Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Kia ora Madam Chair. First of all I would like to begin by acknowledging and thanking the Minister for the assurances that he has given our communities who have overstayed their visas around their ability to access vaccinations. I think that's an important reminder in our response to the pandemic. But participation from migrant communities and for those who have overstayed their visas is clearly about much more than vaccination; it's about being able to access income support when we potentially go into lockdown since we're not immune to a resurgence of COVID-19 and we're very well aware of that. It's about not being in exploitative situations as we move from level to level to respond to the pandemic. Ultimately what we are saying is that the bill needs to ensure that our migrant communities and those on temporary visas are able to fully participate in society and are able to access the support that they need as we need to respond to the pandemic. This is why we're very clear that the powers granted to the Minister by nature of this legislation should be used to grant pathways to residency as the legislation is clear that these powers can grant visas to individuals and classes of people in the absence of an application. Even though it needs to be in the context of the pandemic we do believe that the more that people are able to fully participate in society the more swiftly and nimbly we can all respond together as a team to the pandemic. I want to acknowledge as well that the Minister did touch on the fact that this legislation cannot be used to affect people negatively. But I do want to point out that in the absence of action that benefits our migrant communities we are left with a broken immigration system that already puts a lot of stress and pressure and has a lot of inequities in our communities. For example even for the Minister it talks about the rigid criteria for border exemptions and applications for visas. We do have inequities that mean that wealthy individuals and investors for example can be granted a visa while our overseas whānau who are on post-study work visas are facing uncertainty. These are not so much inequities that exist because of this legislation but rather because of our immigration system more broadly and this legislation does present an opportunity to ensure that there's equity in our response to the pandemic and our immigration system more broadly. So there are also inequities that exist based on country of origin—who can apply for border exemptions just based on where they're from—and also the ability for disabled people who may be here to apply for residency class visas in order to participate in schools in order to participate in society more fully and therefore for disabled people who are on temporary visas to be able to be part of the team that is responding to the pandemic. It's a lot harder to respond to the pandemic when you don't have full access to State services. So the Green Party does support the powers of this Act being granted for two years but we're very clear that the Minister has a responsibility to use the powers to benefit our migrant communities and to address a lot of the points that were raised in our select committee's report around extending visas for people offshore. I talked earlier about post-study work visas particularly giving assurances for members of our migrant communities who were back in their homelands and who come from non-visa waiver countries such as India to be able to know that they'll have a visa once the pandemic truly subsides and once the world contains COVID-19. The whole point of this legislation was to keep our communities safe. I don't want to minimise the effects of the pandemic as some members in this House may have. The reality is that the pandemic is continuing to kill people and actually people in non-visa waiver countries are some of the places where the pandemic is raging really really rapidly. For those people stuck overseas who may have already made Aotearoa their home they are particularly vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic and the least we can do is give them reassurance that they'll be able to come back and that their visas will continue to be valid as our border settings change. So we call on the Minister to act in the benefit of our communities to use the powers granted by this bill. We hope that in two years while the wider review of the immigration system happens our migrant communities will know that this Government backs them.