Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill

I would like the Committee to consider the amendments I am putting forward. They fall into three major categories. I agree with previous speakers who have said that to become a New Zealand citizen is a very important and privileged decision. I want the Government and others to consider supporting my amendment, which proposes that before an applicant is accepted to become a New Zealand citizen, he or she should attend a compulsory citizenship induction course administered by the Department of Internal Affairs, where the rights and obligations of becoming a New Zealand citizen would be learnt properly.

I also want the Minister in the chair, the Hon George Hawkins, to take a call, because even though he told us last year that this bill had to be passed in 2004, we are obviously now in April 2005, and there seems to be little need for that urgency. The Minister said that the starting date for Part 4 and Part 8 will now be the commencement date, but I think that will still cause a lot of uncertainty in the communities affected. I have proposed a whole raft of amendments to suggest that we state a specific day—say, 1 May 2005—to introduce some certainty.

I would also like the Committee to support my amendment with regard to the time that a temporary visa holder spends in New Zealand. Let us think about it. The export education sector, we are told, contributes $2 billion a year into the economy. Students usually come to study at high school and then go on to tertiary education, which means that on average a student would spend 5 years here before, maybe, converting their visa to a work visa, and then becoming a permanent resident. That means that by the time they are allowed to apply to become New Zealand citizens, they would already have spent some 5 to 6 years in New Zealand.

I understand that the Hon Matt Robson is moving an amendment to revert to the current situation whereby the temporary visa holder’s time-span in New Zealand would count towards the qualifying period. I am a reasonable person, and my amendment states that at least half the time such people spend in New Zealand should be counted towards that. I hope to hear feedback from the Minister.

I also raise the issue relating to a different group of permit holder—the long-term business visa holder. Those people come to New Zealand for the express purpose of experiencing whether, within 2 years, they can successfully establish a business. They come with the sole intention that they will be entitled to become permanent resident visa holders upon proving that their business venture is being implemented. I hope that the Minister can look favourably at that group of people and say that the retrospective nature of the change will not apply to that group of visa holders as well. I understand that there are probably 2,000 to 3,000 of them, and given the fact that they have uprooted themselves and made a serious investment in New Zealand by commencing business, paying GST, and contributing to New Zealand, I hope that the Minister can look favourably at the amendment I have proposed and say that they will be allowed to be exempt from being subject to the new extended provision and can be considered under the current requirement.

I really think that the Minister should take a call, at least to give us some feedback on his reaction towards the raft of amendments proposed by myself. They are very considered and deserve some attention from the Minister. I look forward to his contribution.

In speaking on Part 1, I want to raise the issue of the increase from 3 to 5 years in the standard period of residence. The reason I want to raise it is that the National Party, the Progressive Party, the Green Party, and, I believe, the ACT party are opposed to it. Is the ACT party opposed to the increase from 3 to 5 years? It does not matter whether it is, anyway. The National Party, the Progressives, and the Greens, at least, are opposed to the increase.

Last year I had the pleasure of being on the Finance and Expenditure Committee trip to Australia. When we were in a meeting in Canberra with some Ministers and Government MPs, one of the thorniest issues—one of the issues that has created tension in our relationship with Australia—was the 3-year requirement, and also wider issues of immigration and the different path that New Zealand has chosen to take in the last 20 years compared with Australia. Yet we wonder why, about 3 years ago, the Australian Government restricted the reciprocal benefits agreement that we had had for so many years! We had an amazing relationship with our trans-Tasman brother—or sister, if members want to call it that—for many years. It was probably one of the closest intercountry relationships the world has ever seen. I would not say we have destroyed that, because New Zealand First was against doing that, but New Zealand Governments of the last 20 years have taken us down a path of destroying the great relationship we had with Australia. That has formed a lot of tension in these areas, and I wanted to bring that up with the Committee.

Keeping with the issue of the increase from 3 to 5 years, I was berated by the Progressive member Matt Robson for saying what Keith Locke had said. Keith Locke had said that if the citizenship process were prolonged, it could make people more antagonistic. Matt Robson berated me and said I was marginalising people and stereotyping them, but I was just quoting what another member had said. I then had my counter-argument to that, which was my concern that people who get more antagonistic because of having to wait another couple of years are not the kinds of people we want. I think that is a fair, reasonable, common-sense, sensible argument. I do not see how anybody could disagree with that argument.

