Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Speaker. Unlike many who have spoken I actually was on the Education and Workforce Committee when the legislation went through last year.Hon Member: It's your fault.STUART SMITH: Well it partly was my fault I guess because we voted for it but actually at that time it was the right thing to do. We had to do something and we brought this law in or this Act in and now we're back to give it another extension and unfortunately we have a Minister who doesn't seem to do anything quickly except for wanting to do the legislative process quickly. Unfortunately he had plenty of time to get this bill before the House to have an adequate process of consideration through a select committee and he did not choose to use that. We've seen the track record of the Minister in action when these special directions are being made by leaving it too long. I want to take the time to talk about the time I spent down in Central Otago last year with a group of Recognised Seasonal Employer workers whose work had run out. Their visa conditions didn't allow them to go to Marlborough where the work was and they were there almost literally starving. They didn't have access to money. They didn't have access to food. They didn't have access to warm clothes in a Central Otago winter. All it took was one special direction that was done at the stroke of a pen but the Minister didn't get around to it until extremely late after a period when they had been weeks without work. It is totally unsatisfactory. We have to wonder what the Minister is doing.Now we've seen this—and a number of my colleagues mentioned before the very short 28-day period that we want to have as a minimum notice of those special directions but what we have seen in the last year is virtually no time for people to plan. Children as my colleague Erica Stanford said were notable to go to school because they were there illegally effectively because they no longer had an adequate visa. So we need these powers but these powers have to be used correctly. They have to be used in a timely manner. We have to have a Minister that's actually doing the job and I have really serious questions about this Minister's actual focus on this job and getting on with it. We didn't have the numbers as my colleague mentioned. A year ago we had all the numbers of how many people's visas were outstanding and how many were to be processed. We asked through the select committee this time for those numbers. We expected to have those numbers. It would have helped us with our consideration of the bill. I would imagine it would take probably 10 or 15 seconds to get those numbers if that was desired to be done. It wasn't—until after the select committee had finished its deliberations. Then we get the numbers about how many visas are outstanding. As we heard the Hon Michael Woodhouse talk about before actually there's been 400000 less visas going to be processed than last year so that's just outrageous. What's going on? In addition to that we've got this programme ADEPT which is an electronic processing programme for visas which will take a huge labour requirement out of that processing of visas. That's being tested now. That will be available and up and running within a year. So how does that square with a two-year sunset clause in this bill? It doesn't make sense. Look we know COVID's being used as an excuse for everything these days. But Henry VIII" powers given to a Minister when they're not needed is outrageous. My colleague Chris Bishop gave an excellent speech but I told him as he left the House he made one major mistake in his speech because he said "This is not how we make laws in this country." Well he's wrong. We do. We are making them now. This Government has a track record of doing this and it's outrageous. It's an overreach and we're seeing it around the world I guess so they haven't got this on their own but the Government's taking the opportunity under COVID to reach for more power. And do you think they'll let it go? I don't. I don't think they will. They are trying to advance their powers further and further and particularly in this case when it's totally not needed. When the Regulations Review Committee recommends that we recognise the importance of a justification for the powers that this bill is giving to the Minister that's a real red flag for everyone who's a legislator and the fact that it's being completely ignored by the other side really does tell a story—a story that's not a very nice story actually. We have a real responsibility as legislators to do the right thing. Even when we don't agree with a bill when we're working in select committee it's our job to make sure the bill comes out of that select committee in as good a state as it possibly can be. We all work hard across the House on these sorts of things. On members' bills we sometimes don't agree with them. We hold our nose. We do the right thing try to get it in the right shape. We support this bill to the point of a one-year extension a sunset clause of one year but we won't support it otherwise. I think the members on the other side are only doing what they're told. But actually when you have a good think about this there are some things in your political career that you'll look back on and say "Oh we shouldn't really have done that." Well this is one of them. I think that those members on the other side should think that. Most of them are new members so they're getting some real black marks on their career right from the start and I think they should really think long and hard about that. So as I said we have support for this to a point. We are holding our nose to a certain extent about it. But we're doing it only on the understanding that this has a sunset clause of one year as in Erica Stanford's Supplementary Order Paper which will come before the committee of the whole House. We'll have a lot more to say about it then. So it's with that that I commend with my nose held quite firmly. Thank you."