Ferris TākutaTĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Ngā mihi ki a koe o tēnā tātou. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mō tēnei pire e kīia nei ko te immigration amendment bill mā Te Pāti Māori. [I stand to convey the statements about this bill known as the immigration amendment bill on behalf of the Māori Party.]The amendments in discussion today will make changes to the Immigration Act 2009 will enable District Courts more time to manage what they consider irregular immigrants". This is not a new thing for te Iwi Māori. We've been dealing with irregular immigrants for the last 184 years.Currently under the Immigration Act an asylum seeker can be detained for a maximum of 96 hours without a warrant being issued. The bill will allow refugees deemed as part of a mass arrival to be detained for as long as it takes officials and the courts to process their application for asylum. We all know that our courts are already jam-packed and can barely keep up so that period of time is likely to be substantially longer than anyone thinks. It would also allow asylum seekers to arrive en masse for them to be put effectively into prisons and monitored by electronic bracelet or be held in a facility until they can be processed. This is hardly manaakitanga from a te Iwi Māori perspective. We know how slow the system is already and we also know how expensive it is to detain individuals. Putting people in cages seems the only solution that this Government can seem to offer at this time and is yet another example of this Government—and successive Governments—using outdated and old-school thinking.Te Pāti Māori opposes this bill and we do so on the basis of a couple of simple ideas. Firstly the bill is trying to address an issue that doesn't exist. No asylum seekers have successfully arrived in Aotearoa by boat. Well not since 1840 anyway. And it's highly unlikely that they would ever be able to do so which by the way the Government themselves have acknowledged. My second point is that given there is no real threat the Government are therefore fear mongering once again as they have done time and time again throughout the entirety of their term in Parliament to date. This Government uses fear to control and manipulate public opinion and perception or focus on to irrelevant issues while they work in the background to strip rights from te Iwi Māori as they have done so with the repeal of the section 7AA Act and the Oranga Tamariki Act the removal of Te Tiriti o Waitangi provisions from the Corrections Amendment Bill and the suppression of the true history of this country.Or perhaps it is the Government that are fearful given that they too arrived here nearly 200 years ago on a boat seeking asylum seeking refuge from their own land. And perhaps that fear is the knowledge of what their ancestors did to the people of this country to te Iwi Māori to colonise by force to steal from their hosts to marginalise despite the consent and the manaakitanga that our people gave to them when they arrived starving sickly and in actual fact all by accident.The measures in this legislation are discriminatory by nature and unfair towards immigrants. By allowing for the detention of refugees without any time limit electronic ankle bracelets that treat asylum seekers like criminals New Zealand will breach the human rights of those in need. It will too undermine the ability of tangata whenua to manaaki and uphold the rights of our own manuhiri in our own whenua Aotearoa.What this Government must do is switch from a punitive approach switch from the thinking that stains the 1800s switch from the thinking that stains the 20th century and instead join those of us in 2024 where progressive and innovative thinking is absolutely necessary for what the future holds. In an era of climate crisis that will produce climate change refugees beyond a shadow of a doubt we must be adequately prepared and ready to manaaki whoever seeks asylum here in Aotearoa. So we cannot support this bill as it seeks to criminalise those who come in the greatest time of need.Ko tā Te Pāti Māori e kore nei e tautoko i tēnei pire. Kei raro.[The Māori Party's perspective we will not support his bill. I resume my seat.]"