Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill — Instructions to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Immigration Amendment Bill — Instructions to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8294] 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: 
 The schedule mainly relates to the name change from the Residence Appeal Authority to the Residence Review Board. We received relatively few submissions relating to that and I remember that the Auckland Law Society expressed concern over the lack of information about the nature of that change. The Minister might like to take a call to assure the public that this name change itself will not lead to a particular change in the extent of authority due to the fact that the word “Authority” is being substituted with the word “Board”. 
I would like to reflect on what the future workload of the Residence Review Board might be. First of all we know that in the main part of the bill the New Zealand Labour Government introduced the world’s first migration tool kit which is known as the “invitation to apply”. That means that anybody who wishes to apply to migrate to New Zealand need only first of all to submit an expression of interest. If those applicants do not receive a letter of invitation there will be no review and there are no rights of appeal. So I can imagine that for a start quite a bit of the workload of the Residence Review Board will be reduced. 
But a disturbing fact is that during the select committee hearing process we were told by consultants from the New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment that under the current system some 60 percent of appeals were upheld because of miscommunication or different technical interpretation accepted by some New Zealand Immigration Service officials overseas that contradicted the policy or regulations of the immigration system. We were told in the select committee that some 60 percent of those appeals were upheld so first of all I would like the Minister to take a call to tell us whether the expressions of interest of the first lot of people to lodge those will be examined in a way that ensures that no technical error or miscommunication has applied to them so they might gain enough points to receive a letter of invitation. 
I think it is important that the Minister has adopted my amendment in terms of making sure that the immigration system is transparent and certain. I hope she will take a call to explain to us what sort of balances and checks will exist in the system because those rights of appeal have been removed from the people who lodged expressions of interest. 
 We also heard during the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee’s hearing that there is quite a tough requirement if there is any change of circumstances for those applicants who receive letters of invitation. They have immediately to inform the Immigration Service—that is all of the burden of proof lies with the applicant. Some of us might say: “OK. Fair enough. If you want to come to New Zealand and there are any changes you must inform the authority.” But we want to know whether there is such a burden of proof on the applicant to make sure that he or she has got everything correct. We want to know whether a reciprocal system of balance and checks exists within the service so that whenever it has queries about applications the applicants are kept informed. In that way they would have the opportunity to explain to the service whether all the papers they lodge or the statements they make are true and correct and that no misunderstanding has occurred. That might remove the need for applicants to apply to the appeal authority later on.