Dalziel Lianne: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Dalziel Lianne: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6777] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I am taking a call on Part 8 of the Immigration Bill because I want to ask a question about clause 245 “Powers of entry and inspection relating to records of education providers”. I want a bit of clarification about one of the paragraphs in subclause (4) which refers to the exercise of powers by immigration officers. It provides that an immigration officer may enter any part of an education provider’s premises in which the officer reasonably believes that information or a record is held that would enable the officer to identify somebody who should not be in New Zealand. Subclause (3) states: “The powers in subsection (4) may not be exercised in relation to a person undertaking compulsory education or any member of the family of such a person.” 
Given the provision that enables the Minister of Education to intervene under the Education Act to allow access to education for the children of overstayers I ask whether clause 245 in fact lets all secondary and primary schools off the hook as far as the power to inspect their records is concerned. It is expressed not in relation to the provider but in relation to the person who is undertaking compulsory education and I ask whether the child of an overstayer is undertaking compulsory education. I ask whether the language used here is sufficient to provide the level of protection that is needed. A lot of schools are nervous about enrolling children who are not legally allowed to be enrolled even though at the moment schools have Cabinet authority to do so and under this new legislation would have authority to do so as long as the Minister of Education addressed that issue. The question I am asking is this: is the wording of clause 245 strong enough to provide protection from a school being used as the place where someone who is looking for overstayers and their family members goes to access information on their children? That is one of the fears that people have. 
I watched a television programme a few weeks ago that interviewed an overstaying family and in particular the children about how they felt about not being at school. The thing that came up for me was the sense of fear in the family that if they sent their children to school that would somehow be a means by which they would be caught out traced back to where they were staying and sent home. I just wonder whether the language of clause 245 is sufficiently strong to send the message that the issue is not just about a person who is undertaking compulsory education. We are actually talking about our compulsory education facilities and about anyone who is of an age that means that person would otherwise be in compulsory education if he or she were a New Zealand resident or citizen and entitled to use our education facilities. I think that the language of clause 245 may not be sufficiently strong to give people assurance on that issue. 
The second point I want to talk about is the health issue. The health rules were introduced as a result I think of decisions that were made when I was the Minister of Immigration. They were very important in terms of sending a very clear message about what it was that was acceptable by way of an application for residence to New Zealand in terms of the applicant’s health status and also his or her disability status as well. Again that issue links into education because we had a large number of people coming from a particular country. Parents from that country would get residence come to New Zealand and essentially one parent—normally the father—would go back to the home country to continue to run a business there while mum stayed here with their child and enrolled that child in a special school in Auckland. A significant number of such children were in that particular school. The school was designed specifically for the purpose of ensuring that there was not the issue of gaining access to taxpayer-funded institutions; it was designed essentially to get around the immigration rules by taking advantage of that situation. 
The difficulty with regard to this issue though is that the quality of information that is gathered and the decision that is made will sometimes be two different things. Somebody may not be entitled to access the public health system when he or she arrives— 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted.