Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill — Instructions to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill — Instructions to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8263] 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: 
 I hope you will allow ample time for debate of this legislation now also including the Supplementary Order Paper that the members have had little time to examine. I hope we will have time to raise that during this debate. During the last 2 months the Labour Government has brought in a series of Immigration Amendment Bills to such an extent that most people are confused about what these amendments are. So I have introduced two amendments to this title clause. First I suggest that we should insert the words “Immigration Amendment (Workload Management) Bill”. The reason I suggest that is that although the Minister introduced this Immigration Amendment Bill as a sweeping change saying that from now on we will have a new policy that migrants can be welcome in New Zealand only if they can contribute to New Zealand—of course we know that that was the intention of the immigration system for a long time—the interesting thing is that during the select committee stage the officials told us that the changes really were superficial. It really was only a change to give them additional tools—whenever they face a build-up of workload they can use this invitation to apply tools to reject the expressions of interest that accumulate in the pool and also by using a lapsing provision from time to time to invalidate the number of applications or expressions of interest in the immigration pool. 
I thought the Minister might not have given clear instruction to the official who told the select committee that this bill was really in substance to continue with the existing immigration points system but only that it will be less transparent and introduce additional tools to enable officials to lapse an application. It would be more appropriate to signal this bill’s title as the “Immigration Amendment (Workload Management) Bill”. At least it would be a bit more informative of the intention. 
I have also discovered this article in the  
Socialist Worker Monthly Review 
 that says: “The Labour Government’s new racist policy will see Asian immigrants on the current waiting list told they are not welcome in New Zealand.” The article went on to say: “These new rules will clearly advantage migrants from the US Britain and South Africa white Europeans. A fact admitted by immigration consultants.” 
So I have also submitted a second amendment to the title clause saying that the title of this bill should be the “Immigration Amendment (Asians Beware) Bill”. Potential Asian migrants should be made aware of the changes in this bill because they need to take great care before they incur a lot of time and expenditure in submitting a so-called expression of interest. Many submissions that we heard in the select committee including from the Human Rights Commission and the Auckland Law Society made it clear that they believed that this immigration legislation no matter how it was worded would have the practical impact that migrants from Asian countries or non-English-speaking backgrounds would be disadvantaged. I have also introduced this amendment to make sure this Immigration Amendment Bill’s intention is clear by inserting the words “Asians Beware”. 
The  
Socialist Worker Monthly Review  
also went on to say that migrants also would have a greater chance of acceptance if they could pre-arrange a job prior to arrival. Therefore according to a prominent immigration consultant David Cooper this requirement would again favour European applicants who fit into the workplace.