Beaumont Carol: Immigration Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Immigration Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:10947. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour):I appreciate the opportunity to join with colleagues in opposing this bill the Immigration Amendment Bill. It was very interesting listening to the Minister of Immigration’s explanation and I hope that during the course of what I am sure will be a very long Committee stage we will get down to some of the nitty-gritty as he talks about.Essentially the aim of this bill is supposedly to amend the Immigration Act 2009 to enhance New Zealand’s ability to deter people-smuggling to New Zealand and then itdefines a mass arrival group and allows for mandatory detention. I intend in speaking on Part 1 to focus primarily on clause 12 but before I do that I just want to say that the underlying reasons that we will not be supporting this bill are quite important ones as others have said. We believe that it is punitive and unnecessary. We believe that it is a significant shift in direction from New Zealand’s longstanding support of the 1951 refugee convention and that this bill will undermine New Zealand’s reputation as a positive and constructive global player. That is a reputation that we I think as New Zealanders are proud of and this kind of bill will undermine that reputation.The other thing I think is interesting is that our Prime Minister John Key has said that New Zealand was ready to deal with a boatload of asylum seekers. We have got quotes of him saying exactly that. He said that we did not need to change any legislation that we already had any provisions we needed in place. That is what he said in July 2011 Minister. I do not know why he or you have suddenly decided that this is so urgent but I do have to question what this Government prioritises in its legislative agenda. I want to come back to that because actually this bill is unnecessary but there are many important bills that are languishing on the Order Paper that we should be dealing with.To talk again about our international reputation one of the areas particularly has been that we have been highly regarded internationally for our refugee policies. In comparison with our neighbours across the Tasman our reputation is a good one and I think most New Zealanders even people who do not follow these matters very closely will know that Australia’s reputation has been severely tarnished and damaged by the way that it has treated people and by the mandatory detention provisions that are in place in that country. That has cost Australia’s reputation internationally and the cost of that detention in 2011 was $137317 per year per person. It is not an option that we want to look at in this country. I like others will be talking about my colleague Darien Fenton’s Supplementary Order Papers.Clause 12 is the operative clause in this part. It is the one that actually sets in place the various provisions to put this into effect. In clause 12 we have all of the provisions around actually obtaining the detention orders. It is the most significant clause and it provides for a mass arrival warrant to be issued. As my colleague David Clark has mentioned Darien Fenton has Supplementary Order Paper 244 which would amend the section in clause 12 to make detentions at the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre in the first instance and to ensure that refugees are not housed together with prisoners. If this bill is going to go through there are things that the Minister could do to mitigate some of the worst provisions.Another Supplementary Order Paper in the name of my colleague Darien Fenton Supplementary Order Paper 246 inserts a new section 317BA to require adequate health care and psychological support services to be available to refugees. Again I think about what we all see and know about the Australian situation: absolute psychological problems the suicides the mental illness and all of those other things. Again most New Zealanders even those who do not follow this sort of thing closely would know they happen to people who are already stressed who are already in terrible terrible situations who have arrived in a terrible state and then are put into detention. What is the cost of that—the human cost of that? This Supplementary Order Paper 246 is also one that we will be supporting. We think it is a sensible suggestion which the Minister did not comment on when he was talking about the various amendments that are on the Table.