Another issue that I want to raise in the Committee is the comment made by Stephen Franks from the ACT party that this bill is unpatriotic. Well, I want to allude to a couple of points in Part 1 that I believe make the bill quite the opposite—a patriotic bill. First, there is the requirement for applicants to take the oath or affirmation of allegiance to New Zealand at a public citizenship ceremony. I believe that is very patriotic. I was watching television the other night and saw a citizenship ceremony that the Prime Minister had attended. I think it is a great thing when people say: “I am becoming a New Zealander. I am becoming a New Zealander first. I am going to put my country first and be proud of the country I represent.” I believe that the patriotic thing to do is to go to a public ceremony and say: “I am a New Zealander.” I think that is patriotic. I think that is great. When somebody says this bill is an unpatriotic bill I just allude to that fact and say it is very patriotic.

Another argument I have against this bill being an unpatriotic bill is the fact that it provides for the Citizenship Office to have restricted access to immigration information for the purpose of conducting citizenship investigations assessing whether—

It is clear that the parties are taking positions to pass this bill in its entirety. The amendments that I have proposed, as a Progressive member, state that I believe the status quo should stay in relation to the time period for people gaining citizenship. I point members to the fact that we have had this position for many years in New Zealand. It could have been 2 years, 1 year, or it might have been 4 years, but presumably when a time period was set between residence and citizenship there was a policy behind it in terms of assessing whether someone was a suitable citizen for New Zealand.

Now that the period is going to 5 years, I have not heard in the select committee or in the Committee of the whole House tonight any valid policy reason for going from 3 to 5 years. The member from New Zealand First who has just spoken hinted that it was pressure from Australia. We have been assured by Australian officials and the Australian Government that there was never any demand. I think the Minister himself may have spoken and said that there was never any demand or blackmail from Australia that we should set a period of 5 years. As far as I can see, it is internally generated.

I draw the Committee’s attention to one aspect of this matter. I, for my sins, was a member of the Labour Party before 1990. Then we had a parting of the ways when the church was not quite broad enough at that particular time. We were obviously praying to different Gods, and ours was not Roger Douglas at that time. The Labour Party that I remembered fought these types of proposal. They came up many times—from whence I do not know, but largely from parties of the right, to put more and more restrictions on people who were migrants. Much of it was electorally driven at times, from the type of speech we heard from Peter Brown suggesting words like “floodgates”. When such words are applied to migrants and refugees, people do not have in mind the white European, they have in mind a certain type of person, usually Asian, usually from the Middle East. It is a reprehensible term.

That is what drives that type of demand. Economics do not drive it. The only part of economics that drives it is the consideration that if people come here and then leave for Australia after 3 years, we are losing them. Well, that is true, of course, but maybe we need to do more to keep them here. Let us take the example of doctors for a start, the many doctors who came to New Zealand—and New Zealand First even campaigned for New Zealand doctors. Those doctors have gone to Australia in large numbers not because they were disloyal, not because they did not want to make New Zealand their home, but because we did not open places for them until, under a progressive action of the Minister of Health, Annette King—I played a role myself in that Government—we set up a bridging course and more doctors stayed. But others left because we did not open up enough places for their skills, through actions taken by ourselves. Now, what we are saying to migrants is, on the one hand, how we love them for coming to New Zealand and, on the other hand, that they are not good enough; they have to wait 5 years before they qualify for citizenship.

My amendments are directed to the status quo. There are four of them. I put it to Peter Brown to tell us at some stage how long it was before he was able to apply for citizenship. Was it 3 years, or was it 5 years? He may have waited a long time because he had a privileged passport, a British passport, which allows people to travel without having to face the restrictions that people from Third World countries face. Such migrants go to Australia and the first thing they face is not being allowed out of the airport without having special rights, special permits, etc. There are two types of passports and two types of backgrounds in New Zealand, I am afraid, and what we should do is try to iron that out.

