Roche Denise: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 08 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6376. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take a call for the Greens on the Passports Amendment Bill (No 2). The Green Party fully intends to support this bill.I would like to start my speech by looking at the genesis of this bill and where this policy change came from. I did this in my first reading speech too but I think it is worth mentioning. A gentleman called Kyle Lockwood set up a petition because he saw an upset mother with her son at Melbourne airport who could not fly because the mother’s 5-year passport had less than 6 months’ validity on it. I think that is reasonable. I think it is great that this triggered a petition which was then picked up by the Minister and became this bill.Since then the proposal has of course passed through the Government Administration Committee ably chaired by Ruth Dyson. I would also like to thank the other members of the Government Administration Committee. I am not a permanent member. I was filling in for my colleague Mojo Mathers. I would also like to acknowledge the work of Sarah Dowie Brett Hudson Mark Mitchell and Adrian Rurawhe.I think I waxed lyrical in my first reading speech on this bill about the democratic process and how this bill was a shining example of that. I would like to wax lyrical again about how important the select committee process is. It is an opportunity for parliamentary colleagues to work cooperatively to improve legislation and also for the public to feed in. The example of working together on this bill and examining the 20 public submissions that were fed into the process which were all universally in favour of extending passports for a 10-year period will I think be one of my treasured memories of cross-party cooperation for many years to come.I wish we had more opportunities to work cooperatively like this. We tried to reach across the aisle to work with the Government to introduce the necessary changes in the Health and Safety Reform Bill in the last sitting period. Unfortunately the Government chose not to work with us and came out with a universally derided bill which political scientist Bryce Edwards has included in his list of the most damaging incidents for this Government in his article of 6 September. The point is that everyone profits when the Government brings the voices of the Greens to the table. You get things like insulation campaigns Wai claims and now our support for a very sensible bill.The reason we supported this bill at the first reading remains now. Basically this change will save New Zealanders the hassles the stress and the money spent applying for a new passport and it will bring New Zealand into line with our neighbours and friends in other countries across the world. I did have some initial concerns I think about the security aspect. However through the select committee process and the information received from the officials who I have to say were great I feel that those concerns have been addressed adequately.However in my first reading speech I did also raise other concerns one of which was the underfunding of critical public services and that remains relevant. An example I guess is that this morning there was that shocking exposé in the New Zealand Herald about the Masala chain of restaurants that had been exploiting migrant workers. Some of these cases were things like a chef who was paid just $40 for 2 months’ work and a waiter who was working 66 hours a week for $2.64. So I applaud the heroic work of our labour inspectors but we have to recognise that they are underfunded and overworked as are many of our other core public services. Rather than wasting money trying to plug the gaps in the public sector by shifting our responsibilities and giving contracts to inefficient incompetent and discredited providers like Serco should we not be investing our money into our core public services? As I mentioned last time the fact that the department was saying that this minor change could lead to revenue problems was alarming. It is symptomatic of the strains that our hard-working public services have been put under—essential services like this one.We support the modernisation of the Passports Act 1992 and we support the provisions for electronic processing. We recognise that this will save New Zealanders time and money when renewing travel documents and this is something we support. I have to say it is a very efficient process right now having renewed my passport just a month ago. It took a day to get my passport back to me.Chris Bishop: Happy days.DENISE ROCHE: One day—it was amazing.Finally I would like to conclude by stating what a privilege this process has been. I would just like to stress that it could serve as an example of cross-party consensus. It is only a small change this bill but it is hopeful and it is a helpful template for parties working together to address common challenges. We could be working on a lot more things together—crucial things like the refugee quota and like climate change for example. We would welcome the opportunity to work with all parties on that. This bill could show us how to do it—how to work cooperatively. We commend it to the House.