McCully Murray: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
McCully Murray: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6801] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: Part 2 is a substantial part and I am disappointed to see Government members taking calls purely to seek closure on a matter that deserves sensible consideration by the Committee. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: How sanctimonious! 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Mr Cosgrove may think that we should expunge the rights of over 10000 individual applicants—maybe over 25000 individual applicants—under the system without even giving the matter a second thought without even having a select committee discussion without even giving it any consideration in the Committee of the whole House. That is what he wants to shut down. We are not going to have a select committee or give any of the people whose rights are affected by this measure the opportunity to make a submission in the normal way. But Mr Cosgrove thinks it is OK to make only one contribution to this discussion in the Committee stage—that is to try to stop it. He has not uttered a word of debate not a word of support for the measure and has not given an explanation to any of the questions raised by members of three parties opposed to the bill. They are questions that the Minister will not answer because she does not know the answer. Maybe Mr Cosgrove knows the answers but he will not take a call and tell us the answers. I want to say that is thuggery; that is not good enough and that member had better recall that if that is going to be the approach of the Government on matters that affect people’s rights so seriously then he is in for a very rough ride. 
I want to talk about clause 6 because— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Oh come on! 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Why does the member not take a call? [ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. As you were making an intervention the chief Government whip offered an insulting reference which I took to be a reference to the Chair. I think you are entitled to take exception to it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Did the member make a comment? I did not catch what was said. 
David Benson-Pope 
: My exception was to the member calling my colleague Mr Cosgrove a thug which is neither parliamentary nor acceptable. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Madam Chairperson I was just trying to look after your interests in this matter but if you want to overlook that kind of intervention on my part I will move on to my scrutiny of clause 6. 
What happens with clause 6 is that a large majority of the 46000 applications—which the explanatory note tells us are valid applications before the Minister at the moment—are expunged. Those applications are wiped out. If we are going to pass this bill I think there are some questions the Minister should answer. The first question is why it is that no significant changes were made during the last 4 years which would have changed the number of people who made applications. The Government has been in office for 4 years; it has had 4 years of officials reports statistics and 4 years of opportunity to change the basis on which these people were invited to apply. These are people who have applied in the last 2 years. This Government has been in office for 4 years and the Minister has done nothing but she comes along now and says she wants this legislation passed under urgency with over half of these people having their rights expunged. I want the Minister to say why the Government has done nothing for the 4 years before she came along with this measure. 
Why has the Minister not made any changes to the wider programme that is spelt out? Of the percentage of people identified in various categories 60 percent still are in the skills and business category. In the spirit of the changes contained in clause 6 I would have thought that there would be changes also to the wider framework of the Government’s immigration programme. I think the Minister herself conceded in the earlier debate that there are some valid points to be made. I want to know how it is that we have a bill that expunges people’s rights particularly in relation to clause 6 but there is no wider indication of a change in policy or strategic thinking that would provide some guidance in this respect. 
I also want to go back to clause 5 and ask the Minister whether she will tell us precisely what sort of discretions are envisaged by that part. I read in the explanatory note that priorities will be given to various applicants whose rights are not expunged by clause 5 and those priorities will be identified according to high contribution and settlement potential—that is those who can make a greater and more immediate contribution to New Zealand’s immigration policy objectives and are themselves likely to obtain the greater benefit from the decision to migrate. I want to know what that means.