Immigration Amendment Bill

I move, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Immigration Amendment Bill that it have the power to consider and, if it thinks fit, adopt the amendments set out in Supplementary Order Paper 131.

I begin by thanking the parties in the House that have responded positively to my request that support be given to the Supplementary Order Paper in my name. I apologise for the lateness of the advice to parties; however, the High Court decision that it addresses was delivered on 7 August 2003. I took immediate advice from the Department of Labour, a paper was taken to Cabinet committees last week, and this measure was confirmed by Cabinet yesterday and by our own caucus today. As soon as our caucus confirmed the introduction of the Supplementary Order Paper, I signed letters to each of the parties, and received immediately positive responses from United Future, the National Party, and New Zealand First. I thank them for their willingness to address what is a fundamental flaw in the Immigration Act.

Details of the Mohebbi case were reported in the New Zealand Herald on Friday, 8 August. This is a very important decision; it has very serious implications for New Zealand’s security, and it is a matter that this House must address. We have the opportunity of the Immigration Amendment Bill to do so. Essentially, the individual concerned utilised every avenue to remain in New Zealand, including marrying a New Zealander despite already being married to another woman. He was convicted of bigamy and his residence application—quite rightly—was declined. A further appeal to the Removal Review Authority on the basis of a new relationship and a new son was dismissed. The authority observed: “The appellant’s evidence is untrustworthy, and he will mould his evidence to suit whatever current purpose he has.” He was given 7 days to leave New Zealand. He did not. He came to the attention of the police in March this year, and as a result was detained under the Immigration Act.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: There were 20,000 overstayers.

Mr Peters’ party has already agreed to support this amendment to the Immigration Act and, therefore, I would have thought his assistance would be rather more graciously given.

Mr Mohebbi then applied to the High Court for an interim restraint of the decision to remove him, ahead of judicial review. This was dismissed as hopeless by the High Court. The substantive application for judicial review still awaits a full hearing.

In the meantime, the New Zealand Immigration Service has been unable to remove Mr Mohebbi. Why? Because it cannot get a travel document for him. Why? Because he has refused to request one from his own country’s embassy. The 3-month limitation on detention under section 60 of the Immigration Act came to an end, so the Immigration Service sought to detain him under section 138A. Under that section, an immigration officer—where the officer has good cause to suspect that a person is in New Zealand unlawfully and is liable to be removed—for the purpose of establishing identity, may request that the person provide documents. If the person fails to comply with this provision, he or she may be placed in custody and brought before the District Court to establish identity.

The District Court accepted this approach in June this year, largely because a failure to do so, and I quote from the judge, “countenanced the deliberate non-compliance with New Zealand laws”. The District Court therefore ordered the respondent to produce a passport, or to assist the Immigration Service in the application for one, and ordered his continued detention for 30 days or until the order was complied with and brought back for determination of identity. The judge said, for the sake of completeness, that he would have made those orders even if he had been satisfied as to identity.

On an application under the Habeas Corpus Act, the High Court ruled that section 138A could not be used in that way, and that, as section 60 had a 3-month limitation, he could not be held under the Immigration Act. Justice Chambers concluded, “albeit with some reluctance”, that a writ of habeas corpus must be issued, and ordered the release of Mr Mohebbi.

That result was not in the minds of the drafters of section 60. That provision was written into the Act in 1999. I sat on the select committee that considered the bill, and I cannot recall even discussing the possibility of such wilful non-cooperation leaving New Zealand exposed to the release from detention of such an individual. The Supplementary Order Paper will enable a judge, not the Immigration Service, to extend the warrant of commitment where the person’s own action or inaction either directly or indirectly results in the person being unable to leave New Zealand.

In conclusion, I want to mention that another individual was released by the District Court as a result of the Mohebbi decision. That individual is back in custody but, I have to say, in terrible circumstances. That individual is facing charges following the shooting of a Manurewa woman in her backyard almost 3 weeks ago. Although those are only charges at this stage, they serve to highlight the danger associated with our not addressing this important matter.

I believe that the House is quite right to allow the Committee of the whole House to extend its consideration of the Immigration Amendment Bill to include a matter that is not normally within its ambit. I therefore call on members of the House to support this motion. Again, I thank members of United Future, the National Party, and New Zealand First for setting aside politics on this occasion, and agreeing to address this urgent matter.

