Cosgrove Clayton: Immigration Act 2009 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Immigration Act 2009 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:10106] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 Mr Hughes is very modest in allowing me to take the call; it is one of his endearing qualities that we love so much. I want to briefly address a couple of things in the Immigration Act 2009 Amendment Bill that the Minister in the chair the Hon Christopher Finlayson may want to touch on. As I said in the previous debate I would be grateful if he might advise us on what legislative solutions he may be proposing in terms of the legislative drafting process. I also want to address some of the wider issues as posed by Mr Locke around this bill. 
As a former Minister of Immigration I say that the first responsibility of whoever is that Minister in the Government is to secure the borders of this country and I think members on both sides of the Chamber agree with that. Mr Locke referred to a number of cases where alleged—and I say that advisedly—refugees were incarcerated for allegedly in at least one case converting to Catholicism thereby inviting some sort of threat because they had gone public with that in their homeland. I believe that in the reported case that homeland was Iraq. I said in the debate on the substantive legislation that I was aware of that case and of others. Where it becomes difficult is where the United Nations deems that there is not a threat and we have to be guided by that. 
I recall that on a number of the cases that I dealt with as Minister there were great protestations by members of my own church. In respect of one or two cases certain people were very nice individuals. I think that one was a chef who had cooked for Bill Clinton. But in my view those were not valid reasons to walk away from the rule of law or the legislation and to not take officials’ advice and the advice of intelligence agencies in terms of the veracity or the lack of it of those people’s claims. I say to Mr Locke that when people convert at the airport in Seoul to any religion fly over to New Zealand tear up their passports and then claim as they yell from the highest building that harm may come to them if they go back home and on top of that when the UN Human Rights Council does not make the same recommendation in respect of a threat to their life then I say that we should respect the advice of agencies including our own department and intelligence agency. At the end of the day Ministers must make a judgment and they do. It is our job as a Parliament to secure our borders as a priority. 
This amendment bill has resulted from an omission on Supplementary Order Paper 32 in relation to the commencement of section 474 of the Immigration Act 2009. I note that the powers referred to in the bill are in respect of the Governor-General appointing members including the chair to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal; the chair of the tribunal directing the education training and professional development of members of the tribunal; and the chair of the tribunal developing a code of conduct for the tribunal’s own membership. As I said the Attorney-General has been good enough to proactively suggest that he will be proposing changes to the drafting process to avoid this happening again and we endorse that. 
I come back to the original Immigration Act 2009 which was passed earlier in this Parliament. I believe it had the support of nearly every political party in Parliament. I say to Mr Locke that maybe he would like to reflect on where his allegiance lies. This is New Zealand. We have to treat people appropriately and we have to be humanitarian to all those who come across our borders but equally we expect them to be legitimate and to not abuse our rules laws and good graces by making false claims. At the end of the day whichever party the Minister of Immigration is from in this Parliament be it Labour National or otherwise he or she is charged on advice to make a decision on the veracity or lack of it of those claims. 
If people choose to stay in prison because they will not adhere to our immigration laws then I say to Mr Locke that that is a matter for them. If we look at the international jurisdictions around the world I would wager that very few of them now do not look to the security of their borders and do not look to differentiate between those who make false claims as refugees or otherwise and who abuse our humanitarian systems. If we let in someone who abuses that system then he or she will also take the place of a true refugee or true person who crosses our border to escape tyranny from another country. Finally I would invite Mr Locke to reflect on those comments.