My first amendment, which is directed at leaving the qualifying period at 3 years, is to omit from clause 4 the term “ordinarily resident”. If members vote for my first amendment, that is what they will be doing; they will be keeping it at 3 years. I believe that economically that is justified, and in terms of social cohesion it is fair.

The second amendment concerns citizenship—the birthright of every child. After this legislation is passed, how many members want people in their offices who have children who were born in New Zealand and have been struggling for maybe 4 or 5 years—and we should not forget that many of them win their cases, and that the law was wrong—because those children cannot go to school and cannot get health care? That is why the right to citizenship for those born in New Zealand was there for years and years, and was never taken away.

And that is why the United States and Canada leave it there. It is because that right protects the child. There are not hundreds of mums getting on Boeing 747s, descending on Auckland airport, and then clogging up the hospitals. That is a myth. If there are one or two people who do that, well—do we have a sledgehammer to crack a nut? How many members know New Zealanders who have deliberately had babies in other countries? I do. I know many who have had babies in the UK.

Craig McNair is right in a funny sort of way, because I think that Australia would support this bill—but not for the reasons he explained. If we were the Australian Government and we were competing with New Zealand for skilled migrants, we would welcome a bill that told those migrants they would wait 5 years for citizenship in New Zealand but only 2 years in Australia. Those migrants would go to Australia. Craig McNair said that migrants who waited a long time would become antagonistic. The essence of what that is about is that if no reason—and Matt Robson has talked about this—is given for extending the time period from 3 to 5 years, people do get upset or antagonistic, and they feel it is unjust to them. The result of that is not, as others have indicated before, people smashing windows or anything like that; they just say that perhaps New Zealand does not want them, so they will go on to Australia, which has a 2-year qualifying period.

This bill, as has been pointed out, has been delayed for about 6 months in getting to its second reading. Can the Minister, or anyone else in the Chamber, point to one single baby born here during that 6-month delay—because some people are scared that people are coming here, having babies, getting citizenship for their babies, and then taking off back home—that this bill would have applied to, or that this bill would have prevented from being born a New Zealand citizen and claiming that citizenship? I do not think anyone can. As Matt Robson said, the issue is about the provision, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, of health care for every baby. We heard at the Government Administration Committee, from Caritas Aotearoa - New Zealand, a Catholic organisation, a case study of what that means in practice.

I will quote from the Caritas submission: “The complaint we have taken to the Human Rights Commission involves such a couple—a young family where the father is on a working visa under the business category, and the mother on a student visa. The conditions of the working visa state that any application for social security assistance will affect a later application for residence. The couple’s intentions in working towards residence have always been clear. The arrival of a baby threw study and work plans into some confusion, as they do for many resident and citizen New Zealanders. This created a period of financial hardship for the family, which is not unknown to other New Zealand families with a new baby. However, without family support or social security back-up, the family experienced a level of poverty which was new even to the frontline social service agencies that met them. The mother and child were described by their Plunket nurse as literally starving, because the mother was not producing enough milk to feed the baby and they could not afford formula. It is clear to everyone who has come into contact with this family that they are extremely hard working and will in the long term be an asset to New Zealand. We believe our society has always been made up of hard-working immigrants who accept a period of financial hardship for themselves, but whose children are born into a new life.”

What we are saying is that the family had problems with the social welfare system, but under this legislation the parents will also have problems in getting critical medical help for their child. That is a very strong reason for having the current provision—so that any baby born here does have access to our medical services. I have an amendment here to enable the existing situation, the status quo, to prevail.

I also have an amendment that is similar to other amendments put forward tonight to keep the status quo in terms of the 3-year qualifying period from residency to citizenship. As Matt Robson has said, nobody has yet provided a good reason why that period should go up from 3 to 5 years. It is bureaucracy gone mad, and the Government is just saying it will increase it because that seems to be the advice coming from the department. But there are just no reasons there. I think that the Minister should get up and explain why we have to go from a 3-year to a 5-year qualifying period. Why do we have to put ourselves at a disadvantage in the world? Why do we have to put new migrants to such a disadvantage? It is a matter of them waiting up to 10 years for citizenship. They arrive on a business, work, or student visa, and spend a year or two on that. Then they spend a year applying for residence, and it can be another 5 years of that residence before they get citizenship. It is a very, very long wait.

