Cullen Michael: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading 
Cullen Michael: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading 
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Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 It is appropriate that one of the other immigrants in this House also gets to speak in this debate. I could never understand why the National Party gets so worked up on immigration but of course we raised the level for the English language test. Suddenly it struck me that if National Party members had to sit the English-language test over half of them would have to leave the country. They would certainly be led by Dr Nick Smith who has only a passing acquaintance with the English language and is now known on this side of the House as the “Eternal Corporal”. 
I shall take the member who has just spoken through the issue of fruits of litigation. It is a bit rich from a party that abolished area health boards overnight under urgency with nobody knowing what was coming; a bit rich from a party that passed legislation in relation to the Whangarei dispute in 1984; and a bit rich from a party that got the Clyde Dam built only because it overrode litigation that had succeeded against that measure. But never mind that the member has not been here long enough to know the history of her own party is all one can assume from the kind of speech she gives in this House. 
She says that it is wrong to take away the fruits of litigation. Who litigated in this case? It was the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investments Incorporated a highly worthy group of people some of who are somewhat less worthy than others it has to be said to be fair. There are some fairly dodgy characters around there drawn from former members of Parliament of the least worthy variety in many instances. However in legislating tonight what single immigrant has lost the fruit of his or her litigation? This is not like the Western Samoan Citizenship Act where there was a litigant whose rights had to be preserved. There is not a single litigant who is affected by this legislation who was a litigant in the case. The litigants are the people who make the money out of the business of immigration. All the bill does is restore what successive Governments had assumed to be the policy that some judge decided was not. 
At some point under our system we have to assert parliamentary sovereignty against judicial activism. We have heard from members opposite that we should not have a Supreme Court in New Zealand because we might have judicial activism. But lo and behold when they are faced with an occasional Tory on the High Court bench waking up long enough to be active they say: “Oh we must abide by that. It would be totally wrong for Her Majesty’s sovereign Parliament; the Crown in Parliament to decide what the policy should be.” I tell Ms Wong that that is what Parliament is for. That is what she does in the 3 days 32 weeks a year that she works as a back-bench Opposition list MP. What she gets paid roughly a thousand bucks a day to do in this particular Chamber is in the end to decide what the policy is. I know that it is hard work I know that it is tough and I know that she has to take responsibility for it but hard cheese some day who knows eventually in 15 years’ time she might even have to do it from this side of the House but do not bet on that after the way things went this afternoon with the Leader of the Opposition. I think would be better to stick to Sheba rather than Solomon going by the speech he gave this afternoon. 
I come back to the first part of the bill and I shall read what it says in the note: “By prioritising on a global basis applications from those most likely to contribute to New Zealand and settle well in New Zealand will be decided first rather than those who have lodged their application in a particular branch that may have more capacity or residence approval places available.” What does the member not understand about that? What does the member disagree with that about? Or does she think we should decide basically on the basis of which office had the most places available and what the queuing was at that point rather than on who is best suited to come to this country? What other country in the world would not assert its sovereign right to decide immigration on that basis? 
Ron Mark 
: New Zealand until today. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: It is all very well for Mr Mark. He did not have to apply to get into New Zealand. He was born here and unfortunately we are stuck with him. But some of us actually have to get into the country and we understand that those who do get chosen. Some of those who are here unfortunately we would prefer to get rid of if we could but nobody else would take them. I mean we have tried to sell New Zealand First as a job lot but nobody else in the world wanted to take it. Jorg Haider said: “I’ve already got that lot.” and Mr Le Penn said: “They’re a bunch of woolly-woofter sickly white liberals as far as I’m concerned.” So they were not very interested in New Zealand First. 
This bill is a good bill. It is a necessary bill and I have not yet heard a single argument from the serried ranks of National—all three of them. They have failed to put up a central argument yet against the bill.