Jones Dail: Immigration Amendment Bill — Instructions to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Jones Dail: Immigration Amendment Bill — Instructions to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8257] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First is very willing to support the Minister of Immigration in this area. I suspect that we will have to support the Minister in this area time and time again because of the 20000 or so overstayers we have in this country. How many of them come within this type of category or after this issue is resolved other categories? Because of the failure of this Government to prevent people who should not be here from coming into this country because of it allowing people who should be removed more promptly to stay in this country we have this dreadful situation where not only do we have massive immigration here but also we have a massive number of people who are just staying on willy-nilly and this Labour Government is incapable of doing anything about it. 
Parliament this afternoon has to halt its proceedings so that a special Supplementary Order Paper dealing with a certain Amir Mohebbi can be incorporated in some legislation before the House and we can get rid of him from New Zealand. He has been here since 4 July 1997. New Zealand is an absolute soft touch. I know that one could ask who was in Government then but all I ask is who has been in Government for the last 4 years and has allowed him to continue to stay in New Zealand. The Labour Party has been in Government. It has been its responsibility to do something about it. [ 
Interruption 
] Damien O’Connor can chip away from the middle of an aisle as much as he likes; he should get into his seat and perhaps make a decent interjection. The Labour Party has been in Government for 4 years. We have heard about this for barely 30 minutes and New Zealand First is ready to cooperate. The High Court judgment was on 7 August which is almost a month ago and this Government has been sitting on its hands for all that time not doing anything about it. [ 
Interruption 
] It would be interesting to see whether a lawyer or two or three or four— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: How much legal aid in this case? 
DAIL JONES 
: Will the Minister tell us whether this person was legally aided—another sip at the New Zealand bowl of fairness and charity? It has been suggested that he is bigamous. Of course in Islamic law to marry a second time is not bigamous. That is one of the problems with bringing people like this into the country. The Minister for Ethnic Affairs Mr Carter says we have to look after their ethnic rights and suchlike; in that case we should not be charging them with bigamy. Mr Carter takes the view that we have to be nice to people. In Islamic law two three or four marriages are permitted. If a man wants to renounce an Islamic marriage he just has to walk around the woman three times and say: “I divorce thee. I divorce thee. I divorce thee.” and he is divorced. That is the sort of culture Mr Carter supports. That is the sort of person who comes into New Zealand. It is not surprising we have some problems. 
I am sure the vast majority of people who come to New Zealand under lawful means make a worthwhile contribution to this country. New Zealand supports people coming to New Zealand under lawful means regardless of where they come from—whether they come from Iran Iraq England South Africa or China. What we get upset about time and time again—and here we have highlighted it once more—is someone coming to New Zealand illegally and this Government doing nothing about it for the 4 years or so that it has been in administration. We are very concerned about that. 
Since 4 July 1997 this person has been here and it has just drifted on and on. It has cost the taxpayer a tremendous amount of money. It has gone before Judge Blaikie in the District Court at Manukau then it has gone before Judge Singh. He made identical orders to Judge Blaikie’s. We now have the situation under the Habeas Corpus Act. This is a person who for a while denied that Mohebbi is his name. Finally Judge Blaikie noted that Mr Mohebbi had refused to produce a passport despite being requested to do so. Over the past 6 years this person has given a number of explanations as to where his passport is. Most recently he has asserted that he left his passport in Iran when he left there in the first half of 1997. He has said he boarded a plane for New Zealand with a false passport which he destroyed before his plane landed in New Zealand. There may be good cause to doubt the truth of this account. In any event this person has steadfastly refused to produce a passport. All that can be said is that it may be because he is simply unable to do so. Justice Chambers made it clear in the High Court that this person is deliberately flouting New Zealand’s immigration law. There is no doubt that he is in the country unlawfully. He has taken advantage of the Iranian Embassy’s refusal to issue a passport for him without it having an application that he has personally signed. 
Mr Woolford who must be one of the counsel in the case said that is an unusual stance for an embassy to take. Normally foreign embassies will issue on the application of our Immigration Service if not a passport then at least a travel document to permit their national to be removed from New Zealand and returned to their homeland. One can only say one is terribly disappointed in the attitude of the Iranian Embassy. As a result of that embassy’s attitude we now have the situation where at least one person from Iran is bringing other Iranians into disrepute. I suggest to the Iranian Ambassador consul or chargé d’affaires that he is not doing anything to improve New Zealand- Iranian relations or to improve our attitude toward Iranians as a whole by adopting that approach. It is interesting that other embassies take the view that they will issue papers. I understand that six embassies adopt the stance of the Iranian embassy. 
It seems to me that one consideration that a Government could take into account here—it seems that no thought has been given to it—is to deem in legislation a power of attorney for someone who refuses to sign an application for a passport. It might be interesting to see whether under our law we could sign an application for a passport on behalf of someone who was refusing to apply for one. That could be deemed to be a proper form at least for New Zealand purposes and therefore should be accepted by one of these six embassies that have taken the view that they will be difficult. I put that suggestion forward to the Minister because it might be something for this Government or a subsequent Government to take into account to try to avoid the type of problem we see here. 
Overall this issue is a clear indication that the Immigration Service is grossly overworked. With the 40000 to 60000-plus applications for immigration to New Zealand that it has it cannot do the job properly. That is a clear indictment on this Government and its policy of having 45000-plus immigrants coming to New Zealand plus another 75000 students. That puts pressure on the immigration division. Another 75000-plus are here on a temporary residence basis putting the total up to about 190000. In the year 2000 190000 people arrived in New Zealand for the first time. I feel terribly sorry for the Immigration Service which has to put up with the problems given to it by this Government. 
New Zealand First heard about this issue this morning and we agreed to this solution immediately. We look forward to this clause of the bill being given support although I should make it quite clear that as a whole we are opposing the immigration legislation of which the bill is part. That point should be made clear and I think it is going to be made clear by the other parties that also oppose the Immigration Amendment Bill.