Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6761] 
Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) 
Second Reading 
Debate resumed. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: ACT will be opposing this legislation. What we see with this bill is this Labour Government doing it again. Here we are in urgency debating a bill that is being rushed through the House. It is ill-conceived legislation and a knee-jerk reaction. This Government it seems has developed a tendency to panic. It gets itself into a spot panics then throws legislation into the House—usually under urgency like we are having today. That is not good government. It is a panicked response and inevitably leads to bad legislation. We have seen numerous examples just this year. I invite members to think back to that bizarre situation over the tax on alcopops which so-called young people are drinking. That was a classic example akin to this bill of this Government panicking and introducing a measure that clearly will not work. 
ACT New Zealand supports immigration. We say that immigration is a key part of our nation. In fact we are all immigrants in this country; it is just a question of what date our forebears arrived here. The strength of our economy has been based on immigration—the skills and the talents that new immigrants have brought here over many years. But there must be steady consistent immigration policy. Knee-jerk policy is the worst thing possible for immigration. It sends bad signals it creates distortions and it creates loopholes. I ask the Minister of Immigration how many loopholes are going to be created by the panicked knee-jerk reaction in this bill before us today. 
We know that this Minister has a hatred of immigration consultants. I think she has even said so publicly. She hates and despises immigration consultants. Unfortunately for her there are some very honourable immigration consultants. I can think just off the top of my head of three former Cabinet Ministers who are practising immigration consultants. This Minister has totally overreacted with this bill. When we look at this bill we can see what this is all about. The Association for Migration and Investment took her to court. It won. She lost. She appealed. Now she wants to change the law. This is retrospective legislation. She has had legal advice telling her that this is retrospective. It is bad legislation done in a panic in a knee-jerk manner. I am very fearful of the new loopholes and the new problems that it may create. 
When we consider the points system we see it has served us very well. In fact a former Labour Minister claimed credit for the points system and I quote David Caygill: “I support the points system and the Minister and other Government members might have been gracious enough to acknowledge that the Labour Government devised the points system. I do not say they invented it.” That was said by David Caygill in responding to Bill Birch in this House. This Government is overturning the existing categories and criteria and one of the real concerns that is terrifying those involved in immigration is the incredible discretionary powers that this bill will give to senior officials—senior immigration bureaucrats. The danger is that the bill will create massive inconsistencies throughout the country in different regions because of these delegated powers to senior bureaucrats. They are awesome powers. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: They are already delegated. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Yes but what we have here is extended delegable powers and the real fear is that that will create regional inconsistencies. That is the point that the Minister does not seem to have grasped. She certainly has not consulted the immigration consultants. We have heard various reports on that today. She says she did not consult because they would have taken financial advantage of the situation if she had given them any warning. So rather than consult those who actually understand the business and actually understand what is required she went off on her own bat drafted this legislation and threw it into the House in a knee-jerk panicked manner. I say we should all be very fearful of the new loopholes— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: All good consultants have come out in favour of this bill. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The ones I was listening to on the wireless this morning certainly have not. Perhaps the Minister tunes into a different station or perhaps she was not up that early. Certainly the immigration consultants that I have heard commenting on this bill are not in favour of it. 
We should bear in mind that their first chance to comment or even to examine it was after it had been introduced to this House and that is the real shame. There was no consultation. The bill was drafted by the Minister who was driven by her hatred for the immigration industry and we should all be very concerned about the new problems that it will inevitably create. Whenever this Government has panicked and brought in legislation under urgency it has always got it wrong. The sad thing is it does not learn. It keeps repeating the same mistake. We know that adults learn by their mistakes but it seems that this Cabinet does not learn by its mistakes. It keeps repeating the same mistake in this respect. 
ACT will be opposing this legislation. We believe that it is bad legislation and we are fearful of what it will do. It sends the wrong signals. It will not give stability. What about the people who have planned ahead and made the decision to immigrate? What bigger decision can people make than to immigrate to a new country—to bring their skills and their talents here? Now they find that the rules have changed on them after they have made their applications and after their applications have been received. It is retrospective; that is the worst aspect of this legislation. 
GRAHAM KELLY (NZ Labour) 
: I am very pleased to support the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) and I do so for a very fundamental reason. For years and years we have had good people qualified people coming here but there has been a mismatch in terms of where they go because they go where jobs may not be available. They have tended to congregate in the north of New Zealand—in Auckland—and we know about the problems the infrastructure difficulties that this Parliament is going to have to address because Auckland has grown faster than the rest of the country. This bill will promote balanced growth around the country. Regions that need skilled people will get skilled people. Those people will not end up in one part of the country as they do now. 
This bill will provide what employers want. Employers have said to me and I guess they have said it to every other member of the House that they find it difficult to get this or that sort of specialist person. It has simply driven them mad over the years with frustration. The bill will end that. The regional inconsistencies that Ken Shirley talked about will disappear because there will be a consistent approach to filling a need—to matching skills with the vacancies that exist. So we will not have our industries congregating in Auckland and closing down in other areas. 
The good immigration consultants are in favour of this bill. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That’s right. 
GRAHAM KELLY 
: They are in favour of it. I shall finish by mentioning one story. I was recently in Canada which was proposing at the beginning of last October to change its immigration laws so that its immigration policy would target outlying areas where populations had decreased. Immigrants would have to live there for 10 years. I discussed that with the Minister shortly after and I think that what we have done is even better. In Canada there is no guarantee that immigrants’ skills will match what employers want. What we are doing with this bill will give us the best of both worlds. I am very happy to support the bill. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: That member who is very happy to support a very good bill as he says gave it precious little time in this House to point out its so-called good points. But the reality of it all is that the Minister of Immigration just the other night was asked a question about whether she had brought this Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) to Parliament to offset her dramatic loss in a court case and she had the effrontery to say no when every other New Zealander knows that the answer is yes. 
But my real point is this: from the kind of speech made by Mr Kelly and members of the United Future party—whatever “United Future” means—it is clear they do not understand at all what is going on. If those men from the United Future party do not believe me they should have a look at today's  
Dominion Post 
 where a so-called independent source comes to the same conclusion. If we look on page 1 we see these words in respect of the changes: “But they could also benefit foreign tertiary students including many from China. She indicated they would get priority especially if they had a job offer.” What it all means is pretty significant. If we look at the Waikato University analysis of just the end part of 2002 we see that it says that in total 190000 people including international students were approved for permanent and temporary residence in the year ended June 2002. Then it says that only 52800 were in the “immigrant” category—their quotes not mine. What that really tells us is that 137200 are in the category described in this morning’s  
Dominion Post 
. 
In short I say to the Minister that she has no idea whatsoever what she is doing. The Minister has no idea whatsoever as to what she is up to. She went on radio this morning and said: “Oh this bill will not affect anybody in New Zealand.” Again that is utter poppycock. She has no idea whom it will affect because she simply has not had the analysis done and simply because as Waikato University pointed out in its analysis thus far something like two-thirds ofNew Zealand’s approvals for residence were granted to people who applied while they were in New Zealand on temporary work or student visas and permits. The Minister is shaking her head and saying no. That trade union lawyer has got the effrontery to argue that a person who is a professor of geography and deputy vice-chancellor is wrong and she is right. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No no—it is just arrogance of the worst sort. He says that in the year ended 30 June 2002 for example almost two-thirds of New Zealand’s approvals for residence were granted to people who had applied while they were in New Zealand on temporary work or student visas or permits. I recall being in China in 1997 and this country giving China an undertaking that the students we took from that country under our new visa arrangements would all be sent home. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh yes we did. The Minister was not there so she does not know. I was and I do. The Chinese Government specifically said: “Would you make sure though in making these new visa arrangements”—which were new were being introduced for the first time ever—“that they are all sent back home.” Now we find that two-thirds of those who get approval actually came here under the category of work or student visas or permits. 
What is amazing about this Minister’s policy is that we know it takes 3 percent of gross domestic product to provide work for those students who leave schools or tertiary institutions in our country. It takes 3 percent of gross domestic product. We have always known that; we have known that for 40 to 50 years. But we have gross domestic product of 2 percent coming up and probably worse so we will not be able to provide for our own students who are leaving our universities and schools yet in will come not the 45000 on the Minister’s fact sheet but something like 72000-plus which is the current rate of people migrating to this country. What does it mean? It means more gridlock more demand on services and more charges that are a loss for the New Zealand people. 
There is one other thing I want to say while I am on the question of the bill before us. The Minister in seeking to get around the case she lost on 16 May of this year and having said on I think 17 June this year that she was going to go to a higher court of appeal namely the Court of Appeal—she said she had such a good case that she was going to appeal—decided that somehow she might have got it wrong and that she should bring a bill to Parliament and get a bunch of wide boys with no experience namely the United Future party to back it so that the Government could get it through. 
Edwin Perry 
: Did she win? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No she lost. But never mind that trade union lawyer said: “Don’t worry about it. I know that the High Court got it wrong. I will go off to the Court of Appeal and I will have that decision overturned.” So why did she not have it overturned? How can we believe a Minister who says no when asked whether that was the reason for the bill? What sort of integrity has such a Minister got? Barefaced! And the other proponent in that case sitting on the other side of the television set someone called Milnes knew it was not true as I knew it was not true. Of course we had the “deer in the headlights” performance again where her idea was: “I’ll just keep talking—no matter if I don’t make any sense—and make sure that they can’t get a word in edgeways.” There it was—open mouth disengaged brain let it all go! But unfortunately it did not look good on television. Just to make sure I asked my colleagues how the Minister looked. They said: “Actually Winston it was pathetic and sad.” 
It is sad that Labour should think that on this key issue a determinant for the next election it can get away with saying it has changed the policy. But the  
Dominion Post 
 is on to it. The  
Dominion Post 
 knows that Labour has not changed the policy. If we look at the bill we see again that all the Government has done is reshuffle the immigration queues and worse still deny tens of thousands of people their rights. 
My question to Mr Hereora who is about to rise to his feet—and I hope he makes a longer speech than Georgina Beyer did; she spoke for 30 seconds—is this: can we have 10 minutes on how this bill is good for the tangata whenua whom he claims to represent? How is the bill good for south Auckland Maori? Perhaps he can tell us how many Maori around the marae of this country support mass immigration of 72000 foreigners per year? Before he rises perhaps he can ask Mr Horomia what Ngati Porou think of all of this. Frankly we are sick to death of what I call “Sunday afternoon Maori”. On a Sunday afternoon they get out and parade their Maoriness but when they get down to Parliament on Tuesday they forget about the people who put them there. [ 
Interruption 
] They stand for Maori seats; do members realise that the proportion of Maori seats is less now than it ever was in history? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will come back to the bill. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Do members realise— 
Hon Chris Carter 
: What nonsense! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Chris Carter says: “What nonsense!” Who does he represent? 
Hon Chris Carter 
: 50000 people in Te Atatu. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No he does not. If it were not for the Labour Party he would not have made it to Parliament. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: I have got a bigger majority than you. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No the member does not. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: It’s true. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The member should not make himself look silly. I say to him: “Do not make me laugh!”. He does not. The reality of it all is that— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but his time has expired. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I seek leave for an extension of time. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for an extension of time. Is there any objection? There is. 
DAVE HEREORA (NZ Labour) 
: I rise in support of this bill. I congratulate the Minister of Immigration on articulating a practical way of benchmarking a process of selection and more important—and I agree with my colleague Graham Kelly—on acknowledging the call from employers who have continually complained to me about the skills shortage. I commend this bill to the House. 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: I think the  
New Zealand Herald’s  
headline says it all for the two immigration bills that are being rushed through this House: “Govt shuts door on migrants”. The  
Dominion Post  
went further and actually identified the changes that negatively affect in particular potential migrants from China and India. That indeed was the intention of the legislation. The only mystery is why the Labour Minister of Immigration continues to deny that this immigration policy was introduced to restrict the number of migrants. Last night Mr Paul Adams of United Future was at least being honest. He admitted that United Future and Labour actually looked up the New Zealand First immigration policy and modelled this policy on it in terms of migrants’ intentions and contribution to New Zealand. But we will come back to that slightly later. 
I want to take up the point that the Minister of Immigration the Hon Lianne Dalziel was very upset with the immigration consultants organisation the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment. She said it embraced some consultants who were not doing their job properly. I remember that she promised about 4 or 5 years ago when she was in Opposition that when she became the Minister of Immigration she would fix those immigration consultants who were ruthless and not doing a good job. I wonder what happened to that promise to sort out those immigration consultants whom she blamed for causing problems. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: What’s this got to do with the bill? 
PANSY WONG 
: Oh so the Opposition is not even allowed to ask a valid question! It has everything to do with it because you raised it when you were giving your second reading speech about immigration consultants. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I was not doing anything. Please do not bring me into the debate. 
PANSY WONG 
: I am sorry about that. I would never dream of implicating you in that way. You have been very tolerant and understanding. I am sure this debate will go very well. The Opposition is seeking a lot more calls. 
This piece of legislation has two parts to it. First of all it will enable the Immigration Service to prioritise applicants on a global base. The Minister of Immigration tried to tell us that that is sensible. The Hon Michael Cullen also said that that sounds eminently sensible as potential migrants should be prioritised on a global base and their ranking should not be based on whether they go to the immigration offices that have the most staff and can assess potential migrants. The only trouble is I read a lot more into that. I think any coded statement like “global prioritisation” basically means that New Zealand can favour migrants from European and English-speaking countries. I think it is a shame because since 1987 the public has continually been told by Labour that the Labour Government’s changes to immigration legislation had removed bias against any country in terms of attracting potential migrants. I think “global prioritisation” is a coded phrase and means that the Labour Government has reintroduced a system that is less than transparent in giving priority to English-speaking migrants. I would put my money on it. 
Of course the Government has the right to do that. What the Opposition wants is for Labour to come out and admit it and then at least we can debate the merit of it. For Labour not to admit that that was the intention and to use phrases like “global prioritisation” is indeed very strange. If the Minister is so confident in saying that if an overseas office of the Immigration Service has more staff than others it should not process migrants is she trying to tell us that New Zealand will also centralise the whole Immigration Service and bring its overseas staff back to New Zealand? If indeed “global prioritisation” is the way to go one will see the Immigration Service in this country expand its staffing resources and some of the overseas offices consequently will have their staffing requirement reduced. 
We have a lot more questions to ask and I hope the Minister will continue to take calls to answer some of the questions that remain a mystery to us on this side of the House. 
Part 2 deals with the court case that the Labour Government lost to the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment. This case was to do with the Labour Government failing to obtain expert advice and deciding shall I say to enforce a policy that it now argues is not correct. It wanted to enforce an immigration policy that if applicants who had submitted their applications for immigration before 19 November did not have enough points they could embark on a period of grace for job seeking. During that period the policy has changed. The immigration consultants tried to persuade the Minister that for those people who had submitted applications before 19 November the same rules should apply and they should have a few months’ grace to make up the extra points. The Minister would not listen. The judge said it was very clear that people who had submitted applications before 19 November should have the same rules applied to them if their applications have not been assessed. 
The Minister was very confident that the judge was wrong and told the public that she would appeal. But yesterday under urgency we were suddenly faced with a piece of legislation that indicates that the Minister was no longer confident that the appeal case would be won. That is why we are being dragged here—to cover up a mistake. The Minister should have accepted that the judgment against her in the first place was the correct one. We are about to embark on the Committee stage yet many questions remain unanswered and the Opposition will certainly continue to raise them. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Green Party 9. 
Bill read a second time. 
Instruction to CommitteeCWH 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) that it take the bill part by part and consider any schedules as one question. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Green Party 9. 
Motion agreed to. 
In Committee 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Before we begin I remind members that as this bill has not been to a select committee the title debate will be wider than usual. Members can discuss the bill as a whole though they should not range wider than that. 
DAIL JONES (Junior Whip—NZ First) 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Thank you for mentioning that we should stay within the confines of the bill but of course the bill is a reference to the cancellation of the court case concerning the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment Inc. If we read the court case we see that it goes virtually through sections 13A 13B and 13C of the Immigration Act. It looks at section 14 and has a good look at the issue of the general skills capacity as it relates to that case. Our debate will obviously have to refer to the sections referred to in the court case. We will stay within the scope of the bill but if the court case takes us to section 13 and other sections we must be entitled to refer to those sections as well. So with respect I suggest that we are entitled to refer to the various aspects of law referred to in the court case that this Government effectively is attempting to repeal. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I say to the member that we should not go too widely into aspects of the court case but I will use my discretion. 
Clause 1 Title 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: The title of this bill is the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) and we have raised many times in the past the fact that contemporary legislation requires the title to be more transparent and informative. I suggest that variations of that title that would be a lot more informative to the public would be titles like the “Immigration (Government Shuts Door on Migrants) Bill” or the “Immigration (Rejection of Application Without Transparent Reasons) Bill. 
It is indeed quite disturbing to be debating this legislation under urgency under a very uninformative title. The Government’s spin is that the reason for introducing the legislation under urgency is that it could have led to a major increase in applications. In this case that reason is extremely weak because the legislation could be introduced with a time line and certainly would not lead to a flood of applications. On the contrary it actually allows the Minister of Immigration and the department very wide-ranging powers. In this case about 10000 applications will be dropped because the Minister has simply said that those applicants would not contribute to New Zealand. If that is the case I wonder why their applications were accepted in the first place. 
I think that the Minister should take a call and tell us why she did not have a more transparent title for this legislation that would tell the public that this particular bill is an “Immigration (Close the Door) Bill”. Or it could be an Immigration (Legislating Away the Fruits of Victory) Bill” because the second part of the legislation is to do with the lack of confidence of the Minister to win an appeal case against the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investments. 
In the case of this bill when people look at the title they might think that it is just a technical amendment because some Labour Party members have stood up and said that it was a good bill consisting of technical amendments. I reckon that the Minister should take a call to explain that the bill goes a lot further than consisting of just technical amendments. She should take some time in explaining not just to the Opposition but to her own caucus that this little bill goes a lot further than that. It empowers the Minister and the department to lapse applications without having to give those applicants very very good reasons for their applications not being processed any further. Why have those applicants apart from receiving refunds had to wait for 2 years just to have this change suddenly hoisted upon them? 
This title certainly does this bill no justice. It is a bill that has far-reaching and wide-ranging implications. It will impact negatively on New Zealand’s status internationally whereby applicants who have waited for 2 years and who have no idea that their applications will not be paid due consideration under the guise of this bill being passed in urgency will now receive letters from the Immigration Service that do not give them very good reasons for their applications not proceeding further. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: This bill’s title should not read the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) but the “Lianne Dalziel (How I Stuffed Up on Immigration) Bill” the “How to Climb Down from an Immigration High Horse Gracefully Bill” or the “I Don’t Know What I am Doing but I Like the Baubles of Office Bill”. 
If members look at paragraph 94 of the court case they will see that the judge said: “A theme of the Minister’s submission was that the job-search visa might not be granted and that in any event the Minister had a discretion as to whether or not it should be granted. It was also submitted that even if the job-search visa were granted a relevant job offer might not be obtained. All this”—said the judge—“is beside the point. The plaintiff seeks only that general skills applicants should have the opportunity to apply for job-search visas under policy existing at the time of their residence application whether or not the application is ultimately successful.” There it is in a nutshell. The Minister got it wrong but not just in a small way she got it wrong for tens of thousands of people who had a right through their immigration agents to bring their case. 
So what does she do? She sets out to damn immigration agents—all of whom she has empowered of course—and then she says something else which she knows nothing about. She says these people are all overseas. She does not know that of course. She does not know anything about her portfolio and my evidence for that is that there are almost 20000 overstayers in this country. In a computerised society she has no idea where they are. That does not happen in any other business I know of. If a library book is overdue the day it is overdue up flips a card and someone goes and finds where that book is and who the last borrower was. It should be likewise for immigration. In a computerised society the day a person does not leave and appears not to have left up comes the card and the department goes and finds where 20000 people are. 
Dail Jones 
: They don’t want to do that though. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No the department does not want to do that does it? That is because it has such crap programs and administrative devices that do not work that it has no idea what is going on. Yet she has the effrontery to go on radio and television saying it is all about foreigners. 
Craig McNair 
: They don’t have the will. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The Government does not have the will it does not have the nous it does not have the wit and above all it does not have the commitment to this country’s long-term economic and social interests. 
