Fenton Darien: Immigration Bill — Third Reading 
Fenton Darien: Immigration Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7650] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 It is a privilege to take a call on the third reading of the Immigration Bill. I acknowledge all of the work that has been done on this bill over many many years. As a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that considered this bill I know that it was a marathon job. It was a marathon job before the select committee received it with work from previous Labour Ministers of Immigration it was a marathon job for the officials and advisers and it was a marathon job for the Hon Mark Gosche who very ably chaired the committee and steered the process through. I acknowledge all of the people who have been involved in putting this bill together and in getting it to the point it has reached. I know that the select committee was very demanding of advisers and officials because there were some concerns and I will talk about those a little bit; we had to deal with some pretty challenging issues 
As my colleagues have said Labour supports this bill but I think that in its third reading it is incumbent on all of us to remember that those on the receiving end of this law are real human beings. We are talking about people here and we must bear in mind that this legislation affects people’s lives. Decisions from this bill affect everyone: they affect the lives of families of children of workers of travellers of refugees and of those who seek to make new lives in New Zealand. We need to bear that in mind but I also agree that New Zealand must have the right to protect its borders and to decide who can live and work here. 
Having said that I also say that we have to ensure our reputation as a country. We have a reputation for treating people fairly humanely and compassionately and I want to ensure that that reputation is retained and that we do not get carried away in this bill and in other measures like it with punitive measures because of the fear of terrorists and others. As the Hon Tau Henare said we live in a pretty peaceful country and we are far away from many other— 
Hon Chris Carter 
: Even in west Auckland! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Even west Auckland is pretty peaceful; that is right. Other people have observed as well that New Zealand has been built on migration from other countries—from the first peoples of our land to our most recent migrants. 
Some of the issues the select committee considered were pretty difficult and I acknowledge the Greens and the Maori Party as well and the work of Keith Locke who was involved in the committee. There were issues around detention classified information and the refugee protection system which are not easy things to deal with. There were many times during the process in the select committee that I felt uncomfortable; we heard some awful things. There was strong opposition to some things in this bill and some people are still unhappy about them—there is no doubt about that. But I assure the Greens and the Maori Party that we worked really hard in the select committee to try to address submitters’ concerns. Again I say it was the able chairpersonship of Mark Gosche that got us through a lot of the issues that we and I think the Greens felt concerned about. Because of that work on balance the resulting bill does the job of both protecting our borders and treating people humanely. 
It is interesting that about 2.5 million people a year cross New Zealand’s borders—our little country has 2.5 million people crossing our borders. That is because people are moving around the world at an unprecedented rate as tourists students workers or permanent migrants and that provides many challenges but also opportunities for New Zealand. There are about half a million applications to come to New Zealand each year—about 500000—and that is why this bill is necessary. It is necessary to modernise the legislation so that we have the tools to manage that sort of increase to manage that large number of people who want to come and live here. 
Labour introduced this bill and we worked hard on it. We worked hard on it with other parties as well because we recognised the realities of the global labour market and the risks in the modern security environment. We should not overstate those risks but they are there and we needed to adapt the immigration system to ensure the best outcomes for our country. 
If we go back to the 1987 Immigration Act we find that it has been amended numerous times. Such amendments have included changes to the removal regime for people unlawfully in New Zealand and the strengthening of provisions to prevent people-smuggling and trafficking. Major changes took place in 1999 with the introduction of New Zealand’s now highly regarded refugee status determination process. At that time Part 4A which enabled the use of classified security information was also introduced. Further changes took place in 2003 with the introduction of the expression of interest approach to the selection of skilled migrants. Although all the amendments to the 1987 Act have led to improvements in the way that the immigration system works they have been incremental and have resulted in increasingly complex legislation. 
The review of the Act that led to this bill sought to address the problems of increasing complexity by making sure that the legislation was as transparent as possible and was also future-proofed. New Zealand has to stay in the race with modern immigration legislation that allows us to build a modern society but also to protect our borders from people who may be a risk. As I said earlier I think the bill provides the right balance between allowing us to choose the migrants we want and need protecting our national interests meeting our international obligations and ensuring that we protect our borders. So this bill will support the immigration system now and into the future to enable firm fast and fair decision-making. 
I have noted that people have taken the opportunity in the third reading to make comments about the future of our country. There have been some very “interesting”—I will not use any other word—observations. I note in particular David Bennett’s comments about encouraging migrants. I think that if we want to encourage migrants to come to this country to live and work we have to do better than we have been doing in the last couple of months. In previous debates I have brought up this issue and I intend to do so again as it is my last opportunity. 
I am talking about the 30 or 40 migrant lines engineers who actually live in Minister Coleman’s own electorate and who were encouraged to come here to work as lines engineers when we needed their skills. Now they have been left high and dry because a new contractor called Visionstream came in and decided to change their employment arrangements from being employees to being owner-operators. But because the migrants were on work permits they could not change over. Those workers have been laid off with no redundancy pay and nothing to tide them over. They cannot continue on as employees as I have said but they have nothing to help them get home; they are not entitled to any welfare benefits. But they are being supported financially by their union. Do members know how that is happening? The public have been making donations to help support them. So those workers are being supported by their union but that support is limited and it will come to an end. They are not legally able to work anywhere else or outside the telecommunications industry. But the sad fact is that they were encouraged to come to New Zealand. They were told that this was a wonderful place and that we needed their skills. Now they have been left high and dry; they will have to go home. I say that we have to do better with employers who want to bring skilled migrants to New Zealand— 
Carol Beaumont 
: They’re people not commodities. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: —that is dead right—then dump them on the scrap heap and say: “Well sorry; off you go—go home.” If we want skilled migrants to come here to live and work we have to do better. I hope we have an ongoing conversation about this particular matter because it is a conversation that needs to take place. Thank you.