Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14900. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]6.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to thePrime Minister: Does he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration; if so why?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister) : Yes because he is a competent hard-working Minister.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration when the Minister’s department is failing its own internal quality assurance checks ignoring the Auditor-General’s 2009 inquiry findings and running Immigration New Zealand as a visa-stamping factory?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not believe that those things are true but I understand that visas do have to be stamped at some stage.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration when Immigration New Zealand’s own internal quality assurance results indicate that over 20 percent of the decisions made by Immigration New Zealand are of poor quality which means that tens of thousands of wrong decisions are being made each year?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not sure that that is what the numbers mean but it is a good thing that Immigration New Zealand has its own internal quality assurance process. We would not be surprised if it achieved less than 100 percent or top quality. But we would expect where it does fall short of 100 percent that action is taken to improve the quality of those decisions.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration when that Minister has ignored the Auditor-General’s recommendation that Immigration New Zealand should focus on the quality of migrants rather than quantity as stated in the inquiry report which reads as follows: “review the emphasis on target setting in Immigration New Zealand branches to ensure that the quality of visa and permit decisions is not compromised;”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: My understanding is that the Minister and the department have paid a good deal of attention to the Auditor-General’s recommendations and are implementing them.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration when he is concerned only about having an overall net positive immigration to New Zealand so that the number of New Zealanders leaving to Australia is somehow neutralised and does not reflect poorly on the current Government’s policies?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would disagree with the assertions of the member. The number of migrants coming in is pretty similar to what it has been for some time. The change in migration numbers is because there are a lot fewer New Zealanders leaving. We look forward to the member’s support for the policies that are going to continue to retain more New Zealanders here and have less migration out.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Bit late now! How can he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration who said yesterday in this House that there is no evidence that people-smugglers were selling opportunities to immigrate to New Zealand and that the Australian journalist was perpetuating in his words “a heinous lie” when half an hour later he was outside talking to journalists and admitting that the department alone was now investigating 30 cases just as we alleged? How can he have confidence in an incompetent Minister like that?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Prime Minister does have confidence in a Minister who understands that people-smugglers will say all sorts of stuff particularly to the media about what they can deliver. If people-smugglers in the Asia-Pacific region are promising that they can get people to New Zealand for $40000 or whatever it is they pay then he needs to be reassured that when people who pay that amount of money turn up at our border they will be dealt with decisively.