Logie Jan: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is subject to correctionLogie Jan: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15083. Text is subject to correction.]JAN LOGIE (Green): The Green Party will support the referral of Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. There are aspects of this bill that are critically important in concept and we are very keen to explore the detail of them to ensure that they deliver for the people who need protection. There are other aspects of this bill that give us cause for concern and we look forward to also rigorously investigating them to ensure that they provide New Zealand with the solutions in immigration that we need.The primary purpose and the flagship of this bill is making the exploitation of migrants on a temporary entry visa with work conditions an offence and making the employer liable for deportation. Previously these sections covered only unlawful workers. It will enable employers who exploit workers to be liable for a sentence of up to 7 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $100000 and as mentioned earlier it opens them up to possible deportation. It is really important to increase penalties. At least one of the reasons for needing to increase them is that up until now the penalties have often been less than the benefits of the exploitation and that is clearly not going to change the culture. Over the last few years we have heard of an increasing number of examples of the exploitation of migrant workers and I want to specifically thank FIRST Union for its fine advocacy on this issue and bringing it to the attention of all of us.We all lose when workers are exploited. In a case publicised last week an Auckland-based Korean food preparation factory is alleged to have exploited migrant workers with 16-hour working days few or no breaks below minimum wages and no employment contracts. A spokesperson for the Union Network of Migrants DennisMaga has noted that this bill “… needs to be passed as soon as possible because migrants working on the Christchurch rebuild are being ill-treated.” As my Labour colleague Darien Fenton has mentioned there are 12 investigations under way but only four inspectors for what is expected to be 17000 migrant workers. We need to make sure that we have a system in place to protect our local economies and protect those workers from exploitation.There have been cases that the FIRST Union has mentioned of employees signing agreements in the Philippines yet when they arrive in New Zealand that contract and agreement has been changed and it knows of workers whose local employer is threatening to send them home if they do not work during the weekend without pay. That is not good for our international reputation that is not good for vulnerable people and that is not going to be good for the quality of the work on the rebuild in Christchurch either. Migrant workers and especially temporary migrant workers are vulnerable. Often they have limited knowledge of their rights. Sometimes they find it difficult to communicate and feel that their ability to speak up is constrained because they feel quite rightly that their immigration status may be at risk.There has been reporting where a migrant worker himself has described some of what he has seen happening up in Auckland. He talked about how when migrants arrive here to work for them work is their top priority because it will enable them to survive. But unfortunately as many of us know decent and well-paid jobs can be pretty hard to find no matter how keen or qualified someone is. Desperate migrants try to save money as hard as they can. Sometimes we have heard about people being sold jobs before they start which is a very deep form of exploitation. We have also heard stories of people being moved into sheds or garages in cramped cold conditions basically as a provision of their conditions of work and sometimes the money comes off the wages to pay for what are incredibly substandard conditions. There are also stories of people being asked to pay exorbitant rates for those same below-standard conditions. Then we have also heard of people being paid between $4 and $10 an hour without breaks and without their legal entitlements. As a Parliament we really clearly need to address these problems.I do want to via this bill point out a few of the concerns that have been raised by the people who are desperate for it to be implemented and I hope that we can have a discussion around that within the select committee. The FIRST Union has suggested that we also need to have stronger requirements on employers at the point of accreditation and tougher penalties for bad practice. This bill delivers on the tougher penalties but I have not seen the point around accreditation. The union has also raised the point—again raised by Labour—about the need for more labour inspectors up from the very low levels that we have currently because if we are going to ensure that the system that we put in place is able to work we need to have the people out there making it work and checking for people. The union also said that funding support to local community centres and organisations providing induction for new migrants needs to be strengthened and many of these groups are currently struggling. That is something that we also would endorse and I think it would be better for the long-term well-being of our communities as well as for the migrants. It ensures that New Zealand gets the most out of the involvement of the people in our community. We can encourage them to stay and contribute rather than have a terrible experience leave and go somewhere else to add their labour to those communities.Also and possibly most important the Union Network of Migrants has raised concerns that if a migrant worker speaks out about abuse and leaves that exploitative job they will lose the work visa that is tied to that job. This is clearly a very significant barrier to those workers being able to get justice and be treated fairly. A visitor visadoes not give them the ability to earn and this risks workers going underground into unlawful work in order to survive. What the union has been recommending is that an open visa should be given allowing affected migrants to find alternative work while their cases are being heard. It seems to me that that is the least we could do if we have not managed to protect them from that exploitation in the first place. This is clearly a very important area of work. We would like to offer our thanks to the Minister of Immigration for bringing it to this House and look forward to properly discussing it and working out the best solution for our communities and those workers.I would just like to mention briefly some of the other aspects of this bill that we see as not necessarily being an essential part of that policy platform and that raise concerns for us. This bill gives immigration officers the power to undertake personal and property searches including employees’ premises but is not specifically related to that aspect of their work at all. We would need to see evidence that immigration officers are unable to do their job properly at the moment without these extended powers. We have not seen evidence of that and we are very reluctant to see what is traditionally the work of our police force extended any more than it absolutely has to be. We also have concerns around privacy in relation to the extension of the collection of biometric information which is to be gathered for identity management. There is some lack of clarity around the purpose and extent of that which we would be keen to investigate.We are very clearly in opposition to what has been put in as an aspect in this bill in reiterating that requests for personal information under the Privacy Act will not apply to the reasons for decisions made using absolute discretion. We oppose that policy. We believe that people have a right to information and that the best systems are challengeable systems and we will encourage the Government to take that approach. Thanks to the Minister.