Simmonds Penny; O'Connor GregPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill in this its first reading. As has been pointed out National is very tentatively supporting this bill at its first reading because we do of course agree like everyone else that migrant exploitation has no place at all in this country.It's a concern that with all the major issues occurring in the immigration area that this pretty marginal bill is what we're discussing when we're talking about immigration. This Government has caused so many problems in the immigration space: immigrants separated from families; uncertainty of pathways to residency—we could have had workers like nurses—industries crying out for workers unable to get workers to harvest fruit. The list goes on and on. I look to my colleague Joseph Mooney's area the Southland electorate where the tourism businesses in Te Ānau are just screaming out for immigration settings to be improved so that they can keep their tourism businesses open. We've seen horticulturalists and orchardists who have left fruit on the vines and trees because they couldn't get workers hospitality businesses closing their cafes and restaurants early because they can't get workers to staff them the health sector overrun because of the nursing shortages aged-care facilities at serious risk because of the care worker shortages the primary sector screaming out for vets and dairy workers. So then what are we doing? We're discussing this very marginal bill. This is the Government's response to everything that is going wrong in the immigration space. It has all the hallmarks of fiddling while Rome burns.One of the Government speakers on this was in fact the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee which will be looking at this bill Marja Lubeck. I hope that she has a good read of the bill before it comes there because in her short three-minute speech that she could manage on this she spent most of her time telling my colleague Erica Stanford that she had got her facts wrong. Well in fact the chair of the select committee had her facts very much wrong and I will read from the explanatory note where the chair of the select committee said that the desk-based immigration officer was completely wrong for us to be referring to that. Here directly from the note: The new document production power will differ from this entry and inspection power by allowing a desk-based immigration officer to require the production of documents and records" etc. Sounds like a cost-cutting exercise or at the very least a cost-shifting exercise—shifting the cost on to business which this Government does so superbly well because we all know they don't like businesses.So having a bit further of a look at this bill it's going after those low-level breaches of the law and our poor businesses that are trying to get migrants in to staff their businesses. Often the change has happened they aren't aware of changes there are misunderstandings of how the changes are being applied so instead of going after the very big offenders in terms of exploitation of migrants they're going to be going after our businesses who are working hard to keep their heads above water to keep their businesses afloat. They make some minor transgression against the changes that have occurred and so they will be the ones pinged for it.Most employers want to do the right thing but they struggle to keep up with all the immigration law changes because actually they are running businesses. They are keeping this country going by creating and making and selling things to pay taxes for this Government to keep up their addiction to spending and so they do occasionally make mistakes. Now as my colleague Erica Stanford said only about 10 percent of the complaints against exploitation are ever looked into and this desk-based investigation that's going to take place is not going to improve that.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Rachel Boyack—five minutes."