Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill

I move, That the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill be now read a first time. It is my intention to move a motion referring the bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at the end of the first reading.

The bill creates a new regulatory framework for the regulation of individuals who provide immigration advice both onshore and offshore. Although many immigration advisers provide good services, there are currently insufficient regulatory constraints or market incentives to prevent some advisers from providing unethical or incompetent services. This legislation will bring New Zealand into line with countries such as Australia and Britain. By raising the standard of immigration advice, this bill will promote and protect the interests of migrants and potential migrants who receive immigration advice, and enhance the reputation of New Zealand as a migration destination. Migrants, their communities, and the reputable parties in the immigration advisory sector will welcome it.

As a local MP, I have all too often seen the destructive effect of unqualified or ill-intentioned immigration advice on the lives of my constituents. As a Minister, I am now pleased to have the opportunity to commend to the House the speedy passage of this much-needed bill.

All immigration advisers who assist migrants wanting to live in New Zealand will be required to be licensed, unless exempt. That includes not-for-profit and offshore advisers. It will be an offence to provide immigration advice without a licence, unless exempt. Offenders could face a fine of up to $100,000, 7 years’ imprisonment, or both. It will also be an offence for people to say that they are immigration advisers unless licensed or exempt, or to say that they are licensed to give advice when they are not. It is currently intended that the people exempt from having to hold a licence should include: those who provide immigration advice in an informal or family context where the advice is not provided systematically, or for a fee; offshore immigration advisers where the advice relates to applications for student visas or student permits; groups for which there is little consumer benefit to be gained from licensing, and there are sufficient processes in place to ensure competent and ethical conduct, for example, members of Parliament and their offices; and groups that are members of an occupation group that already has appropriate disciplinary procedures, for example, lawyers. The select committee will, no doubt, consider a range of submissions on these matters, and I will be interested to read the select committee report in due course.

Offshore advisers provide the first point of contact for many migrants, and it is crucial that they are included within the scope of this bill. Offshore advisers will be temporarily exempt from the licensing regime for 3 years, but will be allowed to opt in. This opt-in phase will last for 3 years after the Act comes fully into force, at which time offshore advisers will be required to be licensed. However, people who are ordinarily resident in New Zealand will be immediately subject to the regulation, including when they provide advice while overseas.

The regulator will be called the Immigration Advisers Authority; it will be a statutory body within the Department of Labour, and will be headed by a registrar. The registrar will be appointed by the Chief Executive of the Department of Labour, under the State Sector Act 1988. The Minister of Immigration will be the relevant Minister. The Department of Labour is the appropriate host department, as the bill’s objectives relate strongly to government immigration policies, which are currently managed within the Department of Labour. The bill provides for the transfer of the function to an alternative department, if appropriate, in the future.

To ensure the independence of the authority from immigration decision-makers, the authority will sit separately from the immigration arm of the Department of Labour. In addition, no person who makes decisions on immigration matters, or who has been employed to do so within the previous 2 years, may be employed by the authority to decide licence applications, inspect premises, or investigate complaints.

The registrar may grant different types of licences depending on the competency of the applicant, such as provisional licences for new entrants in the industry. All licences must be reviewed on an annual basis. Details of licensed immigration advisers will be recorded and updated on a public register. This information will include who is licensed, how to contact an adviser, and whether an adviser is subject to any sanctions. To obtain and hold a licence, advisers must meet competency standards set by the registrar, which cover qualifications, experience, knowledge, and communication ability in English. They must also be fit to practise. This includes consideration of any previous convictions, bankruptcy, and unlawful status under the Immigration Act 1987. The registrar will also develop a code of conduct that sets out standards of professional and ethical conduct for licensed immigration advisers.

One issue that has been raised with me by my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel, is whether people who have recently exercised any power of decision in relation to immigration matters should be prohibited from a licence. This has not been included in the bill, but I think it should be considered. Some people use previous positions involving immigration matters or immigration decision-making to generate business. It is important that there is no suggestion of improper advantage. A delay or stand-down period in the licensing of those people may help to achieve that goal. I invite the select committee to consider this and to report back.

Enforcement provisions cover administrative actions, complaints, and disciplinary procedures and offences and penalties. Administratively the Department of Labour must refuse to accept immigration applications from unlicensed immigration advisers, unless they are exempt. Complaints and disciplinary procedures against licensed advisers are both punitive and provide for consumer redress. The registrar will set up a complaints body to investigate complaints of negligence, incompetence, dishonest behaviour, or breaches of the code of conduct. Following the investigation of a complaint, the registrar may impose sanctions, including caution or censure, suspension or cancellation of a licence, payment of a penalty up to $10,000, and compensation to the complainant.

