Jones Dail: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Jones Dail: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6820] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: It is very evident that the preceding Labour member has not read this bill because the very point she referred to is not contained in this bill. It may be contained in the bill that has been referred to the select committee but it is not in this bill. New Zealand First as the party that has long supported the immigration to New Zealand of skilled immigrants will be looking closely at that bill. However the question of skilled immigrants coming to New Zealand is not the issue in this bill. This bill contains other issues altogether. It seems to me very clear that most Labour members have not understood this bill. There is some spin in the explanatory note that confused me for some considerable time until I went through this bill line by line. The statement there is and I quote: “Global prioritisation will enable residence applicants with for example high contribution and settlement potential to be given early consideration.” etc. etc. Really nothing in this bill talks about that. That might be in the bill that has gone to the select committee but I suggest that it is not in this bill and New Zealand First will be looking very closely at that other one. 
Part 1 of this particular bill has an extraordinary clause that is almost meaningless; it is so wide and so broad that it shows how the Minister has failed in her job in 4 years or so as Minister of Immigration. Imagine any other Minister in any other Government coming to this Parliament and admitting that after all the time she had been in office her decisions had been overturned by the High Court and then having the temerity to bring a bill into this Parliament to overturn that decision in less than 24 hours! We have been debating this bill for less than 24 hours now and in less than 24 hours this minority Labour Government will overturn a High Court decision that one would assume the Government was willing to abide by in the first place which is why it went there; but the Government having—not surprisingly—lost the case we now hear from the Minister in the Committee stage that clause 3 seems to be the clause that will overturn the legislation. 
 When one reads section 13B(1A) inserted by clause 3 it states: “To avoid doubt any policy of the Government that relates to the issuing of any type of temporary visa or limited purpose visa or the granting of any type of temporary permit or limited purpose permit is not Government residence policy regardless of whether the issuing of the visa or the granting of the permit may affect eligibility for or otherwise relate to the issuing of a residence visa or the granting of a residence permit.” What is meant by—“To avoid doubt any policy of the Government” etc? What the Government is virtually trying to say is that anything it has said that is Government policy is Government policy even though it may be wrong even though it may not have the support of the court. It seems to me that to give effect to this clause the Government will have to take one more step somewhere in the executive area to say just what is meant by new subsection (1A) in clause 3 otherwise we will be back to court again to find out just what that amendment to section 13B of the Act actually means. 
Essentially it means that the rule of law does not apply for this minority Labour Government. It will arbitrarily overturn the decision of a court. That is what the rule of law is all about—for Governments not to act arbitrarily. There could be nothing more arbitrary than the way in which this Government has acted in this legislation. It should be ashamed of itself. 
I turn to clause 4 about the chief executive giving general instructions as to the order and manner of processing applications for visas and permits—nothing to do with globalisation that I can fully understand. Clause 4 will allow the order and manner to be determined at the direction of a visa officer or immigration officer. So our office in Delhi can decide. Some official there—a visa officer or an immigration officer in Delhi—can decide who on its priority list comes to New Zealand. If it has 5000 applications in Delhi applications going back for 12 months that visa officer could decide to put the one that has just been received to the top of the pile or the one that was received a month ago to the top of the pile. Do members not think that that would be a bit suspicious? Do they not think that in a place like Delhi suspicion will be cast on the way in which a visa got to the top of the pile or moved its way up the ladder? We all know how corrupt that part of the world is. 
What about Teheran? What would happen there in moving a visa application up to the top of the pile? We know for example and New Zealand First has made this point time and time again that the best way to get a visa in New Delhi is to see the chap under the tree outside the New Zealand High Commission—a few appropriate rupees and the visa is yours. We have given many examples of that to the Government as to how in New Delhi that is the best way the quickest way to get a visa to come to New Zealand. 
This Government is going to allow immigration officials all around the Pacific the Philippines and suchlike—offices where we have had problems in the past—to be encouraged to adopt this process. 
I move on in a complementary sort of way to clause 5 “Past order and manner of processing applications deemed valid”. It states that any failure by a visa officer or an immigration officer is deemed to have been validly done. Even if the officer issues a visa that is contrary to all Government policy even if the process is finalised and the person comes to New Zealand under that sort of basis it is deemed to be validly done. The Minister cannot overturn it the authority cannot overturn it the tribunal cannot overturn it the court cannot overturn it. In fact by looking at this one could say that any terrorist who wanted to come to New Zealand from Afghanistan or from Iraq could if the person could get the cooperation of the visa clerk at Delhi or Teheran get into New Zealand and be here validly as a result of this legislation. 
I suspect that Government members do not understand this legislation. The last time we had a case like this was with the port and sherry tax and when that bill was introduced into the House we were told that that tax was aimed at the young drinker—the person who drinks all these fancy drinks. We were told they were 15-plus percent and suchlike. It turned out that the young drinker drank alcohol that was closer to 5 percent and was not affected by the tax which is for fortified drinks over 14 percent. In fact the elderly drinker who has the occasional port and sherry was hit by that tax. It was only after we had spent a considerable— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Come back to the bill. 
DAIL JONES 
: —amount of time deliberating on it that we discovered that mistake. That is just a comparison. Just as the Government was totally at sea on that one so on this issue the Government is totally at sea. It does not seem to realise what it is it has done under this bill. It is leaving it wide open for people to come into New Zealand under this sort of regime whereby the local visa officer the local immigration officer can make the permit available and there is no appeal from that decision because this legislation says so. I suspect that it will not be terribly long before this legislation is back before the House again to be amended. 
I will not say much about clause 6; that has been covered a lot with regard to speeches from other members of the House and the Court of Appeal decision. But as far as New Zealand First is concerned this bill does nothing to bring skilled immigrants into this country. All this bill does as I have said is overturn a court decision and somehow give visa officers extraordinary powers—powers that are then validated by this legislation itself. 
There is the issue of for example the matter raised in the  
Dominion Post  
today about people being able to come into New Zealand based on changes of policy and suchlike. The article stated that the changes could also benefit foreign tertiary students including many from China and the Minister had indicated they would get priority especially if they had a job offer. As I see it that applies to the other bill that is before the select committee; and obviously Parliament will see how that works. 
This is a very very sad day for parliamentary democracy in New Zealand. It is a day on which the Minister of Immigration has been shown up as an absolute failure. In any reasonable Government in any British Westminster system she would have resigned. We are seeing a situation whereby in less than 24 hours the “fastest legislator in the West” once again—that is the title of this Parliament—is trying to rectify the failure of the Government the failure of the Minister and is leaving the door wide open in my view to corruption and also to allowing terrorists and other undesirable people to come to New Zealand.