The Minister of Immigration has outlined to the House the reasons for this Supplementary Order Paper 131, which does not meet the requirements under the Standing Orders for its inclusion in the Immigration Amendment Bill. The National Party will be supporting the changes proposed in the Supplementary Order Paper, but by no means do we appreciate or approve of the manner in which the Minister has handled this important matter.

The Minister has told the House that an individual was released by the courts under a habeas corpus finding 3 weeks ago—nearly a month ago. The court released a man who is, to say the least, an undesirable individual, and today the Minister rocks up and thinks she will get Parliament to support her legislation. Well, we are going to support the proposed Supplementary Order Paper because, clearly, there is a problem. But the Minister has caused an even bigger problem by sitting on her backside for nearly 4 weeks after finding out that this problem existed. By her own admission, on 7 August this year the High Court made its ruling, and here we are, into the month of September, and the Minister has asked us this morning to treat this matter as urgent. I want to know from that Minister how it can be that nearly a month after this person was released she finally decides to tell Parliament that she has a problem, and she wants Parliament to help her solve it. I say to the Minister today that although we will cooperate with the passage of the Supplementary Order Paper, we condemn the fact that the Minister has waited for a month, with this person roaming the streets. We have already been told by the Minister today that other individuals have been released who are a danger to public safety. The Minister should have dealt with this matter with much greater expedition.

I will tell the House about the nature of the letter she sent to the Leader of the Opposition this morning. In it she says that this is an important matter, and apologises for the late notice—well, that is no good. She says that the reason for it is that Cabinet approved the Supplementary Order Paper yesterday, and it has been approved by the Government caucuses this morning. Well, there are several matters that come out of that. First of all, why has Cabinet taken so long on such an important matter? This matter could have gone to Cabinet after the decision was made by the court. It is a simple, simple matter to deal with. The Minister must have known that it might need to be dealt with in that way. She was represented at the court hearing, and the advice given to her officials must have been that they were likely to lose this matter in court. I fail to believe that the competent counsel representing the Minister—not the department—would not have forewarned her that this matter would be lost in court. Justice Chambers’ reasoning in his decision is crystal-clear, and I cannot believe that Crown counsel would not have said to the Minister: “Look, we’ll go through the motions, but he’s going to let the guy out.” The Minister should have said to the next Cabinet meeting that she had a problem, that this guy had been let out the previous week, and that she wanted to deal with this matter urgently.

If she had picked up the phone, rung me up, and said she wanted to get this thing before the House, I would have given her my cooperation. I know that Mr Prebble would have loved to have a telephone call from the Minister of Immigration—it is one of the highlights of his life to get a telephone call from the Minister of Immigration—and Mr Peters would have been even more pleased to get a telephone call from the Minister of Immigration. If she had just said: “I’ve just lost this court case, and I want to deal with it.”, I am sure they would have cooperated—even more so if she had rung them the week before to say: “I’ve got an important court case, and Crown counsel says I’m going to lose.”

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: “I’m looking foolish, can you help me?”

I am not sure that anyone can help the Minister when it comes to her looking foolish, but I do want to say that members on this side of the House would have been much more predisposed to help the Minister out of the hole she is in had she bothered to consult, and had she bothered even to behave competently by taking action at the earliest possible time. Instead, we have this letter that says this action was ticked off by Cabinet yesterday, and “It was approved by the Government caucuses this morning.”

I do not know which Government caucuses we are talking about here; I guess we are talking about the Labour Party caucus. Does the letter mean that the Progressive Coalition had a caucus meeting? That would have been a well-attended affair—there was probably 100 percent attendance in a telephone booth somewhere over the back of Parliament! I want to know what the other caucuses are that the Minister refers to in her letter when she says they approved this matter this morning. I want to know whether the United Future party, which seems to be the Government’s current lackey of choice, was consulted about this matter, and maybe Mr Adams can answer that. Mr Adams does not seem to know the answer to that. Maybe the Minister just talked to Mr Dunne, and he spoke for his caucus without actually asking it. This is an important matter. Were the Greens consulted on this? No one in the Green Party seems to know anything about it. The Minister has asked for cooperation on the basis that the Government caucuses were consulted. I want to know which parties were brought into the loop that the National Party was closed out of. Mr Peters seems to be surprised by this matter, and so does Mr Prebble. The Minister will have to do better if she wants cooperation from Parliament.

I accept, as I have said, that Justice Chambers’ decision means that the Government has a problem, and that Parliament needs to do something to rectify it. It is quite clear that Judge Blaikie was acting with the best of motives, and I have read that decision. But section 138A is clearly an inappropriate section for him to have applied here, and the solution is for section 60 to be modified. The course that is proposed by the Supplementary Order Paper, which provides for a new clause 15A in the bill, is an approach that will meet that requirement.

