Bennett David: Immigration Bill — First Reading 
Bennett David: Immigration Bill — First Reading 
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DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 The immigration debate is one of the major debates that we will have as a country over the next decade or so. It is probably the biggest thing that a constituent MP has to deal with on a day-to-day basis and it really reflects the changing nature of our country and of the world we live in—especially the region we live in. We live in Asia. It is time New Zealand identified that and was quite positive about that and recognised that that is our future. 
Hone Harawira 
: This is not Asia. This is the Pacific. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Our future is in this region. We are in the Asian region and the greatest economic influence on our country will be from our Asian neighbours the challenge of our greatest population increase will be from our Asian neighbours and the greatest political influence will be from those countries as well. As we see a changing dynamic of the population we will see a changing political methodology as well. Those groups will bring in a different way of government. They will bring in a different perspective on the values of government. They will bring in a different concept of what they want to see government involved in in our communities and throughout the country. 
This bill does not address those issues. This bill is just procedural legislation. All parties basically will support it to an extent. Everybody wants to see the best procedures of government in the way that we do our business. However the bill does not address those fundamental concepts that have been discussed today. 
In this House over the last couple of months it has become quite evident that members of New Zealand First are raising the question of immigration. They are bringing that up as they are getting ready for another election campaign to use it as one of their tools in that campaign. The Maori Party quite rightly identified that. It is a campaign that is quite appalling when we consider that people are trying to impose limits on others who come to New Zealand. We hear members from New Zealand First talking about U-turns from Government members. New Zealand First members had the biggest U-turn when the Minister of Immigration challenged what they were actually saying. They were saying that New Zealand First was the party that brought this legislation forward—that New Zealand First members were the drivers for it. In fact the drivers were set up a year before that coalition agreement. It was not New Zealand First that was driving it; it was the Government that was driving it as a result of the changing nature of our immigration patterns. 
We also hear many of the political parties talk of the need for immigration as a cornerstone of the Government’s economic transformation. I think those were the words of Lynne Pillay. If it is the truth that immigration is the cornerstone of Government policy then why has the Government reduced the immigration targets? Only a month or so ago the Government reduced immigration targets by 2000 people. On the one hand the Government is basically saying that it wants immigration and it wants to see New Zealand grow but on the other hand its actions indicate that it does not foresee immigration as beneficial to New Zealand. 
Government members are going out there into the communities and they will do this during the election campaign. Labour is especially good at this during election campaigns. They go amongst all those communities and side with them and say: “We’re the party for you. We’re the ones for immigration.” Let us look at the statistics and see whether this is true. The Government has reduced the immigration quotas. It has reduced the number of people who could have come to New Zealand by 2000. This is 2000 people who would have gone into the communities that those members will go out to and profess their great allegiance to. Those communities need to know that this Government has reduced the ability of New Zealand to have immigration. Immigration is something that inevitably we will have; we will not be able to deny the future of immigration to New Zealand. It will happen and it is something we must embrace not limit. 
We hear the Minister talk about a changing world and how this bill is one of the three factors in his reform process which will be made up of the legislative reform the review of key policies and the business project. We want to see the review of key policies. That is the debate that people are looking for. This legislative reform is a long piece of legislation and it is a big book for everyone but it does not contain the heart and soul of what immigration is about. It does not tell us who is going to come into New Zealand and when they can come. It is only saying that these are some of the procedures that the Government will look at. 
The real debate needs to be not on the procedures but on the nature of immigration whom we let into the country and how we let them in. Immigration is something we must be open and considerate about. It is not something we can put up barriers to. If members feel that New Zealand can isolate itself from immigration then they are dreaming. We lose so many people from New Zealand that we have to replace them. At the moment the people coming in do not have many skills in comparison with those we are losing. That is something we need to adjust in our immigration policy. We need to take into account that we are losing a lot of skilled people. Research from Massey University shows that the people coming to New Zealand have very few skills. A startling percentage of only about 15 or 20 percent of people who come to New Zealand have the skills base we would expect. The immigration system clearly is not working. It is not a matter of limiting numbers and saying that 2000 fewer people can come in. It is a matter of identifying how we can get the right people coming here and with the right skills. There will be some changes in the colour of New Zealand as a result. That is something we need to see happen as well. It is the nature of the world in which we live and it is the nature of the continents that surround us. 
We also hear that this bill is only procedural and framework legislation. That may be the case but we want to debate the real issues in this House. The real issues of immigration are not dealt with in framework legislation. I challenge the Labour Party members to put the real issues in front of this House rather than some kind of framework that they then hide behind. Why do those members not debate the real issues in the House? [ 
Interruption 
] They cannot. That is right. They will not and the reason is that they are afraid of doing that. 
The other reason Labour members will not debate the real issues is that they are in a coalition agreement that binds them to silly policies from a party that is scared and will use the immigration debate in election campaigns. We heard Peter Brown talk about requirements for migrants such as having to speak English. What makes a migrant so great because he or she can speak English? Is Peter Brown going to require a level of English speaking? That member is a migrant. Who is to say he would meet any criteria to come to New Zealand these days? [ 
Interruption 
] Exactly! He would not meet the criteria under the skilled migrant category that is in place these days. 
It will be interesting to see what New Zealand First members will do. New Zealand First is a party of old men and a few old women as well. They will be going to hospital in the next few years. I wonder how many of them— 
Pita Paraone 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I take exception to being referred to as old. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: That member clearly is not old so I will withdraw and apologise. 
 I would like to see how those elderly members of the New Zealand First Party get on if they have to go to hospital and see who will be operating on them. I can bet that if they go to hospital their nurses will not be born and bred in New Zealand and I can guarantee that their doctors probably will not be born and bred in New Zealand. Will those New Zealand First members thank those people? I am sure they will. They will say thank you. They will not talk about the immigration policies they talked about in this House. They will be very thankful for those people. 
What is more the children of those New Zealand First members—the baby-boom generation—will benefit from those migrants paying taxes to keep their superannuation going. Who will pay for the gold card that has been set up? It certainly will not be all those New Zealanders who have left and gone overseas. It will be the migrants coming to this country who are working hard and paying taxes. They will pay for the next generation of New Zealanders to retire under the gold card provisions. 
It is pretty rich for a political party to come in here and use the immigration debate as an election campaign tool when it knows that it will benefit from it. It is just using fear tactics in this country to try to get some votes and that is appalling. The Maori Party has described it as appalling. New Zealand First is against people who do not quite look or sound like what it wants to see. That is not good enough. 
The world is changing and if we cannot adjust to that and be prepared to take in people who do not look the way we look who do not sound the way we do and who have different interests then that is a sad day for New Zealand. We as a country will pay the price for not being able to do that. The countries we compete with have made the choice that they will take in those people. If New Zealand denies those people a future we deny ourselves a future. The people on the other side of the House who do that will deny this country a future.