Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Of course it would be Labour and National politicians joining forces to create greater powers to detain asylum seekers arriving by boat. Let's make it clear: for all the talk and pandering about how this is human rights - enhancing no credible human rights organisation has actually told politicians that they want this bill to go through. This includes the Asylum Seekers Support Trust Amnesty International Community Law the NZ Council for Civil Liberties the Red Cross World Vision Refugee Family Reunification Trust the Refugee Council of New Zealand and the Office of Human Rights Proceedings as well as the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.Look there is a small risk that there may be a mass arrival incident—which in and of itself is political language. We've chosen to call people escaping some of the most harrowing experiences that one can ever imagine such as genocide and war and arriving by sea mass arrivals". But none of these organisations woke up and said "Oh look there's some security briefings that perhaps talk about the real risk of this happening. Let's not resource a judiciary. Let's not adequately resource the groups that work at the front lines with refugees and asylum seekers. Let's instead create the tensioned regimes that as those organisations have said and many experts have spoken about will create a rights-diminishing regime that will also create a two-tiered treatment for asylum seekers."So it's really important that we make it clear that creating these detention provisions in the bill is a political choice; it does not need to happen. It does not need to happen to guarantee that asylum seekers and refugees are treated with dignity. It does not need to happen to ensure that everyone in our communities remain safe. This is a political choice that was brought about by the legacy parties. Many of those politicians who've spoken throughout the debate have made a career past and present by scapegoating migrant and refugee communities in subtle or more overt ways.The organisations who work at the front lines were constructive. They tried to take a harm minimisation approach by working constructively with members of the Opposition and the Minister of Immigration to plead for amendments and greater safeguards but none of the organisations actually said the safeguards would create a decent enough regime. They realised that—because the two legacy parties have teamed up to diminish the rights of asylum seekers—they have to galvanise to increase those protections. The Green Party worked alongside some of these members of the community—who intimately know the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers—to better protect the rights of children to ensure that disabled people would be treated with respect and dignity and that they would not be detained particularly when detention would exacerbate their health conditions. We've all supported amendments around greater supporting and we would limit the reasons for detention to only managing security risks.The reality is that the Government members are not interested in actually upholding the rights of asylum seekers or refugees. They want to pander to imported ideas from countries like the UK and other parts of the world that treat asylum seekers as a risk as opposed to recognising the right to seek asylum and treating people with the respect and dignity that they deserve.Throughout the debate we've heard these soft reassurances around the rights of children and we've been told to just trust that because something is in the immigration operational manual it's good enough. But the reality is that all these protections that exist in the immigration manual are easily subject to change. All it would take is a Minister like Shane Jones having the reins of the immigration powers. If we were to take anything from his contributions and interjections in the debate—calling it continuously "boring" and making fun of the debate rather than taking it seriously—what's to say that he would not simply change the operational manual. If the Minister and the Government were serious about protecting the rights of children they would have put it in the legislation not left it in pieces of paper that are subject to change. If the pandemic showed us anything it's how quickly the operational manual can change. So if the Government was serious about better protecting the rights of children—in the bill that is already undermining the rights of asylum seekers—these could have been put in legislation.But all that this showed was a Government that does not take the rights of asylum seekers seriously and is more concerned around jumping in with the Labour Party—who introduced this bill and who now are claiming that they have all these concerns despite having introduced the bill with little to no consultation with the refugee and asylum seeker sector. I think this speaks more to what was a political tool to scapegoat our communities and not actually take into account the very serious concerns that human rights organisations have.The answer to the issue of arrivals coming in as I said before would have been to resource our community centres. I particularly want to shout out to the workers in the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre because that has been spoken to as a centre that is expected to take up the burden of looking after people who would be arriving in the provisions that we're seeing in this legislation. The workers that I know who work with people in the Māngere resettlement centre are overworked they're often tired and they're caught trying to deal with people who've undergone massive trauma and stresses. So to assume that without additional resources they'll be ready to deal with a large group of people arriving by sea—who will have complex needs who will have faced trauma and who may have health conditions—is frankly absurd. Without Budget commitments to adequately resource resettlement centres all that we will be doing is putting those organisations at risk of being overwhelmed rather than being supportive.The Minister talked about managed isolation and quarantine staff facilities and hotels as areas that could be used but again there's been very little to no consideration to the wellbeing of children and disabled people within those facilities. In fact the Minister basically told us that we should just accept that any detention facility is better than being in the sea. I think people deserve far better than being told that they're lucky to not be stranded at sea and that instead they're going to be detained. Because actually what we are saying to people is that we don't care if you've been escaping a genocide or a war that actually the answer to those experiences is detention while we process your asylum seeker application. The truth is that that detention could worsen people's trauma it could worsen people's health. We've seen no commitments from the Minister around that additional resourcing that will be needed.It's really important that parties from both sides—National and Labour—actually don't just pay lip service to the reports that we have had including the Casey report. I think the Government could have—and this report was spoken about by a Labour MP—taken all of the recommendations taken them in full before even exploring this bill. Actually a lot of what is in the Casey report would also create a fit for purpose system to deal with arrivals by sea of people who are often escaping some of the most unimaginable things that one could ever ever ever imagine.So the Green Party is proud to have been the only party to consistently speak against this bill to consistently be on the side of human rights organisations and advocates. Despite what New Zealand First MPs may call "boring" we simply call it taking the lead from the experts. I would say most politicians here are not experts on issues affecting our refugee communities—I would say most of us are not; very few MPs themselves come from those backgrounds. And therefore we have to lean on those experts who are aware that there may be a risk of people arriving by sea escaping war and genocide—because surprise greater conflicts around the world and climate change are exacerbating those same things. But the answer which those human rights organisations have is to resource the judiciary resource the resettlement centres not create a rights diminishing bill and certainly not disguise the detaining of asylum seekers as caring for human rights. This is not what this bill is about. This is not a bill about caring about asylum seekers; this is taking the easy politically expedient route which is to create new detention mechanisms to diminish the rights of asylum seekers. The Green Party won't be supporting this bill."