Roche Denise: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15089. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): The Green Party will be supporting the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) to go to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. However we do have some concerns about it. We support the bill’s attempt to address the exploitation of migrant workers. However we are concerned that the provisions in this bill as it stands now may make it more difficult for migrants who are working in sweatshop-type arrangements. We have all heard the stories and seen the newspaper reports about immigration scams where workers are employed for extremely long hours for low pay or no pay and where some workers have had their passports taken off them by their employer. We have also heard the reports of workers who have actually paid their employer in order to work for them and get their applications for a work visa through. It is a growing problem and Darien Fenton I think spoke quite passionately about this. Certainly in Auckland where labour inspectors are working for the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment it is one of the major issues that they deal with for a lot of their time.Although we support the provisions in the bill that are directed at employers who are migrants themselves and who exploit others—the provisions that make it an offence for employers who knowingly employ migrant workers on non-work visas—we are still concerned that this might force the problem of exploited migrant workers even further underground. These workers are so desperate to live and work in Aotearoa New Zealand that they are working illegally in the first place and they work in an environment where if they speak up they are likely to be deported. Although this provision may be a disincentive for those types of employers it raises the stakes for those who might be employed by them to ensure their silence. The pressure on them to remain silent increases and we may need to look at developing an open type of visa for those workers while those cases are being investigated.There is a climate of fear for those people but sadly it exists for many low-paid workers across the board and it is not helped by the amendments to the Employment Relations Act that are currently before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It was not helped by the introduction of the 90-day trial period and it certainly has not been helped by the introduction of youth rates which legalises discrimination on the basis of age. Combine those factors with a punitive approach to the safety net of welfare where those who are on benefits are now deemed to be job seekers and we have an entire industrial relations environment where workers do not speak up anyway. For those who are even more vulnerable for migrant workers who are way over on the weak side of the balance of power between the employer and the employee it is even worse.The solution as we see it is to improve worker representation. That means to improve the rights of unions and promote their ability to bargain collectively. And we need to improve the industrial relations climate as a whole so that workers’ rights are the norm instead of having the current Government’s moves to deregulate the workplace environment which actively encourages bad employers to rip workers off.We do have some other concerns as well around other aspects of the bill which our colleague Andrew Little from Labour has already touched on. Those are the things like creeping biometrics privacy and the powers of the immigration officials. However we will be supporting the bill to go to the select committee because we want to see and hear from migrant workers themselves. Thank you.