I am puzzled about this part of this bill. The citizenship provisions appear to specify quite strict conditions for the Minister to grant citizenship, in a way that makes it look as if it is not easy for him to do it. Then, new section 9A(3), inserted by clause 8, states: “Nothing in this section limits the Minister’s discretion to refuse a grant of citizenship if the Minister is not satisfied that the applicant is of good character.” But I am not sure where the Minister’s discretion is. Is there someone familiar with this law overall who knows just how broadly the Minister’s discretion is framed, and how useful it is? It does seem, if the Minister has broad discretion, that quite a lot of the stuff in this bill is not very useful. Or is it that the Minister did have broad discretion, but the courts decided they did not like it and have cut it down? I hope someone in this Chamber who went through the select committee process can actually say what the discretion is—what is its width, what is its reliability, and how robust will it be against well-meaning but rather self-confident judges, if the Minister does have broad discretion to turn down applicants?

I say that because when we read new section 9(1)(c), inserted by clause 8, we see there is an express permission to grant: “if the Minister is satisfied that granting a certificate … would be in the public interest because of exceptional circumstances of a humanitarian or other nature …”. Maybe that kind of grant is a sort of relief of misery grant, but I cannot see an express authority to grant where it would be in the public interest because the person seeking citizenship is an incredibly good catch for New Zealand—a very well-qualified person, or an enormously entrepreneurial person, or someone whose drive and ambition have shone through in what that person has done, or someone whose inventive talents have been well displayed. I ask whether there is something else that would make such a person a special case, because, certainly, the provisions we see in this part that allow the Minister to grant citizenship in special cases—all the powers that the Minister has to grant citizenship in special cases—are very narrow.

Someone may point me in the direction of new section 8(8) on the preceding page that says the Minister can waive the requirement for English language and for presence in New Zealand, if the Minister is satisfied “in a particular case that, because of the applicant’s age or standard of education, or for any other reason personal to the applicant, the applicant would suffer undue hardship …”. Once more, the law seems to be framed around an assumption that the applicant has a right to be here if the applicant is miserable enough or abandoned enough—if no one else would have the applicant—whereas the law should be built around the Minister granting citizenship where the applicant’s age or standard of education, or other reasons personal to the applicant make that applicant a fantastic catch for New Zealand. That is the bit I hope the Minister can explain.

I feel sure there must be some way for a Minister to allow in a whole school—as we did in the late 1930s and 1940s, when we received a whole raft of very qualified people from Central Europe, and did well out it. I hope we can do as well as the United States has done out of letting in the crème de la crème of the universities of the world. The other day I read that 40 percent of United States doctorates are granted to people born outside the US.

It may be that that discretion is elsewhere, and the Minister can grant citizenship simply because he is persuaded it is a good idea, but the way that this bill is framed is all negative. It is assuming that one has a right to citizenship, provided that one can show enough misery.

I was explaining to members—and I know that they are listening to me and perhaps rethinking their positions—that I had four amendments. First, the amendment to clause 4 is to keep the status quo, on the basis that there is no policy reason to change it. Second, our principle has been that it is the birthright of every child born in New Zealand to be a New Zealand citizen. There is no proof before us that there is a major crisis. In fact, we have a declining population in terms of age, and we want more young people in New Zealand. The third amendment is to recognise the special status of marriage—which I will return to—and also recognise civil union partners as part of that special status. From both sides of the debate on the Civil Union Bill, I heard many members talk about the special nature of marriage and their regard for it. I think that marriage should be brought into this legislation so as to recognise that the people who marry New Zealand citizens have made a good choice. Let us have some confidence in them. They would still have to pass the character, medical, and other professional qualifications tests, but let us remember that the special status of marriage was an important part of that debate.

