Wong Pansy: Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20090] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 The Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill exposes the Labour Government’s lack of integrity more than any other legislation has done. Labour has proven to be a fair-weather friend to the new migrant community and especially to the ethnic communities. The Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers now make a habit of showering compliments on those communities at their functions— 
Opposition Member 
: And apologising. 
PANSY WONG 
: —and apologising yet last year they brought in this legislation to change the citizenship qualifying period from 3 years to 5 years in a hurry without even planning to front up to those communities and explain why. Eight thousand members of those communities eventually had to resort to signing petitions and letters and they forced the Labour Government to back down on applying the change to permanent residents who are already here. 
The Minister told the House last year that the reason why this Government had decided to increase the qualifying period from 3 years to 5 years was that the period is a bit short compared with international standards. Actually Australia’s requirement is 2 years and if an Australian permanent resident’s overseas work and business commitments can be proven to be of benefit to Australia the Australian Government will reduce that qualifying period from 2 years to 1 year. In Canada the requirement is that one has to be living there for 3 years during the 4 years prior to application. In the United Kingdom one has to be in the UK at the beginning of a period of 5 years. In the USA one has to have been physically present in the USA for at least 13 months in the previous 5 years. So when this change—as proposed—takes place it will make New Zealand the toughest of those five countries. 
Obviously the Labour Government is trying to stop people from leaving New Zealand. At a time when our country faces acute shortages of skilled staff Labour is also making an international appeal for Kiwis living overseas to return home. Well they are not coming home and the reasons for that are obvious: they are concerned about safety race relations high taxes and the education system. But people should not worry; help is on the way. When National’s leader Dr Don Brash becomes the next Prime Minister overseas Kiwis will be coming home—under our policies. Last year 20000 New Zealanders left for greener pastures overseas. In the last 4 years under the Labour Government over 110000 people have left the country. The extension of the qualifying period for a grant of citizenship will hardly address the fundamental problem of how to make our people want to stay here because the fundamental problem is the Labour Government and its policies. 
To add insult to injury when the people who are affected by this legislation decide to apply to become New Zealand citizens they will face a very long wait because of the uncertainty created by the Labour Government. In the Minister’s answer to a written question he told us that the processing period for applications to become a citizen was 15 weeks in 2003 and 2004. Can members guess how long people have to wait nowadays? They have to wait 8 months—8 months of waiting in order to become a New Zealand citizen. As of February this year 21150 applicants were waiting to become New Zealand citizens. One has to question that. Applying to become a New Zealand citizen is a user-pays service. Adults have to pay $460 and children under 16 have to pay $230. Why could the Minister and the Department of Internal Affairs not foresee this issue and plan for increased resources to be allocated? I do not expect any sensible answer from the Minister tonight because this Minister the Hon George Hawkins happens to be the Minister of Police as well and we all know that he has adopted the attitude of my three monkeys collection: see no problem hear no problem and say that there is no problem. It is not good enough. That is George—see no problem hear no problem and say that there is no problem. 
During the Committee stage I will put forward an amendment—and I expect the Labour Government to support it—to introduce a mechanism that would emphasise the importance of becoming a New Zealand citizen. We want applicants to learn about New Zealand values and New Zealand systems. For far too long New Zealanders have been complaining that new migrants will not adopt New Zealand values and understand New Zealand systems—because nobody is telling them how to do so. My amendment would introduce a requirement for new migrants to learn about New Zealand values and systems. In Australia Canada the USA and the UK all the rights and obligations of becoming a citizen are explicitly spelled out. I wonder why the Minister will not take advantage of the review of the citizenship requirements to take that into account. 
National is also against the reduction in the validity period of our passports from 10 to 5 years because the Government Administration Committee was told that Australia the United Kingdom etc. have not decided to implement such a policy. We believe that any passport that comes up for renewal should be upgraded to the more sophisticated electronic format but that the shorter validity period would cause more compliance costs for the individuals concerned. 
National does support the measure to tighten up the process so that babies born in New Zealand to overseas citizens do not automatically become entitled to be New Zealand citizens. It is an important message for New Zealand to send to the international community that we value our citizenship. We are satisfied that a process is being put in place to ensure that babies would not be left with a stateless status. 
We also support the provision to give powers to the Minister of Internal Affairs whereby he or she can withhold travel documents if there is a risk to the security of New Zealand. We were satisfied through the select committee process that a procedure will be put in place for the judicial review of that. The change is important in order for the status of New Zealand and its passports to continue to receive the international endorsement that enables us to travel visa-free to over 40 countries. 
This bill has been historic in the sense that it is the first time we have seen the largely passive Asian migrant community in particular decide to speak out. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: They were very angry. 
PANSY WONG 
: People were very angry. My very hard-working intelligent colleague Dr Wayne Mapp and I have been holding public meetings throughout the country. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes the incoming Minister of Labour and I have been holding public meetings throughout New Zealand. We have seen thousands of people turn up feeling angry and betrayed because the Labour Ministers and Labour MPs were nowhere to be seen. It is very pleasing to see our various ethnic communities stand up and demand to have their say in influencing policy. 
There are two other major changes on which I want to acknowledge the support of my fellow members of the select committee under the chairpersonship of Dianne Yates. I am grateful to the select committee members for agreeing to amend the transitional period to ensure that people who apply now to become permanent residents are exempt from the new policy. During the Committee process to follow I will also put forward amendments urging members to consider extending the exemptions so that they will apply to long-term business visa holders. I will explain the reasons for that later. 
National supports half the changes proposed by the Labour Government but we will be proposing amendments to the other parts of the legislation.