Jones Dail: Immigration Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Dail: Immigration Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8206] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 The Auckland District Law Society made a submission on this bill that I referred to in the New Zealand First minority report. That submission has been totally ignored by the previous speaker and by Labour. The society said: “(i) the immigration system cannot be trusted”. So are we going to abuse the society now for being racist? The society also said: “(ii) the system proposed by this legislation could be used in a discriminatory or racist manner”. Will Mr Benson-Pope say that the society is racist for saying this bill can be used in a racist manner? The society went on to say: “(iii) the system could be open to corruption”. So we have a lack of trust in the immigration system—but we have that already; we know all about that—and we now have imposed on it a racist means of carrying out its work and a system that is open to corruption. We know about the corruption already; many members of the staff are being sacked for it at the present time. The society also stated: “(iv) immigration officers could use the powers contained in the legislation to issue unreasonable and unnecessary conditions on permits or make special conditions etc unclearly or inaccurately or with ambiguity.” That is a criticism by the Auckland District Law Society. 
All we have had from the United Future leader Peter Dunne the member for Ohariu-Belmont who was speaking just before is an attempt to justify his support for a racist corrupt system that cannot be trusted. United Future and the Labour Party are hand in hand. He is merely trying to be the person who this time supports the Labour Party. If it is not United Future it is the Greens. If it is not the Greens it is United Future. A little dance takes place in this House: one time United Future will support the Labour Party and the other time the Greens will. The only winner in this is the Labour Party. As I understand it on this occasion the Greens have lodged a minority view and will be opposing this bill. Peter Dunne has tried very hard to pretend that this is somehow a wonderful piece of legislation when we all know that that is far from the truth. He is terribly embarrassed at having to make the speech that he has just made to try to justify his existence and his party’s existence as a partner with the Labour Party. 
Let us take the view of  
Auckland Today 
 magazine’s issue of August 2003. What is its view of this legislation? It states: “Future emigrants to New Zealand are more likely to come from Britain and South Africa than India and China due to changes in the way points are allocated. Immigration specialists say these migrants will fit better into New Zealand workplaces but they don’t believe the changes are racially motivated.” Well if people believe that they believe that pigs can fly. I say at this stage that this legislation is clearly open to the gravest possible abuse—probably more abuse than any other legislation that has come before this Parliament in its entire history of about 150 years. It is an absolute disgrace that this Labour Government and United Future should be supporting this legislation. 
At the time I came into this House as a New Zealand First member at the last election the Progressive Coalition member used to make all sorts of comments about New Zealand First and its approach to immigration into New Zealand. Well the boot is surely on the other foot today because we have no more august body than the Auckland District Law Society pointing out to the Progressive Coalition member just who the racist is in so far as this legislation is concerned and making that point to the Labour Party. I well remember Helen Clark at the last election making comments about New Zealand First’s immigration policy. Well the Auckland District Law Society is telling Helen Clark that her policy is racist and cannot be trusted. Who would have believed just 12 months ago that I as a New Zealand First member would be standing up in this House and on the evidence of Labour Party legislation making that statement? It is true and the Auckland District Law Society supports it—as do so many of the other witnesses. 
For example Mr Justin Glyn went further; he virtually compared this bill to the apartheid legislation of the South African Government. What Parliament is passing according to Justin Glyn is legislation similar to the South African Government’s apartheid legislation. Who would have said that the Labour Party would be putting legislation into this House that was similar to the apartheid legislation? That was the evidence of that submitter and I made that point in New Zealand First’s minority report. 
When we first heard all about this legislation one of the things we heard was that it was supposed to remove the points system. I sat and listened to the officials discussing the matter and we said to them: “Well if you are not going to be racist if you are not going to give Indians a better go over Chinese or South Africans or whatever how are you going to distinguish between them?”. All the suggestions had been that there would be no points system but lo and behold much to my amazement the fact is the Government is not going back to the 1991 system; it is continuing the failed points system that the Labour Party said it was going to get rid of. 
The Minister of Immigration in her opening speech on this bill said she was going to get rid of the points system. Well she has not done that. In order to avoid any suggestion of racism or whatever the Government has to adopt a points system to give effect to this type of legislation. The Minister really does not know what she is doing and New Zealand First has said that time and time again. The Minister said at the first reading of the bill that the points system was going to go and now we find the points system is going to stay and there is no change at all. One has to ask oneself what the point of this bill is other than to reduce the load of applicants which is 50000 60000 or 70000. I do not think the Immigration Service really knows how many applicants it has on its books. Of course it loses applications every so often; loads of applications go astray and are lost. The Immigration Service does not know and dare I say it it probably does not care because whenever applications are lost there are 10000 more to take their place. This desperate Labour Government has created a policy of 45000-plus migrants coming to New Zealand but it cannot administer it. It has no way of administering the system other than suddenly by legislative means lapsing people’s applications. 
When Mr Carter introduced the second reading of this bill he said the Council of Trade Unions supported it. He said that Business New Zealand supported it. He was right when he said that Business New Zealand supported it. Of course Business New Zealand would support this legislation. It introduces cheap labour to New Zealand which is good for people in the Business Roundtable and Business New Zealand. And that is what the Labour Party wants; it wants cheap labour coming into New Zealand. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Highly skilled labour. 
DAIL JONES 
: We would not get 45000 skilled people coming to New Zealand; we are getting people who can drive taxis and can pull pumps. I am sure the member goes home sometimes and when he drives around Auckland he will find that time and time again the pump attendant at the service station is more likely to have come from Bombay India than from Bombay south Auckland—that is for sure. That is where that type of person comes from and the member cannot tell me that that is a skilled immigrant. 
 The error that Mr Carter made—he merely read the speech provided from the department—was to suggest that the Council of Trade Unions supported this legislation. If we look carefully at that submission I believe we will see that the Council of Trade Unions does not support the legislation. When we read its submission closely and carefully as I have done—clearly Mr Carter has not read it at all and the Minister and her staff have only taken words here and words there—when we read paragraphs such as 2.4 2.6 and 2.7 it becomes very clear that the council says things like: “… but the CTU believes the issues of long-term labour supply are also intrinsically linked to education and skill development fertility economic development including workforce development innovation technology diffusion wages and conditions and so forth. It accepts the need for such shortages to be covered by immigration in the short term but they are less persuaded that much higher levels of migration should be seen as the main policy instrument to ensure adequate labour supply in the future.” 
There is very little difference between the policy of New Zealand First and that of the Council of Trade Unions. We made it quite clear in our 15 principles we issued on the founding of New Zealand First that our view on immigration is much the same as and very close to that of the Council of Trade Unions. In fact if members read our minority report they will see that paragraph (e) states that we believe: “… this legislation continues to facilitate the Government’s policy of excessive immigration … and is contrary to New Zealand First’s view which supports an infusion of overseas skills and expertise but not while we fail to train and improve the skills of our own people. Priority should be given only to immigrants who have the skills and qualifications necessary to further regional economic and social goals.” That should be within a scheme of about 10000 immigrants not 45000 who are causing soaring house prices roading difficulties in Auckland health difficulties in Auckland and suchlike without any compensating benefits.