The reason that the New Zealand First members advanced for the Australians supporting this legislation was to stop the flow—I think that was what they were saying. That is not true. I have said that the Australian officials have assured us that there is no pressure from Australia to put the qualifying period for citizenship up to 5 years. The pressure against New Zealanders going to Australia is actually part of Australian racism. I can tell members that from my own experience and from the experience of my own family. Do members know whom Australians do not like? Australians ask me: “Why do all those Māoris come over here? Why do all those Pacific Islanders come over here?”. I explain that those Māoris are New Zealand citizens, and that those Pacific Islanders who are Niueans and Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens. Much of the pressure is directed against New Zealand - born citizens.

Qualified people from Bangladesh, Iraq, and Sri Lanka are welcome in Australia. I have a Bangladeshi friend who is a doctor—a specialist—who could not get qualifications in New Zealand. He now does the flying doctor service all throughout Queensland, based in Mount Isa. Another specialist was not allowed to practise here; he failed his exams in psychiatry. He did not want to practise psychiatry. He is an orthopaedic specialist and a stomach specialist. He went to the Royal Darwin Hospital, where he now specialises in crocodile bites. The Australians want him there. Another friend is a Russian doctor who could not practise here—a TB specialist, and we do have a problem with TB here—but the authorities said no. He is now practising in Melbourne. Australia welcomes the people whom we have not kept here. The desire to stop New Zealanders going there, and things like the 2-year qualification period before one can get any benefits, are actually directed against New Zealand citizens. I am afraid to say, in terms of my own home country, that the racism that still exists in that society is directed against New Zealand - born citizens, particularly Māori and Pacific Island New Zealand citizens.

The special status of marriage meant we recognised that it was good to have a strong bond within the family. That is why, when New Zealanders brought a spouse back to the country they loved, they wanted that spouse to be on the same level and status as them as quickly as possible. If one is a New Zealand citizen whose wife comes from Bangladesh, one should try going to Australia to attend the same function. The Bangladeshi wife has to go into the Australian consul and, I am afraid, she has to grovel. I have had to help people in that regard. They have to produce bank statements and affidavits, and they are still turned down on the basis that the authorities think they will stay in Australia or do something terrible there. As soon as the spouse is a New Zealand citizen, she or he can travel on an equal basis to that of his or her partner.

The other point is that in New Zealand, too, there are many areas where if one is not a New Zealand citizen, one is not on the same level as someone who is. Mostly, I think that is quite good. A person has a range of rights as a resident. I had them for 20 years before I became a citizen in the year 2000. It took me longer than Peter Brown to become a New Zealand citizen. Obviously, Australians need more than 5 years—unlike the British, I say to Peter Brown, because he got his citizenship in 3 years, I am sure. For an Australian, it takes a bit longer. However, the range of rights is really extensive. I was elected as a member of Parliament, although I was a resident of Australia and not a citizen of New Zealand. I thought what a great country New Zealand was, for being so broad-minded and for being so good. I see the Minister of Internal Affairs is looking at me, as if to say he is thinking he had better go back and look at that citizenship grant, now that he has the new power coming to him of being able to take someone’s passport away. But I have confidence in George Hawkins—just as the New Zealand public does—and I am sure that he would not do that.

In terms of the recognition of civil union partners, I think that the Committee should remember that we have passed it into law that a civil union is of an equal status to marriage. We have talked at length about families, so what about retaining that status in the law?

I have to put the facts right, because there might still be one person listening to the radio after that member’s contribution.

💬 Hon Damien O'Connor: Not now, they won’t be.

I think that listeners may have done their dash, but just in case they are about to switch the radio off, I have to tell people that there are Māori people by the thousand in Australia, and they are loving it over there. They are feeling very, very welcome. I can tell people first-hand that my colleagues—particularly my Māori colleagues in New Zealand First—have a direct relationship with many of them, and they tell us that they will not be coming back because they love Australia so much. So I say to Mr Robson that to give the reverse impression is to do a huge disservice both to the country he was born in, which I find a bit unusual, and to the Māori folk who are over there. I can say to that member quite categorically that there are a lot of Māori people living in Australia and they are loving it more every day.

Pansy Wong said in an earlier contribution that this law will make us the toughest of five countries that she listed.

