Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I want to make two remarks in my speech and they relate to the substance of the bill. The first is there is no justification for a power grab of this magnitude for the length of time that the Minister of Immigration is grabbing. A two-year extension simply cannot be justified and that is the principal ground upon which the National Party will oppose the legislation. We support the general intent around flexibility for the Minister and as did my colleague Erica Stanford who's done the heavy lifting on this bill for National—and the heavy lifting on immigration more generally in the Parliament actually. We acknowledge the circumstances and the difficulty that the Government faces when it comes to visas and it comes to immigration notices. But we do not believe a two-year extension is justified and I want to come back to that.The second thing is there is no justification for the speed of the passing of this legislation. This is very important legislation. It spent just three weeks at committee. Three weeks is better than no amount of time but there should've been longer than three weeks used to allow all submitters to be heard and for the proper ventilation of the issues particularly around the two-year extension and around the 28-day notice arguments that my colleague Miss Stanford has been making.Just on the first issue in relation to the two years because National moved Supplementary Order Papers to this effect: what are the arguments the Government has put up in relation to that? Well the Minister told Parliament I think at the second reading stage that he didn't want to come back here in October this year and have to pass another piece of legislation. We just heard from Marja Lubeck the chair of the committee that—Dr Duncan Webb: Great chair.CHRIS BISHOP: —well I'm not on the committee but I'll take your word for it Dr Webb—Marja Lubeck: Ask any of your colleagues.CHRIS BISHOP: —OK I'll do that—We didn't want to have to come back here." So essentially the Government's argument is just one of convenience. It's basically "Oh it's just a lot easier for us if we just pass the law through now and we don't have to turn up again for two more years." Well I'm sorry. That is probably true; it will definitely be easier for the Government to have two more years of the Minister being able to wave a wand—or actually you know a biro pen—and sign off various visa extensions or cancellations or whatever. I've no doubt it will be easier for the Government but you know that's not really the way we make law in New Zealand. It's certainly not the way we make law and it's certainly not the way in which we give executive power to the Government because actually what we say is "In extraordinary times we'll give you extraordinary powers" as my colleague Miss Stanford noted. And we are giving the Minister huge powers but those powers are constantly checked and authorised by the legislature which is Parliament.So I don't really buy this argument as the Minister said yesterday and we've just had adverted to by Miss Lubeck that well the officials would have to spend quite a bit of time—I mean firstly they're not actually doing a lot at the moment as Miss Stanford's been highlighting in the media. There's a stack of residence applications and other applications before the immigration department that they should be dealing with. But secondly again the argument that "We don't want to take up too much time of officials." is not a satisfactory argument or at least it shouldn't be a satisfactory argument. So we reject the idea that a two-year extension is justified.I make this point: the Government's logic is round the wrong way. Back in May 2020 the Government turned up to Parliament and said "Look COVID's happening. It's chaos round the world. Things are out of control. We don't know what's going on. We need to give the Minister quite a lot of power in order to make visa variations and can you please allow us that power?" OK fair enough. Parliament unanimously passed that bill and that's now the Act we're debating or the extension. So Parliament said "Well that's fair enough." You know this was May 2020; I think we were about to be in lockdown or certainly had come out of it and the world was a very uncertain and scary place. Well a year on I acknowledge the world is still an uncertain and scary place but I think it'd be fair to say we have a lot more certainty around the world in May 2021 than in May 2020—but yet the Government's gone for a two-year extension.So the Government's logic is totally skew-whiff; it's round the wrong way. "The world's in chaos; we'll just seek a year to give the Government some time to sort out what's going on." and then we have a year—and I acknowledge that you know things aren't perfect but we at least have much more of a sense about what the world is like a year on and yet the Government's gone for two years. That doesn't make any sense. I just implore the Government: you can't change things now but—well I suppose I implore the Government to vote against it really because a one-year extension is far more sensible. You know if it was a one-year extension the National Party might well consider supporting the legislation but because it's a two-year extension we can't do that.What the Government should really be doing is asking the Parliament to grant the Minister an extra year of the powers and then coming back later on and asking for more if they're required. Frankly they should do the policy work in the meantime to better tailor the legislation to the circumstances. Now again May 2020—chaos round the world. Things had to be done very quickly—"We'll give the Minister these powers." But what should've happened in the last year or so is there should've been a tailoring of the legislation and some policy work done to make sure that the Minister's powers were constrained only to what was required and as far as I can see none of that work has been done.We've had a year. I acknowledge there was an election in the middle of it—you know members like talking about the election; we don't like talking about it so much. But you know there was an election. Parliament was suspended or prorogued for a few weeks and then we had the election and then we had to wait for the Government to be formed. So I acknowledge all that. There was a period of time when Parliament was sitting and couldn't consider legislation but actually with respect to officials at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and the immigration department once you've done the briefing to the incoming Minister in the pre-election period that would've been the time to do the policy work and put in the briefing to the incoming Minister—SPEAKER: Order! I am going to bring the member back to the bill not what's not the bill because that is not relevant.CHRIS BISHOP: Right OK fair enough Mr Speaker. I'd just make the point that we should've been considering a more tailored legislation.The second point which I've kind of already covered is in relation to the speed of the passing. Three weeks at committee as I've mentioned in my opening remarks was not enough time and simply saying as the Minister says "Trust me; I'll do the right thing." is not an appropriate basis for lawmaking. That is essentially his argument: "I will do the right thing." Well Kris Faafoi's a good guy. He's a sensible bloke. That may well be the case but he may not be the immigration Minister in six months' time and Parliament deserves better than what we've been dished up today.We wanted to support this legislation. We did support it at first reading to send it to the committee. We wanted to support it because we do believe the Minister does need some discretion around visa extensions and around visa law or immigration law. We do accept that so we're not opposing it holus-bolus but the two-year extension that the Minister has sought is unjustified the speed of passing is unjustified and also the 28-day notice period that Erica Stanford argued for we do believe should be in the legislation. We wanted to support the bill; it's regrettable that we can't."