Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I rise to make a statement on the third reading of the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge as many of us have done that COVID-19 changed everything for all of us. But it did create specific challenges for our migrant communities many who have been stranded in their homelands. Ultimately as we finish the discussion on this bill I think it's important to centre our discussions on the communities that are going to be most affected by this bill and the decisions the Minister uses with the power granted by legislation which are those on temporary visas those who may have overstayed their visas and those who are currently in their homelands.The legislative statement was quite clear around why this bill was needed in the first place which was in regards to the impact COVID-19 was having in Aotearoa around the need to act swiftly and flexibility on our border controls and in recognition that ultimately what we're dealing with is a deadly and very aggressive disease. But I think what is often missing is the impact that it has on some of our most vulnerable communities who cannot fully participate in society.The legislative statement as well as the bill is quite clear on how this bill may be used. I want to draw attention to a couple of those points which include extending expiry dates on visas and granting visas to classes of people in the absence of an application. What we heard from submitters at the Education and Workforce Committee was not so much an issue of misuse of the power but rather that the powers have not been used to the full extent to ensure that the wellbeing of our migrant communities is at the forefront. So we heard from people on post-study work visas who are facing uncertainty and a lack of clarity about whether they will have a visa by the time the border restrictions end. Our submitters were really clear that they support the intent of this bill which was to be able to take a public health approach to the pandemic response and for our borders to be able to respond adequately to the pandemic but they were very clear that ultimately these are people who—many have made Aotearoa their home—still have livelihoods and connections to communities in Aotearoa and who are facing ill physical and mental health as a result of the uncertainty in not knowing whether their visas will continue.We also know that the powers in this bill are able to be granted to enable our communities to fully participate in society. And I think that's particularly important for disabled people and temporary visas many who are not able to attend school and who are not able to access income support. This bill is really clear that we could be using the powers granted to the Minister to ensure that disabled people are able to access residency class visas and therefore be better equipped to deal with a resurgence of the pandemic locally here in Aotearoa.With the continuous risk of the pandemic reaching our shores and us moving from alert level 1 to potentially level 3 or 4 it is all the more important that our temporary visa holders are able to access residency visas. I'm talking about the ability that the Minister has in this bill to be able to grant visas to a certain type of people and we are talking about residency class visas. We saw during the lockdown the difficulty that migrants faced when it came to accessing income support. And even though emergency benefits were rolled out for migrant communities if the powers had been used to enable people to access residency class visas they would have been able to access assistance through our welfare State and be better protected and therefore better participate in our public health response to the pandemic.So the issue that the Green Party has with this legislation is not so much with this arbitrary discussion about whether it should be two years or one year—because ultimately we do acknowledge the need to respond flexibly to the effects of the pandemic—but it is more about the fact that our communities were quite clear that the powers have not been used to their full extent to ensure there is equity with our migrant communities. The Green Party offers our support to work productively with the Labour Government to ensure that the Minister understands the needs of our communities.I want to point out—and I pay tribute to my colleague to the left Ibrahim Omer when he mentions his background—that a lot of the discussion in this House about the impact of this bill on our communities is not centred from members who actually belong to our communities members who have a lived experience with the immigration system. I am concerned that we've seen plenty of white saviourism around the discussion of this bill and the impact that this bill has on our communities. So my call is for members of Government to listen to the members of our community; not so much members of the community who may just have a stake in political point-scoring around the use of the powers. This is reflected by the fact that our select committee heard predominantly from members of our migrant communities. The few industries that presented to the select committee were all actually quite clear that the powers should be used for the betterment of migrant communities. In fact some of the industries even supported that the powers be used to grant residency to a large class of people which is something that the Green Party supports.So going forward it will be important for the Minister to use the powers of this bill to close the gap that exists in our immigration system—to close the gap that means that investors and millionaires are able to promptly access residency class visas while disabled people are not able to access residency visas whatsoever—to ensure that our migrant workers that are here in Aotearoa are able to access the support that they need.And so as we move forward and we continue scrutinising the use of the powers by the Minister that come from this bill we will extend our support and also our critical eye to ensure that the wellbeing of our migrant communities is at the forefront. Kia ora.