💬 Pansy Wong: I’m always right.

She is always right, and I acknowledge that to the member. But I want to say that she spoke as if it is something we should be ashamed of. New Zealand First is quite proud that we are tough on the people whom we let into this country. We are quite pleased that the honourable member—who will not shut up behind me—sees us as the toughest of the five countries. New Zealand First has always said that immigration should be controlled.

I do not know the exact answer to Mr Robson’s question about how long I was here before I got citizenship, but it was a darn sight longer than 5 years. It was not a pressing problem for me. I came here. I was welcomed here. I lived here. I worked here. I contributed—I hope—to society. I certainly put my back into my employment. I paid my taxes. And I made many, many friends—natural-born New Zealanders and people who had come from other countries. It did not matter at all to me whether it took 5 years, 10 years, or whatever. I echo the sentiments, I think, of the ACT member—he puts his hand up when he does not even know what I am going to say—who said that it should be a privilege to come and live here on a permanent basis. This is an absolutely fantastic country, and members talk as if we should open the doors for anybody to come here. New Zealand First is quite proud to say that anyone who wants to come and live here has to conform, has to come up to scratch, and has to assimilate into this society. We will not walk away from that.

I also want to talk about babies being born here. My colleague said he had heard that it could be as many as 600 women who come here on an annual basis to give birth to babies so that the youngsters will be New Zealand citizens. Then they can take those babies offshore as permanent New Zealand citizens. That is absolutely daft. We are very pleased to compliment the Minister on taking up our member’s bill and embracing it in this piece of legislation. We are particularly pleased that he showed enough initiative to see that New Zealand First had a point and that its proposals should be put into a Government bill.

I say to Matt Robson, who is shaking his head over there, that I do not think he has the support of his leader for his stance. I ask the member whether he has the support of his leader for what he is saying.

💬 Hon Matt Robson: There are 10 members in my caucus who would vote for me, and probably 25!

I think we can say that he does not have the support of his leader. He stands up there making a noise like an empty barrel and he does not even have the support of his leader. I say to that honourable member—and that is the best thing I can call him tonight—“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” He should stop moaning about people who want to tighten up the situation here. He should stop complaining.

We in New Zealand First are proud of this country, and we are going to put some rules and regulations in place to keep the standard up. We compliment the Minister on this piece of legislation. We do not think it goes far enough, but it is certainly a couple of steps in the right direction. After the next election, whoever we are in coalition with or whoever our junior partner is when we are leading the next Government, we will probably toughen the legislation up a bit more. I can see that Matt Robson has indigestion at the very thought of that.

I move, That the question be now put.

I would just like to reply to Peter Brown’s comment that some 600 women give birth in New Zealand annually to get citizenship for their babies. In fact, the Government Administration Committee had a paper from the Department of Internal Affairs listing babies born to foreign-born parents, but those parents were essentially—obviously—people on work visas, business visas, and student visas. A lot of them were young people. Some of those who come here on student visas or work visas are young people with partners who then have babies.

💬 Peter Brown: How many?

The figure given was 600, but there are all sorts. These were foreign-born people, but they did not come here specifically to have babies. In fact, point 21 of the Department of Internal Affairs document states: “The Ministry of Health has advised that it is not possible to provide a breakdown of how many women fall within the categories listed above, or to estimate how many of the women have come to New Zealand with the primary purpose of giving birth.” There are simply no statistics on that. So anyone who says that people are coming here for that specific reason does not have the data to back it up.

This whole bill is based on no information whatsoever. We asked and asked in the select committee, and got no answer. That is why this bill is such a nonsense. One case was reported in a newspaper—the Christchurch Press or something—about an American woman who apparently came here on a visitor visa, had a baby, and went home. That is about as much information as we have. If that baby grows up in Kentucky, Las Vegas, or wherever, and when she is 21 years old decides to use her New Zealand citizenship to come and live in New Zealand, to me it would seem quite a tribute to this country if after being brought up in America she wanted to come here.

