Wong Pansy: Immigration Bill — First Reading 
Wong Pansy: Immigration Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11237] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I am a bit puzzled by the claim made by the member who has just sat down Lynne Pillay of Waitakere. She seemed to suggest that this will be the first time New Zealand has had the immigration practice of not allowing people with criminal records to enter the country. I thought we always had legislation in place so that people with criminal records would not be accepted under the immigration policy. It must be quite painful for Government backbenchers to always have to stand up and make a standard speech that is complimentary to the Minister. 
The other thing the member mentioned about this legislation was that it complements the Labour Government’s policy on families. The member may not have heard about the complaints I hear. I have a long string of complaints coming into my office and I remind the Minister of Immigration of that. Apparently the family quota for 2007-08 is already full. We have not even got through the first months of that year and the family quota is already full. Many constituents have written to me asking why the Labour Government says it is supporting families when they cannot bring a family member into the country. 
This Minister will soon not be able to continue to use his standard excuse. Whenever anybody raises a problem in the immigration area the Minister’s standard response is to tell that person to wait until the Immigration Bill has been passed without explaining to people that this bill is framework legislation. Most people have a problem with the immigration policy. As Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith has already indicated National is supportive of this bill and its referral to the select committee. The completed passage of this bill following its amendment at the select committee will remove the last excuse of this Minister who is overseeing the sinking ship known as Immigration New Zealand. Why do I use that term? Because most of the problems are to do with immigration policy and practices and also the attitude and competence of the people in the Immigration Service. 
I want to welcome New Zealand First’s stand which is quite unusual for me. New Zealand First at long last has come around and supported a National Party initiative. At the last election we said that Immigration New Zealand needed to be a stand-alone department. Is that not right Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith? The Immigration Service needs to be a stand-alone ministry and needs to be staffed with highly competent people. It took New Zealand First about 4 years to wake up to the fact that the Immigration Service should be a stand-alone department and that the decision-making process should be transparent. This is a serious point. Because we have a legislative framework without competent personnel working in that framework I am not sure how the further delegation of authority to immigration officials will work out. 
I will give everybody an example. A constituent wrote to me. His work permit was due to expire in 2 months’ time so he lodged an application for renewal of his work visa. Everybody would think that 2 months would be plenty of time for that person. Well apparently the Immigration Service said that his medical certificate needed to be referred for another assessment by a health professional. By the time he received that notice he was 4 weeks down the track and then that assessment was to take another 3 weeks. So he panicked and said that that would force him into the position of being an overstayer. When the medical certificate came back he had only 1 week and knowing the Immigration Service he realised it would never make a decision within 1 week. 
When my constituent wrote to the Immigration Service it gave him two options. It said that option 1 was that he could take the risk and become an overstayer in New Zealand. Imagine getting that advice from the Immigration Service! Option 2 was that he could withdraw his application and return to his homeland. What sort of service does the Immigration Service provide? Here we are trying to pass a bill to give the service greater delegated authority. 
I also want to remind the Minister that when the legislation was passed to regulate immigration consultants the Minister actually singled out the integrity of immigration staff as being doubtful. The Minister introduced a provision stating that any immigration official who was involved with issuing visas or determining refugee status was not allowed to practise as an immigration consultant for 12 months after leaving the service. So here we go. The Minister showed he has no confidence in the staff’s integrity and competence by not allowing them to practise as immigration consultants yet here we are being asked to pass legislation to give them more discretion and more authority. I cannot reconcile those two things. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Would the member who is speaking be kind enough to confirm the name of the bill to which she is currently speaking? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member was mostly speaking to the Immigration Bill. She did stray a little then but I think it is still in the same context. 
PANSY WONG 
: He is a very very touchy Minister is he not? I am talking about the delegated powers contained in this legislation and I can assure that very touchy Minister that the passage of this legislation will not save his skin because of all the problems in the immigration area. 
I also want to once again endorse the comment made by our very learned hard-working Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith about the possible unfair workload that is being imposed on employers and education providers under this legislation. New Zealand employers literally operate as tax agents for the Inland Revenue Department in doing all sorts of paperwork for the Government. One has to ask why the Inland Revenue Department cannot utilise a better framework before it assigns an IRD number to individuals. I think that would be a fair ask. Why can the Government department that collects tax not be asked to scrutinise the immigration status of people who are acquiring an IRD number? In the select committee we will raise that issue and ask what extra resources would need to be allocated to the Immigration Service so it could have a dedicated system to help employers get that information if the bill passes in its present form. I want to know whether there could be a dedicated system or a telephone line so that employers and education providers could pick up the phone say that so-and-so is applying for work etc. and ask the service to confirm that the person has a valid visa. National would demand that unless there are changes in legislation. Otherwise we want dedicated quantified resources to be provided in order to be fair to employers. 
 The other issue I want to raise concerns more power being delegated to officials in terms of detaining people. In principle one agrees to that because of the increasing risk in terms of border control. But once again at the select committee we will want to know how much more training is needed and what assurance can be given to members in relation to the competence of the people who will exercise those powers. 
So although we support the bill going to the select committee we will be asking a lot of hard questions and expecting full answers before we see this bill come back to the House.