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 
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DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: New Zealand First opposes this legislation which is clearly rushed legislation. It breaches all constitutional aspects. It is part of our traditional parliamentary process that legislation should go to a select committee and this legislation is not to go to a select committee. Obviously the Minister in the chair the Hon Lianne Dalziel is dreadfully embarrassed about the entire mess of her portfolio and this bill should really be called the “Immigration Amendment (Why Lianne Dalziel Should Resign as Minister of Immigration) Bill” forthwith because she is totally out of touch with her portfolio. 
When we look at why this bill is before the House and at the court case we see that all the plaintiff wanted to do was to allow general skills applicants to have the opportunity to apply for a general skills visa under existing policy at that time. There appears to be a distinction made in that case between those people who had their visas cancelled from 20 November 2002 onwards and those who did not have their visas cancelled prior to that date. As I read the case and the legislation it seems to me that if one had lodged an application before 19 November the court case states in paragraph 97 that: “The announced policy is not invalid insofar as it relates to persons who have been invited to make a job-search visa application prior to 20 November 2002.” That seems to be the situation there. 
This Minister just seems to want those people who are merely applying for a visa and who have lodged their application to be unable to continue with their application. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: If they have lodged an application for a job-search visa they are OK; their applications are not lapsed. 
DAIL JONES 
: OK so if they have lodged their application for a job-search visa they are OK but if they have not lodged their application and are in the process of doing that— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No. If they have been invited to lodge an application they are OK; they will not be lapsed. 
DAIL JONES 
: Only if they have been invited but if they have not been invited— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: If they have not been invited to lodge an application for a job search visa they will be lapsed unless they have 28 points or more or have the offer of a skilled job. 
DAIL JONES 
: I appreciate the Minister taking the time to try to explain the situation but would it not have been very much better if we had been able to go to a select committee and discuss the matter there? We could then have had a clear indication of what was happening. But I paused so that the Minister could at least make that contribution to the Committee and we would be better informed. 
However from reading the  
Dominion Post 
 today it seems that if one is in New Zealand now one will get a head start under this legislation as opposed to those who have followed the previous practice and waited to lodge their application having gone through all the proper rigmaroles. Those who have taken the time and trouble to comply with the law as it stood when lodging their application and who are not yet in New Zealand will be out of luck because this Minister is saying that people from overseas who are in New Zealand on other types of visas will have priority over those who are not here—even though they may be here on totally different grounds and may not be as eligible as someone else who may have applied. 
For example we have 63500 people here who have been admitted under temporary work policies so their situation may be changed by the very fact that they are here now only as immigrants under a temporary work policy. We also have another 73800 people who are covered by student visas and permits. In terms of the New Zealand Immigration Service’s statistics for 2002 all those people are part of the 190000 people who were here as immigrants in the year 2002. As set out in today’s  
Dominion  
Post and in terms of this policy it seems that the group of 63500 people and the group of 73800 people can apply well and truly in advance of anybody else. So it would seem that a person who is here as an English-language student—and one’s English is obviously not very good if that is the case—would have a head start over someone who can already speak English. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No. 
DAIL JONES 
: Well people in that situation must have a head start because they are here now. As the  
Dominion Post 
 stated: “But they could also benefit foreign tertiary students including many from China. She indicated”—referring to the Minister—“they would get priority especially if they had a job offer.” We know what some of those job offers are—we have all sorts of immigration consultants running all sorts of schemes.