Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to talk to the Minister about the way in which he has exercised some of his powers under this legislation. We talked at first reading and in select committee about some of the ways in which the powers have been used and most of them for the right reasons—we're not saying that the Minister has used his powers in the wrong way. The issue has been with the lack of timeliness and the communication around the way in which those powers have been exercised. We saw last year some classes of work visa holders that were given only three days' notice before their visas were extended. We saw earlier this year in February five days' notice before whole classes of visitor visas were extended. The amount of anxiety and stress for these vulnerable people who are being given a very very short period of time before their visas are due to expire to know that they've got that extension is not very good work on behalf of the Minister and there has been no reason given for why he has had to give them such a short period of time. The visitor visas: for the most part the people who are on those visitor visas in this country are elderly people. They are extremely stressed and vulnerable and when they think that they are going to have to leave the country because their visas expire in five days they are as you can imagine upset and stressed out and anxious. Now the Minister for whatever reason on a number of occasions has chosen to give them only a very very short period of time—a short notice period. Now he mentioned at the very start of this process that there were only a few occasions in fact that a short notice period would be required. So the question is: why is it that the Minister is unable to give these people a much longer period of notice before these come into effect given how anxious and vulnerable these people are who are in effect living from extension to extension? That's how they're living their lives and the way that he has conducted himself around giving them notice has in my view and in their view—because they came to the committee and told us this—been less than ideal. Now the Law Commission wanted to have a far greater notice period as an extra safeguard around the bill but my reason for that was to give these vulnerable people far more time and notice. The other thing that I would point out is that when the Minister does this his immigration officials don't catch up very quickly. When they've got only three days' or five days' notice it means entire classes of visa holders become unlawful in this country. Many of them lose their jobs and still to this day—in fact this term—there were children who could not go to school in my electorate because their status said that they were unlawful because the officials didn't have enough time to catch up and get all the paperwork in order. If they were given more time they would be able to do that. As I said people lost their jobs because their status was showing as unlawful because the Minister is not giving a long enough time period of notice for officials to catch up and as I said earlier it's also causing people to buy flights and get stressed and anxious that they're going to have to leave the country when actually three days before they're due to expire it turns out they don't. That came up very strongly in select committee from our submitters. I've heard it and many members of this House will have heard it as well from their constituents.There is very little reason why in most cases the Minister can't give more notice. There will be some extraordinary circumstances we understand where he needs to be flexible and needs to be nimble but those situations can't be all of the time. As he even said himself when he first got up to speak today it is only in a small percentage of the time. So why is it that the Minister is unable to give these people certainty and surety and reduce their stress and anxiety and actually let his officials catch up with their paperwork so that people don't become unlawful? I know that I have snuck this into Part 2 but we didn't get a chance to debate my Supplementary Order Paper in the first part—and I apologise—but I would like some answer from the Minister as to why he is unable in the majority of cases to be able to give more notice for these people. We understand that there will be some times when emergency powers are needed at the last minute. Why is it that he can't give more notice?