It is extraordinarily embarrassing to see someone who has legal training—I do not know what sort of legal training—come along and argue that retrospective legislation is of no moment. Members will know there is a party that prides itself on decency and family values; I wonder which party that is. Members would probably think that a party that says it is for family values would consider fairness a family value would they not? Members would think that treating people as equals before the law was a family value would they not? They would think upholding rights under the law was a family value. But for the United Future party it is not. A family value for that party is hugging up to the Government and being a doormat so its members can keep their jobs. Those members know that if they were to stand up for their own people and for the interests of the people of this country there would be a snap election—goodbye United Future goodbye salary. 
Craig McNair 
: Goodbye Pork Pie. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Goodbye Pork Pie. The question of retrospectivity is the core of this issue. The question of whether we can just legislate away people’s rights goes to the heart of how Parliament operates. Lianne Dalziel having screwed up and mucked up would not be getting away with it were it not for Peter Dunne and his merry men. That is a fact. I thought these United Future people when they campaigned were people of honour. I thought they were people of integrity. There was not a family value they did not stand for: Easter Christmas holidays the tooth fairy—you name it they were for it. But they are not for fundamental human rights they are not for standing up for the law and they are not for doing their duty. That is why both the Labour Party and United Future will go down at the next election. 
I will tell the Committee why that is. Lianne Dalziel just found out— 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: Mr Chairman— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I struck a nerve. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The only nerve that has been struck by the member is the one that has reacted to the fact that I never thought I would ever sit in this Chamber and hear that member promote the interests of migrants coming to New Zealand. I am absolutely gobsmacked to be hearing that member stand up and justify the bringing to New Zealand of up to 10000 migrants who have applied for residence in New Zealand when there is not one shred of evidence—to use a phrase that is well known to that member—that they will ever get work in their area of profession expertise or skill. And that member wants us to continue to invite people to this country when we know they are being set up to fail not set up to succeed. The Rt Hon Winston Peters is arguing that in this Chamber. 
I am going to quote from a letter I received from a man who is here from India on a job-search visa. He wrote to the Prime Minister earlier this year and I think it is important that people hear what he says. He says to me in this letter that his job-search visa does not expire until September but he has already booked to go home and that is as a result of the multiple job rejections he has suffered in the time he has been here under a job-search visa. There is no guarantee of residence when one gets a job-search visa. There is a 6-month period non-transferable and non-extendable to come and look for a job. 
He speaks of meeting other Indians 95 percent of whom he says are working in menial jobs. In fact he tells me in the letter that they have actually even had to undersell their own qualifications—pretend they are not engineers; pretend they are not highly skilled migrants—so they can work as forecourt attendants in garages as cleaners or as farm labourers. It is an outrage that any member of this Committee would support that occurring. He is going home because he has pride. He said he is prepared to take a step down on the ladder but he is not prepared to go to the bottom of the ladder and start all over again. 
This is what he says in his letter: “In my case I am almost ruined. I left my Class 1 engineer post in India and I have already spent about half a million rupees. Even I had to ask my son in the UK to send some money meant for his studies.” That is what the current policy does to people. It brings people here to fail. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Your policy. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The member says it is my policy but it is not. It was the policy I inherited. People can argue about how long it has taken to address it but that is not the issue. The issue is that this Government has the courage to face up to the fact that we cannot allow that policy to continue to operate in this way. 
This bill does three things. It introduces global prioritisation so that those people with relevant job offers are able to have their cases determined first. Of course that will advantage those migrants who have their residence applications in the system who are already in New Zealand and who already have job offers. Those people are going to be at the top of the list. They will be advantaged by the changes we are ensuring can be introduced. We are lapsing applications from those who applied last year and who do not have high points a job-search visa or a skilled job offer. Why would we not lapse them? If we did not lapse them we would be inviting them to come to New Zealand to fail and New Zealanders have had an absolute gutsful of seeing engineers Korean pharmacists Indian information technology specialists and Russian agricultural scientists—these are real people I have met—who should not be in our country driving taxis. If they come to our country they should come here to do their real jobs. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 We are here in the Committee stage under urgency debating the title to this bill which as Mr Peters has told the Committee is a monument to the failure of the current Minister and her predecessor over the last 4 years. I turn first of all to the fact that we are dealing with this matter under urgency. On a previous occasion when an immigration bill was before the House a member had this to say about dealing with immigration matters in this way: “I do not appreciate a Government using the urgency provisions of Parliament in order to avoid due process. Due process would require the matter to be referred to a select committee …”. There is more: “These matters ought to be addressed in terms of proper process …” said the member. “I say that is not good enough. That is not how the Labour Party will work in practice. We will allow for open government for proper consultative processes and for real involvement of members of Parliament in these decisions.” That is wonderful stuff! Members are still guessing who said that I see. It was the Minister in the chair the Hon Lianne Dalziel when she was in Opposition and was attacking a former Minister for using the urgency provisions to make changes in exactly in the way that she has embarked on the use of urgency today. 
I say to the Minister in the chair that those words will come back to haunt her time and time again this morning because there is a word that starts with “h” that the Standing Orders will not allow me to use in the Chamber. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: It ends with a “c”. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: It ends with a “y” actually. Members who say when they are in Opposition that they will do one thing and then come to the Chamber and do another when they are in Government are the ultimate enactment of the “Maharey principle”. Ministers who do that deserve to be roasted when they bring their bills to the Committee and that Minister will be roasted by Opposition speaker after Opposition speaker for an ultimate act to which that “h” word applies. 
I also lament the fact that we are here in urgency because the toadies and lackeys of the United Future party have decided to sign up to the use of urgency without even testing the questions that they should properly have asked. I have been doing some research on them. Mr Peters expressed an interest in knowing what was in United Future’s policy given that party’s strong commitment to the rule of law family values and so on. I tell Mr Peters and other members of the Committee today what United Future members had to say. They said: “United Future is committed to policy which gives certainty to immigrants”—certainty to immigrants—“and provides a mutual benefit for them and existing citizens. Immigration is seen as entirely positive and beneficial. We must have faith that our immigration policies are fair objective and sustainable.” 
The United Future members have done a grubby little deal with the Minister of Immigration to support the use of urgency in order to try to cover up that Minister’s and this Government’s 4-year mess in the immigration area to change the circumstances retrospectively of a large number of Africans who have applied to become New Zealanders and what is more to change retrospectively the decision of a High Court judge that is currently before the Court of Appeal. The United Future party which stands for the rule of law has decided to help the Minister out. Having lost the case in the High Court and having told the country on 17 June that she would go to the Court of Appeal the United Future party has come along and told the Minister not to worry about the old appeal court judges. It has said the Minister need not bother with them because it would help her to slide some legislation through under urgency in the middle of the night. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: I have heard the name United Future a few times in the last few speeches and what a great name it is: a united future for New Zealand. I think it is a fantastic name. United Future is pleased to support this legislation because we are working towards a better New Zealand for all New Zealanders. 
At the current time in an industry that I am involved in the motor industry there is a shortage of tradespeople. This legislation will bring them up according to priority and we will be able to have more mechanics. Winston Peters will be very pleased to know that we are training New Zealanders through the apprenticeships scheme so that they can also become mechanics and work within this country. But we also recognise that there are skills shortages in a lot of trades right throughout this nation and this legislation will bring in priorities so that we will be able to address those shortages. 
Winston also accused United Future of selling out its supporters. Does he not remember that in— 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The honourable member cannot refer to someone by his or her first name. Speaker’s ruling 6/1 (Supplement) states that the reference must be to the member’s full name title or portfolio. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: The Rt Hon Winston Peters—that name has a nice ring to it. He is very charismatic and I enjoy his speeches but it is the same old record. We need to hear something new. We need something for the future and we do not want to play the record again I say to Winston Peters. Does he not remember that in the leaders’ debate on Television One before the last election it was Peter Dunne who made the very popular suggestion that the shortage of rural doctors could be solved by making it easier for qualified immigrant doctors to fulfil that role? This bill will enable that to occur by prioritising those applicants for residency. 
I stand to confirm that United Future supports this bill because we believe it is good legislation. We believe it will be good for New Zealand and will get the country moving again. We want there to be a united future in this country. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: That was an extraordinary contribution from Paul Adams. While he accuses other parties of singing from the same record we just wish the United Future party would keep calling from the same record. We see in this bill the exact opposite of what the electorate was told the United Future party would bring to Parliament; it said it would bring good parliamentary process. How many lectures have I had to listen to in this Chamber from the Hon Peter Dunne about good parliamentary process? What is good I ask Mr Adams about announcing a bill at 4 p.m. yesterday and taking it through all stages under urgency this week with zero public consultation? How can we justify that I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Lianne Dalziel in terms of her track record and public comments? Does the Minister deny what she said in Parliament on 15 June 1999? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No I do not. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Why did the Minister change her mind I ask her? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Because this is a different set of circumstances. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
 There we have it. Even the Minister could not keep a straight face when she said that “this is a different set of circumstances”. 
The Minister and the Labour Government have now been in office for 3 years and 8 months. The policies that the Government proposes to change have been in place for all that period. Why I ask the Minister does Parliament need to change in a day a policy that has been in place for 15 years? Why is she treating this Parliament with such disrespect? Even though the court decision came down in May it was good enough for the Minister to have 6 weeks. It was good enough for Labour to sit on this policy for 4 years but New Zealand’s Parliament is being asked to ride roughshod and push this bill through in less than 24 hours. I say that that is an outrage. 
I ask the members of the United Future party whether that is what they meant when they said they would stand up for proper parliamentary process. I think not. Is it not interesting how the United Future party was to be the new migrants party? United Future members were to be a great multicultural lot who would stand up for the rights of migrants yet they act as the doormat any day that the Government wants to push through legislation to trample all over the rights of people who have in good faith set aside money and made life plans to come to this country and who are now being ridden over roughshod. 
In all those greasy meetings of the Prime Minister and the Minister in the chair when they dribbled all over migrants—whether they be from Asia North America or Europe—the Labour Party said it was the pro-migrant party. But when the Minister scratches a bit of an itch whammo she is prepared to dump all over them. And thousands of people will have made life decisions on the basis of the assurances given by this Minister. She is wrecking lives by trampling all over people retrospectively. She thinks it is funny; she thinks it is a joke. I ask the Minister why she will not give those people the right to be heard at a select committee. Why will United Future not even give the people who are affected by the changes in this bill the opportunity to be heard at a select committee? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: For what purpose? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well it could be to be heard. It could be that migrants have a point of view. It could be something to do with what she said in 1999: that this process was a breach of United Nations principles. In 1999 Lianne Dalziel raved on about great process and accused the Government of breaching the United Nations principles saying “This is not how the Labour Party will work in practice.” and that is exactly what this Government is doing. It is riding roughshod over good parliamentary process. 
This bill will be a mess. Legislation that is passed in this sort of rushed process always ends up doing things that are not intended and I say the Minister should rethink. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: New Zealand First opposes this legislation which is clearly rushed legislation. It breaches all constitutional aspects. It is part of our traditional parliamentary process that legislation should go to a select committee and this legislation is not to go to a select committee. Obviously the Minister in the chair the Hon Lianne Dalziel is dreadfully embarrassed about the entire mess of her portfolio and this bill should really be called the “Immigration Amendment (Why Lianne Dalziel Should Resign as Minister of Immigration) Bill” forthwith because she is totally out of touch with her portfolio. 
When we look at why this bill is before the House and at the court case we see that all the plaintiff wanted to do was to allow general skills applicants to have the opportunity to apply for a general skills visa under existing policy at that time. There appears to be a distinction made in that case between those people who had their visas cancelled from 20 November 2002 onwards and those who did not have their visas cancelled prior to that date. As I read the case and the legislation it seems to me that if one had lodged an application before 19 November the court case states in paragraph 97 that: “The announced policy is not invalid insofar as it relates to persons who have been invited to make a job-search visa application prior to 20 November 2002.” That seems to be the situation there. 
This Minister just seems to want those people who are merely applying for a visa and who have lodged their application to be unable to continue with their application. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: If they have lodged an application for a job-search visa they are OK; their applications are not lapsed. 
DAIL JONES 
: OK so if they have lodged their application for a job-search visa they are OK but if they have not lodged their application and are in the process of doing that— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No. If they have been invited to lodge an application they are OK; they will not be lapsed. 
DAIL JONES 
: Only if they have been invited but if they have not been invited— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: If they have not been invited to lodge an application for a job search visa they will be lapsed unless they have 28 points or more or have the offer of a skilled job. 
DAIL JONES 
: I appreciate the Minister taking the time to try to explain the situation but would it not have been very much better if we had been able to go to a select committee and discuss the matter there? We could then have had a clear indication of what was happening. But I paused so that the Minister could at least make that contribution to the Committee and we would be better informed. 
However from reading the  
Dominion Post 
 today it seems that if one is in New Zealand now one will get a head start under this legislation as opposed to those who have followed the previous practice and waited to lodge their application having gone through all the proper rigmaroles. Those who have taken the time and trouble to comply with the law as it stood when lodging their application and who are not yet in New Zealand will be out of luck because this Minister is saying that people from overseas who are in New Zealand on other types of visas will have priority over those who are not here—even though they may be here on totally different grounds and may not be as eligible as someone else who may have applied. 
For example we have 63500 people here who have been admitted under temporary work policies so their situation may be changed by the very fact that they are here now only as immigrants under a temporary work policy. We also have another 73800 people who are covered by student visas and permits. In terms of the New Zealand Immigration Service’s statistics for 2002 all those people are part of the 190000 people who were here as immigrants in the year 2002. As set out in today’s  
Dominion  
Post and in terms of this policy it seems that the group of 63500 people and the group of 73800 people can apply well and truly in advance of anybody else. So it would seem that a person who is here as an English-language student—and one’s English is obviously not very good if that is the case—would have a head start over someone who can already speak English. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No. 
DAIL JONES 
: Well people in that situation must have a head start because they are here now. As the  
Dominion Post 
 stated: “But they could also benefit foreign tertiary students including many from China. She indicated”—referring to the Minister—“they would get priority especially if they had a job offer.” We know what some of those job offers are—we have all sorts of immigration consultants running all sorts of schemes. 
PHIL HEATLEY (NZ National—Whangarei) 
: I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on the title of this bill. I will start off by laying out an offer to listeners to Parliament and all those interested in this bill that is running roughshod over genuine immigrants wanting to come to this country. The offer is this: could someone please send the Minister another letter? Because in the 4 years that this Government has been in power she has had only one letter from one supporter which she keeps bringing to this House time and time again to justify her position. Where was that letter from? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I got it only this year. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: The Minister tells us that she received a letter in support of her work only this year. What country was that letter from? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: The guy was in New Zealand on a job-search visa. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: From what country? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: From India. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: The Minister informs us that her cousin from India wrote her a letter. The only support she can get in 4 years is one letter from her cousin which she keeps bringing down to this House to dish out. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Stop misrepresenting me! 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: I am sorry I do not know how close the family member is who keeps writing to the Minister but I just ask someone to please send the Minister another letter of support. After 4 long years and 15 years of this policy being in place we want to know that this Minister has other supporters out there. I ask her supporters to please write to her. 
We are here under urgency to debate this bill. I want to support my colleague Pansy Wong—I support her in virtually every enterprise that she undertakes—in changing the name of this bill to the “Immigration Amendment (Rejection of Application Without Reasons) Bill” because that is what it is. I want to make the Minister painfully aware of the New Zealanders out there and of those people out there who want to come and remain in this country—those genuine potential settlers in this country. Clearly in the last couple of years since she became a Minister she has not been turning up to her electorate office to face genuine people who want to come to this country and contribute. She has not faced them or walked with them through 2 years of applications. 
My electorate office actually helps the Immigration Service process many of those applications and advises the Minister’s office of that. That Minister has not walked through the process with those people for 2 years; she has not taken them through all those hoops jumped over all those hurdles held their hands rung them back written letters and advocated for them—only to find that this Government legislates over all that work and all those genuine applications. To be blindsided through legislation introduced into the House and passed over 48 hours and to be blindsided after 2 years’ work is so very soul-destroying. Perhaps the Minister should turn up to her electorate office start working with people on the ground and experience those genuine cases. 
I know there are cases that are not genuine. I know that people want to come to this country who have nothing to offer. I know that the Minister lets those people in willy-nilly then loses track of them. I believe she has lost track of 20000 people. Why is the Minister riding roughshod over those genuine people who want to come to this country and contribute? I do not know. It is certainly turning the corner on what she has said previously. The way she has done it is highly disheartening and I do not like to question her professionalism. To say in this House amongst colleagues who previously had respect for this Minister: “I do not appreciate a Government— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Name one! 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: I can name several—those members of United Future. I have seen those members following this Minister around opening doors for her and brushing dust off her coat. They respect this Minister but no one else does. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: Lianne Dalziel is a Minister who has so little evidence to put up that she actually comes down with a letter and seeks to hide behind it—that is one letter from an Indian. She then said that 95 percent of them were in the category of being here and not being able to get jobs. I can recall a Lianne Dalziel marching up from the bottom of town with an Indian in a baseball cap who talked about stopping “ racism”. There were a handful of MPs—Chris Carter being one of them—talking about stopping racism. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Who’s this? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That man from the Punjab whom the Minister was holding hands with and whom she and Chris Carter came out in sympathy with. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Excuse me I wasn’t even there. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The Minister cannot make a speech from the chair. When I have finished she can get up and make her speech. 
Here she is admitting every complaint New Zealand First has ever made. In the letter she says that 95 percent of this person’s colleagues are all in the same category and they cannot get jobs. I ask the Minister what the hell were they doing here? Were they accessing free medicine? Yes! Were they on a benefit? Yes! Could they get emergency housing? Yes! Who missed out? 
Opposition Members 
: We did! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Precisely! The second thing she said was that she would never see the day when Winston Peters and New Zealand First would stand up for the interests of migrants. She is so wrong. We have always believed that there should be a sound rational coherent internationally respected immigration policy but that is not 72000 migrants a year. That is probably between 10000 and 15000 a year. Who said that? Annette King said that when she was the spokesperson for Labour back in 1996 when it was polling 16 percent and we were polling 32 percent. Labour members decided to adopt our policy. They said that between 10000 and 15000 immigrants should be coming here and in their time they brought in over 72000 per year. 
A little while ago the Minister said that this global prioritisation programme was an excellent idea. On  
Morning Report 
 this morning she was asked: “Who’s going to administer the global prioritisation programme on the ground?”. She did not know. Her answer was: “We’ll do it through trade fairs.” Here is the great spin-doctor of Helen Clark’s office at work! The whole thing is to get rid of doctors driving taxis. We have to ask ourselves this question—and it is a very simple one—how many doctors are driving taxis? Are 72000 doctors driving taxis? No! Are 1000 doctors driving taxis? No! Are some hundreds driving taxis? Yes but to get rid of the syndrome of overqualified people driving taxis we are to take 72000 alongside them. 
United Future members then come along and say that they will support the policy because New Zealand will get rural doctors—72000 rural doctors now apparently. That is extraordinarily naive on the part of United Future members and it has no bearing whatsoever on the facts. I say to them one more time that the shape face character and future of this country is being turned upside down beyond our parents’ wildest recognition. Today one of the biggest sections of letters to that most liberal institution—namely  
Craccum 
 of Auckland University—comes from students who say: “What the hell am I doing walking around this campus when I can’t read anything in English there. It is all in Mandarin Cantonese and everything but English.” A whole lot of students who would normally be liberal-minded are saying: “I am being shut out of my own country. I’m not getting a fair go in my own land.” These are students who would normally be tolerant. 
Pita Paraone 
: What about Maori? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The terrible thing about the Maori people is that—apart from New Zealand First—they have no voice at all in this Parliament. We just heard two Maori members take a call which lasted for only 1 minute in total. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (NZ National—North Shore) 
: I draw to the attention of the Committee although I am sure it has been drawn before to the fact that we have a Minister in the chair who is a lawyer—a paragon of constitutionalism. That is what she would say—a paragon of constitutionalism. I have read a document—which I heard her say earlier today that she did not resile from—in which she said she did not appreciate a Government using urgency provisions in Parliament to avoid due process. That was said on 15 June 1999. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Clayton Cosgrove might say that the Minister should be spared the embarrassment of having that read out in this Committee. I have read about this Minister in the newspapers and she has said to journalists that she takes the rule of law and her ministerial responsibilities very seriously. So what does she do in her first serious legislative action as a Minister? She breaches one of the most basic constitutional concepts—that is she takes people’s rights away misleads them and deals cavalierly with 20000 applicants. 