But I want to say to the House that having individuals with dodgy pasts coming to New Zealand is a very serious matter.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: When did he come to New Zealand?

He came to New Zealand in 1997. I say to the Minister that this is not a party political matter; all parties should take this seriously. Many members here think the institution of marriage is an important one, but this fellow seems to have excessive enthusiasm in that regard, and, accordingly, has been convicted of a charge of bigamy. But the Minister has already told the House that more serious charges are faced by others who might escape under this provision.

I say to the Minister that Parliament should take the toughest possible line. We should say to the Iranian Ambassador—and I want the Minister to answer this question—that it is not good enough for his Government to behave as it has behaved in this matter, whereby it has refused to supply a passport or a travel document, when other nations would have complied with a request from the New Zealand Government, without this individual having to sign an application. I want to know whether that message has been conveyed by the Government. I want it to be conveyed by Parliament this afternoon. The Iranian Ambassador had better be told. This is not a friendly act on the part of his Government, and he should be held to account for it. The Minister needs to tell him that some members in this House certainly believe that a more cooperative stance is required in future. I say to the Minister that if she wants these matters to be dealt with cooperatively, then she had better deal with them competently, early, and with consultation.

New Zealand First is very willing to support the Minister of Immigration in this area. I suspect that we will have to support the Minister in this area time and time again because of the 20,000 or so overstayers we have in this country. How many of them come within this type of category or, after this issue is resolved, other categories? Because of the failure of this Government to prevent people who should not be here from coming into this country, because of it allowing people who should be removed more promptly to stay in this country, we have this dreadful situation where not only do we have massive immigration here but also we have a massive number of people who are just staying on willy-nilly, and this Labour Government is incapable of doing anything about it.

Parliament this afternoon has to halt its proceedings so that a special Supplementary Order Paper dealing with a certain Amir Mohebbi can be incorporated in some legislation before the House, and we can get rid of him from New Zealand. He has been here since 4 July 1997. New Zealand is an absolute soft touch. I know that one could ask who was in Government then, but all I ask is who has been in Government for the last 4 years, and has allowed him to continue to stay in New Zealand. The Labour Party has been in Government. It has been its responsibility to do something about it. [Interruption] Damien O’Connor can chip away from the middle of an aisle as much as he likes; he should get into his seat and perhaps make a decent interjection. The Labour Party has been in Government for 4 years. We have heard about this for barely 30 minutes, and New Zealand First is ready to cooperate. The High Court judgment was on 7 August, which is almost a month ago, and this Government has been sitting on its hands for all that time, not doing anything about it. [Interruption] It would be interesting to see whether a lawyer or two, or three, or four—

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: How much legal aid in this case?

Will the Minister tell us whether this person was legally aided—another sip at the New Zealand bowl of fairness and charity? It has been suggested that he is bigamous. Of course, in Islamic law to marry a second time is not bigamous. That is one of the problems with bringing people like this into the country. The Minister for Ethnic Affairs, Mr Carter, says we have to look after their ethnic rights and suchlike; in that case, we should not be charging them with bigamy. Mr Carter takes the view that we have to be nice to people. In Islamic law, two, three, or four marriages are permitted. If a man wants to renounce an Islamic marriage, he just has to walk around the woman three times and say: “I divorce thee. I divorce thee. I divorce thee.”, and he is divorced. That is the sort of culture Mr Carter supports. That is the sort of person who comes into New Zealand. It is not surprising we have some problems.

I am sure the vast majority of people who come to New Zealand under lawful means make a worthwhile contribution to this country. New Zealand supports people coming to New Zealand under lawful means, regardless of where they come from—whether they come from Iran, Iraq, England, South Africa, or China. What we get upset about time and time again—and here we have highlighted it once more—is someone coming to New Zealand illegally, and this Government doing nothing about it for the 4 years or so that it has been in administration. We are very concerned about that.

