McNair Craig: Voting — Correction; Citizenship Amendment Bill (No 2) Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
McNair Craig: Voting — Correction; Citizenship Amendment Bill (No 2) Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
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CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) 
: 
 I do not intend to take my full 10 minutes on this call but I want to say a few words in closing as we members of the House speak in the third reading. I believe that this legislation is a victory for New Zealand First tonight. 
Pansy Wong 
: Ha ha! 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: The National member laughs but I remember her leaning over to me at the Government Administration Committee and saying: “They are putting this in because of you guys.” So this legislation is a victory for New Zealand First. 
Our party has put pressure on the Labour Government since it came into power in 1999 and the Government has been very reluctant on this issue. It has been split by it but New Zealand First has won out. In our 2002 campaign we said that we would fix immigration and we have come a long way towards fixing it by putting pressure on the Government in respect of this legislation and of the issues that arise from it. 
For example the legislation increases the period of residence in New Zealand that applicants for New Zealand citizenship must meet from 3 years to 5 years and applicants will need to have been in the country for approximately three-quarters of the 5-year period before application including 8 months of each year in that period. As I said that is a big victory for New Zealand First. 
We are proud to be supporting policies that support all New Zealanders and that are in the best interests of all New Zealanders. As New Zealand First has always said our motto is “We support good legislation and we oppose bad legislation.” Overall this legislation is what we believe to be good legislation. It is one step in the right direction. There are a few things that could be improved on but overall this is legislation that New Zealand First takes credit for. 
There is another issue I want to bring up which I did not really get to focus on too much at the Committee stage. I was going to say it concerned the Supplementary Order Paper but those amendments have now been included in the legislation under the citizenship by birth provisions so that a child born in New Zealand on or after 1 January 2006 will be a New Zealand citizen only if at least one of his or her parents is a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident. 
I believe that members opposing this legislation especially on that issue were trivialising the fact that the issue is a problem. When there are articles overseas such as in  
The Times 
 news network entitled “Baby you can be born abroad” and stating: “Pregnant? Pack your bags and head abroad to the US Canada Australia or New Zealand. Such is the value of foreign citizenship that a whole lot of young parents to be are putting much thought and planning into making sure their child is born abroad and therefore becomes a citizen of whichever country he or she is born in.” When advertisements like that are being placed around the world I believe that it is not only a requirement but also an obligation of Governments to be able to address such issues. 
It is a fact that on average about 600 non-residents have their children in New Zealand per year at the moment. New Zealand First is not saying to those people who have their children in New Zealand that they are not to do that. It is fine if they still want to do that but the fact is that this legislation will eliminate the problem of people seeing advertisements or articles in overseas newspapers and coming to New Zealand for that specific reason. Obviously we are not stopping overseas people from having children in New Zealand; we are just making the rules tighter and fairer for all New Zealanders. So I wanted to address that issue. 
I want to address one other issue before I close and I go right back to the second reading when ACT member Stephen Franks said that this was unpatriotic legislation. Well I believe that it is patriotic legislation for many reasons and one reason is a clause that provides for officers dealing with citizenship to have restricted access to immigration information for the purpose of conducting citizenship investigations and assessing whether applicants meet grant requirements. I believe that that provision strengthens the power of the New Zealand Government to stop people like Jim Peron coming into this country. We have to make sure that we keep out people like that and protect all New Zealanders—especially young New Zealanders. 
Overall I believe that this is very patriotic legislation if we look at issues like the one I spoke about earlier where applicants are required to take the oath or affirmation of allegiance to New Zealand at a public citizenship ceremony. I believe that that provision is something we should be proud to be passing as a Parliament. I believe that New Zealand citizenship is something that is valuable and that people who take on New Zealand citizenship should be required to do something like that and be proud of it. New Zealand First is proud to support this legislation and we take a lot of credit for it.