Coleman Jonathan: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Coleman Jonathan: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6688] 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 In response to Pete Hodgson’s comments yes this situation was drawn to my attention through the whole Gerrard Otimi saga which highlighted the plight of overstayers. It became apparent that we had hundreds of overstayer children many of them in South Auckland who were literally just not going to school. We do not want to say that there is a clear path through overstaying to gain residence in New Zealand but neither do we want children penalised by their parents’ actions. What this effectively does is allow the Minister of Education to allow these children to go to school while their parents’ immigration status is being sorted out. So we are not saying: “Well look overstayers your children can go to school indefinitely don’t worry about normalising your immigration status.” I think though I agree that it is an improvement on the situation we had before. 
In terms of Lianne Dalziel’s point about the immigration amnesty I think the point about amnesties is that they send the wrong signals. They send a signal that it is a path to residency and I think it penalises people who follow the set procedure and comply with— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I wasn’t advocating one; I was advocating sanctuary days. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Effectively the point I am making is that with the amnesty the Government gave around 2001 over 18 months the number of overstayers— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: And the amnesty National gave in 1992. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: I am not blaming the last Government but I am talking about the general concept of amnesties for overstayers. Eighteen months after the 2001 amnesty the numbers of overstayers had actually risen again so it does not seem that the concept works in decreasing overstaying rates overall. I think the educational side is far more effective. Over time including during the period under that member’s Government the numbers of overstayers have come down and we want to continue the trend. 
I think we have canvassed the use of biometrics. The other point on Part 2 that I will make and that we have not touched on yet is that there is a provision here to allow immigration information to be shared across Government agencies to ensure that people who are not entitled by dint of not having the correct immigration status are not able to access free public services whether those are health and disability services or some of the benefits that Work and Income offers. The Supplementary Order Paper is far more specific about the types of information that various services can ask to access from Immigration New Zealand. There is provision for biometric information to be shared in the future. At the moment law enforcement agencies do not have the technology to analyse biometric information but no doubt as technology increases and becomes more sophisticated that may happen in the future. I think this is an important safeguard of public services for the people who are entitled to them. The broader points about biometrics have been well canvassed and it is good to see once again a broad consensus across the Chamber on this part. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 32 in the name of the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman to Part 2 and the following amendment in his name to clause 7 be agreed to: 
to omit from subclause (1A) “and be in”. 
Amendments agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Mr Locke I have bad news for you. The Clerk advises that the Minister’s amendments to clause 30 have been agreed to. Now that we have passed those your amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 31 to clause 30 is inconsistent with the previous decision of the Committee. Therefore your amendment is out of order.