Since 4 July 1997 this person has been here, and it has just drifted on and on. It has cost the taxpayer a tremendous amount of money. It has gone before Judge Blaikie in the District Court at Manukau, then it has gone before Judge Singh. He made identical orders to Judge Blaikie’s. We now have the situation under the Habeas Corpus Act. This is a person who for a while denied that Mohebbi is his name. Finally, Judge Blaikie noted that Mr Mohebbi had refused to produce a passport, despite being requested to do so. Over the past 6 years this person has given a number of explanations as to where his passport is. Most recently, he has asserted that he left his passport in Iran when he left there in the first half of 1997. He has said he boarded a plane for New Zealand with a false passport, which he destroyed before his plane landed in New Zealand. There may be good cause to doubt the truth of this account. In any event, this person has steadfastly refused to produce a passport. All that can be said is that it may be because he is simply unable to do so. Justice Chambers made it clear in the High Court that this person is deliberately flouting New Zealand’s immigration law. There is no doubt that he is in the country unlawfully. He has taken advantage of the Iranian Embassy’s refusal to issue a passport for him without it having an application that he has personally signed.

Mr Woolford, who must be one of the counsel in the case, said that is an unusual stance for an embassy to take. Normally, foreign embassies will issue, on the application of our Immigration Service, if not a passport then at least a travel document to permit their national to be removed from New Zealand and returned to their homeland. One can only say one is terribly disappointed in the attitude of the Iranian Embassy. As a result of that embassy’s attitude, we now have the situation where at least one person from Iran is bringing other Iranians into disrepute. I suggest to the Iranian Ambassador, consul, or chargé d’affaires that he is not doing anything to improve New Zealand - Iranian relations, or to improve our attitude toward Iranians as a whole, by adopting that approach. It is interesting that other embassies take the view that they will issue papers. I understand that six embassies adopt the stance of the Iranian embassy.

It seems to me that one consideration that a Government could take into account here—it seems that no thought has been given to it—is to deem in legislation a power of attorney for someone who refuses to sign an application for a passport. It might be interesting to see whether, under our law, we could sign an application for a passport on behalf of someone who was refusing to apply for one. That could be deemed to be a proper form, at least for New Zealand purposes, and therefore should be accepted by one of these six embassies that have taken the view that they will be difficult. I put that suggestion forward to the Minister, because it might be something for this Government or a subsequent Government to take into account, to try to avoid the type of problem we see here.

Overall, this issue is a clear indication that the Immigration Service is grossly overworked. With the 40,000 to 60,000-plus applications for immigration to New Zealand that it has, it cannot do the job properly. That is a clear indictment on this Government and its policy of having 45,000-plus immigrants coming to New Zealand, plus another 75,000 students. That puts pressure on the immigration division. Another 75,000-plus are here on a temporary residence basis, putting the total up to about 190,000. In the year 2000, 190,000 people arrived in New Zealand for the first time. I feel terribly sorry for the Immigration Service, which has to put up with the problems given to it by this Government.

New Zealand First heard about this issue this morning, and we agreed to this solution immediately. We look forward to this clause of the bill being given support, although I should make it quite clear that, as a whole, we are opposing the immigration legislation of which the bill is part. That point should be made clear, and I think it is going to be made clear by the other parties that also oppose the Immigration Amendment Bill.

The ACT party has not yet replied to the Minister of Immigration’s letter. The reason is the Minister’s letter is totally unreasonable. The situation we find ourselves in is the Minister’s letter reached me just before midday today.

💬 John Carter: Midday?

Yes, at half past 11. We were having a caucus meeting. I got the letter. It is my understanding that it came to my office at about that time. I had commitments between then and 2 o’clock, including a whole group of officials coming to see me about the State sector reform. Although the Minister’s letter appears to be reasonable, and it states, for example, that she would allow me to be briefed by officials, how on earth was that going to happen?

One might say this is an open-and-shut case. Well, is it? As the judge points out, Parliament is very reluctant to put people in jail. Indeed, the right not to be arbitrarily arrested or detained is a fundamental right that is recognised in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and, before that, in the Magna Carta. I say to the Minister that she is treating the House with contempt, and I greatly resent it. I suspect that all parties in Parliament—perhaps I should not speak for the Greens—recognise that we have to have an immigration system, and that we have to have a system whereby a person who is a judge says in his judgment, which I am obliged to the Minister for sending to me, that here is a person who is flouting New Zealand’s law. Indeed, I notice that a second judge has described his case as “hopeless”, and said that his application for substantive judicial review was “doomed to failure”. He claims not to have a passport, and the judge doubts whether even that statement is true. We have learnt further that this person is undesirable in a number of ways, including that he entered into a bigamous marriage—a very evil thing to do if a person does it just to get immigration. Just think of the damage he has done to that woman!

