Salesa JennyHon JENNY SALESA (Labour—Panmure-Ōtāhuhu): Talofa lava. Happy Samoan Language Week. Manuia le Vāiaso o le Gagana Samoa. I appreciate this opportunity to debate the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. This bill came through the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. We received over 300 submissions. Most of them were either in opposition or in strong opposition against this bill. Only four were in support. I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Immigration the Hon Erica Stanford for taking on board a lot of the concerns that so many of the submitters made during the select committee process and making quite a number of changes to safeguard this bill and to ensure that this amendment bill that we have before us is much improved.People seeking asylum and refugees who come to Aotearoa New Zealand whether they come by boats or whether they come by plane they have certain protections under the 1951 Refugee Convention as well as the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.The 1951 Refugee Convention recognises that by virtue of fleeing persecution often in urgent and dire circumstances people seeking a safe haven may be forced to enter a country without the required documentation and without the legal authorisation that they often need before entering another country. But we've been concerned about what happens when refugees and asylum seekers come to our country which is why a few years ago we commissioned a review on this issue.This review was completed by Victoria Casey KC and she made several recommendations to improve the asylum and refugee processes and to ensure that they are aligned with both New Zealand's legal standards as well as our international obligations.I won't go through all of the recommendations that she made but I would just like to highlight a few. One of the recommendations that Victoria Casey KC made is first that detention should only be used as an exceptional measure of last resort. Detention must be individually justified and regularly reviewed in order to ensure that it remains necessary.I believe that adding additional safeguards to the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill especially in the complex and often challenging landscape that immigration deals with—we've heard from many of the speakers at the first reading second reading and third reading that the likelihood of a boat arriving in the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand is actually very low. However we believe that it's still crucial that if such an event were to occur we balance the need for national security with our commitment to human rights and to ensuring that we uphold the dignity of all the people that arrive.One of the other recommendations that Victoria Casey KC made is that we should protect the family unity and children's rights. I want to point out that this is also an amendment that my colleague the Hon Phil Twyford tried to make but unfortunately it didn't go through.Victoria Casey recommended that detention practices should prioritise keeping families together and ensure that the rights of our children are fully upheld. This includes providing appropriate facilities and support services for the children and families to minimise the impact of detention on their wellbeing. We should ensure that family members are kept together especially if they are detained. We know that the separation of families particularly parents and children can have devastating emotional and psychological impacts. We're concerned at the fact that this bill actually does not ensure that families will be kept together. Children should not be subjected to the same conditions we believe as adults in detention. Their rights to education to recreation and to psychological support must be prioritised. Ensuring that our children's rights are upheld in detention not only complies with our obligations against international conventions but it also I believe reflects on our compassion and our humanity as a society.It is unfortunate that the extra safeguards did not go through but I concur with my colleague Camilla Belich that if indeed the event of a mass arrival is to occur sometime in the future hopefully we can revisit these issues. Malo le soifua.