Lees-Galloway Iain: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingText is subject to correctionLees-Galloway Iain: Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3091. Text is subject to correction.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):That was an interesting call from the Minister of Immigration. Towards the end of his speech he called on Labour and the Greens to support the legislation in order to demonstrate our support for migrant workers and our desire to prevent their exploitation and to prosecute those employers that do exploit those migrant workers. He said that we should support the legislation simply because those members say it does what they say it does. They say that it will achieve those things—prevent exploitation and prosecute the exploiters. It does not matter whether we think it actually achieves those outcomes or not. This is what the Minister says: “Don’t worry about the details. Don’t actually look at what the legislation does.” It does not matter that the Opposition parties actually considered it in detail at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee listened to what the submitters had to say and listened to what a lot of migrant worker representatives had to say when they came to the select committee and said: “This legislation will not work.” “No no don’t worry about that.” says the Minister “Just vote for it because it will look good.”That is this National Government’s way of doing things actually. Smoke and mirrors—pass legislation that has the right title and has the right purpose clause but actually when you look at the detail it does not do any of the things that it says it is going to do. Well we do not support that approach. We will not support this Government’s window dressing. Sure we supported this legislation’s referral to a select committee because we agree that we do have a problem in this country of migrant workers being exploited. The Minister is absolutely right that there are a number of places around the country that are extremely reliant on migrant workers. For example the Christchurch rebuild is utterly reliant on migrant workers and we thank those migrant workers for coming over to New Zealand and supporting the rebuild. Of course the fact that we are so reliant on migrant workers is because this Government failed to provide the training and the skill development that New Zealanders needed to be able to participate in the rebuild. We have got loads of New Zealanders still sitting on the unemployment benefit because this Government failed to invest in education and skills development so yes we are reliant on those excellent migrant workers who are coming over here and helping us get the job done but we need not be. We need not have all those migrants coming and doing that work. We could have New Zealanders doing that work.In Queenstown the Government has now introduced an exemption so that Queenstown hospitality employers do not have to go through a labour market check to make sure that there are not New Zealanders who could go and work in Queenstown. They can just bring migrants directly in. Well the reason why employers in the Queenstown hospitality sector are struggling to recruit and retain workers is the pay and conditions that they offer. If they are having trouble recruiting and retaining staff then this Government should encourage them to improve the pay and improve the conditions and improve the accommodation that they provide for those workers. That is why we are so reliant on those migrant workers and that is how this Government has actually created the conditions in which more migrant workers are likely to be exploited. That is why it needs to be seen to be doing something in this legislation even though the submitters who came to the select committee told the select committee that it would not work.The Minister mentioned the migrant workers who come here on temporary visas who are entitled to work in New Zealand and said that this legislation would protect them. Well in fact Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard you know very well that there is a group of workers who come to New Zealand on temporary visas whom this legislation will do absolutely nothing for and that is the group of workers who are employed by foreign companies to come and work in New Zealand. There are workers as you know in your electorate at the Hutt workshop—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yes yes.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think even though the member knows I have some interest in this area it is not appropriate to bring me into the debate while I am in the Chair.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: That is true and I apologise. There are workers at the Hutt workshop who have worked in New Zealand for 6 months—that is what I am told. They worked in New Zealand for 6 months and yet the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety insists that they do not need to be covered by New Zealand employment law. So they do not get the right to the minimum wage. They do not get the right to sick leave. They do not get the right to bereavement leave. They do not get the right to annual leave. They do not get the right to be covered by health and safety law. They do not get the right to be covered by the Employment Relations Act. And that Minister is comfortable with that. They will not be covered by this legislation either. That Minister over there is absolutely comfortable with workers coming to New Zealand working in this country and not being subject to the minimum standards not being protected by the minimum standards that New Zealand law provides for.That is an outrage. It is an absolute outrage that that Government is prepared to allow those workers to be potentially exploited by their employer. Are they being exploited? We do not know because those workers were not prepared to tell—Ian McKelvie: Go and ask them.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Ah Mr McKelvie says: “Go and ask them.” Well Mr McKelvie you obviously have not been paying attention because a labour inspector did go and ask them and for whatever reason those workers refused to tell the labour inspector what their wages are. The Minister triumphantly said in the House yesterday that that was absolutely the right thing to do—to tell the labour inspector to butt out because that was a matter a private matter between those workers and their employer. Well if those workers were covered by New Zealand employment law that would be a matter for the labour inspector because under the Minimum Wage Act the labour inspector is absolutely entitled to ask for information relating to the wages those workers receive.I think actually that that legislation should apply. It should be possible for the labour inspector to find out whether those workers working in New Zealand are receiving the basic minimum requirements that any other worker in New Zealand should be allowed to receive. It is a wonder that a labour inspector even got in there in the first place because we have so few labour inspectors. We have so many examples of the minimum requirements that are expected under New Zealand employment legislation being absolutely flouted by employers because there are so few labour inspectors that it is highly unlikely that they will get caught doing it. This legislation will not make a lot of difference to those most extraordinarily vulnerable migrant workers. Even if it did the job it was supposed to do even if we felt we could support it that Minister believes that because it is New Zealand employment law and New Zealand immigration law it does not apply to those vulnerable migrant workers and that is an absolute outrage.Actually the Minister covered the reasons why we are opposed to this legislation. We do believe that the powers of search and surveillance that are going to be given to immigration officers will actually act as a disincentive for migrants to come forward and report unreasonable exploitative practices by their employers. We also agree with the Legislation Advisory Committee’s concerns that the proposed immigration levy is too broad and in fact actually acts as a tax. That would have been an easy matter to tidy up but this Government refused to do that. We think that the result of this legislation will not be to make migrant workers feel more secure in the workplace will not be to encourage them to speak up and alert the authorities to exploitative behaviour but will in fact do the exact opposite and make those workers more vulnerable.It is all very well for the Minister to say that if Labour wants to look like it is supporting migrant workers it would vote for this legislation. We are not interested simply in looking like we support migrant workers; we are interested in really supporting migrant workers. That means all migrant workers whether they are employed by New Zealand companies New Zealand individuals or foreign companies. They should all get the same protections and we should be working hard to enhance those protections not diminish them in the way that that Minister and this Government continue to do.