Robson Matt: Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Robson Matt: Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20100] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 I have been a proud member of the Labour-Progressive Government led by Helen Clark and Jim Anderton for 5 years. We have a coalition agreement that in its essence moves towards free education again at a tertiary level and free highest-quality health care for New Zealanders premised on a goal of full employment. All those goals I stand by and all those are in our agreement. 
But as a Progressive Party member I cannot support the Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill before us tonight. It is unnecessary in terms of its treatment of our migrant communities that make up a small but very significant part of our population which is always being added to and is always changing. I cannot support the erosion of the rule of law in order to allow an administrative procedure whereby a Minister of the Government can withdraw the passport of a New Zealander and overturn the basic principle that the State must prove beyond reasonable doubt that it has a reason to act against a citizen. I do not agree that that administrative measure should be turned upon citizens or other persons with travel documents so that they have to go to the High Court to prove why they should have their passports or refugee documents. 
In economic terms the bill does not make sense. In Australia our closest competitor in terms of trade the period for getting citizenship as has been acknowledged tonight is 2 years. In every other form of our relationship with Australia we are trying to move to a situation in which we as a country can compete more closely with that country. We are putting up a barrier or a hurdle for the many skilled migrants around New Zealand whom New Zealand needs constantly and whom all members of Parliament I am sure at different times have praised for their contributions to our country. Of course migrants will choose Australia. Australia says that if they meet its tough entry requirements and become residents within 2 years they will be assessed as to whether they can take the next step citizenship. Here in New Zealand we are going the other way in moving that period to 5 years. But it will be more than 5 years because as any member who has had to put in an application for citizenship will know it takes a year to 18 months and the time to wait will therefore be much more than the 5-year period. 
I do not speak with anger about the Labour Party but I do make this plea to the many people I have worked with for many years in that party. The Labour Party has earned the reputation of being the defender of migrant communities. The Labour Party because of its connection to the labour movement has earned a reputation for its defence of the broadest democratic rights. But this bill moves away from that. 
It moves in the direction of parties like New Zealand First and United Future. What do they base their type of philosophy on? Their philosophy is based on dividing people in New Zealand and on casting slurs on people because they are migrants and have a name that can be used to vilify them. I heard the representative from New Zealand First ask tonight: if migrants do not like this bill and smash windows what do we think of people like that? For the member to suggest that it is the reputation of migrant communities in New Zealand to incite violence—as New Zealand First’s leader often suggests against migrant people in New Zealand—is a bad path to go down and we will rue that day if we do so. 
The founders of the Labour Party Harry Holland and Michael Joseph Savage would never have capitulated to that form of narrow chauvinism. They would never have capitulated to the sabre-rattling of the United Future representative who talked about the loyalty of New Zealanders. People do not prove their loyalty to a country by one particular form of allegiance or speech. People show their allegiance to the place they are by being members of the community and by making a contribution. 
Members of Parliament should look back at the speeches they have made at the many ethnic functions we have attended where they extolled those communities whatever their background for their wonderful clothes food and costumes. I suspect that when many of those members said those things they did not mean a damn thing at all. Now they go to the other side of town and say that those migrants need to prove their loyalty to New Zealand and say exactly where their allegiance lies. 
The legislation is a backward step. First of all whereas people who have made the journey to New Zealand in order to contribute to this country have had to wait 3 years before they could apply for citizenship we are now saying that we do not trust them and that they will have to wait 5 years. What form of nation building is that? Secondly we have the gall to say to people who marry a New Zealand citizen that whereas their fitness to be a New Zealand citizen could once be assessed after a period of 2 years they will now have to wait a further 3 years before they can make an application. We are saying to people who have journeyed to New Zealand in order to have a work permit—perhaps a student who is studying to the level of a PhD or something of that nature that takes many years and who has made a contribution to the country—that that contribution will not be taken into account and that they will have to wait 5 years for citizenship. It does not make economic sense. It does not make for social cohesion in our country. 
I now turn to the other provisions of the bill relating to our passports and travel documents. Administrative power is being given that will take away from the courts the normal practice that the State must prove beyond reasonable doubt that a person has committed some kind of offence and therefore does not deserve a passport. Of course people will call it the Ahmed Zaoui provision for that reason. Whether or not Ahmed Zaoui has New Zealand residence Algerian residence or some other form of nationality there has always been a principle that any person in New Zealand will be given the same rights under law. You-know-what? Do members not want that principle for New Zealand citizens who are migrants in other countries? Did we not want it for the man who died in a prison on the Ivory Coast? We are asking whether he got natural justice. Do we not want it for the many New Zealanders who live in my home country of Australia and who make up 2 percent of its prison population? People would hope that those New Zealanders had had a fair trial in Australia and I do as well. Then why in New Zealand are we setting two forms of justice? We are making a very big mistake. 
The Israelis who were caught here falsifying passports and trying to dupe the New Zealand public and the New Zealand system were caught and prosecuted under the law we have now. We did not need a new law; we did not need new provisions. We had strong enough provisions to catch them. All we needed was an investigative procedure. 
Many New Zealanders came before the select committee but I struggle to remember anybody who said that this was a good bill. There must have been one or two. But those submitters who were talking to us were New Zealand citizens. Did it matter whether they had been born in India? Did it matter that someone had been born in China? Did it matter that like me someone had been born in Australia? They were I hope considered New Zealand citizens. 
Of course people came before us who were born New Zealanders. The people who had been born here were the most vociferous in asking why we are taking New Zealand citizenship away from children born in New Zealand when we have given that right for many many years without any problem for one basic principle—to protect the child. Members of Parliament will probably know of cases whereby people have struggled for 5 6 7 8 9 or 10 years in legal battles to prove their right to stay in New Zealand. 
Certainly members of the Labour Party know such cases because in my days in the Labour Party all members represented communities where migrants gave big support to and raised funds for people elected to Parliament. When I was in the Labour Party we always protected the rights of children born here to go to school to have health care and to be considered New Zealand citizens. 
On the economic level this bill does not make sense. To use a market argument through this bill we will lose a competitive edge. On a social cohesiveness level the bill does not make sense because we are dividing people and making different categories of New Zealand citizens. With respect for the rule of law in terms of our passports I say that not even in the Cold War when people feared nuclear annihilation and invasion by the Russians did the Government ever demand the right to take a New Zealand passport. The Government relied on using the law and on having to prove beyond reasonable doubt that that passport should be taken in order to meet the needs of those times.