Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. Migrant workers living at school camp forced to endure 'unacceptable conditions'". "'Stood on and sworn at': police investigate alleged assault on migrant workers". "Employers openly talk about charging 'migrant meat' more for residency". These are the realities that many of our migrant workers face in Aotearoa and as a House I want us to reflect on our complicity in creating the conditions for this exploitation to happen. For far too long politicians across the House have used language that dehumanises our migrant communities and reduces us to economic units whether it is "Chinese-sounding names" or talking about our work as "low-skilled low-value". When we refer to our communities in this way and uphold policies that enable exploitation it is simply not good enough to talk about the role of employers and we need to reflect on the role that we play to ensure that our migrant communities can thrive. This is why this inquiry into migrant exploitation is so important. It was an opportunity for our migrant communities to be heard in Parliament and for us as a cross-party group to put out some recommendations for the Government to hopefully follow through. Throughout this inquiry one of the key themes that came through from submitters—many of them migrants—was the power dynamic that existed between employers and migrants themselves. That power dynamic came from the visa system that ties workers to a single employer. That gives employers so much power over the lives of immigrants where a worker knows that they're scared of raising concerns because of the risk that their employer may penalise them. We have created the conditions for exploitation to happen and we've made it hard for migrants to come forward. Too many of the migrants who have come forward right now are on limited visas facing potential deportation instead of being supported. It is not good enough to simply put in place measures to support migrants once exploitation happens; we need to prevent exploitation from happening in the first place. Despite so many of our submitters talking about the need to decouple work visas from single employers to end this practice that effectively amounts in some cases to modern-day slavery I was deeply disheartened to not see the cross-party group recommend the decoupling of work visas from single employers. We've had unions the Productivity Commission and migrants themselves being really clear of the need to make these changes. We've also covered the issue around the barriers to reporting exploitation when it happens and it was really clear that the criminalisation of migrant sex workers continues to play a role in entrenching exploitation. We also saw how overstayers face exploitative conditions and find it really hard to report exploitation—and sometimes when they do they once again get punished instead of supported. This is why the Green Party continues to call for the decriminalisation of migrant sex workers as well as an amnesty for overstayers as part of a holistic response to this growing issue. We also addressed the fact that migrants are not given proper protections under the Human Rights Act 1993. Migrants cannot make complaints to the Human Rights Commission on issues relating to immigration and we've accepted in our immigration laws that it is OK to discriminate against migrants and to basically not cover them on what should be a fundamental right. So this is why we continue having disabled migrants facing horrible conditions and being prevented from being able to participate in our communities and therefore obtain visas. One of the things that I was particularly concerned about from our committee findings in relation to the working rights of partners is that as of December most partners of migrants will lose their ability to participate in employment. And despite the inquiry being so clear that Cabinet even highlighted the potential increased risk of family violence as a result the Government decided to go ahead with these changes and I want to remind the immigration Minister that he plays a role in the commitment to Te Aorerekura—every Minister plays a role in preventing family violence and it is such a shame that this Government is going to put in policies that are going to cause harm.So as we work through this committee and this report I was really pleased to none the less see a very collegial approach to this and I do want to thank the member Ibrahim Omer for the work that we did to encourage migrants to make submissions. But the work is not finished. We have so much more to do ensure that migrant workers are free from exploitation and I want to encourage this Government to once again not stack ambulances as the bottom of the cliff but to make the necessary changes to prevent exploitation from happening. Migrants should never be facing conditions that effectively amount to modern-day slavery. This needs to change right now and the Green Party will continue fighting for this."