Woods Megan: Immigration Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Immigration Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 13 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11167. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram):I must say that sometimes I do feel some sympathy for speakers opposite who get up and give speeches about how the Immigration Amendment Bill is a bill to protect the most vulnerable whom people are taking advantage of and that this is going to be a deterrent to people-smuggling. I actually have a great deal of respect for the speaker who just spoke Dr Cam Calder. I believe him to be a good and honest man. I think actually that he would like to be standing up and promoting legislation that was doing what he told this House this piece of legislation is doing. But unfortunately for that member and for the people of New Zealand the legislation that we have in front of us now does no such thing. This is not a deterrent to those people who seek to people-smuggle. This is about taking some of the most vulnerable people whom that speaker just spoke about and actually treating them in a very harsh way should they arrive. I do not see that as good.One of the things that I am also really sad and disappointed about now that we are standing here at the final stage of this legislation is that this Government has missed a huge opportunity. It has not seized the opportunity put to it by other parties in this House to actually take this very serious issue of how we deal with the issue of refugees and how we deal with the issue of people-smugglers in a way that has cross-party accord so that we do not see the situation that has arisen in Australia. There it is a political football and every party has to out-tough the other. It just ratchets up so that each election each party needs to take a tougher line. It does not matter whether we are talking about the Liberal Party of Australia or the Labor Party; both parties now see the need to take an incredibly tough line on people-smugglers because it has been made into a partisan issue that has been politicised.We had the opportunity in this country to gain political consensus. Unfortunately the fact is that the Government was not willing to take that approach and to engage with other parties to come up with a piece of legislation that we could all accept was the right and proper way to deal with this very serious issue. The Government did not seize that opportunity and we have lost it.This bill that we have before us which is about to become law is simply a disgrace. It is about splits and divisions and it is about unnecessary scaremongering. It is about John Key taking a line from the John Howard playbook about how to gain some political popularity and be seen as popular. John Key endorsed a less punitive approach on a recent visit to Indonesia but that practical solution the one that he was talking about does not get the headlines. This bill does not have the political clout that actually a sensible right proper just and moral approach to this problem would have. Instead of that he has taken the easy option and he has gone for the populist approach. Maybe Crosby/Textor included it in one of its packages of advice that came across the Tasman. Maybe it said: “You know John things aren’t looking quite good. Those polls are slipping. How about you slip a bit of legislation in there to go hard on people-smugglers and the arrival of boat people?”. That is what this legislation reeks of.We do not support this bill. We see that it is unnecessarily punitive and that it is actually unnecessary. The bill defines a mass arrival and allows for mandatory detention under a group warrant for an initial period of up to 6 months for illegal migrants other than unaccompanied minors arriving as a part of a mass arrival group. I would like the previous speaker to reflect on how this is protecting the most vulnerable—how this is protecting the most vulnerable people who have been taken advantage of. In the purpose of the bill Dr Calder I do not see anything that is about protecting those most vulnerable people. It provides for further periods of detention for up to 28 days with court approval or release on binding conditions. It empowers the suspending of theprocessing of refugee and protection claims by regulation. Rights are stripped away from these people. This is not about protecting people; this is about stripping away rights and making life even harder.Millions of people enter New Zealand every year tens of thousands obtain student visas and many more are granted work visas or permanent residence. Our system copes with the very few instances otherwise and the unlikely threat of a group arrival of more than 11 asylum seekers should not pose a significant problem. We already have ways to deal with this. It is not a problem; it is a political line looking for a problem.