Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Speaker. I am pleased to take this first call for the National Party in the second reading of this bill. I had hoped that today the Minister would provide more clear evidence and reasons for the necessity of this bill. Unfortunately neither his legislative statement nor his speech today provided that apart from some updated numbers which is in itself interesting because when we heard the arguments for this bill back in 2020 the underlying need for this bill was the amount of people in this country who are here on temporary visas and who required their visas to be extended or to have their conditions varied. The argument was that there are so many of them in so many different categories and he broke all those numbers down and he went even further to say that immigration officials were unable to work at their place of work and so were forced to work from home but often they couldn't do that because they weren't able to take their paperwork home with them. So there were a lot of Immigration New Zealand workers sitting at home unable to work. That was the basis for this bill in the first place.So coming to the renewal of the sunset clause we had thought that—and I even foreshadowed it in my first reading speech—those numbers would in fact be updated. If this bill was required because there are so many people here who need the conditions of their visas extended and because we've got people sitting at home who can't do the work those things would be traversed. We didn't hear it in the first reading speech from the Minister; we didn't hear it from officials at all. And I know the Minister said it wasn't his intention but that was the whole reason for the bill. It should have been his intention and the intention of the officials to provide that information. And it wasn't just the National Party that was saying that; the New Zealand Law Society said that the Auckland District Law Society said that the Road Transport Forum New Zealand said that. Most of the organisations said there is no given reason for this bill that we can understand to have two years rather than one year. I'd just like to point out that the Minister said that most of the submitters wanted a one-year clause. In fact every single organisation that submitted on this bill—every single one—said they wanted one year and vehemently opposed two years. One went even as far as saying six months but every single organisation who submitted on this bill said one year.Now I want to start by talking about the process and the time frame. The Minister in his first sentence mentioned an abbreviated time frame. When the Government brought this bill a year ago they gave 10 days' notice and we understood why that was the case. We were in an emergency situation we had no clarity on what was going to happen there were only 12 submissions and it was a very short time frame. Given that we had expected this time around there would be a full process. As the Minister said himself if it's a one-year sunset clause then the bill would need to start to be thought about in about June July August and then brought before the House towards the end of the year. That didn't happen for reasons he has failed to explain especially given the fact that he argued in Cabinet for no sunset clause—yes no sunset clause. That's what he wanted—that's what he actually wanted. His back-up plan was three years. Luckily his colleagues said Look mate sorry that's not happening. We're going to give you two. On your way sonny." But he would've given us the exact same time frame of three weeks to deliberate on this bill and hear from submitters for three weeks or no sunset clause. So actually this whole process of only giving us three weeks is really not good enough and there has been no explanation as to why that was the case and we are left to just ponder and come up with the reason that they actually just forgot. And most submitters said when they came to committee and when they put their submissions in that the time frame wasn't long enough. And I heard from many submitters who didn't get to have their say at all.Going back to the two-year sunset clause which I alluded to earlier the Regulations Review Committee wrote to our committee and said "You need to ensure that you are satisfied that the two-year extension is appropriate for these powers and you need to seek advice from officials." And what did we get from officials and what did we get from the Minister? We heard "The Minister needs to be nimble."; "It's a continued need."; "He wanted three years and no sunset clause so two years is entirely reasonable." They said that one year means we've got to come back again really soon and undertake a lot of work; it's really inconvenient. I put it to this House that such a large transfer of power from Immigration New Zealand to the Minister saying that it's not convenient to come back in a year really isn't an excuse when we are giving him so much unbridled power. They also said "Don't worry. It has to be COVID-related. So if COVID's no longer a problem he can't use these powers." Except that COVID is always an excuse. We've seen this right across this Government. Everything can be harped back to COVID. And even the Minister with his long residency queues has said that it's because of COVID. Well actually those queues have been growing since 2018 but there you have it.As I said earlier no reasons were given for this—the reason for this two-year clause. The Auckland District Law Society in fact said that this bill is more convenience than necessity which I think is telling. The Law Society said much the same. The Road Transport Forum said the policy work should have happened but it hasn't in the last year. And by the way by the time the sunset clause expires the Minister will have had these powers for three years. So many submitters came to us and said "This is far too long for emergency powers to be given to the Minister and a one-year time frame is far more appropriate." As I said earlier in 2020 we had all of these figures given to us. In 2021 no numbers no explanation at all of Immigration New Zealand's capacity to undertake their work. So we're none the wiser as for the reasons for this bill. Immigration New Zealand officials are at work so why can't they process these applications? What's going on at Immigration New Zealand that they can't process things that they would in the normal way? Is it the residency backlog that's causing such a problem? Is it the fact that the Minister's closed offshore offices and brought all the processing home? We are none the wiser as to the reason why Immigration New Zealand officials can't process these in the normal way. Remember back in 2020 they told us that the reason for this was that Immigration New Zealand officials were sitting at home and they couldn't work. Well that excuse doesn't exist anymore but we were not given any reasons why they couldn't do their jobs.The New Zealand Law Society gave a very good submission and one of the things that they talked about was having a 28-day commencement of special directions. Now their reasoning for wanting this was different than my reasoning but actually they made a very good point in the fact that they said—and I'll bring it up because it's always better to say what they actually said. They said there is "scrutiny by the Regulations Review Committee and [it is] subject to disallowance"—and we agree with that but the point that they make is that "While these measures are commendable the Law Society noted … on the 2020 bill that such checks only occur after the instrument is made." And that's the same in this bill. So those checks only are able to be undertaken once they're already in force. And so for that reason the Law Society wants a 28-day commencement of special directions unless there is an emergency or an unusual situation that requires an immediate action and we agree with that.But my reason for wanting a 28-day commencement of special directions is quite different because the way that the Minister has been exercising his powers has been with very very short notice. He gave five days' notice to visitor visas three days' notice back in July last year to work visa holders many of whom had bought tickets to go home and so there is a whole lot of uncertainty and stress and anxiety put on people who are living from extension to extension with a Minister unable to explain why he can't give a lot more notice to people. A 28-day notice period would lessen the stress the anxiety stop people from booking flights—people who are in a very vulnerable situation. And also at the moment it would give more time for Immigration New Zealand officials to do the administration in the background. Currently you've got people who have an extension but it reads in their immigration file that actually they're here unlawfully. Their kids can't go to school and they lose their jobs. I've got kids in my electorate right now who are being told they're not allowed to come back to school this term because technically they're unlawful but they've been given the extension. A 28-day notice period would stop that and we will have a Supplementary Order Paper to that effect.Most of the submitters said that the conditions today are not the same as they were a year ago and they will not be the same in a year. The Restaurant Association of New Zealand made that point as did both the Auckland District Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society. But overarching—in my last few seconds—Immigration New Zealand is in big trouble. They've got huge backlogs. The residence queue has been frozen. The time frame for getting a residence is two years. And this is a very convenient way for the Minister to extend visas not because of COVID but because of the mess that Immigration New Zealand are in. And while we agree that there are some cases in which he will need to exercise these powers we will be arguing vehemently for a one-year clause that he should have to come back to this Parliament and explain why he needs a further year in that time frame and we will be exploring this more at committee of the whole House."