There are two classes of offences: offences involving knowledge, where people have deliberately flouted the law; and those of strict liability that enable people to show that their breach of the law was not intentional, and that they have otherwise exercised all reasonable care. Imprisonment, and/or fines of up to $100,000 are provided as penalties for knowledge offences, and strict liability offences carry correspondingly lower penalties. Those penalties are compatible with existing provisions under both the Immigration Act 1987, and the Australian migration agent registration legislation. There is a right of appeal and review to the District Court. The courts are able to order payment of reparation and to order additional fines reflecting any commercial gain or material benefit.

There will be a staged implementation of this Act. A 12-month set-up phase will be followed by a further 12 months to allow immigration advisers to meet entry standards, apply for a licence, and be approved by the registrar. At this point all immigration advisers must be licensed, unless exempt or based offshore. Offshore advisers will be able to voluntarily opt in to the regime for a further 3 years, at the end of which time they will be required to be licensed.

I thank the officials who have worked so hard to bring this bill to fruition today. I commend the bill to the House.

The National Opposition will be supporting the first reading of this bill and its consignment to the appropriate select committee. We do that because we accept that there are issues around the immigration consultancy business. As the Minister of Immigration just said, all of us, as members of Parliament, confront from time to time the problems that crop up as a result of unprofessional or incompetent immigration advice that potential immigrants receive, and we often have to sort out the resulting mess.

My having said that, if we are trying just to bring some measure of reliability to this industry—to assure potential immigrants that they can have some measure of confidence in immigration consultants—I ask whether we need a bill of this size to do that. That is a big issue that will have to be examined by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Is a major bureaucracy being established here that will grow? We know only too well that too often bureaucracies or regulatory bodies are envisaged as quite small when they start out, but, my God, do they grow!

Let me give an example of that. When I was Minister of Education I used to run the entire tertiary sector—because in those days I was Minister of the school sector, the early childhood sector, and the tertiary sector—with a team of about 15-30 people in the Ministry of Education. Now we have a regulatory body called the Tertiary Education Commission that employs over 300 people to do the same job, and it does that job far less competently than I used to do it when I was Minister with a tiny little team in the Ministry of Education. It is a classic example of how regulatory bodies just grow like Topsy with no accountability. Ministers think these bodies will do a wonderful job, and no longer take a key interest in their activities, and then we see a bureaucratic monster develop. So our first concern is that if we look at this legislation and the nature of that regulatory body, we see there is potential for major bureaucratic growth.

Labour loves that sort of thing. We all know that Labour thinks bureaucracy is wonderful. It has employed so many more bureaucrats in the last 3 years that the increase in just the core public sector wage bill—forget teachers, police, and nurses; I mean just the core sector—is now a billion dollars a year, because of the number of bureaucrats this Labour Government has employed in recent times. Labour is not afraid of bureaucracy, but we on this side of the House are.

I think concerns will also be expressed that the regulatory body is within the Department of Labour. I know that it is meant to be separate from the Immigration Service within that department, but colleagues of mine will probably express some concern about the visibility of that separateness and the risk of conflicts emerging there.

But today I want to put a little bit of time into the issue of exemptions. We know that not all those involved in giving immigration advice will have to be licensed, and one group of people who are exempt under this bill is—believe it or not—members of Parliament. What do we know about the ethical behaviour of members of Parliament on matters of immigration advice? We know that most members of Parliament are pretty reliable in those areas but, my goodness, the track record recently of some on the Labour side of the House shows they clearly are not!

We are about to license and regulate immigration advisers under this legislation, but a member of Parliament—a former Minister, the honourable Taito Phillip Field—saw nothing unethical about dealing with an overstayer who had sought refugee status with his wife, was declined that status, and overstayed in this country. As I understand, the wife was arrested and deported back to Thailand. That member of Parliament saw nothing unethical in dealing with that illegal overstayer. I do not know why any member of Parliament would think he or she should be involved with illegal overstayers, but, still, Taito Phillip Field seemed to think it was OK to offer that illegal overstayer work in Samoa, where Taito Phillip Field’s wife could get him a work permit. He saw nothing unethical in telling that illegal overstayer that if he went to Samoa and worked on that member’s new house, he would get him a work permit to come back to New Zealand 3 months later. That person, Taito Phillip Field, will be exempt from any licensing requirement under this bill.