There was another way here. The Minister could have dealt with those 20000 applicants fairly and reasonably. She could have put some extra staff into the department and processed those applications. On this side of the House we recognise that the old system of immigration did not quite work. My colleagues—Murray McCully Pansy Wong and others—have talked about the need to change the policy. It should be forward-looking. Another bill is now before the select committee that will deal with this issue but that is no excuse whatsoever to run roughshod over the rights—and they are rights—of 20000 people. It is no excuse to run roughshod over the courts the judgment of Randerson J and just say to 20000 people: “You’re out. Apply again and we might think about it’’—notwithstanding that they have paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the application fee and also fees to consultants. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That they don’t need to spend. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: That they have to spend to get fair consideration by the deprtment. That is the truth and everyone in this Committee knows it. Who could possibly believe that the Immigration Service is so competent that it does not need to use immigration consultants? This morning on radio I heard that the Minister had engaged Malcolm Pacific to process some applications for Southland—and here is the Minister saying that immigration consultants are not needed. What absolute nonsense! At least she could tell the truth in this Committee today. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Well I am sure the Minister does tell the truth in this Chamber. She could at least acknowledge what she said on radio this morning. That at least is what I want to hear. 
The Government cannot have it both ways. It cannot claim to be the paragon of constitutionalism then run roughshod over judgments of the courts and over the rights of 20000 people when there is another way to deal with the matter. If those 20000 applicants were processed under the old rules some would get in and some would not. The new rules could then be applied in the future. That at least would have been a reasonable constitutional approach to this issue. 
I have quoted the statements made by the Minister in this Chamber 4 years ago and I took those statements at face value. I have understood that she is a person learned in law. She talks about the conventions of the United Nations which are the Holy Grail for this Government. United Nations conventions must rule on all occasions. 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: When it suits. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: When it suits as my colleague Georgina te Heuheu says. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (NZ Labour—Waimakariri) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put.  
Ayes 69 
Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 55 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Clause 2 Commencement  
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: Clause 2 is an important clause in the bill before the Committee today because taken in context it gives effect to the retrospective nature of the legislation. For the benefit of those members who have not read it carefully and understood that context—because we are here today under urgency taking this bill through all its stages—there will be no opportunity for members of the public for those who made their applications in good faith or for any other party with a view on this matter to make a submission. The Government intends not only to go through this Committee stage but also to go through the third reading. On the conclusion of the third reading this bill will receive the royal assent—no doubt as early as tomorrow. Clause 2 gives effect to this retrospective legislation being passed under urgency immediately upon the receipt of the royal assent. It is important that we as a Committee understand the significance of this clause. 
Some important issues flow from that. The first is that from the time the bill is assented to the Government will effectively have disengaged from a legal process that it made an in-good-faith commitment to initially but instead decided to abandon in favour of a legislative process under urgency. The prime purpose of this bill—the driver of the so-called immigration policy changes announced by the Minister at the last minute yesterday to avoid scrutiny—is to cover up for the Minister’s misdemeanour in failing to make the policy changes that would have given due and proper notice to those seeking to become resident in New Zealand. A prudent and sensible Minister would have taken those policy changes to Cabinet so that we would see progressive process of analysis by officials and recommendations from Ministers to the Cabinet committee and Cabinet. 
Because she did not engage in that proper process of analysis in making those recommendations the Minister finally woke up one morning and found a massive mess on her hands and her reaction compounded that mess. She decided to promulgate changes that the High Court of this country ultimately found in part to be unlawful. Justice Randerson found that in part the legislative panic responses made by this Minister were unlawful. On 17 June only 2 weeks ago the Minister made a solemn commitment to pursue the matter by way of appeal to the High Court. I say to her that she will have to take a call on clause 2 and tell us how it can be that on 17 June just 2 weeks ago she told members of Parliament members of the public and representatives of the news media that she strongly refuted the decision made by Justice Randerson. She was convinced that it would be open to successful appeal and that she and the Government would so appeal. That is what she told us just 2 weeks ago. 
I say to her today that she needs to take a call and explain. When she told the public of New Zealand that she was going to lodge that appeal did she know that she was embarking instead by subterfuge on this legislative initiative? If so she is guilty of a gross act of bad faith towards the news media and the public of this country. I find it unbelievable that she could not have known 2 weeks ago that she was going to bring this bill before the House and seek urgency today. I find it difficult to believe because first of all I know how long it takes to draft a bill. Secondly I know how long it takes United Future to dither away and make up its mind about whether it will support the Government on a bill like this. The Minister needs to take a call. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: Clause 2 sets out the day on which the bill receives the royal assent. It sets out the day on which this Government finally admits that its immigration policies are an absolute disaster that it does not know what it is doing and that what it said on 17 June does not appear to have been correct. The Government said it would go to the Court of Appeal but somehow in the meantime it has changed its mind and now it will repeal the legislation altogether. Well we have got legislation at various stages. We have known for years that this Government does not know what it is doing about immigration. New Zealand First has made that point clear. Now we have an admission that all the work that the Government was doing on the job-search visa and such like was something that it did not fully comprehend. When the court case was taken presumably the Government expected to win it and of course the Government failed and lost it. 
Even prior to the court case it was clear that when the Minister was undertaking her policy she did not appreciate she had requirements that needed to be fulfilled in the way in which the policy should be carried out and the court has made it clear that this Government has not carried out its policy properly. It has been a saga of failures on the part of this Government and now here we are in Parliament under urgency being asked to rubber-stamp this Government’s failure. To be perfectly frank no one is absolutely sure—including the Minister and that is not unusual—just what the Minister will be doing as far as this legislation is concerned. Are we being asked to implement legislation that will be given effect to by way of stands at trade fairs in New Delhi Lahore Beijing Taiwan Frankfurt and such like? The commencement date will give effect to something that no one quite knows anything about including the Minister as was clear from  
Morning Report 
 this morning. We in New Zealand First take the view that this bill should not come into force when it receives the royal assent. In fact the bill should not be before the House at all in this way. Clearly it should not come into force until after there has been select committee deliberation until Government members themselves know what it is all about and until United Future gets to know what it is all about. It should not come into effect until those two parties at least know what is going on. 
All we have heard from United Future so far is a speech that was prepared by the Government. United Future has repeated it word for word. The United Future members do not quite understand what the speech says but they repeated it anyway. United Future members like being in this House. They do not like the possibility of going to a general election and losing the position they have in this House. As good Christians United Future members believe that they may as well hang in there for another 2 years and take whatever they might be able to get in the meantime instead of standing up for their Christian values and their policies and saying the bill should not come into effect on the day it receives the royal assent—which is likely to be tomorrow or the next day—but rather after it has been to a select committee and people have made submissions. For example the bill should not come into effect until we in this House know the outcome of the discussions with “the Ministries of Economic Development Foreign Affairs and Trade Justice and Social Development; the Department of Internal Affairs (Ethnic Affairs); Treasury; and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.” as set out on page 6 of the commentary on the bill. 
The bill should not come into effect until the Opposition parties know what those discussions were and whether they were lengthy or short. That would give us the opportunity to understand what is in the legislation. We do not know what is in there. We have not been told. I am sure that United Future has not been told but that does not stop it from supporting the Government. We have a constitutional right to ask that this bill should not come into effect until all the agencies are consulted; including for example Te Puni Kokiri—I would like to know what Te Puni Kokiri has to say about the bill—the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Department of the Prime Minister— 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Te Mangai Paho. 
DAIL JONES 
: New Zealand First has not taken much interest in those affairs. I will leave that to Rodney Hide and Murray McCully. I am still struggling to get around the name of the department let alone what it says it does or does not do. 
This bill should not come into effect later this week as is envisaged by this Government. Clearly it is a breach of all constitutional process. 
PHIL HEATLEY (NZ National—Whangarei) 
: I am thankful for an opportunity to point out to members of the Committee—clearly many members such as the Greens have not read the bill and kept up with progress—the specific significance of clause 2 “Commencement” which states: “This Act comes into force on the day on which it receives the Royal assent.” As they say the devil is in the detail. It is certainly not written in that clause but everyone should be well aware that that clause is in fact the clause that rides roughshod over due process in New Zealand. It rides roughshod over the fact that the bill should be considered by a select committee. New Zealanders from across the country should have the opportunity to make submissions to this Government and to Opposition members and we should see good law being passed in the proper manner. 
I was interested to hear members read out what the Minister said back in 1999. She said: “I do not appreciate a Government using the urgency provisions of Parliament in order to avoid due process. Due process would require the matter to be referred to a select committee for members to be properly briefed by officials and for us to be able to canvass issues as to whether the court would be likely to use the United Nations convention to override the provisions of the statute.” I support that statement from the Minister in the chair Lianne Dalziel. The difficulty is that I supported the Minister back in 1999 when she said that but I certainly do not support her today as she puts this bill through under urgency and asks that the commencement date occur when it receives the royal assent which could be any day now. 
I would like that Minister to know that members of Parliament throughout the country—certainly National members of Parliament—are dealing with immigration cases all the time. Certainly when people walk into my electorate office and into National Party electorate offices throughout the country we go through due process. We do not like the idea of this commencement date effectively wiping out 2 years worth of applications—in fact in some cases people lodged applications to come to this country and work here 2 years ago. We have opened the door to those people. I certainly have in Whangarei. We have worked with genuine people over a period of 2 years and that Minister with this commencement clause will effectively nullify all the work that has been done. It is a very sad issue I believe and the Minister should take that into account. We look at issues—I certainly do in my electorate office—on a case-by-case basis. But that Minister is going to legislate over all cases for no reason and will reject applications for 2 years for no reason at all except of course to avoid her conflict with what the court has stated. 
The major point I want to make about this particular commencement clause is that it simply provides a vehicle for rejecting a whole lot of applications that have been lodged before this Minister. Whenever she does that she will retrospectively exclude potentially very good New Zealanders from working and raising their families in our country. I am disappointed by that because I have worked with people coming to Whangarei on a case-by-case basis as do other National MPs throughout the country. We have taken their issues in hand helped them where we could appealed to the Minister where we could not then we turn round and find out that effectively all that work will be nullified. It does not matter to the Minister whether one person has applied over the 2 years or whether thousands—which is in fact the case—have applied; she is going to make their applications lapse. I wish she would front up to those many many people throughout this country who will be in tears because of all the hurdles they have jumped in the last 2 years. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National) 
: Clause 2 provides that the bill will come into force on the day on which it receives the royal assent. On its face that clause looks innocuous enough but in the context of what it is about to achieve it is a very serious matter indeed. I hope that the members of the public who might be listening are appreciating very clearly the serious nature of this clause. First of all as my colleagues have pointed out we are dealing with this matter under urgency. This bill was introduced just yesterday afternoon. It is proposed that the bill go through all its stages today—it will probably become law by 1 o’clock this afternoon. Once it has received the royal assent which will be over the next 1 or 2 days the rights of a whole lot of legitimate migrant applicants will have been ridden roughshod over by this Minister. 
Just 2 years ago this Minister made some very fine statements—statements that I agree with—and although they have been read out already I want to read them out again. I want the Minister to explain to members here in the Chamber—and to those people who are listening and to members of the public who value due process of law value the rights of citizens visitors migrants and value following due process and who hopefully will be as appalled as we are—that people’s rights are now being ridden roughshod over by this Minister. This is what she said in 1999 which is just like yesterday: “I do not appreciate a Government using the urgency provisions of Parliament in order to avoid due process. Due process would require the matter to be referred to a select committee for members to be properly briefed by officials and for us to be able to canvass issues as to whether the court would be likely to use the United Nations convention to override the provisions of the statute.” 
I want the Minister to take a call and explain to us how she can reconcile the fact that a bill that is to pass into law today—it commences its legitimacy today almost—with the statements she made only 4 years ago. I ask the Minister to get to her feet and answer that matter. It is all very well to sit in the chair and sneer and laugh but this is a very serious thing that she does today. Not only are we are dealing with a bill under urgency in order for it to pass through all stages in a very short space of time but we are dealing with a bill that has a retrospective impact. The Minister will shut out and ride roughshod over the rights of a number of migrants who have made legitimate applications just 2 weeks after she cunningly probably put people’s minds at rest—and I do think it was a cunning thing that she did. She indicated that she would appeal the decision of the High Court thereby I would say giving applicants a bit of respite and a reason to think: “Well we’re still in the game. We still have a chance.” But at that point as my colleague Murray McCully says a Minister would already have been drafting legislation for it to be introduced into the House yesterday—or at least had to have had the decision made in Cabinet. So that was a very cunning ploy that she used. I agree with Murray McCully when he suggests that this bill is a breach of good faith. I am waiting for the Minister to stand and justify this bill being brought in under urgency justify its passage into law within a space of 24 hours and justify why she thinks it proper to do this to legitimate applicants. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: I want to speak on the commencement clause because issues concerning the reputation of our country and the reputation of this Parliament are at stake. When people want to migrate to this country they are quite entitled to know whether dirty tricks of this sort will be pulled on them. When this Minister of Immigration pulls the sort of trick that she has pulled over the last 2 days—with a commencement clause that rides roughshod over the rights of others—this country’s reputation is damaged and we look like a Mickey Mouse outfit. I accept that it is absolutely the right of the Government of New Zealand to set the immigration policy of this country. But what is not right is for the Minister to do that in such a way that it rides roughshod over the life plans that are made by thousands of people. If we have laws of that sort people will look to New Zealand and say we are a Mickey Mouse banana-type State. It will mean that the words of Ministers of the Crown of New Zealand cannot be trusted. 
I too want to speak to what the Minister said in 1999 about these issues. The Minister can laugh about it— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It’s not relevant. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am the judge of whether it is relevant. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Minister says it is not relevant. It is relevant because on 15 June 1999 the Minister then in Opposition said things about the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). Well this is an Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). On that occasion she made great importance of parliamentary process and it comes directly to the commencement issues because this bill comes into effect long before what she said was “due process” long before people have had an opportunity to have a say and long before a select committee has had an opportunity to look at the bill. She also said it was wrong to override the provisions of an existing statute. The Minister cannot just laugh about it. Every member of the House wants the trade of politics to be held with respect. When she says things in this Parliament then as Minister does the exact opposite she brings the reputation of every single parliamentarian and every single Minister into disrepute—because she is overriding what she said. I say to the Minister in the chair Lianne Dalziel that she brings New Zealand’s good name into disrepute she brings parliamentarians into disrepute and she brings Ministers’ words into disrepute. I say that is wrong. The Minister cannot just laugh it off. She needs to get to her feet and give the Committee an explanation. Why is it that the words she said in 1999 when she was in Opposition do not apply now that she is in Government? What has changed? Is it the “Maharey principle”—the Labour standard? What has changed? 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: The Government changed! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Cunliffe said the Government has changed. Well is that not a great standard of integrity from this Government! It says: “We’ll tell you one spin when we’re on the Opposition benches and we’ll tell you a completely different line when we’re in Government.” Is that the Labour Party’s policy? Why did Labour not tell the public about that when it went to the electorate in 1999? 
Hon Rick Barker 
: He can’t even turn up to court on time. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Barker goes around saying that Labour honours its word. I say: “Bedevilled you honour your word!” Labour is doing exactly the opposite of what it said prior to the last election and that cannot be laughed off. I challenge Mr Barker to get to his feet and say what is different. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: At least I can get to court on time. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Oh well! He does not want to answer the question. Why did Labour say in 1999 that these sorts of bills should go to a select committee? 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Get your hands out of your pockets. You can’t speak properly. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: He wants to talk about the fact that I have my hand in my pocket. He wants to talk about every possible irrelevant thing. He does not want to talk about telling the truth. He does not want to talk about New Zealand’s reputation. He does not want to talk about whether we can rely on the word of this Minister. He does not want to talk about the rights of people who come to this country in good faith. He just wants to talk about whether my hand is in my pocket. Well I have to say to the Minister—and that Minister—that reputation counts and this Minister and this Government are muddying it. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: This clause is particularly important in the context of the previous speeches made to this Parliament by the Minister who is now in the chair Lianne Dalziel. But it is even more important in the context of what should underpin immigration policy. Undoubtedly immigration policy needs to be predictable transparent certain and fair and on every one of those counts this bill before the Committee today brought in under urgency is neither predictable nor transparent nor certain nor fair. I certainly hope that the Minister in the chair will take a call on the words that she gave to this House back on 15 June 1999 particularly when regarding the process she said— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member should be speaking to the commencement date. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Yes and this is absolutely relevant to the commencement date in that this bill was brought in under urgency and comes into force on the day on which it receives the royal assent—which unfortunately is likely to be today because there will be no select committee deliberation although that is one of the criteria that the Minister in the chair said was absolutely essential to it. After all the Minister in the chair— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but there is a cellphone going off in this House. That is out of order. There is a Speaker’s ruling about the use of cellphones in the House. They are not permitted. The member will withdraw and apologise for that breach. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I certainly withdraw and apologise. I had turned it off but mysteriously it came on again—maybe because of the concern I have about this Minister! 
This Minister had 9 years in Opposition complaining about process and has had 47 months in Government giving her a reasonable opportunity to organise the Immigration Service but we have a shambles. There are 20000 applicants at stake here—46000 people who have had their lives absolutely turned upside down by this Minister who is bringing in under urgency this untimely bill. What an absolutely hopeless Minister she is to bring about this situation after all that time! It reflects her inability to manage an immigration process. It is absolutely a shambles. I hear time and time again from my constituents in Port Waikato about how absolutely difficult and hopeless it is to get an immigration application through in a manner anywhere near timely or consistent or even to be able to speak to immigration consultants or to communicate with the Immigration Service because of the absolute backlog and the unwillingness of the staff to answer calls emails and letters. That is the shambles that this Minister has brought about. 
Hence this commencement clause—which has been brought in under urgency—is a reflection of this Minister’s inability to handle a very sensitive portfolio that reflects on the lives of not just thousands of people but tens of thousands of people. She has brought about a shambles. She said she does not appreciate a Government using the urgency provisions of Parliament in order to avoid due process. I do hope that the Minister in the chair will reflect on her words and take a call and tell Parliament why she said those things. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of State) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 69 
Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Clause 2 agreed to. 
Part 1 Principal Act amended 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: A number of comments have been made in this debate in respect of a position that was adopted in 1999 in respect of another Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). I remind the Committee that the legislation itself had already been passed by the House and in fact the particular provisions in the No. 2 bill had been supported by the Labour Opposition at that earlier stage. We had supported the writing in of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and we had supported all the changes that were made in respect of asylum seekers. The No. 2 bill to which members have referred brought into effect those provisions relating to asylum seekers—specifically those relating to mass arrivals—because there was allegedly a boat on the way. That boat still has not arrived today—and that was in 1999. 
The only briefing the only meeting that I asked for in this House was a brief calling together in the lunch break while the bill was going through the House so that officials could provide a briefing to Opposition members. 
I provided a briefing to Opposition members yesterday through the offices of the Associate Minister of Immigration and all the Opposition parties were invited to participate in it. I think it was perfectly reasonably to offer members an advance opportunity to ask questions about the content of legislation that was to be introduced under urgency. So there is absolutely no contradiction in the position I have adopted in this Chamber whatsoever. 
This part of the bill deals with the Government residence policy. Assertions have been made in this House that I must have arranged for the particular provisions in clause 3 to go through Cabinet and be drafted in a bill before I put out my statement saying that we intended to appeal the decision relating to the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment case. I can tell this Committee categorically that the date that I asked officials to draft a Cabinet paper seeking permission for this clause to go into the legislation and be drafted was 23 June. Prior to that it had not been proposed that clause 3 be included in this bill. It was only 2 weeks ago that I asked officials to do this work. 
I make the point that clause 3 is not retrospective. Clause 3 clarifies the situation in respect of temporary entry to New Zealand which is not governed by Government residence policy. If members of the National Party want to have temporary entry policy under the same rules as Government residence policy then God help New Zealand! That would be an absolute disaster. We make decisions every day of the week as to whether people will comply with the provisions of temporary entry policy to this country. Every day of the week we get applications from people from different countries in the world and we have to try to decide whether they will comply with the provisions of their visa if we grant them that visa. National Party members had to do exactly the same thing when they were in Government. It is a bit rich for Opposition members now to come to this House and say that they accept that a job-search visa is part of Government residence policy. It was not intended to be part of Government residence policy when the National Party Cabinet considered the Cabinet paper back in 1999 and it certainly was not in my mind when I confirmed the introduction of that policy early in 2000 when I became the Minister. That is the bottom line in respect of clause 3. It clarifies very specifically that temporary entry visas and permits and limited-purpose visas and permits are not in any circumstances part of Government residence policy. 
