SpeechDr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to talk about the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. I note that it's not often that we get to debate amendments to the Immigration Act since literally everything in the system is guided by immigration instructions that don't get to have any scrutiny in this House so we'll take whatever we can get. Nevertheless it is unclear that there is a need to include this piece of legislation in urgency this week. The chances of a mass arrival—that is people being smuggled here on a boat—are close to zero and the Minister has even stated and pointed out the fact that it's never happened. That's not to say it won't happen but is this really something that needs to go through urgency amongst everything else? Probably not. There are countless more things in the immigration system that could do with improving and on the face of it this looks like a bit of a framework for little reason other than to perhaps contrast New Zealand's approach to this issue with that of the UK which—as the previous speaker Golriz Ghahraman has highlighted—is occurring at present. Nevertheless we will support the bill to select committee with some reservations noting the issues that I've talked about in urgency—the issues with the bill—and the Cabinet paper containing many redactions under national security which is really helpful. We'll trust that the Government knows something that we don't and take a good-faith approach. I would note that if the ACT Party was given a chance to have a briefing from officials to discuss this in advance like the other parties were we could have asked our questions then but it certainly wasn't extended to us. So the concept of detaining asylum seekers for a month without charge or evidence is somewhat cagey from a human rights perspective and when the Government is trying to convince us that they're doing this for the right reasons I'm getting a little bit more sceptical. The Cabinet paper indicates that one of the purposes of this bill is to give migrants human rights and freedom from arbitrary detention". That's a bit ironic. It's like the old "imprison you for your own safety" kind of concept. In reality this bill enables longer detention and in some sort of a quasi-detention facility that is not particularly outlined. Whether they're talking about Mt Eden or the Māngere detention centre officially known as the refugee resettlement centre—it could be; we don't know—that hasn't been explained other than things like a "low or no security facility". So like what a managed isolation and quarantine hotel or something? Humorously the departmental disclosure statement states a concern: "There may be risk to New Zealand's international reputation on the basis that this proposal enables detention without warrant of an undetermined duration". I think that is a concern that the select committee should actually look at to go "Have we gone about this the right way?" particularly in comparison to other countries and the risk of this actually occurring. There's also a fair amount of talk about natural justice but I'd ask where is that in the bill? Natural justice is about being innocent until proven guilty and freedom from arbitrary detention and this bill seems to do the opposite. So a few ancillary points. As the Hon Gerry Brownlee has pointed out those other refugees in the UN system might feel a bit undercut by this and of course those on legitimate pathways—those who are waiting with the speed of the parent category for instance and how slow that is and languishing in residency queues and waiting for their 2021 resident visa will be wondering about the very different treatment going on here. The choices for the courts are interesting: granting entry detention or releasing with or without conditions. Given the Cabinet paper has a large number of redactions on national security grounds it's kind of surprising that there is no sort of more obvious escalation whether that's extended detention if the situation warrants it or even deportation. So it may sound a bit crass but if a boatload of al-Qaeda showed up the options in this bill are actually the only options—and I highly doubt it. So overall we'll support this at first reading like I said so that it can have some scrutiny in a select committee because so far it hasn't had any with external stakeholders other than internal Government agencies. So I commend it to the House."