McDowall James; Stanford Erica; Radhakrishnan PriyancaDr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. Well based on that response—well in fact part of that response—I do sincerely hope the target of this bill is not specific purpose work visa holders because it would just be getting weirder and weirder at that point. There are certainly valid concerns that our colleagues in the National Party have raised here regarding accreditation and what difference does this bill actually make so definitely some issues there.One thing the Minister said previously is that employers will have existing relationships with Immigration New Zealand and therein lies one of the major problems here is that if you've got an employer who doesn't have that relationship who is hiring migrants unlawfully they're going to be completely missed by this. And in terms of the other aspects for the high-level offences in the immigration system they're probably going to be missed by that as well. So I don't think the issue of exploitation is sufficiently being addressed in this bill or in the immigration system because ultimately—and this is one area I'd like the Minister to actually talk about—the problem here with exploitation is tying migrant visas to employers. That was required under essential skills back in the day it's required under the accreditation system—an Accredited Employer Work Visa. From our party's perspective we should be doing away with these sorts of visas.But I would like the Minister to just reflect on that and give her opinion on that because to solve a lot of these exploitation issues these abusive relationships between bad employers and good employees—or good-intentioned employees—would be solved if they could move around freely and weren't beholden to that employer. I do have another few questions but I'll leave that section there.ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Chair. I just want to put on the record the Minister's comments before to my questions around flexibility when I mentioned for example a nurse is running a couple of hours late and a migrant nurse covers that shift for two hours and that puts her over her number of hours for the week. The Minister has very clearly stated tonight that it is her absolute intention that every low-level breach if it is found by a desk-based officer when they are going through these records an infringement notice will—well I asked the question Is there any flexibility?" and the Minister said "It is to nip these types of things in the bud; it shouldn't be happening and if it's found then they will be nipped in the bud." So my understanding from that comment is that if a desk-based officer finds that a migrant nurse has worked over her hours by one or two because she was covering a shift for another nurse who was running late then that will result in an infringement offence and an infringement notice on that employer who was just trying to do the right thing. So if I'm wrong in that and there is some leeway and it doesn't necessarily always end up in an infringement offence because there is some flexibility by the desk-based officer to not issue that infringement notice then I'm happy to hear that but from the Minister's comments about "nipping all of these low-level breaches in the bud no matter what the circumstance"—then I'd be happy to hear that.I want to talk about the—just carrying on from what my colleague Melissa Lee has been talking about we've had a problem the whole way along in this bill around the fact that there are no reasonable grounds for requesting these documents. Now many submitters—we've traversed this already in the second reading—also made that same argument and they did say that this would end up in fishing expeditions. It is stated in the departmental report though that it says "Immigration New Zealand will develop a process that prioritises high-risk employers for desk-based requests." So things like triangular business models franchises industries with high-risk or historical issues so there will be a process to prioritise these high-risk employers. And our point all along and my point tonight is why is it that we can't have that in the bill specified that the reasonable grounds will be based on these high-risk employers that we already know about—the triangular business models the franchises the higher-risk businesses with historical issues around migrant exploitation—rather than "You can do anyone anytime anytime you like"? Because what is to stop a desk-based officer going after the same employer every single month for 12 months? There's nothing in the bill that stops them from doing that. It could be a weekly or monthly request for this low-level offending.So my question to the Minister is: why is it that there was no leeway at all even though Immigration New Zealand have said that they will develop a process to prioritise these high-risk employers that they already know about? If that's the case then why not just write it into the bill so we have some reasonable grounds clause so that we don't get exactly what my colleague Melissa Lee was talking about which is for all intents and purposes a fishing expedition?Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Associate Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): So a couple of things here. To the points that were raised around migrants being employed unlawfully who won't be captured by this bill that is correct. As I've said already in the House time and time again this bill does not claim to be a silver bullet that will end migrant exploitation. The point of this bill is to nip lower-level offending in the bud before it becomes severe offending. There are other ways in which other unlawful activity can be captured and dealt with. For example as I've mentioned again at least five times in the House tonight section 277 allows search powers for higherlevel offending to be captured and dealt with. Again it's about striking that balance between ensuring that employers can fill genuine skills shortages but ensuring also that migrant workers are not exploited. This is one measure that we're taking to be able to do that. Our Government has brought in a series of measures to tackle migrant exploitation from various angles and that is what is needed because there is no silver bullet to end this.In terms of flexibility for nurses this is exactly the problem with using hypothetical examples because migrant nurses for example don't have working hours as part of their visa conditions. So the example that the member provided cannot actually happen. So I will go back to the point that I made: that low-level offending often becomes severe offending. The tools that we are wanting to give immigration officers and the Labour Inspectorate to align those powers and tools is to ensure that we can nip lower-level offending in the bud and that's what this bill aims to do.In terms of high-risk industries or companies that is correct: there is as I mentioned already previously immigration intelligence that gives Immigration some sense of where the high-risk behaviour happens. So they are developing a risk-based prioritisation process as I mentioned. The reason there's no necessity for reasonable grounds in this legislation again as I have said on multiple occasions in this House previously is because the document production powers of this bill enables reasonably unobtrusive powers because all they are doing is requiring employers to show documentation that they already have to hold legally under the law. So it is not an obtrusive power of search entry but it's just one of showing the records that you already need to hold if you hire a migrant. So there's no need for reasonable grounds; that would preclude us from being proactive in terms of compliance."