The second element of this part is the global prioritisation—something we have already introduced. It enables us to prioritise the applications of particular individuals who already have skilled-job offers. That will be good for business good for the migrant and very good for New Zealand. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: The Minister of Immigration who has just taken a call needs to do some listening. If she does not do some listening she will never get the point that members on this side have been expressing concerns about. 
The Minister makes a point of Part 1 and in particular clause 3 not being retrospective in its impact. Well it does not need to be retrospective in its impact because the rest of the bill has the retrospective impact in it. The Minister is being entirely cute with the Committee and frankly is being less than forthright with the Committee if she thinks she can get away with an explanation like that. 
Part 1 changes the judgment that was brought down by the High Court. I notice that the Minister avoided any reference to that. Part 1 does what the Minister now knows the Court of Appeal was not going to do which was to agree with her interpretation of the Act. The Minister can wax eloquent as much as she likes about whether this was the intention of the Government in passing that bill or whether it was the intention of Parliament in passing the legislation in the first place; she may well be right but that is not the point. The point is that earlier this year the High Court of New Zealand brought down a judgment dated 16 May in which it found that some actions taken by the Minister were unlawful. 
At that point—16 May—the Minister had several choices open to her. One of those choices was to say she did not think that is what Parliament intended and she did not think that was what the previous Government intended in passing that bill so she would go and see her very fine colleague on the other side the Opposition spokesperson on immigration and ask him whether he would see reason and support the Government rectifying something that Parliament had not intended to do. But the Minister did not do that. The Minister was much more concerned about the fact that the original changes that she had made which were the subject of High Court proceedings were changes made as a result of her losing some political arguments. The Minister rightly or wrongly in terms of the merit of the argument had been on the losing end of some political debate. The changes that she promoted were not changes promoted in good faith after careful and serious analysis by officials; they were changes that were a panic reaction in the Cabinet room. 
So on 16 and 17 May after she had the High Court decision from Justice Randerson she did not think: “Oh that’s not what Parliament intended. I’ll have a talk to the Opposition parties and see whether we can without too much delay put matters right.” What she said was: “Oh no this was a politically driven decision made in a panic. I can’t possibly go and talk to the Opposition parties about what Parliament intended and whether we should let the judgment of Justice Randerson stand.” She decided to try her usual trick of bluster and pomposity. As a consequence now further down the track the Minister finds herself embarrassed. 
She put out a press statement. I must say her explanation to the Committee a few minutes ago of the circumstances of that were less than fulsome and I will have some further questions about that before the day is out. She says that she released a press statement on 17 June saying in good faith that she would appeal Justice Randerson’s decision. We are supposed to believe that she did not have in mind on 17 June when she released that press statement some provisions in this bill—a bill that she prepared and got ready for introduction in the House today 2 weeks later. I tell the Minister that she has some more explaining to do if she expects the Committee to believe that. I want to see those Cabinet papers. I want her to table the Cabinet papers produced before and after she came to think of introducing clause 3 as part of Part 1 of this bill. I want to see the evidence of the Cabinet papers and the officials’ advice to her. I tell the Committee that we should oppose this provision because of that background. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: Part 1 is a very serious part of this legislation and in my view is a very serious departure from the usual way in which the New Zealand Government administers its affairs. In my view Part 1 leaves us wide open to corruption at Government levels especially in our overseas offices where we know that from time to time there is corruption. New Zealand First has had evidence brought before it that if one wants a visa to come to New Zealand the best person to go and see in New Delhi is the bloke under the tree outside the front gate of the New Delhi High Commission. He will jack a visa up on the payment of cash. Surprisingly enough somehow or other the visa becomes available despite the fact that there is never any contact with the high commission. 
Section 13BA inserted by clause 4 states: “(1) The order and manner of processing any application … (2) The chief executive may from time to time give general instructions to visa officers … (3) In giving any such general instructions … (4) Unless otherwise expressed by the chief executive …” etc. So there are various ways in which administratively applications can be processed according to different priorities. 
There has always been a principle that applications are processed on a prioritised basis—first come first served. If an application has a defect then clearly it can drop to the bottom of the pile but one does not fiddle with an application’s place in the queue. To do so is the very beginning of corruption. It leaves the prospect of corruption wide open 
  
especially given that the Immigration Service is so dependent upon people in overseas countries where corruption is just a way of life. It is not unusual; it is the norm. New Zealand First is most concerned that as a result of the opportunities made available in this legislation there will be even more of the examples that have been put to this Government of corruption involving immigration in various places around the world. 
And we are being asked to rush it through Parliament. We would never agree to rush any sort of legislation through Parliament without select committee consideration but in this case we are being asked to support a Minister’s rushing legislation through Parliament when that Minister has been proven wrong in the High Court on her interpretation and administration of legislation. That is just not possible. 
I have looked at the Immigration Act—section by section in fact. In 1984 I was chairman of a select committee that reviewed the old Act and came out with new immigration legislation which was subsequently changed altered and became law in 1987. Since I became an MP again I have read every section in the Immigration Act and in terms of I think sections 13A and 13B I have two massive folders. I have been through them all and tried to ask questions on them but every time one asks a question one receives the statement: “Oh no we haven’t really given effect to that.”—especially on the health side of things. So we could not possibly accept another amendment to insert something else in section 13B without it going before a select committee to consider whether it will work. 
The new section 13B(1A) inserted by clause 3 states: “To avoid doubt any policy … is not Government residence policy regardless …”. The Government is saying that anything it does in these areas cannot be regarded as being Government residence policy and I ask whether it flows on that therefore no certificates are required under sections 13A and 13B to try to get around anyone having a look at this issue later on and deciding that as a certificate has not been issued the policy has not been complied with. The Government is saying that it is policy but it is not policy because the Government says it is not policy. Well is it policy or is it not? This legislation is saying that it is not policy even though it is policy. How can we possibly accept legislation of this kind? Just to avoid doubt carte blanche is being given to the Minister the executive and the various staff all around the world and there is no proper consideration of how it will be administered. 
This is a real recipe for disaster in the administration of our immigration system which is in some disrepair at the moment—which is why this bill is before Parliament. If everything were fine and dandy we would not be racing this bill through the House. We know that the Minister is in real trouble. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: Focusing on Part 1 I think the Minister in whose name this bill stands made a very revealing statement before departing from the Chamber. She said that her first instruction to officials for the drafting of this bill was on 23 June. That is barely 6 days ago. If we take out the weekend we are talking about 4 working-days. So this bill has come back into Parliament under urgency. Obviously on Monday the Cabinet looked at it and decided to ram it through under urgency to deny it the scrutiny of a select committee and to have no consultation whatsoever with the industry—where the expertise lies. In fact we heard on  
Morning Report 
 this morning that upwards of 20000 people who have made applications could be affected by this legislation. 
Pansy Wong 
: Twenty thousand applications. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Twenty thousand applications. That is possibly 60000 or 72000 people. That involves 20000 applications but then the industry made the point that the Government does not really know. It was reckoned that that figure was the industry’s guesstimate and the industry’s guess has become the Government’s research in this matter. That is very worrying indeed. 
We have not had a satisfactory explanation from the Ministers in the chair or from any Government speaker of the reason for urgency. We have not heard that at all. We do know that Justice Randerson’s decision went against the Minister. The Government was taken to court and it lost. The Government was wrong and the court told it so. The Government then decided that it would appeal and then thought: “Oh no there is a short cut to that. We’ll change the law. We’ll use the brute force of the State—change the law deny people their rights trample over their rights.” In fact it smacks a bit of the foreshore and seabed situation when we think about it does it not? The Government will end up in a similar sort of pickle because it panicked in that situation. 
Such knee-jerk reactions on the part of the Government never work. We saw it with the booze tax that it slapped on us under urgency. I think it was in the last urgency period we had. Jim Anderton said that there was a crisis and that if the Government did not move straight away there would be all sorts of problems—and now everyone is laughing. That legislation is a nonsense and is actually counter-productive. I predict that this bill will also be counter-productive. 
I listened to the Minister’s explanation of clause 3 and I support that explanation. I think there is some rationale in the argument she put forward with regard to temporary entry. But as Dail Jones expressed in his speech I get very nervous when I see legislation that leads off with the expression “to avoid doubt”. Whenever we see “to avoid doubt” we know we are making muddied waters worse-confounded. It seems to be inevitable. When we have to say in legislation “to avoid doubt” trouble is on its way. 
But then turning to clause 4 which is the other part of this Part 1 I become really really worried. In her explanation the Minister used only about two sentences and explained this provision as part of a global prioritisation. The words just sort of flowed over and that was all she addressed. But when we actually read the words in the clause—and this is why I would have liked the bill to go to a select committee and be scrutinised—the point has been made that the provision is giving awesome discretionary powers to bureaucrats and is raising the fear of rorts and corruption. We have had cases and claims and allegations—substantiated allegations—of rorts and corruption in the processing of visas and associated with immigration. 
We see some very worrying text in that clause. Subsection (1) of section 13BA inserted by clause 4 states: “The order and manner of processing any application for a visa or permit is a matter for the discretion of a visa officer or immigration officer.” Subsection (2) states: “The chief executive may … give general instructions … as to the order and manner of processing any application for a visa or permit.” but the order is solely at the discretion of the immigration officer on the ground. So the various regions around the country or around the world where visas might be processed could have amazing inconsistencies and irregularities associated with them. Then in subsection (3) we see that “In giving any such general instructions the chief executive may have regard to such matters as the chief executive thinks fit.” 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—NZ Labour) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National) 
: I want to take a call on clause 3 and if I have time possibly to make some comments on clause 4 as well although with regard to that clause I support the sentiments expressed by the Hon Ken Shirley. Coming back to clause 3 however I note that this clause as we now know from previous contributions by members legislates to ensure that temporary or limited visas such as job-search visas cannot be classed as residence visas. That has the effect of over-riding the court case because if job-search visas are not residence visas then section 13 of the Immigration Act does not apply to those 40000 or so or is it 6000 or so— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Forty-six thousand people; 20000 applications. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: —20000 applications and 46000 people. Then section 13 of the Immigration Act does not apply to those people. When the Minister took a call before she left the chair she explained the reason for clause 3. She said that it clarifies this very situation. In part the National Opposition agrees that if there is an anomaly or a situation that possibly does not fit into Government residence policy there are ways of dealing with that. There are legitimate ways of dealing with that sort of issue but this legislation is not one of them. 
Thousands of people started to wend their way through due process within our justice system to have what they saw as their legitimate rights clarified and Justice Randerson in the High Court gave a ruling that actually agreed with them in terms of the way the Government was behaving. Then as I said earlier we saw that they were fortified only temporarily when the Minister said that that was not a decision that was acceptable to this Government and that the Government would appeal it; but then within a very short space of time the Government changed its mind to take these draconian steps that we are debating today. And they are draconian. 
I felt like commenting when the Minister was on her feet: “Tell that to the 46000 people out there who for 2 years have been pursuing their applications.” They went into the court process—at great cost I might add—thinking it was fair enough that there were ways of dealing with the matter and that they would follow those processes only to find that in the end the sinister hand of the Government came in the axe came down and no matter what they were doing in any event they were ruled out. 
I wonder how this enhances the reputation of New Zealand. We are encouraging people to come here. I think members from all sides of the Chamber will agree that we need more people here. We need an immigration policy as my colleague said before that is transparent fair— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Predictable. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: —predictable and consistent. We can certainly agree with that. But when we get the kind of shambolic management of this very important portfolio that the Minister has been guilty of what sort of reputation are we developing? It is a reputation that says we will ride roughshod over the legitimate rights of 46000 people. As Bill Milnes of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment said “The Minister is playing football with people’s lives.” Mind you I do not know whether the Minister can play football but that was his view. In other words she does not care really. She does not care that these people in good faith have made application for visas to New Zealand in the way they saw fit. 
Hon TAITO PHILLIP FIELD (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: I would plead with you Mr Chairman that this part is very significant and I do not think the Labour Government should rush through this part without giving due consideration to the very serious issues that Opposition members are raising. 
I want to touch on clause 3 but I think clause 4 needs a lot more substantial debate yet. We have heard from the Minister correctly that on 17 June she issued a press statement challenging the High Court decision insisting that the judge got it wrong. On 23 June she instructed her officials to draft this legislation to avoid any doubt and she claimed that she was not even sure that it would be included in this legislation. She is trying to argue on technical grounds that it will not be retrospective. It does not have to be in clause 3 because when we start to examine clause 4 every New Zealander should be very very concerned about this. Even though we might think it will affect only non - New Zealanders—overseas potential migrants—it is giving us a taste of the way people could be treated by Labour supported by United Future. 
Let us look at clause 4. It states that the chief executive of the Immigration Service “may give general instructions as to order and manner of processing applications for visas and permits”. Anyone looking at it might say that that sounds fair enough—the chief executive of the Immigration Service should be able to give general instructions. But let us look further. We find: “(3) In giving any such general instructions the chief executive may have regard to such matters as the chief executive thinks fit.” 
What does that mean? How are we going to examine what sorts of criteria the chief executive might have to take into consideration? This allows anything a chief executive might think fit. It carries on to say that unless otherwise expressed by the chief executive any such instructions would not have to pay regard to the fact that a general instruction may be different from those existing at the time. So it could be contrary to the general instructions given at the time. 
But it gets worse and worse. If potential applicants want to challenge whether their applications have been processed in a certain way the legislation spells out very clearly that there is no ground for questioning whether an application is processed in an order and manner consistent with any general instruction given by the chief executive. Subsection (7)(a) in clause 4 states that “no appeal lies against the decision of the officer concerned whether to an Authority the Tribunal the Minister any court or otherwise;”. Subsection (7)(b) provides that no review proceedings may be brought in any court in terms of questioning any general instructions relating to the order and manner of processing. I can just imagine that from now on every application for a visa or permit will just be turned down when all the officials have to say is that it is not consistent with the “order and manner”. From now on when my hard-working colleague Phil Heatley gets all these immigration application cases and wants to question the decisions the officials and the Minister will tell him they might want to help him out but section 13BA(7)(b)(iv) in the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) rushed through under urgency states that no explanation needs to be given of any decision by the Minister or visa officer to process or not to process. They will say “tough luck” to Mr Heatley. Nobody neither the Government nor the officials needs to give any explanation for refusing to process a visa or permit or decline a visa or permit. Nobody would ever know the rules. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (NZ Labour—Napier) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The question is that the question be now put. As many as are of that opinion will say “Aye”; to the contrary “No”. The Ayes have it? 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This matter is at the core of New Zealand First’s policies relating to immigration. We have had only one call on this clause and I was going to bring in new material. You have cut the debate short. You indicated at the beginning that it was a wide-ranging debate and we have had five calls on this matter with only one New Zealand First call. I respectfully ask that we get a second call at least. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I refer the member to Standing Order 139 “Acceptance of closure motion” and Speaker’s ruling 54/2. I am the sole judge of the debate. Nothing new was coming forward. I have already put the question and the vote has been taken. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Part 1 agreed to. 
Part 2 Validation of processing and lapsing of applications 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I raise a point of order at the outset in relation to your decision on the matter of closure—not the closure you have just taken but the closure on the part that is now before the Committee. I do so because I want to avoid an untimely mess of the sort that will I assure you ensue if we have the exercise of the Chair’s judgment in the same way as was the case in relation to the part that has just been the subject of a vote. I am fully aware of the provisions of Standing Order 138 to which you referred the Committee in a brief way. I refer to Standing Order 138(3) in particular which states: “The Speaker may accept a closure motion if in the Speaker’s opinion it is reasonable to do so.” I will not dispute the fact that the judgment is one for discretion on your part but I think it is open to members to seek to persuade you as to a course that is reasonable in the circumstances. I raise that at the outset in relation to Part 2. 
Both Part 1 and Part 2 are important provisions in this legislation. In addition to the fact that this is a bill that deals with applications that have been made in good faith some of which are being rendered null and void as a consequence of this amending legislation and in addition to the fact that this matter is being dealt with under urgency there is also the consideration that the bill has the effect of overriding a High Court decision that is currently the subject of an appeal to the Court of Appeal. In addition— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I will get the Speaker back if you want me to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am just referring the member to the fact that a point of order is to be terse and to the point. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Yes I am making detailed submissions to you because I do not want to see you make the same mistake you did in the first part. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am listening to the member and I am mindful of what he is saying but I would like him to come to the point. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I would like you to turn your mind to this. In relation to a bill that is going through the House under urgency which changes a High Court decision that is currently the subject of an appeal and which will wipe out the applications of over 10000 applicants to use the Minister’s own figures I suggest to you that it is very far from reasonable for the presiding officer to decide that one speech each from New Zealand First and ACT—particularly as Mr Jones has said New Zealand First has a special interest in this matter—and three speeches from the National Party is adequate. That is very far from reasonable. Unless we can get some indication from you that Part 2 will be dealt with in a way that the Committee can be persuaded meets the reasonableness test of Standing Order 138(3) we will have to go to a higher authority to get some direction on this matter. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am concerned in regard to any ruling on this type of bill where there is a proposal that a court’s decision be overturned—in this case a High Court decision only—that the standard accepted in this type of case might be the standard that is accepted say in a case in which the House might be faced with a Court of Appeal decision that it wishes to overturn. I would not like it to be accepted in any way that New Zealand First would accept that type of situation because we do not want this Parliament to be able to say at some later stage in Committee that when we overturned that High Court decision we had five speeches only and New Zealand First got only one call and now that we are overturning a Court of Appeal decision the same rules apply. When we are overturning a court decision I would expect that—in or out of urgency—we should get more calls than would normally be the case because we are overturning a very considered decision to which the Government has been part and on which the Government has made detailed and lengthy submissions being a party to that court case and perhaps in any other case that might be before the Court of Appeal. You have made your decision on the first part but I would respectfully ask that more time be given on Part 2 to avoid precedents being set for future cases. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I do not need any help Mr Shirley. I accept and I acknowledge the contributions that have been made both by the Hon Murray McCully and by the honourable member Dail Jones and I will certainly take those matters into consideration on the second part because the second part deals with the validation and processing of applications. I also refer members to Speakers’ rulings 54/2 and 63/2 which detail that I am the sole judge of relevancy. I adjudged that speeches were becoming very similar. The point was made that the debate was wide-ranging only on the title debate. I refer members to that. I acknowledge that I have listened to their representations and I will certainly take note of them during the debate on Part 2. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I would have preferred to raise this matter in speaking to the previous point of order because it would have related directly to that but you denied me that right. Let me be quite clear at the outset. I am not relitigating your decision. You are the sole judge although I note that Speaker’s ruling 54/2 states: “I can only express the hope that it will not be applied too harshly.” Those were the words of Mr Speaker Statham in 1931 which have stood the test of time. My point is this which I wanted to add: the Business Committee had a situation in which the proposal was that we could perhaps consider a question time with a guaranteed fixed time for finishing—a 6 o’clock Friday sort of an arrangement. The ACT party did not support that because we recognise that these matters need to be debated and that the Government when the House goes into urgency should not be able to get off the hook and run to an agreed time where the presiding officer in the Chair gives a token hour here and a token hour there then closes it down. These are very serious matters for the reasons that have been very eloquently outlined by Mr Jones and the National Party and I can only say in regard to the denial of question time that these matters are important they are overriding court decisions and I urge you in considering Part 2 to not in the words of Mr Statham apply it too harshly. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Mr Shirley. As I said to both the Hon Murray McCully and the honourable member Dail Jones it will certainly be taken into consideration. I thank members for their contributions. 
PHIL HEATLEY (NZ National—Whangarei) 
: I would like to express a view on Part 2 of this bill and I know that Dail Jones certainly wants to too. I hope he is able to give us at least a titbit of what he was going to present in terms of new information from the previous one and that he will be allowed the flexibility to do that. 
I would like to focus on clause 6 “Lapsing of certain applications made before 20 November 2002” because that particular clause speaks directly to those people who are directly affected by the rash move of this Labour Government to introduce and pass in urgency this bill that is riding roughshod over people’s rights; and certainly it rides roughshod over us parliamentarians in that it denies us the ability to have our say. Clause 6 is one of the key clauses in this bill that affects those people who have been sidelined. 
