O'Connor Simon: Immigration Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Connor Simon: Immigration Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 03 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1967. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I am looking forward to looking back on my  
Hansard 
 entry and reflecting on the importance of this necessary piece of work the Immigration Amendment Bill. It is always very easy to sit and moralise and talk about compassion and so on. I think that if one was to actually look at the etymology of the word one would see that “compassion” means to suffer with and I think I have suffered with my colleagues so far from the speeches from the Opposition members as they have tried to deride this simple but necessary piece of legislation.  
We live in a changing world. We live in a changing global environment. This piece of legislation is a prudent and timely response. It is a statement that is ultimately about reducing harm. If there has been one part of commonality it is the concern across the House at the harm that is done by people-smugglers individuals or whatever who are trying to make their way outside of the normal process into this country.  
But you see it is wrong and it is reckless to encourage people to risk their lives to come to New Zealand. It is reckless and those who oppose this legislation are in some ways tacitly supporting that recklessness. For New Zealand we through this piece of legislation do not want to give the impression to any person that they can enter this country without any consequence or with success. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take offence at the reference—and that again as a former immigration Minister. The suggestion that members on this side of the House and I personally would be supporting that kind of practice is ridiculous as is the rest of the member’s speech.  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: These are debatable points and each party has the opportunity to rebut what is being said. This is a point of view of a National member and it is totally in order and I will ask Simon O’Connor to continue. 
Hon Member 
: Touchy today. 
SIMON O’CONNOR 
: Very much so. Many many adjectives have been thrown across the House. I think “asinine” was one that I heard earlier as we move further up the alphabet towards the letter “R” but you know we just sort of move on. So we are back here about this whole industry of allowing people to jump the queues to sort of move illegally into New Zealand. I come back to what I said at the start. This bill is about minimising harm. That is a principle that is incredibly important I am sure across the entire House. And so this bill is an important and useful tool for managing this potential issue.  
We have heard that there is no problem though. We have heard from different parts of the House that there is no problem and that this is not going to happen. Well this is not a solution without a problem. This bill they say is an overreaction and it is ineffective. They do not call it dangerous. They do not say that we are going down the wrong path. No they even call it a waste of time. Yet of course they have wasted much time debating from the other side of the House against this.  
You see this is very short-sighted—very short-sighted. There is nothing like not reacting to a problem until after it has occurred. Labour wants us and other parties to put up a fence on the cliff after someone has fallen off it. It is very Labour—let the problem develop tinker with it and then claim to fix things. You see this party is about anticipating issues and making a very clear statement of what is appropriate and what is not. It is not appropriate for people to jump the queue to enter into this country.  
We have a range of avenues for people to enter into this country already. We have a whole panoply if you like of options. We also have as has been noted on the other side of the House the refugee quota and there is space there. There is space there for people to come into this country continuing through the refugee quota. We have that opportunity. If people wish to pursue that though the avenues they have from the countries that have been mentioned there are processes for that. But what members opposite are encouraging here is “first in first served”. They are saying: “Don’t follow the process. Don’t follow the rules. If you make your way here we’ll just allow you to jump the queue.” That is just not appropriate.  
This is a developing and potential problem for the future. I am not saying that there are piles of people coming in here right now but this Government is about anticipating where the future goes. We are not looking at this 50 years ago. This is a developing issue for this country and for the world. I was reading  
The Economist 
 a bit earlier and it was saying that there are more than a million people who have been crossing the boundaries be it into America or into the European Union.  
This is not a small problem. New Zealand exists within that global community and needs to put up and make a very clear statement that there are processes by which to enter this country. We put through a manner of law in this bill to manage that which is entirely and completely appropriate. As I said before we have these avenues and I think this bill makes it very clear that that is the appropriate way for people to enter this country. On that point I will end.