Coleman Jonathan: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Coleman Jonathan: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6680] 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I want to take a short call firstly to address Te Ururoa Flavell’s point about the Maori Party’s Supplementary Order Paper. I reiterate David’s Bennett’s earlier point about this bill being framework legislation. It deals with factors that enable immigration policy. To be honest when I read Supplementary Order Paper 18 I was not exactly sure what it meant. I can fully appreciate the member’s sentiment that Maori should be consulted on immigration policy and on long-term discussions about what the New Zealand population might look like in the future. I certainly think that tangata whenua have a place in New Zealand that needs to be preserved and that they need to be part of that discussion. I would not want the member to think that because we are voting against that Supplementary Order Paper we do not recognise the rights of tangata whenua to have a major say in what we do in immigration in the long term. Certainly for Maori Party members as our coalition partner my door is literally open to them to come in and talk about these issues. I think we should have a discussion about that. 
I think there might be some misunderstanding about what we are trying to achieve in this bill. This is just a framework within which successive Governments can implement their policies in years to come. I appreciate that there probably is a point Te Ururoa Flavell is making and I am sure he appreciates the point I have made but he wants the Supplementary Order Paper tabled to make the broader point. I want to reassure the member about that. 
I will address some of the points that the Green member Mr Locke made about why this bill is being put through under urgency. Well there are a couple of reasons. Let us look at the history of this bill. The first reading was 2 years ago and there were years of consultation before that. It has taken a lot of effort to get it to the Committee stage now so we have to seize this opportunity. But more than that it will take about 18 months to implement the operational changes that will be required as a result of this legislation. When we look at how the clock is ticking we can see we have to get this bill through the House as soon as possible in the national interest. When we look at what we have coming up in 2011 we have an event that is of major significance to New Zealand and 18 months of operational changes. If we do not get this bill passed by October we will really compromise the national interest. That is the reason. There is nothing sinister about it. Immigration New Zealand will have to make a lot of changes; information technology systems will have to be frozen for a period. It will have some major implications for the service. So let me reassure the member about that. 
The member asked about iris scanning and why that should be included and he suggested that the biometric face recognition and the ten finger and thumbprints should be adequate. One of the points is that we are part of a wider ring if you like of Western World security. If other nations are to have confidence in New Zealand’s contribution to that security and in the integrity of our borders we have to keep in touch and up to speed with what those other nations are doing. If we are the only country within the broad grouping of countries that we are generally aligned with in terms of trade and general foreign interests that they cannot rely on to be strong enough to ensure the integrity of our borders that is not in the national interest. So we have to keep pace with Australia Canada the UK and the US. It is the way the world is moving. At the end of the day I think New Zealanders would generally accept that modern world security considerations necessitate this type of measure and they would certainly prefer that to some of the possible consequences. 
The member asked why chief executives of a wide range of Government departments and agencies were able to deem information as classified. If he looks at that list he read out he will see that all those agencies are related in some way to national security; they are not a random collection. It has been thought through very carefully and we felt that we needed a wider spread of agencies than those three or four that the member defined. I want to clarify the position on that. 
In terms of the Labour Party’s Supplementary Order Paper regarding a review clause Pete Hodgson has put in a couple of options. One of the points to make is that if we are to review this legislation there are major time commitments and expenditure involved—up to $1 million for one of those options. We will be practical about this legislation. If things are not working we will change them. But it has taken so long to get to this particular point that we do not feel it will be a good use of officials’ time or parliamentary time to put in a review clause committing Parliament and the Public Service to a whole lot of expenditure and use of resources in a relatively short period from now. I think the purpose of the bill has been well canvassed. Part 1 has been very well canvassed as well and it is good to see some common sentiment across the Chamber on this bill. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 18 in the name of Hone Harawira to Part 1 be agreed to.