Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Well that was a typically mediocre contribution from that Government member Marja Lubeck. I'm quite staggered to discover Marja Lubeck is a chair of a committee but anyway I suppose happy days for her.Marja Lubeck: The only chair you've got is to cheer up!CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah.We support this bill but with reservations and I want to make a serious point because there was really no engagement with the substance of the issue by the speaker who just spoke before me and that's the reason why I described it as a mediocre contribution because I think if members on the other side were reasonable and fair—and I know there are some smart members on the other side—they would acknowledge that the powers being given to the Minister through this bill are substantial. They're eight temporary powers to impose vary or cancel conditions for classes of temporary entry class visa holders; the power to vary or cancel conditions for resident class extend the expiry date for visas to waive any regulatory requirements to revoke entry permissions—I means these are literally huge powers. It wouldn't be fair to characterise them as Henry VIII" powers—"Henry VIII" powers in the legislative parlance in New Zealand refer to giving the Minister the power to actually change the law passed by Parliament. So it probably wouldn't be fair to call them "Henry VIII" powers but they are big and they deal with who can come into New Zealand the conditions upon which they can come into New Zealand and the conditions upon which they can stay.Now we backed the legislation back in May last year and the Minister has pointed out it passed the Parliament unanimously and the reason for that is that you know no one knew what was going to happen back in May last year—you know we were in the middle of the lockdown extraordinary circumstances it felt like the world was crashing down around us in the island of New Zealand—or islands plural. So I think that was the right decision.But things are different now and I acknowledge what Ms Lubeck says around the fact that COVID is still running rampant around the world and we still don't know much about the future. And that is why on balance we are backing the bill because we do still think the Minister needs to be able to respond flexibly and we generally think the Minister has used the powers given to him in a good way. We support the various orders that he's made pursuant to the Act.But I just do want to make the serious point that we granted the Minister these powers for a year and now he's gone for two years so we object in principle to that—two years looks like an overreach to us; it looks like an extension that is too long. Possibly we could support another year in which the Government would then have to come back and legislate again but you know there's nothing actually wrong with that in principle. In fact I would argue constitutional principle would dictate the Government should come back and seek a further mandate from the legislature for the granting of extraordinary powers.So you know two years—I can see why the Government's done it because it's convenient for them and it's convenient for the officials because we'll just abrogate the power to the Minister and to the Government and you know we can sort of sort things out later within the two-year window. But it's not good lawmaking; it's not good lawmaking. So we object to the two years and we're going to argue through the committee process—the shortened truncated committee process—that the Government's powers should be limited down to one year and I think that's a reasonable request. I think it's consistent with constitutional principle I think it's consistent with good lawmaking practice and I think it should just be a one-year extension.The other thing that sort of arises from the two-year extension is you know respectfully what has the Government been doing for the last year in relation to the future policy settings in relation to migration? So you know again back in May last year it was very difficult to predict what would happen into the future so let's retain some flexibility give the Minister the power to do these variations to do these alterations because we don't know what's going to happen. We do have more certainty now; there's no doubt about that. We're in a more certain environment compared to where we were in May 2020 and I think the Government should have done some work around what immigration policy settings should look like into the next year and the year after that. And it may be that if that work had been done we could have a much more tailored bill because this bill essentially just replicates everything that we passed last year. And again bad lawmaking—we could have got a more tailored bill if we'd done the work in relation to exactly what is required for our immigration policy settings. So I think objectionable in principle and objectionable in practice but you know we will support the bill to the committee to try and get some changes to it.I do want to talk about the truncated select committee process. It's just unacceptable that we are having a shortened time frame again. I know members opposite will say you know the National Party was guilty of that when we were in Government and blah-blah-blah. You know there's some truth to that but two wrongs do not make a right and it is not legitimate to continue with a shoddy select committee process just because you can.And what I fear with this Government is the power that accrues from 65 seats is vast and the temptation is always to use the power. You know that's the whole point of Government; it's to use power. For the first time we have under MMP a Government with 65 seats. You know Geoffrey Palmer said it would never happen. In fact I think I'm right in saying that Geoffrey Palmer said it was impossible for anyone to ever achieve an absolute majority under MMP. Well he's been wrong about quite a few things recently not the least of which was last night in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and he was wrong about this as well because this Government does have that and we respect the mandate. I'm not arguing with the mandate we respect the result of the election; I'm just making the point that with election results that are extraordinary like that comes extraordinary power. We don't have a strong legislature in New Zealand in comparison to the executive. We have an executive that is taken from the legislature. And when you have that and when you have 65 seats out of 120 to one party that results in enormous power accruing to the executive and accruing to the party that holds the executive at that time. Of course that flows down into the legislative measures that are taken in terms of process. And it is wrong I believe that a bill like this goes to a shortened time frame.You know I come back to the point: we've had a year. We've had a year to sort this out. We could have had a bill introduced in November-December last year after the election. I acknowledge that would have required some quick work by the officials. But frankly no disrespect to the immigration officials and no disrespect to the Public Service more generally: not a lot of work gets done by the Public Service during the election campaign; I'm telling you that for free. Not a lot happens in terms of substantive policy work because everyone's waiting to see who'll be back in Government.So that work could have happened at any time in the last year and then the Government could have turned up with a more tailored bill after the election and put it into the House for a select committee process. But they haven't done that and that does concern me. Instead what we've got right at the very tail end of the one-year limit expiring is the Government going "We've got to do something about this. Oh we'll just extend it for another two years."And that does concern me because I'll tell you what I reckon happened: what I reckon happened is that everyone kind of forgot about it everyone kind of forgot Parliament had passed this bill and it expired and then at some point some smart official went "Um Minister do you realise that the Act actually expires at the end of April? You should probably extend it and so on." And the Minister Kris Faafoi said "Yeah that's a good point. We probably do need to do that. We'll just quickly ram it through and we'll go for the two years."And that's the point around the power right? That's the point around what happens when you have 65 seats and you have all the power because in that environment what happens is what the Minister wants the Minister gets because the Minister takes the paper to Cabinet and says "Here's what I want to do." As long as Cabinet signs it off it goes to the caucus and I'm telling you now to the Labour backbenchers it's not in your career best interests to oppose what a Minister takes to caucus—good luck to you if you do; I admire your courage and your spirit but I don't think many of you do. I'm not having a go at you; I'm just saying that's the way the place works and so the things go through the caucus and then the Minister turns up to the House and with 65 votes for a bill and then it can happen. It can happen and it's going to happen because the Government's got 65 votes.So that's the reality. But my point is a better process would have been to introduce the bill to the House after the election and allow a much longer time for select committee scrutiny because these are enormous powers we're giving to the Minister and we're just allowing three weeks. It's not good enough we'll vote for it but we'll try and improve it at committee. Thanks very much."