We understand from the Government that there are 20000 general skills category applications awaiting decisions. I want to know why we have to pass legislation that forces the lapsing of those applications made before 20 November 2002 just because the Minister Lianne Dalziel and her department have been dragging the chain in allowing those applications to go through or to have some sort of scrutiny—to a greater or lesser degree. I know that many hard-working members will be well aware that applications made under those categories have often been submitted 6 months ago 1 year ago 18 months ago or 2 years ago that it takes an awfully long time for them to go through the process and that it is very rarely the fault of the applicant or the MP supporting them in that or even the fault of the consultant in those cases that it has taken so long. So why are they the ones who are penalised through this legislation? 
I will read clause 6(1): “All applications for residence visas or residence permits made before 20 November 2002 under the general skills category”—and we understand there are 20000 of those—“of Government residence policy that have not been decided as at the commencement of this Act”—and that could happen any day now—“are treated as lapsed except where as at the beginning of 1 July 2003” and then it lists exceptions to that first rule. 
I want to know why they are treated as lapsed when certainly the person to whom the application relates has been working hell for leather to provide all the information required to prove that he or she is a genuine case. Such people often work side by side with their member of Parliament they will have got the paperwork from overseas and internally within New Zealand they will have seen employers met all the requirements and jumped through every hoop and over every hurdle and I want to know why those people through blood sweat and tears with all the help they have employed—paid or otherwise—are treated as lapsed. 
I can tell members now that those 20000 people do not consider their work to have lapsed. Not a day has gone by when they have not either worried or actively involved themselves in the application process and they certainly do not consider themselves lapsed. That is why we have pointed out to Minister Dalziel time and time again that she should not be riding roughshod over due process. 
The Government tells us that there are actually 14669 applications lodged prior to 20 November 2002. The Minister might have a number of 14669 but National members of Parliament know some of those people as individuals and they do not like being just one number among 15000. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: I am looking at clause 5 and I will try to concentrate on that in this call. I will look to make a speech on clause 6 later. We have a situation here where the heading to clause 5 is “Past order and manner of processing applications deemed valid”. I have gone to the clause to try to understand what it means—bearing in mind that it has not been to a select committee where members would get a considerable amount of time to look at a bill; instead here we are with barely 5 minutes to come to grips with it and to ask questions on it. 
Subclause 5(1) states: “Any—(a) failure by a visa officer or an immigration officer or the Minister to process an application for a visa or permit …; or (b) decision by a visa officer or an immigration officer … to process or not to process an application … occurring or made before the commencement of this Act is deemed to have been validly done”. So the Government is saying that any mistakes that we make—and which we will continue to make—before this legislation comes into force which could be tomorrow 3 July are valid. It does not matter what the mistake is and it does not matter what has been done because the decision is still valid—even if we do not know a mistake was made. We may not have the faintest idea of what we are doing in our department but regardless of the fact that we do not know what the decision is even if it is the wrong decision it is deemed to be the right decision. 
The Government is saying that all wrong decisions are right decisions. All the applications that have been moved along by a visa officer for people who may be criminals from overseas or who may be involved in some type of fraud scam or the like have been validly processed. At the same time all the applications that should have gone ahead and been properly considered but that have been rejected have also been validly processed even though the rejection of those applications did not comply with any Government policy. What a load of nonsense that is! 
Subclause 5(2) states that “No appeal lies against any decision to process or not to process an application” whether or not the appeal is made by an authority or even by the Minister. So a visa officer in New Delhi could continue to process the application of a known terrorist from say Kashmir or Afghanistan and that process and suchlike could be accepted—whatever “process” actually means and I will look at clause 5(4) later. This bill validates all sorts of processes no matter how ineffectual wrong or contrary to policy they may be. The Minister the authority the tribunal or a court cannot object to what an official has done. What preposterous legislation this is! Someone has dreamt it up in a hurry without any great concern. I accept the Minister’s word but in the four working days or so when this bill was being assessed which was somewhere between 23 June and when this bill was introduced yesterday afternoon—we have not even had the chance to look at it for 24 hours—legislation has been rushed in that will allow an official to let a terrorist from Afghanistan or possibly Iraq into the country. For all that we know Osama bin Laden could be approved under this legislation and the Minister could not object to the way in which his application had been processed. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: He might already be here. 
DAIL JONES 
: That is right—goodness only knows. This Government is verifying that kind of mistake in this legislation. 
One tries to work out the meaning of “to process”—or not to process. It is very Hamlet-esque; it is very Shakespearean. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: That is the question. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is the question and I am asking it. What does it mean to process an application or not to process it? Clause 5(4)(a) confuses the issue even more. It states: “a reference to a failure to process an application includes a reference to a failure to continue to process an application”. Then clause 5(4)(c) goes on to state: “a reference to a decision not to process an application includes a reference to a decision not to continue to process an application.” What is meant by processing an application? Does that include completing the application? I ask that question. How far does the term “process” go? It could mean an application is stamped done and delivered. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It’s absolute. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is absolute. That could mean the process is completed and Osama bin Laden is welcome to New Zealand because the New Zealand Labour Party and United Future would welcome him in terms of clause 5 of this bill. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: I thank the Committee for the opportunity to respond to the member who has just resumed his seat. I should make the point because he clearly did not hear what I said earlier on that clause 3 was added to the bill as a result of the decision that was taken on 23 June. This bill was already in the process of being finalised prior to that date. So the lapsing provisions were already being addressed at that point. I asked the officials to again look at including clause 3 in the legislation to cover the lapsing provisions and the global prioritisation. So I want to clarify for the member that that was not something that was written. Those particular provisions were not written at that late stage. 
I thought I would share with the Committee the newsroom agency story that has come in over the wires in respect of the response to this particular part. I will just quote from the document itself. It states: “An immigration consultant Ted Legget says the Government’s move to actively recruit skilled migrants will ensure immigrants can put their skills to use as soon as they arrive in the country. He says immigrants who cannot settle into a suitable job are not happy and the changes will address this. Mr Legget says it is unfortunate for those who have already lodged applications for non-relevant job offers and may now be rejected but there was no alternative.” That is an immigration consultant who has made that particular point. 
Pansy Wong 
: That’s a good one! 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I find it very interesting to hear Pansy Wong interjecting particularly given associations with certain immigration consultants who may be of interest to that member. I will be in a position to identify the main players in the money-go-round that that member is fully aware of very very soon. 
The point that I have made about the difference between good and not-so-good immigration consultants is simply this: the good immigration consultants welcome the Government’s changes in this bill. The reason that they welcome these changes is that they already operate on a recruitment model. They already know about jobs that people can be brought into New Zealand to do. They care about the settlement outcomes for the people whom they bring here. I went to one immigration consultancy company’s launch of its Hunters Club—a club actually set aside for new migrants to New Zealand who are the company’s clients in respect of immigration applications. The interesting thing is that that is not something that the consultancy firm has to do. It does not have to do that but it cares about the outcomes. That is the immigration consultancy that welcomes this bill. It is speaking to the media today and it is saying that the Government is on the right track. 
The reason that the firm accepts we are on the right track is that it wants what the Government wants. I thought I heard Dail Jones interject to say that that is what New Zealand First wants. That firm wants migrants to hit the ground running and to use their skills and their talent when they get here. Nobody in this Committee could justify for one minute having skilled and professional migrants coming to this country and taking up jobs as cleaners cooks and taxi-drivers. New Zealanders have had a guts full of that sort of treatment. New Zealanders are fair and decent-minded people who ask why we waste the talent and skills of the people whom we bring here. This policy will make sure that we do not continue to bring to New Zealand people who will not make it here and who have little to offer New Zealand—and to be blunt New Zealand has little to offer them. This turn-round in policy is good for migrants and good for New Zealand. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. Can I now assume in view of the wide-ranging speech made by the Minister that this is now a wide-ranging debate? We welcome the Minister’s speech and we look forward to responding to it in detail. 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: A very serious accusation was made during the Minister’s speech. If she ever suggests that I may have something to do with scams involving immigration consultants I invite her to make that accusation outside the House and I will see her all the way to the court. She would not be able to legislate away the fruits of my victory. That is totally irresponsible— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: You just wait! 
PANSY WONG 
: I find that offensive. She is smiling away. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. In response to what Pansy Wong said the comment the Minister has made “You just wait!” is unparliamentary and threatening. It is out of character in this Committee. I ask that the Minister apologise for that comment. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I ask the Minister to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
PANSY WONG 
: That is why this Minister will never get the immigration portfolio into shape. A Minister should be fair objective and accept valid criticism as being nothing personal. I find it very offensive to suggest anything about my conduct that relates to any immigration consultant. I would hastily point out that the Minister used to trumpet—and continues to do so—the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment as one that the Government was happy to work in partnership with. It is now obvious that unless people totally toe the line and agree with the Minister then she will somehow threaten them with regard to whatever action she may have in mind. 
Part 2 is worth taking a close look at. I want to go to clause 6 where applications for residence visas or residence permits made before 20 November 2002 under the general skills category of the Government residence policy that have not been decided are treated as lapsed. One might argue that there are some exceptions and some of them may not be lapsed. The specific ones are listed under subclause (1)(a) and the first is where “the principal applicant—(i) had claimed points for an offer of employment classed as ‘relevant’ under the Government residence policy applying to that application;”. I invite the Minister to take another call to clarify that word “relevant”. Does it apply simply to people’s qualifications or to the jobs that they already have? What is this relevancy in relation to a particular application? That is not clear. I do not think that a lot of the applicants will feel very relieved to listen to those criteria when they do not understand how the officials will interpret the word “relevant”. 
 The other exception is where the principal applicant had claimed 28 points or more under the Government residence policy applying to that application. I find that very very unfair. Basically it changes the rules after people have already entered the race. As I pointed out at the beginning it was announced that the number of points required had been reduced from 30 to 27. If the Immigration Service and the Minister of Immigration had been doing their job they would have said that people who scored below 28 points would not settle well in New Zealand. Why offer the possibility to them? Why put the number of points at below 28 points? People have in good faith put in their applications after looking at the immigration website. They ticked the boxes and found they had 27 points which was the number required by the policy to qualify and then they suddenly found out yesterday or today that their applications would be considered further only if they had 28 or more points. 
I say that changing the rules is not fair. This legislation is retrospective. The Minister has just said that it will not be retrospective and that clause 3 was introduced only to clarify the legislation. I think that with this particular measure one can definitely say it is retrospective. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: The Minister of Immigration sought to clarify New Zealand First’s policy and she did a thoroughly bad job of it because she does not support our policy and we do not support hers. She sought to paint a picture of having done something when she has done nothing. In fact I have just looked at my colleague Dail Jones’ questioning of her at the select committee at the time the immigration issue came before the select committee. 
Darren Hughes 
: Why wasn’t the member there? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I had unfortunately been expelled from the House—quite wrongfully in my view. As a consequence I could not attend. Nevertheless Dail Jones did a very fine job. He established that Lianne Dalziel in all her time as the Minister had got two Cabinet papers ready. She claimed that the idea of registering consultants was a good one but all she had done was to look at the office in Sydney—the Migration Agents Registration Authority. She said she thought it might have a solution and that now it looked like a real possibility. In the meantime of course every sort of fraud lie and cheating activity has gone on in the Immigration Service in this country amongst a whole lot of consultants. There has been deception here there and everywhere. Chinese have been openly advertising— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: What about Mr Delamere? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Mr Delamere was fired from New Zealand First. He was never a Minister of Immigration under us so that member should not look at me. But my point is this: how come he has been operating for 3½ years under Lianne Dalziel? 
The reality is that there are all sorts of people out there who are openly advertising fraudulent activities in Chinese. The Minister was on the  
Assignment 
 programme and was asked whether she was aware of any forgeries and frauds. Her answer was “No”. What a joke! Talk about deer in the headlights! That is this Minister. 
I have just been on a radio programme with the Minister and she embarrassed herself again. She thinks that because she can swim under water without breathing for 3 or 4 minutes that that will do in politics but it will not work. One actually has to be able to say something sensible. The reality is that this Minister is dead scared of getting things wrong. That is why she says in Part 2 that clarification is required so that the New Zealand Immigration Service can regulate and order the manner of processing these applications according to agreed Government departmental policies and priorities. Why would she say that were it not that she was too scared of making any of those attempts and finding she had again breached the law? That is why she says it. She goes on to say: “Clause 5 ensures that past prioritisation of the processing of applications for visas and permits cannot be challenged in the courts.” This is a member who is meant to be a lawyer. She wants her actions inactions and mistakes to be above any legal reproach. I know Labour MPs over there and I know politicians like that. Mind one would not call them politicians; one would call them despots or autocrats. 
The Minister wants to be above the law and I will give an example. She now wants immigration officers to be above the law. If they screw up there is to be no right of appeal. We can have the biggest bunch of crooks coming into the country as a result of their mistakes and no one can appeal it. I suppose that is the reason there are so many businesses in Auckland that are run by the triads. Members should go to the bottom of town and find out what is going on down there—the abuse of women cycled into here for 3 months then off to Australia because they now have a half-way respectable tourism visa off to UK for 3 months and then back home a total waste. All that is happening under the name of that Minister of Immigration. She laughs and smiles. I know how people like her think. As long as they have the baubles of office showing some integrity and merit to be in that job has no bearing on them. She might think it is funny but after September 11 where on earth would there be any civilized country that would leave such a decision up to an immigration officer? After September 11 and Bali which fool would leave that decision up to an immigration officer? That fool over there would! 
Other countries—including the United States for example—are reviewing all past applications for the last 6 years to ensure they do not have terrorists and here is our Minister happy for foreign immigration officials to bring in a foreigner and his mistake wanton or otherwise is beyond reproach. Which fool after September 11 and Bali would allow that to happen to his or her country? It would be one that does not care. The Government does not care. It is caught out now by a policy that 82 percent of New Zealanders are opposed to and they are opposed to the Minister and her numbers. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: In initiating this particular debate the Minister in the chair the Hon Lianne Dalziel made a very provocative speech and the member who has just resumed his seat made some reference to that. But the key point was her explanation to the Committee that we need this legislation because of all the shams the crooks and all the bad dealings that are going on out there. Yet the point has been made that on the  
Assignment 
 programme she was asked the hard question straight yes or no whether she knew of any fraudulent bad practices and her answer was that no she did not. She says one thing on television when she is under scrutiny by the nation yet she comes to the Chamber and says that we need this legislation because of all the sham deals and all the crook situations that exist. 
When we analyse this bill we find it does nothing to assuage our concerns because of clause 5 which relates to validation of process. What on earth does that mean? In other words however bad something may have been however wrong however unjust by a stroke of a pen the bureaucrats can declare it to be right. Under common law we had such things as writ mandamuses. In other words if bureaucrats failed to act or failed to follow due process we could go to the courts with a writ mandamus. But the effect of this clause is that no writ mandamus could possibly succeed against it. It states that failure by a visa officer or an immigration officer or the Minister—even the Minister—to process an application for a visa or permit including a residence visa or anything else is just declared to be all right no matter what mistake has been made. That is totally unsatisfactory. Then we think that perhaps there is some sort of appeal process. But no we turn over the page and lo and behold all rights of appeal have been expunged. 
Clause 5(2) states: “No appeal lies against any decision …” Then subclause (3) states that there is no review processing. So whatever one has done wrong whatever mistakes whatever injustices they will retrospectively be declared to be right and there are no rights of review and no rights of appeal. That cannot be good legislation. It is totally bad legislation. 
The Minister initially said in her speech that she first issued drafting instructions for this bill on 23 June. We made the point that that was only 6 working-days ago. She must have been up in her office listening to a wireless. She heard us challenge her came rushing down here and said: “Oh no that was just part of the bill. The rest of it was under draft long before that.” I tell the Minister that that is not the impression she clearly gave the Chamber when she initially spoke about it. It seems that this Minister is prepared to say anything if she thinks she can get away with it. 
 I would like to take up the terrible slur the Minister made against Pansy Wong. Even after being forced by the Chair to withdraw and apologise she kept grinning like some inane canary and giggling to her colleagues on the Labour benches. The Minister is constantly slurring taxi-drivers. Taxi-driving is a very necessary profession. We want good taxi-drivers. They are part of our tourist industry. We want a good class of taxi-driver. However at every turn that Minister is slamming taxi-drivers and constantly slamming cooks who are also a critical part of our tourist industry. We need good cooks. The Minister calls them hamburger flippers. She is constantly beating up on cooks and taxi-drivers. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Arrogant socialists. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: One of my colleagues has made an observation about arrogant socialists and we see that so often. So often in our Parliament legislation is slammed through under urgency. It seems to be the trademark of the arrogant socialists. 
Clauses 5 and 6 require a lot of scrutiny. They are fundamental and tramp on the rights of people for review of process and for appeal about bad decisions. There are three measures that totally abrogate those rights. Firstly any mistakes declared to be valid are dealt with under clause 5(1)(a) and (b). Under clause 5(2) there are no rights of appeal; and under clause 5(3) there are no rights of review. I do not recall there ever being such bad legislation. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: In context Part 2 has huge importance in terms of issues of reputation for New Zealand the Parliament and the Minister. In speaking on clause 5 I can only but agree with Dail Jones that there are some very great worries about it. That is the provision where validation of processing and lapsing of applications is dealt with. It does seem absolutely extraordinary that it states: “Past order and manner of processing applications deemed valid (1) Any—(a) failure by a visa officer or an immigration officer or the Minister to process an application for a visa or permit. …; or (b) decision by a visa officer or an immigration officer or the Minister to process or not to process an application for a visa or permit … occurring or made before the commencement of this Act is deemed to have been validly done in accordance with the discretion of a visa officer or immigration officer to determine the order and manner of processing an application.” 
In other words any mistakes that may have been made are valid. It is absolutely unbelievable. If we are to go to first principles in terms of immigration policy we want to make sure that that immigration policy is predictable transparent certain and fair. We have a situation whereby a lawyer has written into legislation: “Any mistakes that have been made are valid.” It is absolutely unbelievable. All wrong decisions are right decisions. This lawyer is putting that into legislation under urgency. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: A trade-union lawyer. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: That is right. We have to make the description very clear. Subclauses (2) and (3) in clause 5 provide for no appeal. They state that no appeal lies against any decision to process or not to process an application for a visa or permit and that no proceedings may be brought in any court in respect of any failure to process or any decisions to process. 
As a former gynaecologist if I mucked up I would expect my patients to be able to go through a process of appeal. Here the Minister has mucked up really badly—20000 applicants 46000 people and it does not matter. They have no right of appeal and no day in court. As Winston Peters said that touches on the bounds of autocracy and it touches on the bounds of despotism. One wonders whether the true instincts of the Labour Government are really coming to the fore because it is saying in law that any mistakes that have been made are valid all wrong decisions are right and one has no appeal process through the courts. It is absolutely incredible that a union lawyer wants to put this sort of legislation through the New Zealand Parliament under urgency. 
Clause 6 suggests that the cost for application fees that are to be refunded will be about $10.5 million. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National) 
: Part 2 is symptomatic of a Government that when it makes a major muck-up sees its role as bringing down the swift axe of Parliament. It uses Parliament to ride roughshod over people’s rights to ride roughshod over people who have entered a process in good faith. My colleague Paul Hutchison made reference to clause 5 which makes right any decisions that the bureaucrats have made up to this point—whether or not they were right—and makes valid any mistakes that have been made. That sort of management of a portfolio and that sort of policy are to be absolutely rejected in this Parliament. 
I shall focus on clause 6 which deals with the lapsing of certain applications made before 20 November 2002. Lapsing the applications of people who came into the process in good faith is no way to manage an immigration policy and is no way to manage that portfolio. Again that sort of draconian action is symptomatic of a Government that when it comes to the crunch when it has to try to make up for its muck-ups acts in this arbitrary manner. 
I would like the Minister of Immigration to explain part of clause 6 for my benefit and hopefully for the benefit of others both inside and outside this House. It provides that applications for residence visas or permits that were made before 20 November 2002 and that have not been decided as at the date of the commencement of this legislation which will come into play today tomorrow or certainly within the next 2 or 3 days are deemed to lapse unless the applicants satisfy one of the four categories listed—if they wish to stay in the process. One is that the applicant “had claimed points for an offer of employment classed as ‘relevant’ under the Government residence policy applying to that application;”. What is the meaning of the word “relevant” in this context? I would appreciate the Minister taking a call to give us some detail around that. For an officer administering the policy the word “relevant” can be taken to mean anything that the officer wants it to mean. That is not acceptable in this sort of area. I would like an explanation because clause 6 does not define what “relevant” means in this area. 
