Fenton Darien: Immigration Act 2009 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Fenton Darien: Immigration Act 2009 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
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DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call in the third reading of the very non-controversial Immigration Act 2009 Amendment Bill which was drafted to fix up an accidental omission in the Immigration Act. As we have said Labour is supporting it. 
I pay my respects to my colleague from the Green Party because he is very well versed in the very controversial issues around immigration. We heard about a lot of them when Keith Locke was sitting alongside me on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee as the original Immigration Bill went through the select committee process. As I said earlier it was a very long process and quite a difficult one too because immigration by its very nature is discriminatory and our country has to make decisions about who we will let cross our borders and who we will not and that is very very difficult. 
I pay tribute once again to the various Ministers of Immigration who helped put the original bill together including David Cunliffe Clayton Cosgrove and Lianne Dalziel and—forgive me if I miss anyone—also Mark Gosche who was the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. We went through a very long process on that Immigration Bill and we heard from many very very powerful submitters. They were powerful in the sense that the stories they told us were incredible and we could only wonder at the lives that some people are forced to lead. 
I am no expert in the international scene but along with most other MPs I get people coming to talk to me about their situation and about what they are trying to do. They are trying to enter the country to get a work permit to get permanent residence or to stop themselves from being thrown out of the country because their work permit has expired and so on. 
In this third reading speech I particularly want to mention as I have in previous speeches about immigration the Chorus workers who were employed by Telecom. They were mainly Filipino and they were brought here on work permits to do jobs we could not get anyone else to do. They were highly skilled workers. Their work permits were revoked and they were eventually sent home because Telecom decided to end its contract with Chorus the new contractor decided to make all those workers owner-operators and under New Zealand immigration rules people on work permits cannot change from being employees to small-business owners. I think New Zealand got the worst end of the deal. Certainly the workers were treated appallingly. I appealed to the Minister of Immigration on many occasions to intervene and I personally met a lot of those workers. Many of them came from the North Shore and in fact from Northcote where the Minister is the electorate MP. Unfortunately many of them have had to go home and I do not think that has done our reputation any good at all. 
We acknowledge that it is important that the commencement date for section 474 of the Immigration Act is brought into effect so that the Immigration and Protection Tribunal is appointed and ready when the rest of the Act comes into effect. We will be interested in who the members of that tribunal are. We look forward to hearing the announcement from the Minister. 
As I have said this bill is a very minor and non-controversial amendment and that is why we are supporting it. I congratulate the Minister Jonathan Coleman and his wife on the birth of their child. It is probably a good thing that it happened tonight because we had quite a long list of things we were going to talk about regarding Jonathan Coleman’s errors and embarrassments. In the spirit of a new life coming into the world we will not go there but I do want to talk about decisions made since the Act came into force—decisions that I have already referred to. 
In particular I want to talk about retirement visas for cash—if I may return to that theme—which roll out the welcome mat for the world’s rich retirees. It is discrimination on the basis of wealth. The Minister has made a mistake because that policy was looked at 10 years ago and was dismissed as an expensive mistake by the then Associate Minister Lockwood Smith—in 1999. It was pointed out to him that the benefits of bringing in people of retirement age who contribute cash and sign up to health insurance were marginal while the risks were significant. Those visa holders would receive at least some of their health care from the public system New Zealand taxpayers’ resources pay for that so the retirees would not be paying for themselves. There would be the possibility of lobby groups forming in response as well as the possibility of no health insurance being available. Officials certainly bagged this policy 10 years ago but Minister Coleman has resurrected it. I am not sure why he did not look back at the advice from 10 years ago because nothing has changed. Those risks still exist today and even Jonathan Coleman admits that the benefits of this scheme are marginal at best. He said that the policy is not a huge deal and is unlikely to be a cash cow so we will not be overrun with people. Well he hopes we will not. But as with some of the other decisions the Minister has made since the passage of the Immigration Act 2009 I have to ask what is in it for New Zealand. Will it have any noticeable effect on our economy? I think that is unlikely. I think the potential costs for New Zealand associated with allowing retirement-age migrants to settle here will be greater than the potential investment earnings. 
The number of people granted residency under the family (parent) category has not been increased but those with enough money who fit under the new parent retirement category will have priority. I think that is incredibly unfair. It means that people with most of their family living in New Zealand already but who do not have a lot of money will miss out. As MPs we hear from people who have settled here and want to bring their parents to live with them. But if they have not got the money they will be at the bottom of the list—that is the truth. I think it is very inappropriate to prioritise an investor migrant under the family migrant category which is what that policy does. It is cheque-book immigration. The prize of New Zealand citizenship is being sold to the highest bidder whatever that person’s skills and values. I suppose it could be a make-work programme because we will need lots and lots of caregivers to look after these rich retirees. We already have reports stating that there are not enough caregivers to look after the people who are already in New Zealand. There already is a shortage of caregivers—low-paid caregivers earning the minimum wage. The report I saw said we will have to import more of them. So I suppose that that immigration policy could be a make-work scheme. 
The other decision made under the Immigration Act 2009 that I mentioned earlier relates to the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme. The Minister decided to undermine the requirement that those workers must be paid a minimum wage that includes the cost of their accommodation. I think that is shocking. In the last few weeks there have been a couple of high-profile cases where workers have been paid well below the minimum wage. There are some real questions to be asked. Meantime the Minister has been trumpeting the policy which Labour introduced but Labour put in a lot of safeguards round it which have been removed. Now we are starting to see exploitation of those workers which I think is shameful. 
To return to the bill it is non-controversial and Labour supports it. It has to happen. A lot of work was done on the Immigration Act 2009 and most of it was Labour’s work. Immigration is a very very difficult area. We are not happy with the decisions that the Minster has made since the Act came into force but we will support this amendment. Thank you.