Jones Dail: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Jones Dail: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6778] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: Clause 2 sets out the day on which the bill receives the royal assent. It sets out the day on which this Government finally admits that its immigration policies are an absolute disaster that it does not know what it is doing and that what it said on 17 June does not appear to have been correct. The Government said it would go to the Court of Appeal but somehow in the meantime it has changed its mind and now it will repeal the legislation altogether. Well we have got legislation at various stages. We have known for years that this Government does not know what it is doing about immigration. New Zealand First has made that point clear. Now we have an admission that all the work that the Government was doing on the job-search visa and such like was something that it did not fully comprehend. When the court case was taken presumably the Government expected to win it and of course the Government failed and lost it. 
Even prior to the court case it was clear that when the Minister was undertaking her policy she did not appreciate she had requirements that needed to be fulfilled in the way in which the policy should be carried out and the court has made it clear that this Government has not carried out its policy properly. It has been a saga of failures on the part of this Government and now here we are in Parliament under urgency being asked to rubber-stamp this Government’s failure. To be perfectly frank no one is absolutely sure—including the Minister and that is not unusual—just what the Minister will be doing as far as this legislation is concerned. Are we being asked to implement legislation that will be given effect to by way of stands at trade fairs in New Delhi Lahore Beijing Taiwan Frankfurt and such like? The commencement date will give effect to something that no one quite knows anything about including the Minister as was clear from  
Morning Report 
 this morning. We in New Zealand First take the view that this bill should not come into force when it receives the royal assent. In fact the bill should not be before the House at all in this way. Clearly it should not come into force until after there has been select committee deliberation until Government members themselves know what it is all about and until United Future gets to know what it is all about. It should not come into effect until those two parties at least know what is going on. 
All we have heard from United Future so far is a speech that was prepared by the Government. United Future has repeated it word for word. The United Future members do not quite understand what the speech says but they repeated it anyway. United Future members like being in this House. They do not like the possibility of going to a general election and losing the position they have in this House. As good Christians United Future members believe that they may as well hang in there for another 2 years and take whatever they might be able to get in the meantime instead of standing up for their Christian values and their policies and saying the bill should not come into effect on the day it receives the royal assent—which is likely to be tomorrow or the next day—but rather after it has been to a select committee and people have made submissions. For example the bill should not come into effect until we in this House know the outcome of the discussions with “the Ministries of Economic Development Foreign Affairs and Trade Justice and Social Development; the Department of Internal Affairs (Ethnic Affairs); Treasury; and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.” as set out on page 6 of the commentary on the bill. 
The bill should not come into effect until the Opposition parties know what those discussions were and whether they were lengthy or short. That would give us the opportunity to understand what is in the legislation. We do not know what is in there. We have not been told. I am sure that United Future has not been told but that does not stop it from supporting the Government. We have a constitutional right to ask that this bill should not come into effect until all the agencies are consulted; including for example Te Puni Kokiri—I would like to know what Te Puni Kokiri has to say about the bill—the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Department of the Prime Minister— 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Te Mangai Paho. 
DAIL JONES 
: New Zealand First has not taken much interest in those affairs. I will leave that to Rodney Hide and Murray McCully. I am still struggling to get around the name of the department let alone what it says it does or does not do. 
This bill should not come into effect later this week as is envisaged by this Government. Clearly it is a breach of all constitutional process.