Twyford Phil: Immigration Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Immigration Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9397. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Here we have another bill from the National Government following hot on the heels of Paula Bennett’s beneficiary-bashingbill last week. This bill the Immigration Amendment Bill is all about the politics of distraction. It gives the Government the power to lock up any group of 12 or more asylum seekers under a group warrant for a period of up to 6 months. It is straight out of the playbook of John Howard. There are many things that we could emulate about Australia but surely Australian refugee policy is not one of them.Australia’s arbitrary detention of asylum seekers has done huge harm to that country. Its reputation on human rights has been damaged. The policy has caused human misery. Its poster children are the detainees driven to rioting self-mutilation and suicide while they are incarcerated in detention camps. The policy has divided the Australian people it has polarised debate and it has made any rational consideration of refugee policy in Australia extremely difficult. In fact it is now widely recognised in Australia that that policy nearly two decades old has failed. As one submitter told us at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee “without any fanfare or public statement Australia has started the rapid release of those held in detainment into community placements and is accelerating claims processing.”Well with this bill John Key is channelling the spirit of John Howard the Australian Prime Minister who won an election in 2001 by lying to the Australian people by claiming that refugees asylum seekers in boats off Christmas Island were threatening to throw their children overboard. That was proved to be utterly false by a Senate inquiry. But by scaremongering that a boatload of illegal immigrants is about to land in New Zealand even though no such boat has arrived in this country since the time of Captain Cook the John Key Government hopes to create a political distraction from the tawdry scandals that it is mired in and its failure to grow the economy. Just like Paula Bennett’s continual denigration of welfare beneficiaries as a means of political distraction this bill picks on and tries to demonise an even more vulnerable and defenceless group of people—asylum seekers and the human cargo of people-smugglers.The Labour Party accepts that this Government has a duty and a responsibility to protect our borders but we do not accept the punitive badly thought through and unnecessary measures in this bill. The bill simply will not work. Its stated purpose is to deter people-smuggling but it is very clear that mandatory detention is not a deterrent to people-smuggling and nowhere is this more obvious than in Australia. After a decade of policy similar to this between the years 2000 and 2001 the single greatest number of asylum seekers since 1976 arrived in boats off the coast of Australia.As expert submitters told the select committee most asylum seekers are desperate people—desperate enough to risk their lives in rickety little boats on the open sea for the chance of a life in a new land. Submitters told us that the research clearly shows that asylum seekers have little or no knowledge of the policies on detention in the countries that they are trying to get to. Why the National Government considers that this bill will discourage people-smugglers is totally beyond me. Does it think that if the asylum seekers end up in a camp in Waiōuru for 9 months they will contact the people-smugglers back in Jakarta and ask for their money back? Do you really think they are going to do that?The bill is totally unnecessary. The fact is that a boat carrying asylum seekers has never ever reached New Zealand shores. That is a fact Michael Woodhouse. It has never happened in the last 150 years. I know that John Key thinks that 66 Sri Lankans landing in a boat 400 kilometres north of Perth with a sign saying “Take us to New Zealand” vindicates his little fantasy that we are about to be swamped with asylum seekers.Mike Sabin: How far did they come to get to Perth?PHIL TWYFORD: It was 400 kilometres from Perth. People look at the map. Look at the map. We are one of the most geographically isolated countries on earth. The Tasman Sea is one of the most dangerous stretches of water anywhere. There is no threat and if there is the threat is likely to be so small and so unlikely how can it possibly justify the Draconian measures in this bill? Do the members opposite really think that our system of Government could not cope with processing a group of asylum seekers who survived thousands of miles on the open sea?This bill will damage our reputation. If it is beyond the National Government members to realise that it is ethically and morally wrong that it is unnecessary and that it will not achieve its stated objectives then they should at least consider the damage that this bill will do to New Zealand’s reputation. It breaks with a long-standing cross-party understanding on refugee policy. It will undoubtedly be a blemish on this country’s international reputation which has been built up over decades from respect for the United Nations refugee convention and our agreements with and support for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It is inhumane and against the convention to punish asylum seekers and curtail their rights because of the way that they arrived in this country—because they might have arrived on a boat instead of on an aeroplane. It is completely illogical. It is a breach of the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Remember that two-thirds of the asylum seekers who come to this country are found to be genuine refugees—two-thirds. We have in this country a robust refugee claims system that weeds out the false claimants and gives genuine asylum seekers the chance to make a new life. Many fine New Zealanders came to this country as refugees and many have made great contributions in all walks of life. The children of refugees have gone on to achieve great things because of Government policy that respected human rights and took seriously the principle that how a State deals with its refugees is a measure of its social and political health. I remind the Prime Minister of that.Finally let me say that National MPs in their great enthusiasm for this bill and their keenness to mimic John Howard’s disastrous policy in this area have gone around talking about queue-jumpers—as if somehow asylum seekers are simply economic migrants dishonestly trying to worm their way in ahead of skilled migrants. The brains trust of the Waikato David Bennett entertained the House in the last speech with this idea that illegal migrants arriving here or asylum seekers are simply queue-jumpers. Well I say to Mr Bennett to remember that 90 percent of the boat people locked up in Australian detainment camps are eventually classified as refugees. They meet the test—90 percent of them Mr Bennett. Second there is no queue for people who are fleeing for their lives. There is no queue. Only 1 percent of refugees Mr Bennett—only 1 percent of refugees in the world—ever get the chance of resettlement. The other 99 percent languish in hell.I urge the National Party not to carelessly throw away that party’s liberal tradition. Listen to the voices of people like the Hon Aussie Malcolm former immigration Minister in the Muldoon Government. He came to the select committee and urged that this bill be dropped. Think about what this bill will do to New Zealand’s reputation. Work constructively to find solutions. Beef up the cooperation with Australia with Indonesia and with Malaysia to tackle the scourge of people-smuggling at its source but do not throw it all away with this nasty petty divisive bill.