That is one of the worst examples, and I am not sure that in my time as a member of Parliament I have come across any immigration adviser or consultant operating near my electorate whose ethics are as bad as that. I am not sure that I have come across any immigration adviser who has said to someone: “Look, if you tile my house, I will help get you a work permit.” Taito Phillip Field also said to a painter that if he painted a house that the member had bought under certain unscrupulous terms from a poor person in his electorate, he would help him get a work permit. That sort of person is exempted from the requirements of this legislation, and we on this side of the House say: “Well, hang on. If we want to sort out the problems around immigration in this country, how do we make the system work when members of Parliament have no constraints on them?”.

At the moment, in the case of Taito Phillip Field, the Minister of Immigration is refusing to accept any accountability whatsoever in terms of the involvement of the Minister of Immigration in this fiasco concerning Taito Phillip Field, because the Prime Minister has set up a commission of inquiry. And what has happened to the commission of inquiry? A key player, the guy who blew the whistle on Sunan Siriwan—the guy Taito Phillip Field got to retile his house in Samoa for the promise of a work permit here in New Zealand—the builder who went to Samoa to work on Taito Phillip Field’s house, as well, which is how he knew about Sunan Siriwan, is refusing to speak to the inquiry being held by Noel Ingram QC.

So what a farce we have. Here we have legislation to try to make the Immigration Service put some decent boundaries, some certainty, and some professional behaviour around immigration advisers and consultants, but Labour members of Parliament, who will be exempt from the licensing and regulatory requirements of this legislation, are displaying behaviour that is totally unethical. If they were immigration consultants, they would probably be charged under various of our other laws, but as members of Parliament those Labour members are able to get away with the Prime Minister setting up a mickey mouse inquiry.

People knew what went on. People knew what Taito Phillip Field was up to. People like the former Minister the Hon Paul Swain knew what Taito Phillip Field was up to, because he visited his house in Samoa and met the Thai tiler whom Taito Phillip Field had promised a work permit. What is becoming outrageous now is that this Labour Government will not pay for people who know what went on to get legal advice. It will not pay for people to have legal advice as they give evidence to that inquiry. Therefore, it is a farce, because people are refusing to appear in order to be interviewed by Noel Ingram QC. So what will we get? A cover-up—a snow job!

Here we have legislation that will tie our immigration consultants up in bureaucratic knots, and Labour members of Parliament, who put in hundreds of representations to the Minister—most of which, it seems, are for people who should not be getting residence or permits to come to New Zealand—are exempt from it. That is just one of the reasons why National has concerns about this legislation. It is typical of Labour’s “look good” kind of legislation whereby Labour sets up a whole big, bureaucratic machine and makes it look as if something is being done, but in fact the legislation has huge holes that Labour members of Parliament can exploit.

There is a degree of irony in following on from a speaker who is from a National Government that refused to license immigration advisers. It had the opportunity to do so with amendments to the legislation in 1999, and, in fact, I was standing on the other side of the House, as the Opposition spokesperson on immigration, asking for amendments to the Act in 1999 in order to bring in a licensing regime. As soon as I became Minister of Immigration, we started to put together a process that has brought us to today. Yes, it has been a lengthy process, but that is because it has been a robust one.

We have done a lot more for immigration in this country than any other Government in New Zealand’s history, because we have brought in a proper process that has enabled people to have some assurance about the way in which the immigration process will apply. This is the Government that recognised that what happened after people arrived in New Zealand mattered to them; that the National Government did not care about what happened to migrants after they arrived in New Zealand. This legislation is an important plank of the settlement strategy that this Government had the ability to bring in, but that Government did nothing. All it did was count the numbers of people coming into the country; it did not care what happened to them after they arrived. That Government did not mind that there were doctors driving taxis; it did not mind that highly qualified information technology specialists were working in takeaway bars. It did not care that highly qualified business people ended up running takeaway bars to get residence in this country, in order to escape from a particular environment they did not want to live in.

Who was standing in the way of those people? Who actually made sure that a number of people came here with high expectations but no ability to live up to those expectations? It was immigration consultants who did not care what happened to those migrants after they arrived here, and a Government that did not care what happened, either. This Government is a caring Government; it has put into place a settlement strategy that is second to none in the world, and it has now brought in a licensing regime. Yes, I would have liked to see that brought in earlier, but I am glad that it is here now, and I pay full tribute to the Hon David Cunliffe, and also to the Hon Paul Swain, who did the preliminary work on bringing it in.