There is the issue of applicants who had claimed 28 or more points under the Government residence policy applying for the application. That points system of course is a huge issue in itself. Some applicants may have thought just before the commencement of this bill: “I’m OK. I’m in.” but there is now a change in the points system. The limit goes up from 27 to 28 points so they are out in the cold. 
I turn to paragraph (iv) of clause (6)(1)(a) which deals with applicants who “had been invited in writing by a visa officer or an immigration officer to apply for a work visa …”. I would like an explanation of that provision. Has it been the policy for some time that visa officers can give invitations as this suggests or is it something new? Was it actually invented yesterday which means these applicants will be cut out any way? Nobody will be able to satisfy that condition. 
In terms of lapsing applications particularly in the context of the way that this Minister has brought this bill into the House and is rushing it through under urgency those provisions require explanation. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Maungakiekie) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: My call on this occasion might be brief because I want to limit it to just a couple of issues. First of all I want to get some clarification from the Minister of Immigration as to when she gave the instructions and why the instructions were given with regard to the court decision. From my understanding on reading this bill it is clause 6 in Part 2 that refers to the court decision— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Clause 3. 
DAIL JONES 
: Is the Minister saying that clause 6 does not refer to the court decision? I would have thought that clause 6 was the court decision. She is saying that clause 6 is not the court decision with regard to points and suchlike! 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Clause 3. 
DAIL JONES 
: She is saying that only clause 3 refers to it. As I read it clause 6 is the one that must relate to the court decision. Is she saying that the instructions with regard to clause 6 were given a long time ago? Well before the court decision instructions were given to draft clause 6(1): “All applications for residence visas or residence permits made before 20 November 2002 …”—which is the date as I recall that was constantly mentioned in the court case. Was not 20 November 2002 a feature of the court case? So she is telling the Committee and all the other people involved in this area that the Government had made up its mind probably during the process of the court case before the decision was made that it was going to do the things set out in clause 6. That is how I understand it. So that point has been cleared up and it is an interesting point because that is not the way I had understood it to be. Perhaps those people who are very closely associated with clause 6 will take that into account. 
The only other brief point I will make is about the Minister’s reference to Mr Legget and his desire to bring skilled people to New Zealand. Well that is a New Zealand First policy. The only question is we do not want to see 190000 people coming into this country of whom barely 10000 have any skills which is what happened in the year ended December 2002. Our policy is skilled people for skilled work not 190000 people 65000 of whom are here on a temporary basis and about 75000 of whom also are not here on a skills basis. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (NZ Labour—Waimakariri) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: Part 2 is a substantial part and I am disappointed to see Government members taking calls purely to seek closure on a matter that deserves sensible consideration by the Committee. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: How sanctimonious! 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Mr Cosgrove may think that we should expunge the rights of over 10000 individual applicants—maybe over 25000 individual applicants—under the system without even giving the matter a second thought without even having a select committee discussion without even giving it any consideration in the Committee of the whole House. That is what he wants to shut down. We are not going to have a select committee or give any of the people whose rights are affected by this measure the opportunity to make a submission in the normal way. But Mr Cosgrove thinks it is OK to make only one contribution to this discussion in the Committee stage—that is to try to stop it. He has not uttered a word of debate not a word of support for the measure and has not given an explanation to any of the questions raised by members of three parties opposed to the bill. They are questions that the Minister will not answer because she does not know the answer. Maybe Mr Cosgrove knows the answers but he will not take a call and tell us the answers. I want to say that is thuggery; that is not good enough and that member had better recall that if that is going to be the approach of the Government on matters that affect people’s rights so seriously then he is in for a very rough ride. 
I want to talk about clause 6 because— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Oh come on! 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Why does the member not take a call? [ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. As you were making an intervention the chief Government whip offered an insulting reference which I took to be a reference to the Chair. I think you are entitled to take exception to it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Did the member make a comment? I did not catch what was said. 
David Benson-Pope 
: My exception was to the member calling my colleague Mr Cosgrove a thug which is neither parliamentary nor acceptable. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Madam Chairperson I was just trying to look after your interests in this matter but if you want to overlook that kind of intervention on my part I will move on to my scrutiny of clause 6. 
What happens with clause 6 is that a large majority of the 46000 applications—which the explanatory note tells us are valid applications before the Minister at the moment—are expunged. Those applications are wiped out. If we are going to pass this bill I think there are some questions the Minister should answer. The first question is why it is that no significant changes were made during the last 4 years which would have changed the number of people who made applications. The Government has been in office for 4 years; it has had 4 years of officials reports statistics and 4 years of opportunity to change the basis on which these people were invited to apply. These are people who have applied in the last 2 years. This Government has been in office for 4 years and the Minister has done nothing but she comes along now and says she wants this legislation passed under urgency with over half of these people having their rights expunged. I want the Minister to say why the Government has done nothing for the 4 years before she came along with this measure. 
Why has the Minister not made any changes to the wider programme that is spelt out? Of the percentage of people identified in various categories 60 percent still are in the skills and business category. In the spirit of the changes contained in clause 6 I would have thought that there would be changes also to the wider framework of the Government’s immigration programme. I think the Minister herself conceded in the earlier debate that there are some valid points to be made. I want to know how it is that we have a bill that expunges people’s rights particularly in relation to clause 6 but there is no wider indication of a change in policy or strategic thinking that would provide some guidance in this respect. 
I also want to go back to clause 5 and ask the Minister whether she will tell us precisely what sort of discretions are envisaged by that part. I read in the explanatory note that priorities will be given to various applicants whose rights are not expunged by clause 5 and those priorities will be identified according to high contribution and settlement potential—that is those who can make a greater and more immediate contribution to New Zealand’s immigration policy objectives and are themselves likely to obtain the greater benefit from the decision to migrate. I want to know what that means. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—NZ Labour) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: What sort of a jackboot Government do we have when we have closure motions on a part with a despotic clause that says that officials can do no wrong? That is what we are expected to pass in this Parliament today—a sort of Roman-type provision that says Caesar can do— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Caesar didn’t wear jackboots. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: He did not wear jackboots but he certainly would have said: “ I can do no wrong”. 
What we have in clause 5 is a provision to the effect that it does not matter whether the officials got it all wrong; it does not matter whether they failed; it does not matter whether they made mistakes because they are deemed to have been right. That is an extraordinary provision for Parliament to pass at any time let alone under urgency and with no select committee process. I want to know from the Minister how clause 5 matches up with her promise that Labour would allow for an open Government approach with proper consultative processes and the real involvement of members of Parliament. If that is not a contradiction I do not know what is. 
I come now to clause 6. This is the provision that expunges thousands and thousands of people’s applications. What sort of Mickey Mouse operation is the New Zealand Government running if it is just going to wipe out thousands and thousands of applications? I have this question for the Minister: according to her own notes why is it that 14669 applications lodged prior to 20 November 2002 have not yet been processed? That is 8 months ago. What sort of outfit is this Minister of Immigration running? [ 
Interruption 
] That is out of 20000 so it means that three-quarters of the applications lodged prior to 20 November last year have not been processed. Is that the sort of “efficient” Government department we would expect to have operating in this nation? It is an embarrassment and I want to know why. 
I also want to know from the Minister how many people are being ripped off by this provision. The papers say she does not know. We do not even know from the Government under urgency yet we are being asked to write off all of those people’s rights. We know it is something less than 14669 but no member opposite is able to tell this Committee just how many people are being done over by this provision. I ask Mr Benson-Pope and Mr Cosgrove why this Parliament should pass a law that will expunge people’s rights when we do not even know how many there are. How many of those people have acted in good faith? How many of those people would make good migrants for this country? How many of those people might want to have some right of appeal? We know none of that yet not one Government member has been prepared to get to their feet and defend the sort of jackboot legislation that is being passed under urgency by this Parliament. The bill is being passed through all stages yet it was introduced at only 4 o’clock yesterday. 
Again I put this to the Minister: this Government has been in office for 4 years. Government members have been defending the immigration policy for all that period. Yet suddenly—overnight—the penny drops and they have suddenly decided that the policy is all wrong and that under urgency they will change it. I see that the Associate Minister of Immigration Mr O’Connor has come into the Chamber. The Minister has not been able to answer the questions so I wonder whether that member is able to tell the Committee why he believes that Government officials should be deemed by law to have done everything right even when they have erred and made mistakes. Can some member opposite please explain why we should pass a provision that says that even when officials make mistakes they have got it right? I also want to know from someone opposite how many people are affected. This Parliament deserves to know. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister of State) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: I remind members that in the last 24 hours one Lianne Dalziel has been out telling everybody that her department will be able to process a new regime whereby all applicants will be in receipt of an answer within 3 months. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Yeah right! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes that is right. She was asked this morning how she was going to implement on the ground the globalisation priority programme she has and she said “at trade fairs.” If we look at some facts we see for example that 75 percent of the applicants before 20 November 2002 have not been processed. Some would suggest that given the demands before it the department is incapable of doing its job. Why would a Minister make those sorts of claims then try to underpin the whole thing with the slogan: “We’re going to have no more doctors driving taxis.” How many doctors are driving taxis? Two hundred? Four hundred? But it ain’t 72000. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That was said 10 years ago. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is right. It was an issue 10 years ago; that is a fact. And do members know how those members got here? They were got into New Zealand by the Labour Party late in 1988-89 and 1990. Most of them got here then—and it was an issue in the 1999 election campaign. I can remember people coming to us and saying: “Why can’t we get ourselves qualifications in New Zealand?” The answer is that they had such an appalling policy back then that one group was approving qualifications and another group the Medical Association was saying it would not register them. It is that simple. But here is my point: the Minister like her colleagues thinks that everything can be handled by spin. But she will not get past this part and that is her inability—and the inability of any of her colleagues—to tell us why one would repose in a civil servant or bureaucrat and in many cases a foreigner the capacity to make a decision and for there to be no rights of appeal against it. 
I ask the Minister to tell us how many frauds she has found within her department in the last 12 months. There is a stack of them. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: She probably doesn’t know. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Her department head knew. There is a stack of them. One guy was guilty of 12 that her department knew about. In short there was a guy sitting outside the High Commission in New Delhi selling visas—not inside; outside. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: At a discount? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes—out under the trees. He was successfully selling visas for this country. The reason was that those who would normally go to the High Commission said: “We get a far better deal with this guy outside and he has been licensed from inside.” 
Dail Jones 
: That’s a trade fair. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes it is. 
Dail Jones 
: Fair trade! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Whether they were getting a fair trade I do not know but given the number of frauds within the department it is ridiculous to say that fraud or otherwise encouraged or otherwise this country will stand by that person’s decision and no one will have the right of appeal. One would think that the Minister would get up and above all provide some satisfactory explanation as to why she would do that. But more important we cannot deny the facts when she lapses about 43000 people though I am not too sure how many fit that category. What we are certain of is that when the Minister says those people do not live in New Zealand she does not know what she is talking about. Every year 190000 are coming in in all sorts of categories such as students. It is all in this document. The Minister should try to get herself some education. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I’ve read it. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well she will know that what I say is true. In total 190000 people including international students are being approved for permanent and temporary residence. How does she know what is going on? She does not know what is going on and she never will. Her department’s inability to handle the problem is evidenced by the fact that it has a huge backlog. There she was last night looking so forlorn and saying: “Oh it’s been ongoing for 2 years.” Well nobody is paying the Minister for being useless—she should resign. If she cannot do her job she should go because she has long outserved her usefulness. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: A cracked record! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No it is not a cracked record. This CD will get more parts to it than one has ever heard. That is a fact because every day now telephone books of scandals are being sent to our office and I have all sorts of people who want to see me in Auckland and tell me about their latest story—Chinese people Indian and Bangladeshi people. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) 
: This has been an interesting debate. It is a debate under urgency and Government members have not been prepared to stand up take calls and articulate and support legislation that will infringe the rights of so many people. Not one of them has stood up and taken a call the whole of this morning when we have been here pointing out that this legislation will affect 46000 people whose applications will be expunged at the stroke of a pen after the third reading today. That is what will happen. There is no opportunity for anybody to attend a select committee; there are no submissions no transparency and no consultation. Yet this is a Government that has said in the past that consultation and open government is what it stands for. 
Today the Minister of Immigration is denying those people the opportunity to come to New Zealand in good faith and add value to our community and society as a whole. Today the Government will expunge their rights and those people will be out. Everything has been overridden. Where is the natural justice when with a stroke of a pen today the Government says: “You’re not wanted here; get on your bike you’re out?” What about all the people who have come from areas like Zimbabwe? Every week in my electorate of Piako I am getting numerous requests from people from Zimbabwe who have come to New Zealand. They have no certainty that they can stay here. What have they got if they go home? They have actually got nothing. Those people are absolutely stateless. They have nothing to go back to. This Government has had an opportunity over the last 4 years to make those people welcome here. They are the kinds of people we want; they can add value. But no they are down and out on their luck and this Government today is saying: “We don’t want you. You can’t add any value to what we are doing. You’re down and out.” 
If I look at how this department will operate in the future under Part 2 I see that any mistakes that have been made by officers will be deemed to be valid. The slate will be clean. It is like the Clean Slate Bill that the Justice and Electoral Committee is talking about. This is what will happen here; there will be a clean slate because mistakes misdemeanours or whatever will be deemed to be valid. I do not know of anybody or any organisation that does not have to account for its actions. But clause 5 of this bill is headed: “Past order and manner of processing applications deemed valid”. Where is the accountability? Where is the transparency that one would expect? If I am employing somebody then I would expect him or her to front up and to rectify anything that is not up to par. But under clause 5 that has been wiped. 
Clause 5 goes on to say in subclause (2) that there will be no appeals against any decision to process or not to process an application for a visa or a permit. There is actually no appeal process. What about those 46000 people whom I mentioned before? There is no appeal process. They cannot appeal. Subclause (3) states that no review proceedings may be brought in court in respect of any failure in the process. Once again there are no opportunities for those people. People want their day in court but that is being denied by this clause. They are being denied their day in court. As I asked earlier: where is the natural justice? This measure is going to affect 20000 applications or 46000 people whose livelihood is at stake. This Government is absolutely insensitive to what is required. 
Clause 6 is headed: “Lapsing of certain applications made before 20 November 2002”. This Government has been in power now for 4 years. Why is the Government doing this under urgency today? We are opposed to this. 
MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill) 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 69 
Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Part 2 agreed to. 
Third Reading 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: I move  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time 
. This bill does three things. It provides for global prioritisation. We believe that we have the power currently to do this because we are able to manage the way that we address those applications that come in but we are not taking any risks. This measure enables the best applications to be dealt with first. I quite frankly have been absolutely amazed at the support for the “first come first served” principle which would not serve New Zealand well. I want every member in this House to realise that the global prioritisation principle is about ensuring that those who have job offers who are already needed in New Zealand have access to residence first. 
The second thing that the bill does is that it introduces the lapsing provisions. I am aware that there will be people who are disappointed as a result of that. It was made very clear in the debate that it does not apply to applications lodged after 20 November last year; it does not apply to applicants who have lodged more than 28 points; it does not apply where there is a relevant job offer; it does not apply where the applicants have already been invited to apply for a job-search visa or one has been granted to them; and it does not apply where all the criteria have been met for approval in principle. So only one component of the group of people who currently have applications in the pipeline will have those applications lapsed. The application fees for those lapsed applications will be refunded in full. 
It is no wonder National Party members have got up in this House to defend rights. Actually it is the first time that I have heard National Party members get up in this Parliament and do that. In the 13 years that I have been here I have never heard a National Party member get up to defend someone’s rights. What the National Party members are really defending is the fact that they got it wrong. In 1991 the policy got it wrong. The 1998 adjustment which allowed migrants to get full points for a job offer that was not relevant to their qualifications or experience was an unmitigated disaster for this country. The National Party in essence is defending the National Government’s policy errors; this policy puts them right. 
The skilled immigration policy is surely designed to meet the needs of New Zealand. If other parties are willing to sit back and wait for people to apply to come to New Zealand—bringing skills that New Zealand may or may not need—and then to forget about them the moment that they arrive in this country then so be it. That is not what this Government stands for. This Government is pro-immigration pro-migrant pro-settlement and pro - New Zealand and that approach produces the best of all worlds. All will benefit from the approach that we have adopted. 
National Party members have asked what I have done in the last 3½ years. To quote one of my very good colleagues on this side of the House I have done “heaps” in the immigration portfolio. I have an entire page of delivery in terms of our policy that I could go through but I just want to mention two points. I said when I became the Minister that there were people in the country with residence who could not get work and there were people in the country with work who could not get residence. I have done everything within my power to address that issue. I have said that the settlement focus has to be the key approach to immigration. That is why we established pilot schemes—to make sure that skilled migrants were matched with skilled opportunities in New Zealand. We brought in the work-to-residence policy and the talent visa has been hugely successful. This bill is not a knee-jerk reaction; it has been a very long time in the planning. 
In the Committee stage I read out the public comments of immigration consultants who do not accept the position of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment and I want to close with some comments from business other than Business New Zealand. This is a statement from the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) Inc: “Business has forever said the best way of selecting immigrants suited to New Zealand was for them to show they had a genuine offer of a job from a New Zealand enterprise. The changes announced yesterday move a long way towards delivering this approach and the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) endorses it with enthusiasm. ‘Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel’s approach is fundamentally the right one for business particularly for manufacturing businesses.’ says Alisdair Thompson EMA’s Chief Executive. ‘A labour department survey last year showed many of our enterprises are not growing as fast as they could because of a lack of suitable skills especially people with trades and vocational skills. Skill shortages were found to be holding back growth for 42 percent of smaller businesses but the door must be kept open for immigrants bringing capital with them. In addressing the issues Minister Dalziel has made more progress with the portfolio than any Minister I can remember. While some people may be disadvantaged the change needed was bound to cause some disruption.’ ” 
My point is that there would be more disruption if we do not do this if we do not get it right for New Zealand. 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: The Minister of Immigration got only one thing right. This legislation cannot be a knee-jerk reaction; there have been 4 years of incompetent management by that Minister of the immigration portfolio. That is why it has ended up with a backlog that will take 2½ years to process. That is why we have ended up having to rush legislation through Parliament to lapse people who have had their applications in the pool for 2 years and who are now being told: “Tough luck!”. They will just get their fees refunded; they will not even be compensated for interest lost during that time. That does nothing for the international reputation of New Zealand. 
But today has been an eye-opener. It confirms the arrogant approach of the Labour Government. When it makes mistakes it never apologises. I just make that observation. When the Labour Government makes mistakes it adopts the following actions: it never apologises it blames everyone in sight and it rushes legislation through under urgency. It is quite frightening. Even today I personally have felt the anger of the Minister. If anyone dares to question her actions she says something like: “Well Pansy Wong you just wait and see.” I think wow it must be quite frightening for all those immigration consultants and business organisations. Who would dare to write any letters to that Minister of Immigration that point out her faults or mistakes? I presume she treats everybody equally so she would tell them: “You just wait and see.” She reads out letters of endorsement only. I think the scenario is quite clear: one should never question the Labour Government or cross it; otherwise one shall pay the price. A very very threatening environment is created and it is reinforced by the provisions in this legislation. 
Today the legislation is being challenged by the Opposition parties only. I doubt very much whether United Future members have actually read the bill or whether Labour back-bench members understand what it is all about. The environment that has been created and that now extends to the Immigration Service gives absolute power to the chief executive the Minister and the visa officers to make rulings. This legislation states that if they get those rulings wrong they will be treated as correct. I think that in future members on this side of the House will have a real problem because most of us will have a lot of constituents who want to question immigration rulings. We will have to tell them “Tough luck!” because the legislation was rushed through Parliament and in effect a ruling on the so-called “order and manner of processing” cannot be questioned. Lots of people will have no recourse from that. What has happened to the open and transparent governance that this Labour Government has always claimed to have? 
The other eye-opener for me anyway is to know—Labour and United Future would not admit it but it is true—that the Government has started to study New Zealand First’s immigration policy. Its members have continued to ask New Zealand First members why they do not vote for the legislation as it is that party’s immigration policy. I find the double standard very confusing. New Zealand First wants to restrict immigration and this is anti-migrant. Labour and United Future are rushing through this legislation to legislate away the rights of 20000 people for proper assessment and to bring down the number of migrants and they claim that is pro-migrant. What is the difference? Nobody seems to want to take a call and explain. Why do Labour and United Future not stand up and say they have adopted New Zealand First’s immigration policy and will continue to study its immigration policy? The public in future should be very aware of that. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. 