In saying so, yes, obviously, the House would like to patch up what appears to be a hole. But I point out to the House—and I have had only a few moments to look at the amendment—that this amendment actually appears to go a lot further than that. In fact, the section 60(6) in clause 15A(3) states that, basically, anyone can be held in jail: “Unless the Judge considers that there are exceptional circumstances that justify the person’s release, a Judge may not order the release of a person under subsection (5) if— ... (b) a direct or indirect reason for the person being unable to leave New Zealand is or was some action or inaction by the person occurring after the removal order was served.” That is what is required in order to fix this position, but the Minister’s provision does not say just that; it also says that the judge may not order the release of a person under subsection (5) if “(a) the person is currently a refugee status claimant who claimed refugee status only after the removal order was served;”.

I would like to know from the Minister why she is using this emergency to extend the provision to that situation. It occurred to me that a person in that situation might be a genuine refugee. Why would we hold in jail someone who is a genuine refugee? The Minister has not answered that question. We as a Parliament do not have a chance now to examine why the Minister and her officials have extended the provision in this way. The Minister, in her speech to this House, in no way indicated to us: “Oh, by the way, I want to extend this provision to cover another situation that has just occurred to me.” I say to the House, quite seriously, that the Minister appears to me to be breaking—I do not know whether we could call it a convention. In my time in the House, with regard to matters of this sort, what normally happens is exactly as Mr McCully said. The Minister’s office rings up and says: “We’ve got a botch-up here. A man is flouting the law, and the Iranian Embassy is refusing to issue a passport.”—which is noted in the court case as being very unusual, and I agree with Mr McCully that we should indicate to the Iranian Embassy that the New Zealand Parliament is very unhappy with its action, which does not appear to us to be a friendly one. But that is what normally happens. The Minister has given us no reason as to why she did not do that.

In fact, I found her letter to be very partisan and political. The only reason she gives for failing to give us time to consider this amendment properly is that she had not taken it to Cabinet. So what? I have been rung by Ministers before they have gone to Cabinet. I have been rung by Ministers before something has gone to caucus. I have been rung and told: “Richard, we’ve got a real problem here. We need your assistance. Can I get the officials to come across and brief you?”. The Minister chose not to do those things. I want to make it clear to the Government that that is an arrogant attitude. It is not parliamentary and it is not satisfactory. The Minister thanks the National Party for not playing politics; well, I say she is taking advantage of the National Party, because the person who is playing politics is her. She is saying that the real reason she did not brief us was she wanted to take the issue to her own party caucus committee. That is not a reason not to brief other parliamentarians. I would have liked to have a briefing, because I would have asked why the provision is being extended to include this extra category. It does not appear to be needed to get Mr Mohebbi out of the country. I say to the Minister that to spring on the House a provision to hold someone in jail, with no possibility of consultation, is not a proper way to pass legislation.

I note the point made by the judge that the New Zealand Parliament, since time immemorial—and the British Parliament—has been extremely reluctant to pass a law that entitles somebody to be held in jail indefinitely. I share that reluctance. I do not want to pass a resolution that is any greater than what is required to uphold the integrity of our immigration laws. I say to the Minister that her explanation so far still leaves me with a nagging doubt that she has decided to go a bit further than is required. It may be that this addition is necessary, but it cannot be urgent. The extra additions are not required to be passed today. I say to the Minister that they should have been submitted properly and sent to a select committee, which would allow members of the public to make submissions. The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper should have been wide enough to handle just this individual’s situation.

I think the Minister is taking advantage of us. I want to register my very, very strong objection to the unparliamentary way that the Minister has gone about this proposal. I think we have been treated with contempt. I believe that we should have been consulted on this matter 2 weeks ago, probably, instead of a few hours ago, when it was not possible for me, because of my own commitments, to have a briefing from officials, which I would have taken if I had had the time.

The Greens will not be supporting this Supplementary Order Paper, which proposes to allow for the ongoing detention of migrants who have been served with a removal order and subsequently detained. In the specific case that has driven this Supplementary Order Paper, Mr Mohebbi has been denied refugee status and has been served with a removal order and detained in prison. He clearly wants to remain in New Zealand and is refusing to do anything or take any action to facilitate his removal. The circumstances that have led to this situation with Mr Mohebbi appear to be specific to the requirement of the Iranian Embassy. It appears from the High Court judgment of 7 August that this situation is unique, but that it has exposed a lacuna in the law. As a result this Supplementary Order Paper has been proposed by the Government to remedy the situation. However, the Supplementary Order Paper makes a significant change to the law that will deprive people of their rights and allow for unlimited ongoing detention. It also appears to breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and possibly the Human Rights Act and other international conventions for the protection of migrants.

