Logie Jan: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingText is subject to correctionLogie Jan: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3106. Text is subject to correction.]JAN LOGIE (Green):I rise to take a call on this the third reading of the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) which the Greens are very disappointed not to be able to support. As has been previously mentioned by my colleague Denise Roche we see this as one step forward but also sadly as two steps back.It is critically important that we have provisions in law that protect legal migrant workers from exploitation and this bill enables that to happen. It is critically important that we have functioning sanctions against employers who are exploiting migrant workers and this bill provides for up to 7 years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $100000. That is really important because as we have heard from the previous speaker from the National Party Sarah Dowie some employers may benefit by up to $20000 a year through the exploitation of migrant workers. So minimal economic sanctions as is the case in the law at the moment will not pay off. They are not going to be in balance with the gain that those employers can make from exploiting workers.So those provisions are really important. However the basic conditions to enable those sanctions to be put in place are not in this bill. We know that the migrant workers’ union was encouraging the Government to bring in this legislation and we supported it at its first reading. In fact the union was saying that we should not have to wait too long that this was too important and that the exploitation that was happening was terrible. We have heard across the House tonight some terrible stories of exploitation and we all know those stories.So this bill is really important and we really really wanted to support it. But as we were going through the legislation and through the select committee deliberations we were starting to get more and more concerned at what was being raised. So we went back to the union and said: “OK—this is what’s in this bill. Can you support this? Do you support this? Do you want us to support this?”. Their answer was: “No.” If the union that is representing the workers—the people who have most access to their experience to be able to inform good lawmaking—is saying that this bill is counter-productive then this House actually needs to listen to that because none of us have access to the experience that they do. We need to listen to that. They are telling us that for this to work there needs to be visa protection for those workers.I hear that the Government is bringing in directions for Immigration New Zealand to enable it to overlook breaches of visas for workers to enable them to make complaints. But that is a discretionary provision. If workers cannot be guaranteed that their visas are protected they are not going to come forward. If they are risking deportation they are not going to come forward. We know that we do not have enough labour inspectors to actually be able to detect migrant exploitation without the workers coming forward. We do not have a system to be able to do it so we are reliant on the workers coming forward. This bill disincentivises those workers from coming forward.So what are we left with then? Actually we are left with window dressing on the core provision. We have got extended search warrant powers into domestic homes or powers of search without warrants. I want to give credit to ACT for extending and ensuring that there is some accountability around the use of that power but still it is without warrant. There are search powers into people’s homes when we have a history of dawn raids in this country. Those powers are being given to Immigration New Zealand rather than the Labour Group. We are told by the Minister that that is because this is an immigration bill—not to be flippant. That is flippant when we have a history of immigration officers going into Pasifika people’s homes to deport families in this country and of racist abuse of the immigration system. We need protections against that. This bill actually gives disproportionate power to the Government and we should be very worried about it.