PANSY WONG 
: The passage of this bill further cements a Labour governance style of being heavy-handed; Labour can do no wrong and the critics had better watch out. Minister Lianne Dalziel demonstrated that by accusing me of somehow being involved with money-laundering immigration scams. The only crime I am guilty of is to question her legislation. It is a day of shame in Parliament when a Minister fails to acknowledge that she is not on top of her portfolio and resorts to threats to her fellow MPs. 
Did she not promise to bring in legislation to regulate immigration consultants who are not behaving according to the way that the law was drafted? Did she not promise to do that? She has failed to do it and as a result some potential migrants have had a raw deal. She did not bring legislation to the House to deal to those immigration consultants. Instead she is rushing legislation through under urgency to deal to over 20000 innocent migrant applicants who responded to her promotion in various places in October 2001 I think it was to encourage people to apply to come to New Zealand. The points required at that stage were 24 or 25; now she is saying that all those applications should lapse. 
Global prioritisation—another Labour spin—really means that Chinese Indians and Koreans need not apply. Labour is in a glass house and should not throw stones at New Zealand First because Labour really agrees with that party’s immigration policy. This global prioritisation means less transparent and objective criteria will apply. It is a recipe for corruption. Immigration consultants and organisations that have the ear of the politicians and officials can in future expect favourable treatment. Under the provisions of this bill the public and Opposition MPs cannot question appeal or seek review. United Future’s part in opening the door to corruption in our country’s immigration system will not be forgotten. “United” they might be but there will not be much of a “Future”. 
The Minister says the New Zealand Immigration Service has the capacity to implement this global prioritisation. Why should we have confidence in that when it is clear that in the House today under urgency provisions are being introduced to clear a backlog of applications that would take the service 2½ years to assess? Under the Labour Government’s so-called new skilled migrants policy there is provision for the service simply to lapse applications when it thinks fit or to decide without having to explain why or not to issue a letter of invitation. That provision was introduced just to avoid the Government having to put more resources into making sure the Immigration Service is doing its job properly. This Minister who has spent 4 years in her portfolio adopts a defensive mentality. She oversees a backlog of applications made in the past 2 years then passes legislation under urgency to lapse those innocent people who responded in good faith to the invitation to apply to come to New Zealand. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: United Future is pleased to support the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). I take issue with Pansy Wong’s comments that United Future would support things that lead to corruption. That would be totally incorrect. 
Dear old Winston has his three policies to fix but now he is going to have to have— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member will be referred to by his full name. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: I apologise. The Rt Hon Winston Peters with his three things to fix will have to place a bandage on one of his fingers because he obviously hit the finger instead of using this opportunity to bring his policy in and achieve what he had stated. 
This bill that we have been dealing with covers two groups of migrants. To start with the bill aims to prioritise those general skills category applications currently in the system of which we have heard there are 20000 representing 46000 people. As soon as this bill is passed which will be very shortly—thanks to United Future—those with a job offer relevant to their skills or with high points will be prioritised in the immigration queue. The Hon Richard Prebble tried to say that this legislation was introduced because the points system does not work. This bill is not saying the points system does not work and in fact the new policy will make better use of the points system by providing bonus points for applicants with relevant job offers particularly in regions with skills shortages. 
United Future is free to choose which legislation it supports in this House and we chose to support this legislation because it is good legislation because it is good for New Zealand and because it has been welcomed by New Zealand business which United Future will always support. Yes applications currently in the system from those who do not have a relevant job offer or sufficient points will lapse and their fees will be refunded. This will not affect those who already have a job-search visa or those whose residency decision is imminent although the Immigration Service will no longer invite people to apply for a job-search visa in order to get a relevant offer of employment in New Zealand. 
The current backlog represents almost 2 years of potential approvals under the general skills category and although many of these applicants meet the minimum points requirement only 57 percent in the last year had relevant job offers. Many of those who have applied are already in New Zealand on work permits or came here to look before they applied. I want again to underline the point that these people will still be free to do this. In fact their experience in New Zealand would count in their favour should they subsequently receive a job offer and apply for residency. Of the principal applicants approved for residence in 2002-03 62 percent had previously had a student work or visitor permit at some stage. 
From 1 July principal applicants must have a job offer relevant to their skills or qualifications. This is entirely consistent with the intent of the Immigration Amendment Bill debated earlier and ensures that everyone will be treated in the same way. It is also the reason that this bill must go through all stages today—to stop one group of applicants from using the window of opportunity presented by the normal legislative process to get their applications in under the old rules. 
Many speakers have already argued about the rapid nature of this change and the introduction of these bills under urgency. But it must be remembered that the Immigration Amendment Bill has had only its first reading. It will go through the normal select committee process and there will be further opportunities to debate it in this House. As for the interim bill we are currently debating given its alignment with the primary bill United Future believes that the experience over the next few months will greatly inform the select committee about how this shift in policy will work in practice. For example the committee may want to look at whether the idea of lapsing unsuccessful applicants after 3 months is workable and fair. 
Another point to reiterate is that there will be no significant change in the number of people who gain residence here. There is essentially a new filter in the application process because the Government is inviting people to apply but only the number of applications provided for in the New Zealand immigration programme will be considered. The number remains at 45000 with 60 percent set aside for skilled immigrants and this will continue for the next 3 years. If anything the approvals process will be much faster than it is now but the total number will remain stable and predictable. This is totally consistent with United Future’s immigration policy. 
To conclude this bill prioritises those currently on the list who already have job offers rather than those who do not have a job and could end up on the dole. United Future is very pleased to support this legislation. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: The problem with the previous speaker and his party and the Government that they support is that they do not understand that the quota numbers of those who come in are to be more liberal from today than they were 2 years ago. Two years ago the Government announced the same figures at 45000 and it had a plus or a minus alongside them. Today there are no minuses; the same criteria are all pluses. The suggestion that things will be tighter is a total misnomer. 
The second mistake they make is that they confuse immigration policy with a policy on immigrants. The first one is wise economic and social policy; the second one is how we treat foreigners who come to our country and there is a world of difference. 
The third thing is this. Recently a very very august group called the National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council in the United States did a study of immigration into the melting pot called the United States. We have all heard those stories about how good immigration has been for the United States. Who are these people? They are economists demographers and sociologists. They are all leading people in their field and hardly anti-immigration. What did they find? On immigration’s effects on wages the study found that immigration was responsible for 44 percent of the decline in wages that high school dropouts had experienced between 1980 and 1994 in the United States. On immigration’s fiscal impact it found: “Immigration not only affects natives by their presence in the workforce but also affects natives through their consumption of public services. Based on census and other Government survey data the NRC study concluded that at the present time immigrant-headed households consume more in public services than they pay in taxes.” 
Those are facts not stupid blind creeping ideology from a Government that cannot run a sound economy and so it brings in artificial consumer demand then boasts how it is bringing in 1.3 percent of our gross domestic product in terms of growth. According to the Government if it were not for immigrants we would be going through a serious depression at the moment! I can see why the Minister is saying that but there never was a Labour Party in the past that would have supported that sort of nonsense. 
On cost versus benefits the study stated—these are not my words—“We can now say with some confidence that immigration is not the benefit to the economy that it was once thought to be. While the overall economic impact of immigration is modest the effect on the unskilled and on taxpayers in high immigration states is substantial. We should therefore change our immigration policy not because the negative effects are so large for the country as a whole but because they are so concentrated.” For that read New Zealand. Members should go to Auckland and look at the huge demand on health services alone in just one segment. Ten years ago there were 10 interpreters working for the Auckland health service. Today there are not 10 but 285. Once 10 years ago we had a road service in Auckland that could see a person get from the airport to the centre of town in 20 minutes. Now it takes an hour at the worst times of the day and it is getting worse by the hour. 
Members should look at legal aid services and accident compensation costs. Over there sit the Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Finance and they cannot quantify anything but their feel-good feeling. All of a sudden because the polls say that less than 16 percent support them on this issue and a massive 82-plus percent do not but support New Zealand First on the issue they are panicking and have this knee-jerk reaction. What did Gareth Morgan say? He is hardly a supporter of Winston Peters or New Zealand First. He said in November 2002 that if these trends are maintained—and the policy we have been debating yesterday and today will maintain them—it could take as few as 60 years before the population is effectively totally renewed. 
Those who thought they were coming to a country with a British-Maori background with shared cultures and traditions that we have built up for the last 140 years should forget it. These people are about colonising New Zealand from without with in the main people who do not want to speak the language do not share our system of laws and do not share our cultures. Today there are 300000 people in New Zealand who cannot speak English. 
Edwin Perry 
: Labour voters. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes. It is about social engineering. Mr Morgan went on to say: “Mr Peters is quite justified to point out New Zealand is looking at a social and demographic revolution.” Who gave Labour the mandate? No one. Who supports Lianne Dalziel? Nobody. Who supports the policy? 
Government Members 
: Everyone. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I am talking about sane rational people I say to Mr Swain. I have not included him in it. What sane rational informed person supports this policy? Nobody but the “United League of Joyboys” who have no idea how to exercise power and a gentleman over there from Dunedin who has been promoted way above his station. 
When the Minister of Immigration Lianne Dalziel was before the Finance and Expenditure Committee this year she was asked by my colleague whether she was aware of a study prepared by Waikato University. It is fascinating stuff: “Jones: Do you accept that in total 190000 including international students were approved for permanent and temporary residence for the year ended 30 June 2002? Dalziel: How much? Jones: 190000. Dalziel: No.” There is an old saying that the malady of the ignorant is to be ignorant without knowing it. She starts not even knowing the basic figures. He says again: “Do you accept that 73800 of that figure were covered by student visas and work permits?” She says—pretty typically I might add—“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mr Jones says: “Can I draw your attention to a well-established report?” and she says that she does not know about it. He refers to Dr Richard Bedford Professor of Geography and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) of Waikato University and Dalziel says by way of a question: “And he says they were granted permanent residence?”. Members should remember what she was asked. She began by saying that she was not aware of that study but pages later we finally get to it. She is asked again: “Are you now aware of it? Dalziel: Permanent residence and temporary entry? Yes.” 
This is no small matter. They are cancelling the applications of tens of thousands of people. There has been no consultation with anybody no select committee hearing. This is to be rammed through Parliament in the space of under 24 hours. I say to the people up in the gallery that this was once a country with a grand tradition for honouring the law and for respecting people’s rights. It distinguished us from those dictatorships and autocracies that the world once passed away from but today here is the Labour Party denying people fundamental rights denying them the fruits of a court case by retrospectively changing the law. 
I want to say one last thing on this bill. They laugh now but we have seen the first of three things that we will fix up. It will take us all the way to the next election and on election night 2005 we will have fixed up them and the issue as well. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: Let me first of all deal with one simple issue. Mr Peters now defines as temporary residents of New Zealand everybody who comes here as a tourist everybody who comes here as a short-term— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No no. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Oh yes yes. The figure of 190000 actually includes all those people. It is not the number of people coming into New Zealand for permanent residency. He has everybody frightened about all these numbers of people who happen to be employing large numbers of New Zealanders in hotels and goodness knows what else up and down the country. 
But let us deal with his basic approach. If the rules that he would love to see had applied in this country for the last 160 years he would not be half the man he is now. Of course he is only half the man of anyone else in this Parliament except his own members anyway. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will withdraw that comment. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I withdraw the second part. The first part is undeniably true. If those rules had applied since 1840 he would be half the man he is now. If the original inhabitants of this country had decided that nobody of a different colour ethnicity or culture from those already here was going to come into the country he would not be trying to pretend he can put on a kilt on occasions during the year and be half-Scottish. And he would finally have to teach himself Maori for the first time in his life. 
Of course if those rules had been applied by whoever was not here in the first place before Maori arrived there would be nobody here. By the logic he has just applied this economy would be booming without a single person in the country. And if no Europeans had ever been let in we would have the highest non-literate non - wheel using economy in the world because that is the economy that existed before Europeans arrived in New Zealand. And if migrants had never been allowed into the United States the various Amerindians the early first peoples of the United States would presumably now be an even more dominant economy in the world than the United States is at the present time. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek clarification on this matter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No that is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I am getting to it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: What is the point of order? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: First of all there was the repeated allegation which I did not take umbrage at about someone who was only half a man. The member then depicted Maori society as non-literate and non - wheel using. I want to make this point: when the member was crawling around the slums of Liverpool we had a degree of civilisation beyond his wildest dreams. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows that is out of order and he will cease immediately. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If I had been crawling around the slums of Liverpool I would have a far better football team to support than the one I do happen to support which is a North London football team. 
I repeat: if he really believes that a society of our sort would have been better off without immigration what on earth is he trying to argue? Who seriously believes that in New Zealand these days? What he tells us is that migrants change the nature of a country. Well that is a real piece of news to discover in the 21st century! Is that a rule we could apply to England in 1066? He would not have tried to fight at the Battle of Hastings; instead he would have said: “Sorry you are prohibited immigrants. We don’t want to change our society. Throw away your bows and arrows boys; you’re banned from coming in.” That would be the kind of approach Mr Peters would have taken. 
Looking around at the motley mob that makes up New Zealand First I say it is about time that we started celebrating diversity in this society and treasuring even those who do not contribute. I mean who has ever heard a member of New Zealand First other than Mr Mark add anything to Parliament since those members got in here? I assume they are representing the entire population that cannot speak and cannot hear within this particular Parliament. 
I want to come to the issue of the rule of law. Every party over there has been pouring sweat for the last week saying this Government should legislate yesterday—not even tomorrow—to overturn a unanimous Court of Appeal decision to remove property rights. There is a sudden silence now. They are thinking: “When did we say that? What were we talking about?”. Recently there was a unanimous Court of Appeal decision that said that the indigenous people of this country can apply for recognition of their property rights and those parties said we should legislate to remove those property rights and overturn a unanimous Court of Appeal decision. Yes those parties did say that including those members over on that side who might potentially be beneficiaries of that decision if I recognise ethnicity correctly. That degree of self-hatred is remarkable. 
Of course what we say is that we should legislate to recognise the rights of the rest of us as well which is slightly different so that half of Mr Peters can go to the beach and half of Mr Peters can have some customary rights derived from his ancestry. He can get on to the beach probably at about 3 a.m. because I understand that is his normal beach-visiting time and go fly-fishing—if he can work out by then in his usual state at 3 a.m. which way round the sea is and which direction to point in. 
Let us come back to this issue. Faced with a decision by one judge that says the current law is not sufficient to implement the Government’s policy—and that is the implication of the decision—Parliament as the sovereign body as the highest court in the land has the right which it has asserted time after time and every tax Act is littered with legislation of this sort to say: “No we will stick to the policy and change the law to fit the policy.” Mr Peters suddenly decides he wants to oppose a bill that does that and that would actually help his general approach in life; he would rather oppose that policy in order that he can grandstand and say that everybody who is an immigrant is sucking off the body politic of New Zealand and is contributing nothing to this country—nothing like as much as Mr Paraone who has been silent on the foreshore and seabed issue; nothing like as much as Mr Perry who has been silent on the foreshore and seabed issue; and nothing like as much as Mr Gudgeon who has been silent on the foreshore and seabed issue. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will now come back to the bill. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He has been allowed to carry on about a whole lot of extraneous matters that are on the parliamentary Order Paper but do not relate to this bill and he should be told to get back to it or shut up. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Let me just say to the member that I have been listening to a large number of comments about a bill that we have already passed and sent off to a select committee. This bill is a relatively narrow bill and some members like his bench mate have been sticking closely to it and do know how to do that. A lot of other people in this debate have not and the member knows that. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: This bill should be passed for one clear reason now established in this debate and that is to assert clearly that this Parliament is sovereign and judges do not make the law. This Parliament makes the law not one judge. I say to some members opposite who are rather new and naive in these matters that if we allow every time a judge makes a decision that the law is not adequate to implement policy then we will quickly find not a great deal of policy remaining in place. Secondly this bill is necessary to avoid administrative confusion and chaos while the first bill goes through the select committee. Finally this bill helps establish that people will get priority access into New Zealand on the basis of the skills that we want in New Zealand and nobody opposite seems able to find anything wrong with that particular position. Even Mr Simon Carlaw who is paid to whinge—that is what he draws his salary to do—has actually said this legislation is good. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: That was a very revealing speech in many aspects and I will come to some of those. ACT New Zealand certainly supports planned orderly migration and we celebrate diversity in this country—that is basic ACT policy. We do not share the somewhat xenophobic views of the Rt Hon Winston Peters. I think the comments that the Leader of the House has just made really highlight a number of issues. He made the comment that half of Mr Peters can enjoy his customary rights while the other half can eat his haggis and blow his bagpipes. But that really hits the very nerve of the foreshore and seabed debate which the Leader of the House introduced. We recognise diversity but say there should be one law for all. We are all New Zealanders and there should be a single sovereignty. 
No other Government in history has talked about dual sovereignty to the extent that this Government has running the notion that we will somehow have separate and different rights according to the particular date when one of our ancestors may have arrived here. The reality is that every person in this country is either a migrant or a descendant of a migrant. We can argue about how many generations one might have to go back but one would only have to go back 30 generations to reach the first settlers in this country and that is nothing in global terms. We are all migrants or descendants of migrants and there should therefore be one law for all. We should not have the race-based laws that this Government is constantly bringing to this Parliament. The Leader of the House tripped himself up in quite an extraordinary way in the speech he just gave. 
However the real concern with regard to this bill is with the process that has been adopted. This is a panic bill that has been brought to the House as a knee-jerk reaction under urgency something that has become the trademark of this Government. Every time that this Government thinks it has a little problem in the wee small hours of the evening it has a panic situation quickly drafts out legislation brings it to the House and tries to rush it through under urgency with no select committee consideration no submissions and not even any consultation. The Minister sat in the chair during the Committee stage and was proud of the fact that there was no consultation with those who understand this issue best. That is a very arrogant way to bring about legislative change. It always ends in tears because inevitably people get it wrong. 
We know—the Minister admitted this—that the Minister first gave drafting instructions for this bill on 23 June. That was only 6 working days ago which emphasises what a rushed job and knee-jerk reaction this bill is. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Stop misleading the House. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: I am just repeating to the House what she told us in the Committee stage. It is in  
Hansard  
and we can go back to  
Hansard 
. The Minister came scurrying back down to the House when we challenged her and said that only part of it was drafted post-23 June trying to cover herself. However that was what she told us in the Committee stage. 
There are real concerns here with regard to the retrospective consequences of this legislation. We know what drove the Minister: the immigration consultants took legal action against her. They went to court and won. When she lost she put out an announcement that she would appeal. She then thought that rather than go through the courts she would use her power to legislate and close down the options. In doing so there is a retrospective impact on some 20000 applicants which we are led to believe affects some 46000 people all of whom had legitimate expectations. Their expectations are being dashed by this Minister in her hasty knee-jerk reaction to this issue. 
We do want orderly migration. I would not suggest for a moment that the law as it stands is perfect. It is not. The law is in dire need of some reform but I am not satisfied that the Minister is going about it in the right way. Amending the law in indecent haste as she is is certainly not the way to attack that issue. 
I am also very concerned about the so-called loading for regional locality. People will somehow be given a special priority if they are prepared to live in Invercargill Gore Timaru or somewhere other than Auckland. We know those sorts of policies do not work; they never work. Families might start off in those places but if it is their wont within 3 or 6 months they will be in Auckland. Do members remember the very large numbers of Vietnamese refugees who came to this country— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As the Rt Hon Winston Peters pointed out this debate has been too wide. It must come back to this particular bill. I know that reference can be made to the bill that we have already sent off to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee but only reference to it. The member cannot make most of his speech on it. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The point I was making was that the core part of this bill gives a loading according to the proposed location of a potential migrant. 
Darren Hughes 
: The other bill did that! 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: There is an implication of that in this bill and that is my point. The effect of that will the same in terms of what it is replacing as the effect of the old points system. Be that as it may the point I make is that most of the Vietnamese and Cambodian migrants who came to this country have since moved on to Sydney or Melbourne. That is the reality and that is why the earlier bill that this Government brought in today was as equally bad and faulty as this bill. 
Part 2 is the real concern. That concerns the validation of the processing of applications. We see there that any past mistakes order or processing of an application that has been messed up done wrong or lacks justice is deemed to be valid. Just with the stroke of a pen clause 5(1)(a) deems it to be valid. However the situation becomes worse than that because in clause 5(b) no appeal rights are granted. People cannot appeal and there is no review process. Any mistakes that the bureaucrats make are deemed to be valid. That is not good legislation. This Minister comes here to the House puffing herself up crowing what a wonderful job she is doing and singing her own praises. She has a standard letter that she always brings to the House and reads out to us time and time again. 
