Fenton Darien: Immigration Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fenton Darien: Immigration Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 03 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1952. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 Labour will oppose the Immigration Amendment Bill because it is just one big overreaction to a non-existent problem. It is a waste of parliamentary time when there are so many other important things that we should be dealing with like the fact that unemployment has gone up again today and so many of our young people cannot find a job. This bill is being rushed through. I do not understand why it is being rushed through its first reading. It was deliberately introduced on Tuesday in an attempt to divert attention from the tawdry scandals surrounding this Government. Those tawdry scandals extend to immigration and any other piece of legislation that this Government thinks it can put up for sale to the highest bidder.  
The Government is determined to divert our attention from the real issues by talking up what it believes is a populist move while at the same time it will not front up on the real immigration issues. Firstly there is the secret deal done with Warner Bros which we learnt about on Friday. We have watered down immigration rules for our film and video production industry. Despite special deals and favours to Warner Bros this Government has done nothing to ensure that the growth of our film industry can result in New Zealand jobs. The New Zealand public have a right to know why it is necessary for Weta Digital to be seeking 369 foreign workers to come in and work for it in the next year. Goodness knows how many other foreign workers it has. The Government has bent over backwards to do special deals and special favours and New Zealanders are not benefiting from them.  
Government members also need to explain to us why there are increasing numbers of applications from employers in low-paying industries to bring in workers from overseas and pay the minimum wage. Why is that happening? Why is that acceptable in New Zealand? Does the Government think it is acceptable for Filipino nurses to be tricked into bondage as caregivers in the aged-care industry? That is people-trafficking and nothing is being done about that. I also want to know whether the Government thinks it is OK for secret deals for secrets to be kept by Immigration New Zealand under section 61. It keeps them secret from the public so that no one can find out the reasons for the decision. The Government still has not told us why only 10 applicants have succeeded under its migrant Investor Plus scheme and of course the poster boy for that scheme is none other than John Banks’ former very good friend Kim Dotcom.  
This bill is a cover-up for a whole range of dodgy arrangements including the Government’s willingness to make special rules for those with lots of money and ignore the rights of everyone else. This bill will not work as a deterrent to desperate asylum seekers who could take the extremely unlikely decision to risk the treacherous sea journey to New Zealand. It will not stop people-smugglers in other countries who encourage them and it puts at risk New Zealand’s reputation as a good international citizen. 
 The bill copies the former Australian Conservative Howard Government which successfully divided that country over a hysterical response to so-called boat people and did that by arresting them and putting them in detention centres. I do not want to see that happen here.  
The Minister of Immigration mentioned the 10 asylum seekers who had fetched up in Darwin who by the way would not be covered by this bill because it is for only 11 or more. They said they were considering making the long journey to New Zealand the very hazardous trip to New Zealand. We worked with negotiation and diplomacy. Our officials worked with the Australian Government to dissuade those people from attempting the journey on the grounds that it was dangerous and they would likely not succeed. That is good diplomacy and negotiation. It kept New Zealand’s dignity and it kept our reputation. But in a short space we have gone from worrying about the potential for 10 asylum seekers from Darwin coming to New Zealand to legislating for the possible arrival of 500. How did that happen?  
New Zealand is one of the most geographically isolated countries in the world and we are never going to be swamped by mass arrivals. The regulatory impact statement from the Department of Labour actually admits that “It is not possible to quantify exactly what the likelihood is of a mass arrival occurring in the future or when this might occur. It is also not possible to be sure about the characteristics of the people involved in any such event.” So the Government bases this bill on the assumption that 500 people would be involved in a mass arrival when there has never been a real threat to New Zealand’s borders of 500 people turning up on a boat seeking asylum.  
Labour is not saying that we should not have a plan for the very unlikely event of a mass arrival at our borders but it should be based on reality and the decent practices for which New Zealand has earned an international reputation. Locking up asylum seekers who are desperate to find a place of safety simply does not work as a deterrent and Australia’s experience should tell us that. I never want to see asylum seekers in New Zealand locked up behind fences holding up signs going on hunger strikes committing suicide and becoming a political football in the way that they have in Australia.  
The bill proposes a mandatory detention for 6 months which is horrific with the possibility of ongoing detention. That will also come at a cost to our reputation but it will cost the New Zealand taxpayer as well. The Minister said: “Oh well we can lock them up in Mangere.” Actually there has been discussion about closing that centre. So the other alternative is to put them on some part of our Devonport naval base. I wonder how the member for North Shore will explain to the nice people of Devonport that they will have mass arrivals arriving at the naval base and being locked up. The regulatory impact statement says that actually more detention facilities will be needed for longer and additional facilities would need to be commissioned and operated. So in the extremely unlikely event that 500 people wash up on our shores we will spend money and build more detention centres and this is from a Government that claims it is practising austerity.  
Another amendment in this bill would mean that a claimant’s refugee status would be reassessed after 3 years—the Minister talked about that—with permanent residence not granted unless that reassessment is approved. The Australian Government is saying that this is similar to what Prime Minister Howard did under the Conservatives. It is similar to the temporary protection visas introduced by his Liberal-led Government. Those visas did not work there and they will not work here. This is what the Australians are saying. The overwhelming number of people who get temporary protection visas actually have ended up as permanent residents in Australia. It is hardly a deterrent. These changes are not only an overreaction but they are probably in breach of our international humanitarian laws and our convention obligations.  
New Zealand is highly regarded for its refugee policies internationally which include taking up to 750 refugees every year through the United Nations system and offering asylum to a smaller number of people who reach our borders in other ways and meet refugee criteria. We have all celebrated over the years Helen Clark’s decision to allow the  
Tampa 
 refugees to come to New Zealand and settle here. Most people in this House will have met them at some stage. Their children are well settled and they are now working. They have been through study and they are now working and contributing to New Zealand society in ways that we could never have imagined.  
The thing about anybody who fetches up here is not to have the sort of mass process that this bill proposes. Everyone who seeks asylum in New Zealand or seeks refugee status should be considered on a case by case basis and they should not have to languish for indeterminate periods in custody because as this bill proposes they arrived as a group. New Zealand already has measures for dealing with people-smuggling under the Immigration Act or the Crimes Act. We have had 15 successful convictions in the last 6 years. We are part of the Bali Process on People Smuggling Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime and the Government is always boasting about that. There are other solutions to this problem than this ridiculous unnecessary diversionary bill. The Government should be spending its time thinking about the real issues that are facing New Zealand. It should be cleaning up the immigration issues and favouritism that is going on at the moment in New Zealand instead of wasting our time.