This legislation has been well negotiated with the industry, and it is interesting that the good immigration consultants are the ones who say “This is great!”, because it will clean up the industry, and the consultants who are doing the job properly will make sure there is an ethical framework within which they can operate. Lawyers operating in the field of immigration are covered by ethical standards, by fees revision—they cannot charge contingency arrangements—and by disciplinary procedures. There is proper protection in place for people who use lawyers. There have been no protections in place for people who use immigration consultants apart from disputes resolution and general consumer protection law. The trouble is that those consultants promise the earth. If it is not delivered and the person’s permit expires, the immigration consultant does not have to deal with the fallout; the person must deal with it.

I heard a member talking about illegal overstayers. All overstayers are illegally in the country; that is what overstaying is. The point that I am making, though, is that the reason many of them become overstayers is that the proper applications have not been filed in a timely manner. This bill will make sure there is a proper process in place to ensure that people are able to be properly looked after, and that those who hold themselves out as offering a service are actually capable of delivering on it.

The last point that I want to make is about the ethics of people who leave the Immigration Service’s offices and set up as immigration consultants, and the ethics of members of Parliament, including a former Prime Minister and former Ministers of Immigration, who leave Parliament and set themselves up as immigration consultants. What they do is the most unethical practice that one could possibly even imagine. I know that some members in this House have relationships with some of those former members of Parliament who have taken up immigration consultancy work. They do not care about our country. They use their former positions to open doors that should not be opened to them. They should be slammed in their faces, because they have no right to abuse their former position in order to gain personally in the way that they have attempted to do—by bringing thousands of people into this country who have no chance of settling and without a word of English between them—without any obligations because of the way the law was set up under a National Government.

I am proud of what I was able to do in the time that I was the Minister of Immigration, because we closed off loopholes that those members opposite know perfectly well were being exploited by former National members of Parliament, including former National Ministers and a former National Prime Minister. It is an absolute outrage, and I look forward to this bill providing an opportunity for some ethical framework for the operation of immigration consultants. I do not know why Pansy Wong is standing up while I am still talking, but it just looks as if she still does not know how the procedures of this House operate, even though she has been here for quite a while. Obviously, she knows perfectly well who I am talking about in terms of connections with people who are abusing their former positions in order to gain personally in a way that is intolerable.

I just want to make a point about former Ministers who actually do go out and practise in this field in order to take full advantage of opportunities that should not be made available to them. It is an outrage, and we are seeing one example being played out in another forum not so far from here. I remember sitting on a select committee and exposing what I saw happening. A former Minister of Immigration had used a policy that he was very well attuned to, then had abused a change that I had brought in to enable a talent visa operation, with the effect that an immigrant would pay a $45,000 salary to an employer that the employer would pay back to him or her. It was a money-go-round. It was absolutely, utterly, and completely unethical, and it would have been found to be illegal if we had not exposed it before it was put into place. I want to know why we have allowed that situation to occur. It really does reflect somewhat on people who were once honourable members of this House, but who will never be regarded as such in anyone’s eyes again.

I commend this bill to the House. I think it is an excellent opportunity for us to draw a line in the sand. If people are to operate as immigration consultants—and the good ones support this bill—then we will see a situation where immigration consultants will be able to hold their heads up, because what they are doing is in accordance with ethical standards, and there will be disciplinary procedures that will enable them to be struck off and not allowed to practise if, indeed, they do cross that line. I think it is important that we provide that protection for new migrants to New Zealand; they deserve nothing less.

Before we pick up on the point about former immigration Ministers and a former Prime Minister, how about talking about existing Labour Ministers and MPs. Who did more to undermine the New Zealand Immigration Service? The honourable Taito Phillip Field asked the Associate Minister of Immigration in the Labour Government to intervene in 438 cases, followed by the Hon Chris Carter, with 176 cases, and by the Hon George Hawkins, with 172 cases. In the last 3 years when people have come to my office, my staff have taken them through the proper procedures. In 3 years I have made only 12 representations because people need to respect our immigration process.

If Ministers and MPs abuse their positions, that undermines our immigration policies, and I wonder what part of the bill deals with that issue. Nobody should take too much notice of the member who has just spoken. She did more to undermine the New Zealand Immigration Service by doubting her staff and by not telling the truth to reporters. Who planted material for reporters to find? That behaviour is becoming a hallmark of the Labour Government. That former Minister of Immigration promised that this bill would be in the House in 1999, in 2000, and in 2001. Well, I have news for the Labour Government: even though it has put this House into urgency, we are still in December of the year 2005. So it is a very slow process, and I am surprised that the Hon David Cunliffe now wants to put pressure on the select committee to pass this bill in a hurry.

