Fenton Darien: Immigration Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Immigration Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 13 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11153. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour):I think it is very disappointing that on World Refugee Day we are having the third reading of the Immigration Amendment Bill.Hon Michael Woodhouse: It’s not World Refugee Day. That’s 20 June.DARIEN FENTON: Well 20 June but the Minister—Chris Auchinvole: Oh only a few days away!DARIEN FENTON: Except that it was recognised in Parliament today—and there was the Minister of Immigration making nice speeches about refugees. So he is allowed to have it ahead of time but we are not allowed to mention it. It is really important that we remember what World Refugee Day is about and it is about remembering the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its importance. The theme of this year’s World Refugee Day is that one family torn apart by conflict is one too many. Ban Ki-moon has said: “On World Refugee Day let us reaffirm the importance of solidarity and burden-sharing by the international community.” There is nothing in this bill that speaks to that plea from Ban Ki-moon and there is nothing to celebrate in Parliament on World Refugee Day.It did not have to be like this. The Minister in charge of the bill Michael Woodhouse was not a Minister when the bill had its first reading. The Minister of Immigration at that time was Nathan Guy as has been mentioned. Early on in the process I wrote to Nathan Guy about this bill and I said to him that apart from one submission—this is a fact—all submitters had expressed serious concern about the bill. They included organisations with significant human rights and refugee experience and they have expressed their concern that the bill is a significant change in direction away from New Zealand’s traditional and very positive approach to asylum seekers and refugees. They warned that the bill is a risk to our reputation as a good international citizen. They have also raised important questions about the bill’s compatibility with New Zealand’s obligations under the 1951 convention and other human rights treaties to which New Zealand is a party. The Minister can spin all he likes but there are serious concerns about this.My letter went on to say: “Labour is particularly concerned that this bill may become a political football in the way that the detention and treatment of asylum seekers has become in Australia and we are keen to explore whether there are alternatives to this. Many submitters have suggested the need for a cross-party accord and I am writing to ask if you would be prepared to meet to explore the potential for this.”I did have a meeting with him. The Greens were supportive. Peter Dunne was supportive. The Māori Party was supportive. New Zealand First was supportive. It was a 5-minute meeting where this idea of a cross-party approach instead of this sledgehammer of a bill was essentially ignored which I think was extremely disappointing for those of us who oppose this bill and who sat through the select committee hearings and met with various refugee organisations like Amnesty International the Human Rights Commission and so on. I know the Minister made very very clear his disdain for those organisations during the Committee stage of thebill. However that was a genuine attempt not a political attempt—a genuine attempt—to try to find some cross-party solution so that we do not end up in a situation like they have in Australia where neither main political party can get itself out of the mess that is now the asylum seeker detention policy.It does not matter what they do and it does not matter which Government they have they have enormous difficulties with that and they have tried on occasion to change it but it has now become a political issue—it is about who can be the toughest. We have Tony Abbott campaigning in the Australian election campaign about how they are going to get even tougher on asylum seekers and will continue to lock them up. It ends in tragedy so many times as we saw in the case of a boat of asylum seekers that sank last week—they all drowned. But also there is any amount of evidence that that policy not only does not work but is expensive. Locking people up and providing the barbed wire approach that they have in Australia is much much more expensive than actually placing people in the community while they are processed.We had all these figures and we had all this evidence. We also had evidence during the submissions on the bill that there is nothing about punishing the victims the asylum seekers—absolutely nothing—that stops people-smuggling. So this whole idea that it is going to deter people-smugglers is quite ridiculous.I think and I am absolutely convinced that this is about our relationship—John Key and the Minister of Immigration hobnobbing with the big boys the big white five including the US the UK Australia and Canada. It is no accident actually that the Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration came down to New Zealand and had a couple of secret meetings with the Government to deal with a mass arrival and did not need to change anything that we had the systems in place and that he was confident that that could be dealt with.That was in May 2011. This bill was introduced in May 2012. It is now June 2013. How many boats of asylum seekers have arrived in that time?Hon Ruth Dyson: How many?DARIEN FENTON: How many—how many? You cannot think of any.Hon Ruth Dyson: Fewer than 10.DARIEN FENTON: Fewer than 10? Fewer than 30? No actually there have been none. The Minister would like us to believe that a boatload of asylum seekers who arrived in Australia waving a flag and saying they would like to come to New Zealand constitutes a threat—that it constitutes a threat. We all know how ridiculous that is. The chances of a leaky boat coming from Australia—in fact one of them was on the wrong side of Australia so they are going the wrong way—and making it here are just incredibly small. So this is much more about hobnobbing as I said and signing up to secret deals with other countries so that we can be seen to be in the same league as them.We did see that with Mr John Key when he met with Julia Gillard and gave away 150 of our precious refugee quota to Australia. He said it was giving them a helping hand but what it has done is reduce 150 places for other desperate people from around the world who will never be able to come here as refugees because we have agreed to take 150 from Australia. You know that was apparently a helping hand but I have not been able to find any evidence that the Prime Minister or the Minister of Immigration was advised about that or sought advice on that policy. There is nothing. There was nothing. I think he made it up on the day because he thought it might make him look good with Julia. And as I say the consequences of that are that 150 potential refugees who are sitting in camps in desperate war-torn countries with their children and who have been there in many cases for years—you know people on the Syrian border inthe Syrian conflict at the moment—will never have a chance to come to New Zealand as part of our quota because we have agreed to help Australia out.I just want to dispute one little thing about the convention if I may. Article 31 says that there should be no presumption by receiving Governments as to whether the claim of any particular asylum seeker is or is not genuine. The genuineness of each claim should be determined only after due process. I mean there is a lot in article 31—a lot more than the Minister read out actually—and it is a very very clever and well-crafted convention. But what that means is that we are breaching that part of the convention because we are presuming these people are guilty. We are presuming that by detaining them. We are presuming they are guilty by detaining them and detaining them for up to 6 months.I want to finish by saying that this bill is unnecessary. It is an overreaction to a non-existent problem. It will be a stain on our international reputation.