10. Question No. 10—ImmigrationRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister of ImmigrationQuestion No. 10—Immigration10. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he agree that disabled migrants are discriminated against by the acceptable standard of health criteria in immigration policy; if so will he commit to an immigration system that upholds the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister of Immigration: On behalf of the Minister of Immigration this Government supports inclusive policies for migrants with disabilities. This does need to be balanced with ensuring that people who apply to move here will not place significant demands on our health system which has a finite capacity to provide for the universal healthcare needs of New Zealanders. That is why we have a threshold test. Partners and dependent children of New Zealand citizens and residents and refugees will ordinarily be granted a waiver of that threshold even if it's not met. A balance is appropriate. The Government is reviewing whether the current threshold is appropriate but is not proposing to remove all thresholds.Ricardo Menéndez March: Does he think it's inclusive to send Ruby a four-year-old girl who was born here back to Ireland due to her TBCK diagnosis and reflective of the value of care and inclusivity that this Government claims to uphold?SPEAKER: Order! Can I just check whether the member has the agreement of the family to bring that person up in the House? I'm not going to rule the question out but members normally do when they're bringing up a very specific individual immigration case like that make it clear that they're doing it with the permission of the people involved.Ricardo Menéndez March: Yes. Hon DAVID PARKER: There will always be difficult cases where individuals do not meet immigration requirements and there is a waiver system to ensure that discretion remains but that does not mean that the discretion will always be exercised in favour of waiver of rules.Ricardo Menéndez March: Why is he applying the discriminatory acceptable standard of health policy to convention and community sponsorship refugees and does he think this is a humanitarian approach to refugee resettlement?Hon DAVID PARKER: Answering as I am on behalf of the Minister I'm not briefed on that particular issue so if the member would like to either ask that when the Minister is in the House or put down a written question I'm sure that could be addressed.Ricardo Menéndez March: Will he commit to working with disabled people and the Office for Disability Issues to review the acceptable standard of health policy and if not why not?Hon DAVID PARKER: As I said in answer to an earlier question the threshold is being reviewed but it's not proposed to drop it.Ricardo Menéndez March: Why is he only choosing to review the $41000 acceptable standard of health cost threshold given that recommendations from the disability convention's Independent Monitoring Mechanism migrants personally impacted the Office for Disability Issues and the Education and Workforce Committee all point to the need to either remove this policy or carry out a much wider review?Hon DAVID PARKER: Because we do not believe it is either necessary or appropriate.