Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Great speech indeed said Deborah Russell. I think I heard Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki say last year in criticising the National Party's position on this that we thought it was a good idea last year; why do we not think it's a good idea now? Well the answer is quite straightforward: the conditions that warranted the emergency powers—and they were emergency powers; significant transfer of power to the Minister—worked for the conditions that existed then. As a former Minister of Immigration I've got a reasonable amount of knowledge about those powers and the instructions—the mountain of instructions that the Minister gives to Immigration New Zealand in order to be able to give effect to the Immigration Act 2009. It cannot be said that those conditions still exist. Now on balance the National Party will support this bill at first reading and send it to select committee—we'll talk about the process when the motion for the report back is moved—but we did have over a thousand Immigration New Zealand staff unable to process in the manner in which they normally would; that's not the case now and we have to acknowledge that.So the question has to be: why does the Minister seek not only I should add powers for two years but the Cabinet paper as I read it—Mr Faafoi took a Cabinet paper to remove the time limit altogether. And obviously there was a Cabinet discussion where he was overridden. I have the Cabinet paper here and the Cabinet paper makes it very clear—if I can just find the appropriate paragraph—at paragraphs 15 to 18: I propose the removal of the expiry date from the powers." No expiry date whatsoever. He said at paragraph 18 to the Cabinet "I consider the power to suspend the ability to make visa applications remains critical as long as borders remain closed. Under the Immigration Act visas cannot be granted if the holder is unlikely to be allowed to enter but they cannot be declined if they meet the relevant policy settings." And that was his reason for removing any time bar on those significant powers he was given. Cabinet clearly didn't agree with him because the Cabinet minute and the bill we are discussing extended it by what he would say is "only" a further two years. I would suggest and the National Party believes that if this bill is appropriate it is appropriate for no more than 12 more months.The Minister is right and he mentioned it in his first reading speech that actually the way in which immigration instructions are framed if somebody meets the policy criteria for the acceptance of a visa there are no legal grounds to decline that visa. We know we can delay them for a long long time; look what is building up and the backlog to the residence class visas skilled migrant partnership family—every one of those categories is now in quite significant backlog and delay. But if that was the problem solve that problem. And the Government can do that by one of two ways: (a) they could pass a bill with a much much narrower term of reference to enable the Minister to be able to suspend those criteria or (b) he has the power to do so under the immigration instructions. He can simply issue a new instruction suspending those criteria. Now it probably would be better for the Parliament to give that power rather than for the Minister to act unilaterally but nevertheless that should not be used as a reason to extend the powers much more broadly to whole classes of visas even if that is not unfavourable and can be favourable to the visa holder or the class of visa holder.Remember I think there were 30000-something what are now called "employer assisted" work visas that were extended by the stroke of a pen. Now employer assisted visas—temporary visas—require a significant criterion to be met and that is that there isn't a New Zealander able to do that job. And in many cases that's the case. In a lot of cases now because of COVID and because of our increasing numbers of jobseekers people who have lost their jobs in tourism and hospitality who are looking for work with the stroke of a pen may have that opportunity to work usurped because an overseas worker has their visa extended. We have over a thousand Immigration New Zealand staff who are back at work who could be able and have for years considered those visa applications independently and on their merits who now will not have to do that. And my question is: if they're not doing that—Erica Stanford: What are they doing?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: What are they doing? They are very very good people. I know a lot of them and they perform outstandingly well in their core business: saying yes or no to a visa application based on its merits and the immigration instructions and law. So why are we just saying—the Minister wanted it indefinitely—for two years that won't happen? Because it may well be affecting New Zealanders and their ability to get into the job market.Now with apologies to the Minister if he did send me the data I was very interested in the comment in the Cabinet paper that there was no financial implications to this—paragraph 28: "There are no direct financial implications arising from the proposals in this paper." I cannot accept that that could be the case because—Hon Kris Faafoi: It's a few hundred thousand dollars each time we change.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: A few hundred thousand? Well that's very interesting because I think from memory Immigration New Zealand earns a couple of hundred million dollars a year in visa applications.Hon Kris Faafoi: What do you think has happened to that revenue right now?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well it's probably gone down the karzy! There's probably none. So the financial implications are that currently the taxpayer is now funding the work of Immigration New Zealand because the revenue from visa applications has dropped away dramatically. But to say that the continuation of this has no financial impact is quite wrong. It means that the New Zealand taxpayer is funding the application process for another couple of years at significant cost and I think it behoves the Minister to tell this House and for the select committee considering the bill to know what that number is.One thing I think we have done is lose sight of any fiscal probity when it comes to COVID response. We talk about multibillion-dollar initiatives now as if they're chump change as if debt does not matter as if another few hundred million here or $3.8 billion there or whatever the Budget 2021 will bring can continue without consequences. The Minister might scoff and say "Well there's going to be no change" but that means the taxpayer will continue to pay and I think we need to know what the impact of that is.This is a challenging one for the National Party. We will support it at first reading but I don't think it should be taken as read that we'll be able to continue to do that if we don't get a curtailment of the duration of these powers and actually I think it speaks volumes for the lack of confidence what the Government calls the abundance of caution that they have in responding to COVID. At some point we have to move from a pandemic situation to an endemic situation and this week we've seen a significant step forward in that with the opening of the trans-Tasman bubble but going into lockdown closing our borders difficult though the Government might have thought that was was the easy part. The difficult decisions about how we transition to treating COVID as endemic and getting back to whatever new normal it might be is going to be far far more challenging and simply continuing the powers for another two years is I think a recognition that the Government doesn't have a plan to get out of where they're at and they just want to continue the status quo. If that's the case I think my party will struggle to support this bill past first reading. But I'll be fascinated at the submissions at any changes to the bill that might be able to be made to curtail the duration and nature of those powers and I look forward to that process."