Radhakrishnan PriyancaWORKER PROTECTION (MIGRANT AND OTHER EMPLOYEES) BILLThird ReadingHon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Associate Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I present a legislative statement on the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: I move That the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill be now read a third time.It is a privilege to present this bill for its third reading. This is a bill that represents a significant step in our work to address temporary migrant worker exploitation in New Zealand. I want to thank everyone who submitted on the bill during the select committee process and the Education and Workforce Committee for their consideration of the bill that has strengthened it.Protecting our migrant workers from exploitation is a priority for our Government. It's only right that we treat people who come to our shores fairly and with dignity. The problem though is that not everyone does. The Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill strengthens our immigration and employment systems by introducing a fit for purpose offence and penalty regime to protect migrant workers in New Zealand.Worker exploitation harms us all. Temporary migrant workers make an important contribution to Aotearoa New Zealand. The temporary migrant worker population is diverse and includes workers with a range of visa statuses skill levels and personal situations. At its peak in March 2020 prior to the COVID pandemic there were an estimated 235000 temporary migrant workers in New Zealand. As immigration continues to ramp up and we have more workers coming to New Zealand to help on the ground with our economy it's important that we put in place the right measures to protect them from exploitation. All too often many of them have found themselves subject to exploitation.Many years ago prior to entering Parliament I remember supporting a young man who had come to New Zealand to work. He'd been working for his employer for about 2½ years by the time I met with him. He came to me for help because he wasn't fluent in English. He told me he worked six days a week for his employer and lived on site. When he had a day off on Sunday he was locked in his room so that he couldn't go to church and he couldn't form a support network. He showed me photos. His room was just slightly bigger than a single bed with no ventilation. He was paid in lump sums; $1000 here and there and then nothing for months. When I added up and averaged out what he earned from memory it was about $4 an hour. His employer said it would get better. It never did. I don't know what happened to him in the end but when I met with him he had severe mental and physical health issues and was distraught because he could see no future for himself and no hope to bring his young wife and his child to New Zealand. This is what our Government is working to stop.The bill delivers important commitments made following the temporary migrant worker exploitation review and builds on the success of initiatives that are already in place like new dedicated reporting tools to make it easier to report migrant worker exploitation as well as the migrant exploitation protection work visa which supports migrants to leave exploitative situations quickly and remain in New Zealand lawfully. The changes were accompanied by $50 million in funding from 2020 to 2024 to ensure that agencies are resourced to respond to reports of exploitation and to take action. These initiatives have seen a significant uptake since their launch and they are supporting migrants to report and leave exploitative workplace situations. Alongside this is a successful education campaign to educate workers of their rights and employers of their obligations.This bill creates a more graduated penalty regime that will allow immigration officers to address low level non-compliant employer behaviour that is linked to migrant exploitation. Currently immigration officers don't have effective mechanisms outside of criminal prosecution to address such low-level non-compliant behaviour. Criminal prosecution is a time consuming expensive and inefficient response for lower level offences and this undermines the effectiveness of immigration and employment law which places migrant workers at risk of more serious exploitation.Introducing infringement offences will ensure low-level offending like refusing to provide employment documentation can be dealt with before it becomes more serious. The bill establishes a document production power to allow immigration officers to verify employers are complying with their obligations to supported migrant workers. Once the bill commences immigration officers will be able to request employment documents from employers about migrant workers whose visas they have supported. The document production power means they can be proactive checks to verify employers are complying with their obligations. We know migrant worker exploitation is under-reported with many migrant workers reluctant to report. We need to be proactive.Employers are already required by law to hold the wage time and remuneration documents that could be requested under this new power. These records would allow immigration officers to assess for example whether a migrant worker's being paid the salary stated in the employer-supported visa application. This power can only be used in limited and clearly defined situations. Immigration officers must be designated and authorised to use the power and be issued a warrant of designation by the chief executive of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE).Care has also been taken to ensure the powers focus specifically on the compliance of employers of supported migrant workers so that any other migrants and overstayers are not inadvertently caught up in the exercise of the document production power. The bill will also allow MBIE to publish certain information about employers who've committed immigration offences. Currently employers who breach their obligations under the Employment Relations Act are published on a stand-down list. This bill will allow immigration offending to also be made public and ensure that the names of employers who breach their obligations under the Immigration Act are readily available to us all.The publication of immigration offending is a crucial tool to allow both prospective and current migrant workers to know if an employer is compliant with New Zealand's immigration law. The bill will require employers to respond to a request for information from either labour inspectors or immigration officers within 10 working days. Currently there is no specified time frame for employers to comply with requests for information from the labour inspectorate or from immigration officers and that can cause delays to investigations when employers stall or fail to provide documents in a reasonable time frame. While some delays may not be preventable less scrupulous employers can take advantage of the fact that there is no time limit—to create records retrospectively or to meet their legal obligations. Employers who fail to meet the deadline could be liable for an infringement fee and have information about this offence made public affecting their ability to hire migrants in the future.This bill will also amend the Companies Act to allow the courts to disqualify people who are convicted of migrant exploitation or people trafficking from managing or directing a company. This change will prevent people who have used company structures to exploit people from being able to do so again in the future. It is only appropriate that we do not allow people who commit these offences to continue managing companies and employing potentially vulnerable people.No one stand-alone action will address migrant exploitation entirely but with a suite of measures including education awareness raising the provision of reporting tools for migrant workers and these new powers and offences we can prevent exploitation from occurring. We can protect those migrant workers who are subjected to exploitation by providing the tools that enable them to leave those exploitative situations. And we can take enforcement action to deal with employers who do not comply with their legal obligations.This bill contributes to the goal of protecting migrant workers from exploitation. It is a bill that I think we should all be proud of and I commend it to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to.