Mr Brown says he did not have any trouble when for several years he did not have citizenship or a New Zealand passport. I think that only reinforces Matt Robson’s point. Mr Brown probably had a British passport, which gave him entry into countries around the world pretty easily. But if one is on a Bangladeshi passport, a Thai passport, or an Indonesian passport, as many of the spouses of New Zealand citizens in New Zealand are, one just cannot get into virtually any OECD country. That is the reality. I think we have to be clear that if we take any sort of anti-migrant stance—and tonight people have been implying that we have to be scared of migrants and stressing all the time that it is a privilege to come here, that we do not want them at our doors, and that they absolutely have to prove themselves—there is a bit of inconsistency in what we are saying.

As Mr Brown indicated, just about every New Zealand extended family has members who have migrated overseas, and they are very lucky that most of the countries they have migrated to have accepted them with open arms—and Australia has been mentioned tonight. So it is inconsistent to say that we are going to protect our shores from migrants, and to be hostile and disparaging to migrants in the way New Zealand First is, and at the same time ask countries overseas not to put any barriers in the way of New Zealanders going overseas. We have to realise that we are a small nation in the Pacific. We do rely on our children having access to overseas countries. We should protect that and not be anti-immigrant in any sense ourselves.

I support not only the two amendments to this part that I have put forward but also the amendments of Matt Robson and Pansy Wong, which all move in the direction of protecting what we have at the moment and not going down the silly path of extending the residency requirement from 3 years to 5 years, denying automatic citizenship to babies born here, etc.

I move, That the question be now put.

I just want to address a point made by the Green member Keith Locke, picking up a theme that was run by the Hon Matt Robson, about whether Part 1 establishes a high threshold or whether it establishes a very hostile—I think that was the word he used—tone. I raise that because I have already spoken about the apparent absence of a power for the Minister to welcome with open arms people who are very attractive to this country, but I do not think it is possible to call the criminal conviction standard anything other than unimaginably wussy.

New section 9A, “Disqualifying convictions”, inserted by clause 8, prohibits the Minister from granting citizenship if: “(a) the person was sentenced on conviction to—(i) a term of imprisonment of 5 years or more; or (ii) an indefinite term of imprisonment capable of running for 5 years or more;”—in other words, preventive detention—“or (b) within the preceding 7 years the person was subject to a sentence of imprisonment of less than 5 years or was subject to release under subpart 2 of Part 1 of the Parole Act 2002; or (c) within the preceding 3 years the person was convicted of an offence but did not receive a sentence of imprisonment.”

The reason I say that is that this focus on imprisonment is actually a focus on people who are pretty serious criminals. The average New Zealand prisoner has had nine previous convictions before his or her first prison sentence, so that to get a conviction and sentence of 5 years, a pretty serious offence has to be committed. I do not understand why the provision simply does not state that, except in the most extraordinary circumstances, any imprisonable offence should disqualify.

Indeed, I think there would be many good immigrants who would say that any offence whatsoever should disqualify. I deliberately went out and asked two groups of Chinese about what they thought of our immigration law. They were really amazed and embarrassed by the tolerance the New Zealand system shows to people they describe as ratbags. They did not want ratbags staying in New Zealand, letting them all down, and damaging the reputation of their people. It was unbelievable to them that after their arrest their feet touched the ground before they were ejected.

Yet here we have a situation whereby new section 9A, as I read it, tells the Minister to keep people out only when they are really serious ratbags. Is this another one of those United Nations rules? We do not expect Australians to take New Zealanders if they have been convicted of offences. We do not like it when they eject our ratbags and send them back here; we hate it. But we realise that that is just the way it works.

💬 Hon Paul Swain: We evict a lot, actually.

We do evict a lot, but what I am surprised at, I tell Mr Swain—because I know that he will understand this very well—is that the Minister, who has the discretion in this legislation to authorise a grant of citizenship to people who have been convicted, which is a pretty big concession, has to wait until those people have been given a 5-year sentence, preventive detention, or a sentence of less than 5 years but have had parole in the previous 7 years. Why is it simply not any conviction unless the Minister is satisfied that the person has actually turned his or her life around and is living a blameless existence?

