Cunliffe David: Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8597] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to speak in the Committee stage on the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill. We have had a very passionate contribution from my friend and colleague the Hon Chris Carter who has been detailing his hard work in the weekends at his local electorate office. Since I have been in the chair we have had two contributions from Opposition members. Although I appreciate their strong support for this bill I must say that I found their contributions somewhat confusing. It may help if I address their contributions in order. 
Ms Wong argued that the 1-year stand-down did not go far enough. In an act of flagrant disloyalty to her former colleague the Hon TuarikiDelamere she said it would not have been effective in preventing him from committing corrupt practices because he left Parliament more than 1 year ago. I thought she was going to propose an amendment to extend the stand-down period but I understand that she has in fact in a blinding flash of reverse logic tabled an amendment to remove the stand-down period of 1 year that is already proposed. 
Occasionally as colleagues know the Opposition suggests that foreign diplomatic posts can become a form of retirement programme for former Ministers and MPs. What is clearly the case with the current Opposition is that the immigration advisory industry is the retirement programme for the National caucus. There is the Hon Aussie Malcolm who is one of the more respected and longstanding consultants in the industry. There is TuarikiDelamere who apparently mounted a defence in the Golden Harvest Investment and Trust case along the lines of arguing that yes the money was moved around but that he did not think it was illegal at the time because he had written the legislation. That is kind of interesting but we respect the judgment of the court. Then there is Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith who is quite concerned about this bill because he has his eyes on retirement at the next election and he wants to make sure there is a job for him to go to. I suspect that there has been some communication on the National benches between him and Ms Wong to ensure that he does not have to resort to driving taxis which seems to be her alternative to becoming an immigration adviser. 
The good Dr Smith raised another rather spurious but interesting question in conveying his strong support for the bill which was the allegation that Supplementary Order Paper 104 in my name was a major change that would somehow bring in a brand-new levy. Well in fact I say to Dr Smith that I am advised that the Supplementary Order Paper makes no necessary difference at all to the amount that is being charged to the industry. All that it does—and the member asked the reason for the change—on advice from the legal teams is to make it clear that it is appropriate to split the amount between fees and levies. The fee is for the actual delivery of the licence; the levy is to fund services received indirectly. That is a technical amendment based on the appropriate definition of fees and levies. It makes no difference at all to the amount of revenue that may or may not be charged. It cannot be very long ago that Dr Smith was a Minister—maybe it is but it is not as long as it is going to be—so he may remember the Treasury guidelines for setting fee regulations. One can—in fact one should—charge cost recovery but one cannot charge more than cost recovery. Within that framework it matters not to the amount charged whether it is called a fee or a levy; the same amount would be charged. 
In concluding this brief call I say that it is important for us to recognise why we are here. We are here because ordinary New Zealanders ordinary new New Zealanders and aspiring New Zealanders have suffered and been hurt by a few unscrupulous immigration advisers who give the industry a bad name. They give the industry a bad name and they actually hurt their colleagues as well as their clients. Now I know colleagues have a number of cases that they would like to relate. I am not going to name one but I will say that I was at a function I think it was with Dr Sharples at Hoani Waititi Marae. A constituent came up to me described his immigration case and asked me what he could do. It was clearly a case for which there was no hope. The gentleman concerned met no criteria for any migration category that I could consider and that was blindingly obvious at the time. But he had approached an immigration adviser who had said: “Give me $1500 down now. Come back tomorrow with another $3000 and I should be able to work on this case. If you come back a week later with another $3000 I think I can pretty much turn the trick for you.” There was no physical way—no humanly possible way—that any consultant or indeed any Minister could have got that man through because he just did not qualify. But that did not stop that adviser from ripping him off to the tune of some $7000. 
I will speak later about the proposed amendments from the Maori Party but I see that the good Dr Smith is reaching boiling point again so it is probably a good time for me to resume my seat and allow the Opposition to take a call.