Dalziel Lianne: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Dalziel Lianne: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6684] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 Part 2 of the Immigration Bill has some interesting features to it but first of all I just want to make a couple of points. A point that I did not make before is that I am struggling with the new language: to go from having “visa” and “permit” to just “visa” and from “removal” and “deportation” to just “deportation” is a struggle. I will hopefully get over that by the time the law takes effect. 
I want to address two things in this part. The Minister of Immigration has picked up one with the officials. Clause 7(1A) does not quite match section 3 of the Immigration Act. I asked him to address that and he has done so by way of a typescript amendment. It appeared as if we were required as New Zealand citizens to establish our right to be in New Zealand. I have no problem with us establishing our right to enter New Zealand but I do have a problem with New Zealand citizens having to prove that they have a right to be in New Zealand. We will vote on that amendment later. 
The second issue is a little bit more vexed. Immigration consultants lawyers and others will struggle with the loss of section 35A and its replacement by way of clause 52 which is in Part 3. I am not going into Part 3 but I found a little part of the old section 35A tucked away in Part 2. It is clause 14. When clause 14 stands alone it does not make a lot of sense. It states: “No person who is unlawfully in New Zealand may apply for a visa and where any such person purports to apply for a visa it is a matter for the absolute discretion of the Minister.” That clause was tucked away in section 35A(2) and it said that nothing “confers on any person the right to apply to the Minister for a permit and where any person who purports to apply for a permit under this section—(a) The Minister is under no obligation to consider the application;”. But that is in the context of an obligation to hold a permit. I have a little difficulty with clause 14 being separated from the rest of the old section 35A which we will all lovingly come to know as section 52 at some later point in time. We will get used to calling it section 52. 
I do not raise these things because I am trying to be cute about anything; the bottom line is that these things are fundamentally important to people who are in our country illegally. There are a lot of them at any one time. I have heard the Minister comment about the transitional policy as it was known in 2000 which was exactly the same as the transitional policy that the Rt Hon Bill Birch organised when he was Minister of Immigration some 10 years before me. He said that not many people—6000 or 7000—took advantage of the transitional policy to work their way through to residence. In actual fact a significant number of others did not show up in that figure but actually used section 35A. We had sanctuary days where people could come forward knowing that the Immigration Service would not uplift them and put them on a plane there and then. The service was able to look through their circumstances and say that if the only thing standing in the way of those people applying for residence—which on all other fronts they appeared to qualify for—was their unlawful status then there was no reason not to put them on a temporary permit so that they could at least test their eligibility for residence under normal policy. 
That process was used extremely effectively. I would not even try to guess how many people got residence that way but I suggest that it would at least double the number of people that gained residence through the transitional policy. When I was responsible for making discretionary decisions as Minister of Immigration as I was for the first 2½ years in that position I used to run that test by the cases that came to me if there was nothing standing in the way bar the unlawful status. Unless there was something dreadfully wrong about the circumstances of their remaining in New Zealand I would put them on a temporary permit and let them test their status against normal policy. I do not think that was against New Zealand’s interest at all; I certainly commend it to the Minister.