Peters Winston: Immigration Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Immigration Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9402. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): In early Māori history when the first canoe passed north beyond Auckland the waka actually ended being holed and they went ashore to fix the waka up. The local people helped them so who do you think they were? Why I am saying that is that some of us have been here a thousand years and we think we have got the right to say something about who comes here and on what terms. The second thing I want to say is that this misnomer that we are all immigrants is absolute balderdash. An immigrant is someone who is living legally in a country not of his or her birth. To use apologetic language to try to excuse the callousness by which you regard a democracy eventuating in a country like New Zealand is actually shameful. We have had a long conscience. It resulted in 750 people a year under the United Nations registered quota coming to New Zealand. That was where the consensus was but what I am hearing tonight are all sorts of things about bringing all manner of people here regardless of their entitlement or the fact that they are seriously jumping the queue ahead of people going through the registered UN process—the one that we signed up to. Let us get that straight.To hear as Mr Bennett from Hamilton East said that he is for far more immigration despite Auckland being massively logjammed and gridlocked every morning and every night now and with thousands and tens of thousands of people without homes just shows you how far away from reality some people in this Parliament are. Do you realise how many of the MVTampa boys were first deemed by the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees to be eligible? Do you know the answer? The answer is not one. Yet they came here on an arrangement between Helen Clark and Mr Howard who has been pilloried tonight in this House and then they brought hundreds and hundreds under family reunification with them. Which part of the New Zealand population was ever told about that?We know that on immigration the Government is a total mess. It had a recent review of just 1800 of New Zealand visa applicants who have been successful just a year ago. It looked at just 1800 of those visas and it found 15 percent were fraudulent were false and were not even legal in the first place. So where are those 15 percent now? They are humming around New Zealand working and just carrying on as though there is no law whatsoever.Where we stand in New Zealand First is very clear. We will support this law on one condition: that there is a real plan of action capable of being put in place tomorrow if a boat should—David Bennett: There is.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No. No there is not. Oh no there is not. Mr Guy the predecessor to this Minister of Immigration told me: “Well they’ll go to Māngere.” To which we said: “What? Climb over the wall and just walk off?” Well he looked a bit bemused by that but that was the plan. Now he is talking about going down to Waiōuru down in the freezing cold. For people who come out of a hot climate that could be murderous. This is a Government that is doing a dog whistle because it is concerned a boat might arrive and it does not want to be seen to be the hopeless incompetent Government on immigration and refugees that has been its record. We have had record immigration in the last 25 years and pray tell me do you think we are better off as a country?Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh no we are not. Oh no. The per capita growth that we were promised has never been delivered. All the warnings of many years ago have been clearly borne out. Here we are in Auckland now asking everybody from Kaitāia to Invercargill to pay for Auckland’s gridlock problems and the Government has no plan to slow down immigration so it can deal with present problems in Auckland—none whatsoever. Do you know why? Because the Business Roundtable just wants more cheap workers and it wants more consumption to prop up a failing economic strategy. If the Government was so good on the issue of people why are 58000 leaving every year? Please explain that.Tonight you have seen exposed the fact that we have here some members getting up and thinking that this is a black swan event. The black swan event is something that comes out of thin air—not likely to happen. But frankly we all know that there is every chance it will happen. Not for a moment though do I think that the boat that arrived in Geraldton in Western Australia was ever coming here. But it is a great public relations stunt to take the heat off the Australian authorities and claim that you were heading all the way to New Zealand. And here is the rub. The boat on which they arrived you people was a fishing boat given by the Australian people to Sri Lanka when they had the last tsunami. So Australia out of its good heart gives a major fishing boat to Sri Lanka to help out in a time of post-tsunami crisis and what do you get from them? Return to sender but loaded up with refugees. Do members here not read anything? No they do not. They work on in provincial ignorance without a concern for the facts.Look there is a real threat. We think there should be a system in place to deal with it. If it is not dealt with by detention centres pray tell me here what do some members think you are going to do with them? If you have got 10 percent 15 percent 25 percent or maybe 40 percent who will never be legal what do you intend to do? Other than tomake dog whistle promises or to say that your heart is filled with goodness and you do not give a darn what the mass majority of New Zealanders—Māori European and all new immigrants—actually think on this issue. Tell me where in Asia is there one country following the current debate that you are hearing in the House today in New Zealand? Find me one country in Asia that tolerates this sort of woolly-woofter argument. We have a right to defend our country. We have a right to put the people of New Zealand’s interests first—not last first.David Bennett: Well vote for it. Vote for it.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No. If the Government puts in place proper plans for a detention centre and we see those plans—Hon Michael Woodhouse: We’ve got a plan.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh no! I do not want to hear the last lot I heard which was we might put them in the Devonport naval base. Oh really? So where is the security there? We know that people have come in their hundreds to this country. Never ever—David Bennett: We’ve got a plan.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Excuse me how many Afghani refugees came here and were never tested for TB?David Bennett: Who was in Government then?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The National Party.David Bennett: You.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No the National Party was. Oh no you do not. Well you know it is only a fool who laughs at his own foolish joke.David Bennett: Well you were there.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No it was the National Party—all its own work. You know what happened? You go to any Auckland hospital and look at the “Third World disease wards” and they are packed with immigrants—not New Zealanders; all immigrants—being paid for on our welfare system. Why? Because no TB tests among other things were ever done. You know what their excuse was when they were asked “You mean you imperilled the safety and health of the New Zealand population?” They said: “Well they wanted to be reunified with their families.” How do you like that? Careless mindless—a soft heart and a head to match.We have a right in this country to say who should and who should not come. Our history has been and it has been the consensus of this Parliament for decades that we will take 750 people from the UN—on the register on the list properly processed and deemed to be genuine. But what you are going to see here if we keep on sending these messages that we are a soft touch is hundreds and hundreds dying while trying to get here. Then what will the bleeding hearts say—then what will the bleeding hearts say?David Bennett: Vote for the bill.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No no. They will by their condemnation of weak insipid policies have actually caused that event tragic as it will be to happen.Let me just say again: if the Government votes for our Supplementary Order Paper on a proper detention facility in this country then we will support its bill. We will vote for it in the second reading. But if at the Committee stage it ignores all warnings of sane sensible historic and international advice then we will oppose it.