Bennett David: Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — Third Reading 
Bennett David: Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8784] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I speak on the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill. I would like to congratulate members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee especially our chair Mark Gosche on the leadership he provided on the bill. I thank the officials who helped us with this legislation and also all those who submitted on it. This legislation has arisen from a genuine need in the community. Anybody who made a submission on the bill was in favour of something happening. Everyone saw that there are some major holes in the way we deal with immigration in New Zealand and especially in the way we deal with the advisory aspects of the regulation of those who are involved in promoting immigration to New Zealand.  
It is unfortunate that the industry could not regulate itself. This is a case where self-regulation was not possible. In many other areas such as in the legal and accounting professions or even in the motor vehicle dealers industry we have seen instances of self-regulation. We see formulae of industry regulation that are much more pronounced in the sense that they are being done by industries in their own vein. But in this case the Government had to stand up and take the lead. It needed to do that in the sense that there was no other body that could engage in the necessary regulation to provide the comfort that people need as they come to New Zealand as migrants.  
Looking at this legislation we see some deficiencies that have come about especially during the Committee stage. The biggest of those deficiencies was the introduction of a levy by this Government at the last minute—a levy that was never discussed at the select committee; a levy that this Government introduced only because it knew that the structure being promoted might not work in the final form it was looking for. We discussed the idea of fees based on a maximum fee of about $2000 which was considered to be at the high end of what the market could afford to regulate the advice in the industry. That fee maximum was something that Pansy Wong one of our members on the select committee tried to seek during the debate in the Committee of the whole House. This Government denied that amendment to the bill and therefore showed its true intention of having the fee plus a levy exceed the $2000 that the officials had indicated was the maximum the industry could handle.  
Why else would one include a levy when there was a fee in the system that had been promoted by the officials? There can be only one reason: the Government decided it wanted to raise more money. It is another tax. It is another way the Government can bring money into its coffers. It is another way it can store up money for an election that it knows it will lose. The only way it knows it can go into the election is by spending people’s money that it does not actually have. That is what this Labour Government is about. It is just another tax. It is just another opportunity to put the hard boot into those New Zealanders who have their own businesses and who go out there to try to provide advice.  
No this Government would not let small businesses carry on. It thought it would put another levy on them and that is what we are seeing in this legislation. [ 
Interruption 
] Now we hear the hollers from the Labour Party members as they react to the possibility of another levy being put on. Why are they so defensive? They know they were wrong in doing this. If they were right then they should have done it all the way through the select committee process letting people submit on it and understand what the Government is trying to do. But no the Government brought it in at the last minute trying to put it under the cover of the Committee of the whole House. That is typical of a Labour Government— 
Darren Hughes 
: The cover of a democracy. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: It is the failure of democracy that we have seen from this Parliament and this Government—from this Labour Party. I think our spokesperson on immigration Lockwood Smith summed it up pretty well when he said that there has been only one case in the public eye where this bill would have applied. That case is the case of a Labour member of Parliament a case that has been debated in this House day after day. It is the case of one individual who has been let down by his own party as well so he has gone out to form his own party—a party that will take South Auckland and that will consign the Labour Party to being the third biggest party in this House after the next election. That is the reality of what is happening and those members opposite do not have anything they can do about it apart from putting on another levy. A levy is all they can do. Another levy is their way of dealing with issues such as this one. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Just before the break we were talking about the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill and one of the big things there was the introduction of a levy that had not been anticipated at any stage during the select committee deliberation. The Government put it in at the last minute during the Committee stage of the discussion of this bill.  
We also talked about how there is no situation in which self-regulation is available in this case as the industry is not organised to the extent that we could have self-regulation as an option. So the Government has had to come forward with the regulatory body it has provided in this case. A few exemptions have been given notably to lawyers citizens advice bureaus and community law centres but we believe that another couple of groups should also have been given exemptions. One of them would have been for example the migrant resource centres. In Hamilton we have a large migrant resource centre that does a lot of work on immigration inquiries. Those centres are not exempt; they have to go through that process of seeking an exemption. That was something we brought up with the Labour members of the select committee because we felt that the process was unfair for organisations like that. They generally carry out the role of citizens advice bureaus yet they were given a different regime to operate under. We felt that it was unfair to put organisations like that through a more formal process. They could easily have been made exempt.  
We also see that some specific community groups are not exempt. We had a submission from the Indian community in Auckland. It was from a group that gives a lot of immigration advice to members of its community who want to settle in New Zealand. That group too could have been given an exemption in this legislation. The legislation does have a few problems in the sense that it could have covered a lot more situations where people do provide immigration advice and a genuine level of service that does not require any profit or income-generating motive—the advice is given simply on the basis of its community involvement and as a community organisation. In those cases there could have been the ability to have far greater exemptions.  
Overall though this legislation was well received by members of the committee. We were very disappointed in the way that this Government has brought about a levy at the last minute when it did not need to do so and it also is part of the indication of this Government’s failure to debate the immigration issue as a total issue. We hear there is talk of immigration reforms and they seem to be quite procedural. I think that members will see them coming up in further reforms of immigration legislation when we get to the real heart of what we need to sort out—that is why and how and how many people we let into New Zealand.  
Those questions have not been addressed by this Government. It has stayed away from the hard questions. It has not had a vision of New Zealand being open and inclusive and letting in as many people as is physically possible—which would actually contribute to New Zealand through skills energy and the passion to build a stronger country. The Government has not taken up a vision of New Zealand in the future; it has looked just at procedural matters. That is something where New Zealand has missed the boat in comparison with our competitors in the Western World. It has been a great disappointment to see that this Government has concentrated only on procedural matters in immigration and not on the wider picture when it had the opportunity to canvass fully through this bill and other legislation that will be coming up this year in relation to immigration. Overall this bill is necessary but it is also disappointing to see the way in which this Government has approached the issue and its failure to really grasp the bigger issues that need to be addressed in the immigration field.