looking at that the risk definitely is quite low for us but this is about futureproofing and we are talking about people—those who might randomly arrive here and this is random maritime arrivals that we are talking about.On the other hand I would like to address a few points that the Green member Ricardo Menéndez March raised in his speech. He talked about respect and dignity. Of course respect and dignity is important for these people—those who arrive here—and that is why we believe that there needs to be sufficient time allowed to them to have legal representation. This is about natural justice that we want to have in our provisions.But what I don't agree with is the member says that this is like creating "another class". I don't think it is about another class. Definitely they are a different group of asylum seekers because we do get refugees through our United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees system and those refugees are already qualified as refugees—so we accept them as refugees. But these people when they arrive here then we have to go through the process to see if they are real refugees.We cannot just continue to accept everybody who arrives at our borders through this kind of mechanism—accept them as refugees and start giving them citizenship. Because that way we will be sending a very wrong signal out there to people and people will start taking risks—risking their life—to arrive here. We also know—this is a fact—that when people get onto these boats they don't come here for free. There is somebody who is charging a big amount of money to put these people on a boat because they really want to leave that country and come to a country that they desire to be in.So the ACT Party has decided to support this bill in the second reading and we really look forward to the committee of the whole House. This is not about creating another category; this is about making sure that we treat asylum seekers as asylum seekers and not treat people differently and not try to create classes within refugee classes. But also making sure that we are not encouraging people getting on a boat and coming to New Zealand expecting that as soon as they arrive here they will be stamped as refugees and they will get citizenship. So with that I would like to say that we are supporting this bill in the second reading. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Have a good evening everyone.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 9.59 p.m."