Cunliffe David: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6755] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 One of the saddest things about the Minister’s amendments is that they weigh against—and to some extent they undo—so much of the good work that the select committee has done to ensure an appropriate balance is taken for human rights and civil liberties. Four amendments were mentioned by my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel New Zealand’s finest Minister of Immigration—she has paid me again to say that; no she has not that would be treating and would probably be against some law or other. There you go that may be taken as an implied waiver of confidentiality! 
If one were getting political about that issue one just for a moment could observe that the current Government is getting a little bit of a name for waiving confidentiality. The Minister for Social Development— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Look at Paula Bennett—outrageous! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Exactly. We never hear from the MP for Waitakere when it comes to protecting the trees in the Waitakeres but as Minister she is busy releasing the personal details of beneficiaries to the media. That cannot be right. It just cannot be right or decent. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: What has that got to do with this? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It is a waiver of confidentiality that was implied by that Minister in that case. The point is that it is a conflict of interest if we really want to come down to it. The decision maker who has a political interest in the decision is the person who judges whether confidentiality has been waived. As my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel has said let us suppose a refugee claimant makes a statement to a journalist but in doing so does not appreciate what it will lead to. He or she makes the statement on the way to a hearing. The Government thinks it then has the right to waive all confidentiality about the case. Thereby apart from anything else it opens up the possibility that the person’s personal details are released and that actually makes the whole situation worse. 
But for the life of me I cannot understand why the Government would make this change. It is against the run of the current of the rest of the bill. The Government has every reason to be proud of the rest of the bill proud of the select committee process proud of the thoroughness of the drafting and proud of the fact that it has incorporated the recommendations of the select committee some of which it would have thought very carefully about. This is very very good legislation. It is a shame that its international reputation will be sullied by these amendments which run against the current of adequate protection of human rights. The Minister has probably weighed this up. He has probably thought through this. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: We don’t know; we haven’t heard from him. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: We look forward to hearing from him. He is a Minister of some substance; I am sure he could put a case to the Committee. We do not want the public to think the worst of it—well actually Labour would want the public to think the worst of the Government in all truth in a moment of reflective honesty there. Let us presume the Minister does not want the public to think the worst of him and that he wants it to think the best of the Government’s rationale for these changes. 
There must be a logical reason that transcends simply one or two cases of Iranian Christians whose details were put out in the media and who had a pretty strong track record of support from the churches into which they were integrated. In the Yadegary case the Refugee Status Appeals Authority said the claim was valid on its merits and that refugee status should be awarded. In the Panah case refugee status was granted to him because the situation had become so complex in the media. It was a difficult case. He was on a hunger strike. It was right that he was released into the community in order to get him off the hunger strike; otherwise he would have died. The blood of that refugee would be on the conscience of the Crown; that is what this came down to. 
But what would that case have been like under this bill? Would Ali Panah have released himself into the care of the church to face a further rigorous appeal process if this clause were on the books? No he probably would have starved himself to death which is what he was very close to doing before a peace was brokered. 
I ask the Minister to think in very good conscience about the unintended implications of this clause. It is bad for the Government’s reputation and as Lianne Dalziel said it is bad for the country’s reputation. This is a jolly good bill. It balances necessary border protection with admirable human rights protection; these amendments do not.