Logie Jan: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2645. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green):I rise to speak in the Committee stage of the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). This is a bill that there was a lot of public interest in when it was first introduced because this was the bill that was going to help us as a country to address the very real problem of exploitation of migrant workers. I am sure everyone in this Chamber will remember the stories that were in the media at that time of people being paid a pitiful amount of money well—well—under the minimum wage; of people being sold jobs; of people living in slum conditions and being charged exorbitant rent. They are very real situations of exploitation which we know are ongoing. We have been hearing of a number of stories from Christchurch and Auckland in particular. We have heard many stories from those two areas in particular.So this was the bill that was going to help us solve this problem. We have been following this with a lot of interest because this is a problem that desperately needs solving. I want to thank the Government members for bringing forward this legislation but I just cannot bring myself to thank them because what we have been told from the union which is working most closely with people who are bringing forward claims of exploitation is that this is not going to help. In fact too many provisions in this bill will actually put barriers in front of people coming forward and reporting exploitation.Just to specifically address some of the concerns—I also like my Labour colleague do need to admit that I have not had the chance to read the Supplementary Order Paper and go through that in detail. Maybe that will address some of my concerns but sadly I have been in the Chamber addressing other legislation since it was introduced—[Interruption] And I am hearing from a colleague that it does not address any of our concerns sadly.Our concern is that although this will penalise people who are exploiting migrant workers—and that is a good thing; we absolutely need to be increasing penalties from the kind of slap-over-the-hand penalties that we have at the moment for people exploiting migrant workers—on the other side to be able to find out the information about the exploitation we have to create an enabling environment for workers to come forward to say: “Something is wrong I need help.” What we have heard from pretty much everyone—the union the workers themselves and people of their communities—is that the way to do that would be to build and ensure people have visa protection so that they will not get deported because they have lost their job. This bill fails to do that.So although we talk about setting up community networks to help people to find people to go to we are not protecting their visas or their ability to stay and have a job. Often tragically the exploitation is that they live in the hope that maybe they will find something else and be able to go forward and they continue in that stuck place. And that undermines our local economy and other businesses that are paying people the minimum wage—or hopefully more. So this is something that is a problem for all of us not just the migrant workers—even though they are the ones most woefully affected by this.Another aspect of this bill which is deeply concerning and which has been mentioned by my Labour colleague already is the enhanced search powers for immigration officers which—