Bennett David: Immigration Bill — Third Reading 
Bennett David: Immigration Bill — Third Reading 
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DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 Mr Assistant Speaker— 
Hon Member 
: Great speech! 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Yes it will be a great speech. The Immigration Bill I think is something that many members of this House on both sides of the political spectrum have put a lot of effort into and I would like to follow the last speaker the Hon Pete Hodgson in congratulating Mark Gosche who was a tremendous member of this House. He was held in high regard on both sides of the House and also in the community. He was the chairperson when I joined the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and when it first looked at this bill. I am sure that he would savour seeing this bill progress through the House as well. 
I congratulate the current members of the select committee who have worked equally hard to make sure the bill goes through as well as the Ministers who have been involved on both sides of the House—former Labour Ministers and current National Ministers. 
Immigration is a topic that touches at the heart of many a New Zealander not only in terms of our migrant roots but also in the nature of our perceptions of where we see our country going in the future. Many people will expect an immigration bill to deal with the substance of who comes to New Zealand but this bill is not about who will be coming to New Zealand. It is about the substance of the procedures and processes that people will go through when they come to New Zealand. 
That differentiation is at the heart of what this bill is about. It is about the processes we need to use when New Zealand opens its borders up to individuals and families coming to live here. When we looked at that we saw that it is something that had not been done for many years and was due for reform. It took a while for each political party to come to terms with how it saw that reform working out in the end but I think we have a very good solution that all parties will find they can live with. All parties that have taken an active interest in it have had the ability to influence and direct the vision that this bill portrays. 
Although as I said this bill is not necessarily about who comes to New Zealand that angle is one that many speakers will touch on in this third reading. I want to touch on it as well. I think that New Zealand as a country can have a much more open approach to its immigration and that we should not be afraid of being a country that enables other people to come here and make their lives in New Zealand. Far too often we try to jealously guard what we have here and we do not let in others who have the spirit that our country needs. This issue is all about the spirit I think to build a stronger future for the individuals who will build the future for our country. 
The last member who spoke talked about California and the fact that people go there to make money and then come here to live. Well people certainly go there to make money but people do not come here to live after they have made money in California because we do not get a lot of migrants coming from California to New Zealand. That is because they have a spirit with which they have built a future in that state and in that country and we need to engage with that spirit in people around the world so that they want to come to New Zealand make it their home stay here and do not want to leave. 
Many migrants who come to New Zealand come on a very short-term basis and once they get citizenship they look to move to fresher fields like Australia or America. That is not sustainable for New Zealand because we are in the global talent pool looking for the best brightest and smartest in the world. There are some key things that we as a country need to do as the next steps beyond this immigration bill if we are serious about achieving our goals in the world and about getting the right people to come to this country. 
The first thing I think we need to do is have the attitude that we will be open and able to let people come to New Zealand. We need to be able to be seen as a country that offers opportunity a future and the spirit of hope and direction that those individuals will bring. Probably far too often we put too many limits on people coming to New Zealand. We look for academic achievements and monetary value rather than looking at what they want to build and bring to this country. That should be the crucial thing that we look for in the future. Some of the Labour members may be trying to pooh-pooh that by saying that they are against it but the reality is that we need those people here. We need to enable them to have a future in New Zealand. 
When we look at the people in New Zealand we see that they are the strength of our country. The people of this country provide the future income-earning potential the cultural and spiritual future and the diversity in our communities. They provide a future for New Zealand that looks different from the New Zealand that many members of this House grew up in and very different from the New Zealand that members of this House are living in now. 
New Zealand will change. It is inevitable that we will have this change. We have a choice as a country. We can embrace that change and make it happen or we can try to stop that inevitable change. When it does happen we will not have the ability to influence it in terms of how we would have wished it to come about. I think most members at the point that they leave this House will realise the inevitability of some actions the inevitability of the changing face of New Zealand and the inevitability of the need for more migrants to come to New Zealand. They will realise the inevitability that this country will be an open place for migration and the inevitability that New Zealand will need to provide an environment that attracts the right migrants. These are things that we need to do. 
When I say the “right migrants” I am looking at that spirit and ability to build a future to get an education to start a business and to actually make New Zealand their home. That is the spirit that I think we should look for in our migrants. They should be people who want to make New Zealand the best place for their futures and in doing so they will make New Zealand a much stronger place. That is the key to migration in the future and that is the strength of California as the previous speaker Pete Hodgson has said. California does not necessarily attract the most holders of doctorates but it attracts the most spirited people who want to build a strong future and they do that in that state. I think that is the thing we can look at as we go forward. 
The second thing we need to look at when we look at immigration—on top of this bill; if we look at immigration on a wider scale—is the nature of the environment that we as a Government provide. National in conjunction with its political allies in the coalition Government is providing the kind of future that will provide that environment whereas the previous Government did not provide an environment that allowed New Zealanders and migrants to see a future. 
Now that is a long-term gain. It is not done overnight and it involves many issues ranging from economic issues to social issues that affect people’s ability to see a future for themselves in a country. That is simply what National does better than Labour and it is what members see from this Government when it is compared with the previous one. 
In effect this bill sets out the procedures for immigration but in doing so it touches on some of the wider issues that many of us in this House will have to debate and consider. Those issues include how we provide a much more open environment for migrants to come to New Zealand. They also include the environment we provide within New Zealand so that those migrants can see their future here wish to stay and make New Zealand their home and build this country so it is as strong as we need it to be.