The Greens are not prepared to support a Supplementary Order Paper that has these effects, without allowing for intense public scrutiny through the select committee process and advice from experts in the area. We consider this to be an abuse of the process of this House. We have already had immigration legislation passed under urgency in this House that deprived people of their rights; we did not support that legislation either. This change should go to a select committee and not be passed into law without proper consideration.

The National Party supports this Supplementary Order Paper, which demonstrates to the public the Opposition outrage at the abuse of the parliamentary process and lack of respect to other political parties shown by this arrogant Labour Government. We will support this Supplementary Order Paper in the interests of our country, to uphold the intention of the immigration legislation.

I cannot help but reflect on the irony of the short speech given by the Green Party member. That type of speech was given by the Hon Lianne Dalziel when she was the Labour spokesperson on immigration in Opposition. I well remember that she took every opportunity to lecture National Government members and other parliamentarians about the uncaring attitude they showed to refugee claimants and detainees. She also defended those people, saying that of course they would destroy all their papers before they landed in New Zealand. She defended those refugee claimants, and certainly opposed legislation such as she has brought into the House this afternoon—which reminds me how much the “Maharey principle” has been practised by the Labour Government.

But in supporting this Supplementary Order Paper we do want to register our strong protest and outrage at the total lack of consultation. For 3 weeks the Minister of Immigration, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, sat on this issue, and only bothered, I presume, to consult with political parties that are friendly to the Labour Government, such as United Future or the Progressive party. This issue is so important, and it affects the immigration integrity of New Zealand. The public would expect a responsible Government, to ensure this legislation passed through this House, to show respect for political Opposition parties such as National, New Zealand First, ACT, and the Greens. We have demonstrated that we are reasonable in the interests of the country, but the total lack of respect shown by the Labour Government to the Opposition parties demonstrates why we continue to have problems with legislation being rushed through this House, and then amendments having to be done swiftly.

The second issue I want to bring up during this debate is the abuse by the Labour Government of the parliamentary process. This bill, which this Supplementary Order Paper is part of, was introduced on 1 July, and was considered under urgency, together with the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) that was passed at the time. When this Immigration Amendment Bill was introduced we got a note from office of the Minister of Immigration that there would be a briefing at 4 p.m. When we turned up to the briefing, the Minister went off to a press conference. Our questions could not be fully satisfied by the officials or the Associate Minister of Immigration. But half an hour later we were forced back into the House to debate the Immigration Amendment Bill.

At the same time the other piece of immigration legislation was rushed through the House under urgency, again because of the Minister’s incompetent leadership. The Immigration Service found itself facing a backlog of over 20,000 immigration applications. Because of that rushed piece of legislation, over 40,000 people found their applications had lapsed, with certain exceptions. Even today I continue to receive letters, faxes, and emails from those people who have been deprived of any reason. Their applications were accepted in good faith, and the officials did not even bother to process them.

This is not the first time we have seen this Minister not bothering to ensure that the Immigration Service is running properly, effectively, or efficiently; neither does she care about consulting other parties to make sure that amendments can be passed. I must also remind the public that this arrogant Labour Government has managed to conduct its affairs in such an appalling manner due to the unquestioning cooperation being given by United Future—a party that had championed itself as a party of reason and common sense, and a party that wished to ensure that the proper process is observed in Parliament.

United Future has, in the last 2 months, given its approval to the Government, even though the Government has been abusing the parliamentary process. Of the few United Future supporters left, I hope they will question their party’s mandate in what they have promised the public, in regard to holding the Labour Government to proper procedures.

I want to bring up my last point of highlighting the problem of this Labour Government in terms of adopting a culture of blame. Whenever there is something wrong, or it has to correct something in a hurry, the Government will refer to officials not telling it in time, or making up stories. In this case the Minister actually blamed her own Cabinet—that it approved the Supplementary Order Paper only yesterday so, therefore, she could not consult the other parties. She also blamed the legislation itself for the fact that she had to introduce the Supplementary Order Paper. I want to warn the Government that the public are taking notice and know that this Labour Government no longer seems to want to take any responsibility for its actions. Whenever anything goes wrong it simply blames the officials, the Opposition parties, or other past events. I think it is about time the Labour Government stood up and took the blame for fiascos like today’s urgent introduction of a Supplementary Order Paper.

Motion agreed to.

, on behalf of the Minister of Immigration: I move, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Immigration Amendment Bill that it take the bill part by part and consider any schedules as one question.