McDowall JamesDr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of ACT to make a few comments on this bill. I'll start off by saying that ACT too is tentatively supporting this omnibus bill at first reading as it does contain some provisions that can be used to strengthen existing laws in particular in New Zealand that combat migrant exploitation. The issue of migrant exploitation is obviously very real and migrants deserve a voice and an opportunity to help craft a law that does directly affect them. The select committee is an opportunity for this to take place which is enough for us to support the bill at this stage.We do however call on the select committee to give a great deal of consideration to the new infringement regime in particular and particularly the likely outcomes or as some might say the unintended consequences versus the overall purpose of this bill. The powers that will be granted to immigration officials and the labour inspectors to be able to go around carte blanche to whichever businesses they like on pretty marginal grounds and require documentation to be produced within 10 working days is on the face of it a bit problematic.I note from the bill's explanatory note The kind of records and documents that immigration officers could request from employers"—I'm quoting here—"include wages and time records leave records employment agreements bank statements and financial statements." This power does have the potential to be abused in the sense that it could create fishing expeditions to identify and deport migrant workers which I hope is not the point of this bill. With regards to the timing of documentation being produced that I noted I would like the select committee to just consider whether 10 working days is fair and reasonable in the context of natural justice. I mean it would be absolutely incredible to get written questions back in 10 working days.There is a further risk that these powers could result in officials busying themselves by targeting good employers—the easy targets those ones that'll actually comply with the law—and basically just being a general nuisance without actually solving anything. This bill is arguably a significant expansion of Government power and if Immigration New Zealand (INZ) and the labour inspectorate just assume everybody is bad from the outset it's going to be an incredibly disruptive and ineffective law.As an aside I should also note that the explanatory note of the bill may need a bit of proofreading as well. One example is: "persons convicted of exploitation under section 351 of the Immigration Act 2009 or people trafficking under section 98D of the Crimes Act 1961 cannot not be directors promoters or managers of any company". I'll repeat that: they cannot not be directors. I'm fairly sure that's the opposite of what is intended so they may want to fix that. It's sort of assuming that if you're convicted the Government's going to force you to be a director of a company so maybe the plain language police will be all over that one.I'll move to the potential consequences for employees and this is the particular part of the bill where fundamentally we've got a big problem and it's a balance issue. In its current state it appears to simply be a tool for the enforcement of the accredited employer work visa scheme in that it seeks to ensure that migrant employees have the right visa and aren't breaching their conditions—fine. But my question is: where's the focused targeting of exploitation? This bill if left unamended could disproportionately affect migrant workers. Specifically the infringements include (1) an employer that allows a person who is not entitled under the Immigration Act 2009 to work in the employer's service—so that's ensuring that the employee is indeed tied to that employer—and (2) an employer that employs a migrant in a way that breaches their visa conditions. So once again the second infringement focuses on the employee. The scope of these new infringements is fairly narrow and its focus may just be in the wrong place. That's quite important for the select committee to consider.If the objective of this bill is to go after dodgy employers and slap them with a $1000 fine for every employee that they hire unlawfully that may indeed be an outcome and it may work just fine but what about the flow-on effects for those workers? Further how does this new infringement regime which is aimed at the lower end of the migrant exploitation spectrum—specifically that part of the bill—feed into the migrant exploitation protection visa or otherwise encourage whistleblowing? The point is what migrant employee is going to dob in their employer at this level of offending? The risk to the employee is significant. If they speak up they will be admitting to Immigration New Zealand that they are in breach of their visa conditions and that leads to one thing: they'll get a DLN—they'll get a deportation liability notice. In such a scenario a DLN is a totally disproportionate response and a huge disincentive for whistleblowing.Building on that I would ask: will migrants get some sort of grace period once an investigation kicks off or an interim visa of some type or perhaps an invitation for some sort of fast-track version of the migrant exploitation protection visa? It doesn't actually talk about it. Or will they just be booted from the country? What is this bill actually designed to do? The explanatory note of the bill even alludes to this—we're talking about the power to obtain documents specifically "documents that relates to non-compliance with the Immigration Act 2009 or the deportation liability of the worker." On the other side of the equation I'd also just note that the Government needs to ensure that there's natural justice here; that an employer can appeal if there has been a misunderstanding because it does happen.So what about the protection for migrant workers how's that going? Others have alluded to this but I'll just add a slightly different take on it. In terms of INZ's dedicated phone line the migrant exploitation reporting phone line in the year to August 2022 there were over 1700 calls to that number. From the year to June 2022—so it's pretty much the same time period—the Government reported that there were 956 formal reports of migrant exploitation and in that same time 119 migrant exploitation protection work visas were granted. So if we look at it as a bit of a funnel—I know it's a slightly informal way of doing it but if it's kind of a funnel with people ringing in at the beginning and visas being issued at the end of it it's about 7 percent. So there's a fair bit of work to do and it does take about eight weeks to get that visa. So really how does this all fit in with this bill? Where's the bridging here? Is it a sufficient safety net? I would argue that in its current form with this bill it probably isn't.On a somewhat related note I'll just ask: can migrants have confidence in the decision-making skills over at Immigration New Zealand? I ask this because almost half of the appeals to the IPT the Immigration Protection Tribunal get overturned right? The immigration officer has made an error usually in examining the case and an IPT appeal is done and they get it. So it's half of them—that's not a good look for INZ.In terms of the other aspects of this bill particularly around ensuring that the notices have in fact been received I think we possibly need to look at that. It's a little bit blasé to say "Oh we posted it in the mail therefore they must have received it." I think some sort of follow-up—given the documentation supposedly had to be done in 10 days some more follow-up would be a bit better there. Regarding the Companies Act 1993 changes where their information will be published if they're found to be breaching and that's on the more serious end for those that have been prosecuted—look we're fine with that. We think that's fairly reasonable.So to finish I will just reaffirm that there is a gap here between the lower-level infringements that this introduces and the higher-level offending that is prosecuted under existing law. At what point do these new infringements escalate to the point where for instance the Companies Act comes in and the provisions kick in? Our issues predominantly rest with the infringement regime who it's targeting and why. What's the purpose here because on the face of it it's going after the employees the migrants and the end result is going to be bad. There are all manner of reasons—and I'm not encouraging it—that an employee may be in breach of their visa conditions and in some cases it's just because Immigration New Zealand is taking far too long to process their visa or their employer's accreditation or maybe it's just a variation of conditions. Maybe there's a mistake been made—it happens that's why immigration lawyers exist and why licensed immigration advisers exist to help people through that process. Problems do arise and I think issuing this process which will be an infringement one and the DLNs probably for the migrant at the end of it is just not a good thing. Some migrants are just in a state of desperation and they might be getting a good pay cheque until they sort things out so we do need to be careful.To help reduce exploitation as ACT has been calling for the Government should stop tying migrants to employers give them the freedom to easily change jobs if things don't work out with that employer and at the very least with this bill provide more protections for migrants so that it's clear that this bill isn't just about punishing them. Give them a bridge to a safety net so that they can actually be encouraged to whistle-blow. So as I said ACT will be supporting this bill to select committee so that migrants and employers can participate in the process together with the Government and hopefully that will result in better law. Thank you Mr Speaker."