Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6765] 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: I think the  
New Zealand Herald’s  
headline says it all for the two immigration bills that are being rushed through this House: “Govt shuts door on migrants”. The  
Dominion Post  
went further and actually identified the changes that negatively affect in particular potential migrants from China and India. That indeed was the intention of the legislation. The only mystery is why the Labour Minister of Immigration continues to deny that this immigration policy was introduced to restrict the number of migrants. Last night Mr Paul Adams of United Future was at least being honest. He admitted that United Future and Labour actually looked up the New Zealand First immigration policy and modelled this policy on it in terms of migrants’ intentions and contribution to New Zealand. But we will come back to that slightly later. 
I want to take up the point that the Minister of Immigration the Hon Lianne Dalziel was very upset with the immigration consultants organisation the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment. She said it embraced some consultants who were not doing their job properly. I remember that she promised about 4 or 5 years ago when she was in Opposition that when she became the Minister of Immigration she would fix those immigration consultants who were ruthless and not doing a good job. I wonder what happened to that promise to sort out those immigration consultants whom she blamed for causing problems. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: What’s this got to do with the bill? 
PANSY WONG 
: Oh so the Opposition is not even allowed to ask a valid question! It has everything to do with it because you raised it when you were giving your second reading speech about immigration consultants. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I was not doing anything. Please do not bring me into the debate. 
PANSY WONG 
: I am sorry about that. I would never dream of implicating you in that way. You have been very tolerant and understanding. I am sure this debate will go very well. The Opposition is seeking a lot more calls. 
This piece of legislation has two parts to it. First of all it will enable the Immigration Service to prioritise applicants on a global base. The Minister of Immigration tried to tell us that that is sensible. The Hon Michael Cullen also said that that sounds eminently sensible as potential migrants should be prioritised on a global base and their ranking should not be based on whether they go to the immigration offices that have the most staff and can assess potential migrants. The only trouble is I read a lot more into that. I think any coded statement like “global prioritisation” basically means that New Zealand can favour migrants from European and English-speaking countries. I think it is a shame because since 1987 the public has continually been told by Labour that the Labour Government’s changes to immigration legislation had removed bias against any country in terms of attracting potential migrants. I think “global prioritisation” is a coded phrase and means that the Labour Government has reintroduced a system that is less than transparent in giving priority to English-speaking migrants. I would put my money on it. 
Of course the Government has the right to do that. What the Opposition wants is for Labour to come out and admit it and then at least we can debate the merit of it. For Labour not to admit that that was the intention and to use phrases like “global prioritisation” is indeed very strange. If the Minister is so confident in saying that if an overseas office of the Immigration Service has more staff than others it should not process migrants is she trying to tell us that New Zealand will also centralise the whole Immigration Service and bring its overseas staff back to New Zealand? If indeed “global prioritisation” is the way to go one will see the Immigration Service in this country expand its staffing resources and some of the overseas offices consequently will have their staffing requirement reduced. 
We have a lot more questions to ask and I hope the Minister will continue to take calls to answer some of the questions that remain a mystery to us on this side of the House. 
Part 2 deals with the court case that the Labour Government lost to the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment. This case was to do with the Labour Government failing to obtain expert advice and deciding shall I say to enforce a policy that it now argues is not correct. It wanted to enforce an immigration policy that if applicants who had submitted their applications for immigration before 19 November did not have enough points they could embark on a period of grace for job seeking. During that period the policy has changed. The immigration consultants tried to persuade the Minister that for those people who had submitted applications before 19 November the same rules should apply and they should have a few months’ grace to make up the extra points. The Minister would not listen. The judge said it was very clear that people who had submitted applications before 19 November should have the same rules applied to them if their applications have not been assessed. 
The Minister was very confident that the judge was wrong and told the public that she would appeal. But yesterday under urgency we were suddenly faced with a piece of legislation that indicates that the Minister was no longer confident that the appeal case would be won. That is why we are being dragged here—to cover up a mistake. The Minister should have accepted that the judgment against her in the first place was the correct one. We are about to embark on the Committee stage yet many questions remain unanswered and the Opposition will certainly continue to raise them.