We do not need offenders. We are perfectly capable of growing our own. In fact, we are very good at it. We have the second-highest rate of imprisonment in the Western World, so we do not need to import more. I am baffled about why the Minister is being told in this legislation to apply such a high standard, and even more baffled about why Mr Robson and Mr Locke are busy telling us that this legislation is giving evidence of hostility to people who want to become New Zealand citizens.

My plea in relation to the four amendments I have proposed to the Committee was: why should we change the 3-year provision now, why should we penalise the spouses of New Zealand citizens who could apply after 2 years, why should we have the strict conditions of character and fitness, etc., and why should we penalise those who may have been on a student permit or work permit, and who in the past have shown a good character, had a good record, and contributed while in New Zealand? That has been my plea.

I think the exchange between Mr Peter Brown of the New Zealand First Party and myself has been illustrative of this: Mr Brown and I have passports from privileged countries, and we did not rush, it seems, to get New Zealand citizenship. Mr Brown has said that people who come to New Zealand should show an allegiance. Then why does he want to penalise the people who show such allegiance that after 3 years they want to be New Zealand citizens, whereas people like him and me did not rush into it? Were we any worse people for not doing that? He seems to be suggesting that other immigrants should show their allegiance. I think that after 3 years they want to do that.

Let us move to a debate that is going on between Australia and New Zealand now with regard to the rugby league teams. Next Friday we will see the greatest rugby league team in the world. Australia will be here, and hopefully New Zealand may knock that team off its perch. What I will do is to wait until half-time to see who is winning, and then I will put up my passport, depending on which country is winning. My citizenship gives me that privilege. But there is great pressure on New Zealanders who are born in New Zealand but who have been in Australia for a long time, since they were little kids, to play for New Zealand. There is no suggestion that they have no allegiance to New Zealand. New Zealanders are asking them to come and play for New Zealand. I say to the Committee that we should drop the false and artificial standards of who does have allegiance and who does not, and apply the criteria we have applied for so long.

When people come to New Zealand there is a strict and tough test in order to obtain residence, and that is fair enough. It is hard, as many members of Parliament will know, because they will have tried to help people who have problems in that area. But we should not put up an even harder hurdle for people who have spent 3 years here, or 2 years where a spouse is involved, or 5 or 6 years on a work permit, or who have had a long-term business visa, or who have studied for a PhD and married a New Zealander—or whatever their situation may be. With this legislation we are going to spin the process out and make it harder for them. We should think also of the Pacific Islanders—Tongan New Zealanders; Samoan New Zealanders—who have become New Zealanders, and who are thinking about joining their family members in Australia. I have seen the heartbreak experienced by people in New Zealand who have families in Australia but who are not allowed by the Australian authorities to join their families because they do not have New Zealand citizenship. How many tragic events, like funerals, do people want to go to from New Zealand to Australia? Members should think honestly of the people they have given help to; they are many.

Members should also think of the refugees who have been in New Zealand for 6 or 7 years and are given New Zealand citizenship because we accept, as Peter Brown says, that they come from war-torn, ravaged countries. They have not seen their family, they may want to work in a third country, and they cannot have a New Zealand passport for another 3 years, possibly, because the residence period is to increase from 3 to 5 years. They wait 6 years. Why do we want to add to their mental suffering? Why do we want to do that? There has never been a problem in the past. When does the person show his or her wrongdoing? Is it suddenly in the fourth year? Does a person hide in all the years before that that he or she was actually a secret member of al-Qaeda, even before it was set up? That is just nonsense. There is no policy reason and no evidence here. If we just return to the question of the children, we should ask ourselves why we suddenly want to create a problem when there was never one before and we protected all the children born in New Zealand.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Matt Robson to clause 4 be agreed to:

to omit this clause.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. New Zealand First has kicked up merry bobsy-die in the past by wanting to know, when there has been a split vote, who voted for and who voted against. We have reached an agreement in the Business Committee that that will be divulged.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Technically, the member, in the first vote, should have said his name.

💬 Hon Matt Robson: I voted in favour.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The amendment in the name of Keith Locke to clause 4 is out of order, because it is the same as the previous amendment.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Matt Robson to clause 6 be agreed to:

to omit this clause.