Ron Mark 
: She told us we were wrong in the election. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: That is right. She always gets it wrong. Those provisions are of deep concern as well as the first part of the bill. In common law people can bring a writ of mandamus. Where bureaucrats are not following due process or doing their job and are sitting on their hands or dragging their feet citizens have the right to bring to the courts a writ of mandamus. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: They’re not citizens; they’re not even in the country. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Not the way this bill reads! It states that any past mistakes or inactions are deemed to be valid—no appeal and no right of review. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: There will be one day. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: There will be one day. When there is a change of Government there will be and that is not too far away. I would be prepared to place a bet with any member on the Government side of the House on that one. There are no takers on that at all. 
This is bad legislation. ACT along with other Opposition parties will oppose it. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Good news! 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The Minister thinks that it is good news? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I think it is good news that the member has just shown how ridiculous the position of the ACT party is. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Not at all! We support good immigration policy. I said at the outset that we support that. This is not good immigration policy. This is a knee-jerk reaction. The Minister panicked 6 days ago fired out instructions to the bureaucrats to prepare a draft bill and brought it to the House under urgency with no select committee consideration and no public submissions. If she truly has confidence in this legislation why did she not invite public submissions? Why did she not let it go to a select committee? She has not answered those questions. The bill stands condemned by the Minister’s own actions. 
DARREN HUGHES (NZ Labour—Otaki) 
: That was a most extraordinary speech from the low-polling ACT party. First of all we found out that the ACT party research unit must be down Lambton Quay somewhere sipping latte away from the Pipitea Street electorate office. Mr Shirley the deputy leader of the ACT party spoke to the wrong bill. At the beginning of the debate on the two immigration bills he said that the ACT party supported the policy intent. During that speech he said that if ACT got into Government it would reverse the bill. That shows why that member went from being No. 2 on the ACT list to No. 6 and he is falling so fast that he will be applying for immigration status for another country after the next election. 
The contribution made by Mr Shirley summed up exactly the Opposition’s approach to this bill. It has not spoken to the issues that have been addressed by the Minister of Immigration the Hon Lianne Dalziel. We are desperate to make sure that when migrants come to our country they settle well. We are desperate to make sure that we can match up the skills people have with the needs that we have in our country so that we make a contribution for the migrant and for New Zealanders. This bill is about making sure that we get proper robust immigration policy. I congratulate the Hon Lianne Dalziel on her leadership with regard to this bill. It shows why she is right and the Opposition is wrong. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: The Greens are completely opposed to this bill. None of our concerns have been dealt with at all in the explanations from the Minister or the Government members. We have two main issues: firstly the extraordinary level of discretionary power given to immigration officials and secondly the retrospective stripping of a just process from the applicants. 
This bill gives the Immigration Service an extraordinary level of discretion which is way beyond what is needed to fulfil its requirements. The Immigration Service has total discretion over the order and manner of processing applications. That process can change at any time by general instructions given by the chief executive and in addition immigration officials are entitled to follow those instructions but cannot be held to account if they do not follow them. It is entirely inappropriate for a level of discretion such as that to reside in an officer and for the criteria that govern how applications are to be dealt with to be determined entirely in-house with no oversight or review by the public. Such a level of individual control over the application of the criteria is unjustifiable and there has been no explanation at all as to why Immigration Service officers should have such a level of discretion. 
I have been told previously by officials that the reason that much of the immigration process and policy is done through departmental policy rather than through legislation or regulation is that it has always been done that way. That is not an acceptable process in a democratic society such as ours. That is not the way that such a serious and important question as immigration should be determined. Immigration has an enormous impact first on the tangata whenua of this country and second on the whole of the New Zealand public. It should not be determined outside of public scrutiny and with no consultation or public discussion. 
To compound the problem of the extraordinary level of discretion is the fact that there is absolutely no opportunity to appeal the use of that power. No applicant is able to hold an immigration officer to account for failing to apply the criteria as he or she had been instructed to do. Officers are not legally required to process applications in any particular manner or order whether or not that process is consistent with the general instructions given by the chief executive. That means an officer can process an application in accordance with the general instructions or not do so entirely at his or her own discretion and there is no means to object to that. There is no control at all in the legislation on the potential use or abuse of those powers. 
By their very nature immigration applicants are in a very vulnerable position especially if they are from developing countries where English is not necessarily the first language or are in circumstances that create an environment of urgency for them. In the light of the imbalance in the power relationship between applicants and immigration officers respectively it is only just that applicants should not be subjected to an unfettered individual discretion over the application of rules that can change mid-application and without notice. Those circumstances open up the service to very real allegations of corrupt and discriminatory actions. We would have thought that there would at least be protections in the bill to avoid the possibility of such allegations if only to protect the immigration officials themselves. But there is no such protection either for the department or for the applicants. That is untenable and unjust. 
We also object to the automatic lapsing of existing applications notwithstanding the option for applicants to reapply. That is not the way to deal with the backlog of applications or more importantly with the people and the families who are applicants. Those people have in good faith met the obligations of the Government immigration policy paid their money and are now arbitrarily deprived of a due process. That provision is not necessary. Those people should not be punished for mistakes made by the Government in the allocation of resources to the Immigration Service. We support the principle that applications should be dealt with under the provisions that applied at the time an application was made. In order to prevent the huge rush of applications that occurs when any new policy on immigration is announced the legislation should have simply stated that the new process applied to any application lodged as of 1 July 2003. That would have ensured that those already in the system were dealt with fairly while being clear and fair to those who lodge new applications. The Minister intends to refund application fees of about $9 million. That money would be much better spent on dealing with the backlog of applications in a fair and just way. 
It is with a great deal of frustration and exasperation that we remind the Government once again that it has made a very significant decision without any consultation or discussion with Maori over the issue. Immigration is a fundamental issue of sovereignty and decision making. The Government asserts its right to determine immigration issues as part of the sovereignty it claims through the Treaty of Waitangi and the establishment of the Government. But the treaty was between two parties and immigration is and remains a treaty issue. It may even be described as the first treaty issue being the process by which new people come to this country. But again the interests of Maori have been ignored and undermined. I note also that the whole of the New Zealand public Maori and non-Maori have been excluded from the process. I want simply to bring to the attention of the public that Maori have suffered such a level of disregard at all levels in virtually all matters in the legislative process. 
Immigration policies should be based on the Government’s obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and on the social and economic needs of the country addressed in such a way as not to compromise ecological sustainability and the protection of our natural heritage. Such a policy must also be just and transparent and not merely a means by which to select the elite from other countries. If the Government truly had confidence in this new policy and process it would not be using the urgency process to push it through. Also the details of the process would be clear and transparent in the legislation the powers of officers would be explicitly prescribed and there would be a right of appeal in order to protect the human rights of those in the process. Clearly the Government does not have confidence in this legislation and neither should the New Zealand public. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (NZ Labour—Dunedin South) 
: I am very pleased to have the opportunity to rise in support of this legislation and I would like to compliment my colleague Lianne Dalziel for the effort and the vision that goes into such a necessary policy change. I think most New Zealanders welcome the sensible prioritisation in relation to the needs of this country of the many thousands of people who are keen to come to it. It is a sad comment also on the attitudes and the personnel involved in the tired old Opposition parties that debates like this become yet another excuse to scratch the sore of bigotry and prejudice. I cannot imagine a better illustration of that than the comments the leader of the New Zealand First Party made just recently. 
Like a lot of New Zealanders I watched a rugby match on Saturday evening. I was substantially moved by the incredible image of Deborah Wai Kapohe singing first “La Marseillaise” followed by the New Zealand national song. I cannot imagine a better statement of what this country stands for than that which the NZRFU provided us with on Saturday night. I regret that so many members of this House cannot take the opportunity to celebrate what this country represents in terms of its ethnic diversity. They should get on with the job and leave their tired old bigotry and prejudice at home. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: The Minister would have us believe that this is a relatively minor bill that is being passed under urgency to facilitate a wider package of immigration changes that for some unknown reason were announced late yesterday afternoon. Significant changes are contained in the other bill which I make only passing reference to as I know the Standing Orders permit but the relationship between these two bills is important and there has been some dispute it is fair to say about that matter. 
The Government says it is moving away from a system that is based on points solely to one that will see New Zealand’s labour market needs met by way of immigration. That is a significant shift. It takes us back to a policy that we have seen before in this country which relies heavily on the ability of Ministers and officials to understand what is happening in the marketplace. I have grave concerns although I will approach that matter which is now before a select committee with an open mind. 
In relation to this measure I say that it has been completely misrepresented to the House by the Minister who has presented it. This bill has nothing to do with a meaningful reform of the immigration system in this country. It has everything to do with saving the political backside of a Minister and some officials who did not see some inevitable consequences who did not make some decisions that they should have made and who are finally now asking this Parliament under cover of urgency to tidy up what they know they can tidy up no other way. 
To recount the history of this matter—and it has been adverted to on more than one occasion in the Committee stage—this bill really has its origins in the fact that the Minister of Immigration and the Government that has been in place for 4 long years did nothing to confront significant changes in relation to the immigration market. They did nothing to fine-tune by way of the annual plan or any other measure the points system in a significant way or make any other significant adjustments that would have avoided some of the problems that have now occurred. Because the problem became large and because the number of applications was substantial and because the political heat came on to the Minister the Government decided to do something and it panicked. In a sheer act of panic we saw some changes made that touched the implementation of the English language test. 
Those changes were challenged by a group in the High Court of New Zealand. The High Court in the form of Justice Randerson found in a judgment issued on 16 May this year that the Minister had no lawful base for making some of the decisions she encouraged the Government to make. That was a pivotal time for the Minister. Dr Cullen made a fair point when he said that this Parliament should not surrender to the courts the ability to make policy decisions. So when faced with that decision by the High Court the Minister had an opportunity to come back to the Parliament and say: “Look this Act of Parliament which was promoted by the previous Government and supported by most major parties in this Government does not do what the legislature thought it was doing when it passed the bill. I am asking the political parties assembled here to give some thought to putting in place in black and white the law as we thought the law to be at the time.” 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: And you would have agreed. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I would have given that very serious consideration. Quite frankly I accept Dr Cullen’s point. This Parliament should not surrender to the courts the ability effectively to make the law. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: You don’t even know what the decision says. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I have read the decision. I have it right here. The Minister should know that my reading of the decision was completely different from hers. I never thought that she had a hope in hell of getting the Court of Appeal to turn over that judgment. I never thought for a minute that she would succeed in the Court of Appeal so it was with some surprise that I saw the press release dated 17 June in which the Minister of Immigration said that she was off to the Court of Appeal. Having had the judgment of Justice Randerson from 16 May to 17 June the Minister did not approach the Opposition parties to say: “Hey let’s make the law do what we all thought the law was going to do when we passed it.” No she said that the High Court was wrong that she was off to the Court of Appeal and here is the press release dated 17 June. I thought that the Minister was wrong then. The Minister now thinks the Minister was wrong. Barely 2 weeks later the Minister is in this Parliament promoting a bill through all its stages under urgency asking us to do what the High Court would not do on 16 May and what she now knows the Court of Appeal would not do after she had taken the appeal that she said on 17 June she was going to take to the Court of Appeal. 
I want the Minister to answer a question that I have asked numerous times and that she should have answered. What did she think was happening in relation to this bill when she put out that press release and gave media briefings on 17 June? To any reasonable observer that press release and the media comments she provided would suggest that the Government was fully confident that the law stated what the Minister thought it stated and she was very happy to go down the appeal process. I find it difficult to accept that on 17 June the Minister had not turned her mind to the very real probability that she would have this No. 2 bill come to the House and go through all stages and that she had not turned her mind to the possibility that this bill might contain the provisions that effectively override Justice Randerson’s decision. If the Minister did have those matters in her mind anybody who believed what she said in that press release or in her media briefing would be entitled to feel totally misled. 
I simply say that this bill is all about saving the Minister’s backside. In the course of doing so it is prejudicing the interests of a large number of people who will now feel that they have been dealt with dishonourably by the New Zealand Government. The issue is not whether they are all people who should have residence in New Zealand the question is whether those people who are entitled to deal with the New Zealand Government and make such an application can expect to be dealt with in a reasonable predictable and fair manner. I am concerned that the more widespread signal sent by the way in which the Government has dealt with this legislation is that the best migrants in the world who have a full menu of choices available will say that New Zealand is just too hard and too complicated and that one might apply on one basis and be dealt with under some completely different basis. 
In conclusion I am pleased that those matters have moved not just the National Party but the ACT party the New Zealand First Party and the Greens in a united way. They have kicked the tyres on the detail of the bill asked the questions and having found the Minister’s explanations thoroughly unconvincing I hope that they will all decide to oppose it at this third reading stage. I also have to say that the United Future party which seems happy to do any old deal any old day to keep the Government happy promised fairness in its policy and preached the need for consistency in dealing with those matters. United Future members should now hang their heads in shame because they have participated in a truly shabby exercise in this Parliament. This bill deserves to be tested by the Parliament properly on the way through. I thank all the Opposition parties for the way in which they have gone about that process. 
GEORGINA BEYER (NZ Labour—Wairarapa) 
: It is a pleasure to take a call on the third reading of the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). I begin by acknowledging the Hon Lianne Dalziel for the courage and commitment it has taken for this particular Minister to step up to the mark and deal with the vexed issues of immigration in this country. What she has put out there for us to consider and which has been debated over the past hours has been controversial in the arguments that have been put from across the House. Suffice to say that this bill will bring greater clarity and certainty I might add to migrants coming to New Zealand hoping that their skills and the intelligence that they bring to share with this nation are matched more certainly towards job opportunities in skills shortage areas we have in this country. That is at least one provision in this particular legislation that is good for New Zealanders and good for migrants who are coming here. I conclude by saying again that compliments and credit should be given to this Minister for facing the tough issues. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: It is very evident that the preceding Labour member has not read this bill because the very point she referred to is not contained in this bill. It may be contained in the bill that has been referred to the select committee but it is not in this bill. New Zealand First as the party that has long supported the immigration to New Zealand of skilled immigrants will be looking closely at that bill. However the question of skilled immigrants coming to New Zealand is not the issue in this bill. This bill contains other issues altogether. It seems to me very clear that most Labour members have not understood this bill. There is some spin in the explanatory note that confused me for some considerable time until I went through this bill line by line. The statement there is and I quote: “Global prioritisation will enable residence applicants with for example high contribution and settlement potential to be given early consideration.” etc. etc. Really nothing in this bill talks about that. That might be in the bill that has gone to the select committee but I suggest that it is not in this bill and New Zealand First will be looking very closely at that other one. 
Part 1 of this particular bill has an extraordinary clause that is almost meaningless; it is so wide and so broad that it shows how the Minister has failed in her job in 4 years or so as Minister of Immigration. Imagine any other Minister in any other Government coming to this Parliament and admitting that after all the time she had been in office her decisions had been overturned by the High Court and then having the temerity to bring a bill into this Parliament to overturn that decision in less than 24 hours! We have been debating this bill for less than 24 hours now and in less than 24 hours this minority Labour Government will overturn a High Court decision that one would assume the Government was willing to abide by in the first place which is why it went there; but the Government having—not surprisingly—lost the case we now hear from the Minister in the Committee stage that clause 3 seems to be the clause that will overturn the legislation. 
 When one reads section 13B(1A) inserted by clause 3 it states: “To avoid doubt any policy of the Government that relates to the issuing of any type of temporary visa or limited purpose visa or the granting of any type of temporary permit or limited purpose permit is not Government residence policy regardless of whether the issuing of the visa or the granting of the permit may affect eligibility for or otherwise relate to the issuing of a residence visa or the granting of a residence permit.” What is meant by—“To avoid doubt any policy of the Government” etc? What the Government is virtually trying to say is that anything it has said that is Government policy is Government policy even though it may be wrong even though it may not have the support of the court. It seems to me that to give effect to this clause the Government will have to take one more step somewhere in the executive area to say just what is meant by new subsection (1A) in clause 3 otherwise we will be back to court again to find out just what that amendment to section 13B of the Act actually means. 
Essentially it means that the rule of law does not apply for this minority Labour Government. It will arbitrarily overturn the decision of a court. That is what the rule of law is all about—for Governments not to act arbitrarily. There could be nothing more arbitrary than the way in which this Government has acted in this legislation. It should be ashamed of itself. 
I turn to clause 4 about the chief executive giving general instructions as to the order and manner of processing applications for visas and permits—nothing to do with globalisation that I can fully understand. Clause 4 will allow the order and manner to be determined at the direction of a visa officer or immigration officer. So our office in Delhi can decide. Some official there—a visa officer or an immigration officer in Delhi—can decide who on its priority list comes to New Zealand. If it has 5000 applications in Delhi applications going back for 12 months that visa officer could decide to put the one that has just been received to the top of the pile or the one that was received a month ago to the top of the pile. Do members not think that that would be a bit suspicious? Do they not think that in a place like Delhi suspicion will be cast on the way in which a visa got to the top of the pile or moved its way up the ladder? We all know how corrupt that part of the world is. 
What about Teheran? What would happen there in moving a visa application up to the top of the pile? We know for example and New Zealand First has made this point time and time again that the best way to get a visa in New Delhi is to see the chap under the tree outside the New Zealand High Commission—a few appropriate rupees and the visa is yours. We have given many examples of that to the Government as to how in New Delhi that is the best way the quickest way to get a visa to come to New Zealand. 
This Government is going to allow immigration officials all around the Pacific the Philippines and suchlike—offices where we have had problems in the past—to be encouraged to adopt this process. 
I move on in a complementary sort of way to clause 5 “Past order and manner of processing applications deemed valid”. It states that any failure by a visa officer or an immigration officer is deemed to have been validly done. Even if the officer issues a visa that is contrary to all Government policy even if the process is finalised and the person comes to New Zealand under that sort of basis it is deemed to be validly done. The Minister cannot overturn it the authority cannot overturn it the tribunal cannot overturn it the court cannot overturn it. In fact by looking at this one could say that any terrorist who wanted to come to New Zealand from Afghanistan or from Iraq could if the person could get the cooperation of the visa clerk at Delhi or Teheran get into New Zealand and be here validly as a result of this legislation. 
I suspect that Government members do not understand this legislation. The last time we had a case like this was with the port and sherry tax and when that bill was introduced into the House we were told that that tax was aimed at the young drinker—the person who drinks all these fancy drinks. We were told they were 15-plus percent and suchlike. It turned out that the young drinker drank alcohol that was closer to 5 percent and was not affected by the tax which is for fortified drinks over 14 percent. In fact the elderly drinker who has the occasional port and sherry was hit by that tax. It was only after we had spent a considerable— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Come back to the bill. 
DAIL JONES 
: —amount of time deliberating on it that we discovered that mistake. That is just a comparison. Just as the Government was totally at sea on that one so on this issue the Government is totally at sea. It does not seem to realise what it is it has done under this bill. It is leaving it wide open for people to come into New Zealand under this sort of regime whereby the local visa officer the local immigration officer can make the permit available and there is no appeal from that decision because this legislation says so. I suspect that it will not be terribly long before this legislation is back before the House again to be amended. 
I will not say much about clause 6; that has been covered a lot with regard to speeches from other members of the House and the Court of Appeal decision. But as far as New Zealand First is concerned this bill does nothing to bring skilled immigrants into this country. All this bill does as I have said is overturn a court decision and somehow give visa officers extraordinary powers—powers that are then validated by this legislation itself. 
There is the issue of for example the matter raised in the  
Dominion Post  
today about people being able to come into New Zealand based on changes of policy and suchlike. The article stated that the changes could also benefit foreign tertiary students including many from China and the Minister had indicated they would get priority especially if they had a job offer. As I see it that applies to the other bill that is before the select committee; and obviously Parliament will see how that works. 
This is a very very sad day for parliamentary democracy in New Zealand. It is a day on which the Minister of Immigration has been shown up as an absolute failure. In any reasonable Government in any British Westminster system she would have resigned. We are seeing a situation whereby in less than 24 hours the “fastest legislator in the West” once again—that is the title of this Parliament—is trying to rectify the failure of the Government the failure of the Minister and is leaving the door wide open in my view to corruption and also to allowing terrorists and other undesirable people to come to New Zealand. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time 
. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 55 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time.