There are other problems with the bill because, as I said previously, the Labour Government is really suffering from what I would call “truth deficiency syndrome”. It will not tell us the cost of setting up this new bureaucracy to regulate immigration advisers, but, as Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith pointed out, it will grow. I ask how much it will cost. We are told in the bill that the Crown will be responsible for the cost of setting up this system and administering the system in relation to individuals who are exempt, or for non-profit individuals who are offering advice. Otherwise, the commercial advisers will be charged $1,000 to $2,000 per year. The bill also mentions that there are about 1,000 advisers in the sector. On the surface, that figure sounds OK; we might have a million dollars to run the system. But if we follow the Government’s logic, we are told that there were only 9,000 applications for residency in 2003—9,000 only—that were handled by advisers.

According to my calculations, and I am a qualified accountant, that means those advisers are doing about nine cases per year. We were told that about 66,000 applications for temporary visas were handled by advisers, which means that full-time commercial advisers would survive doing about, say, six per week. So how many full-time advisers actually exist in that sector? If we are being told by the Government that 1,000 advisers would be affected by this legislation, then I have news for the Labour Government: no adviser can survive by doing so few cases per month. So who will pay the additional costs that will be required to run the system?

The second weakness of the immigration legislation that is before us is that the type of people this legislation aims to regulate handle only 37 percent of the total applications for residency and 17 percent of the other type of visa. Forty percent of those advisers are actually based overseas. This legislation in the next 3 years will not include those overseas consultants, hence we will regulate only the sector that deals with about 20 percent of total applications. We are passing this legislation to deal with people who handle only 20 percent of the cases. How effective is this legislation in resolving the situation?

The advisers who have come to see me raised the issue of some of the powers contained in the legislation—for example, the inspection power for administration of the licensing regime. We have just learnt that the new body will exist within the Immigration Service. One of its powers will be that its inspectors can, at any reasonable time, enter any premises where any licensed immigration advisers work or have worked in the last 2 years, or where the inspector has reasonable grounds for believing that a licensed immigration adviser has worked there in the last 2 years, and those inspectors have every right to question any licensed immigration advisers and to look at documents in the advisers’ possession. National has some great lawyers in its team, like Chris Finlayson. No doubt he will point out and highlight for us whether this type of extremely wide power should be exercised in that manner.

The well-behaved members of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment have brought this up as a major concern. They ask why their members should be subject to an organisation with such a wide-ranging power. So we certainly want to examine the type of power that will be given to the inspectors under this legislation.

I also question why, after 5 years and after what we will call the knee-jerk reactions and changes to the immigration policy, we have seen the international student numbers reduce by 10,000 and the net immigration flow decrease from about 30,000 to 6,000 in the year ended October. The period when there were a lot of problems with immigration advisers was from 2001 to 2002. Now that we are hardly attracting international students, etc., the Government wants to bring in this legislation; the number of immigration advisers affected could be in the hundreds only. The Government has seen fit to bring in this legislation when it is almost like the horses have bolted.

Lastly, I want to raise the very good point made by my colleague Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith. I want to see, on an annual basis, some disclosure of the number of direct representations made by members of Parliament to the Ministers for special consideration. The Associate Minister of Immigration disclosed that, annually, he has to intervene in 4,000 cases. That means he has to look at about 12 individual cases daily.

I first would like to comment on some of the points made by the Hon Lianne Dalziel. She said that immigration in this country had improved because the Labour Government was doing this and that. In fact, it has improved to some degree over what it was when Labour came into power—I recognise that—but it has very little to do with the Labour Government. From New Zealand First’s point of view it was like pulling teeth. More particularly, from Winston Peters’ point of view it was like pulling teeth. The Government would not have done a single thing. It was quite happy with open-door immigration. Whoever wanted to come here could come here and stay here. It was not worried about overstayers, the English test, or a darn thing until New Zealand First and, principally, Winston Peters highlighted the issues. There is a long way to go.

The previous Minister, the Hon Paul Swain, only a little while ago when he was talking to a group of professionals, described the immigration legislation in this country as a “dog’s breakfast”. I do not want to go back to the Veterinarians Bill because we had enough of that last night, but I can tell members that in those two words the honourable previous Minister made it quite clear what he thought of the current immigration laws. Just to reinforce that, let me read the extract from the enhanced confidence and supply agreement with New Zealand First: “Immigration: conduct a full review of immigration legislation and administrative practices within the immigration service, to ensure the system meets the needs of New Zealand in the 21st century and has appropriate mechanisms for ensuring the system is not susceptible to fraud or other abuse, and taking note of other items raised by New Zealand First.” I was there when that clause was presented to Labour. Helen Clark and Dr Cullen could not sign it quickly enough. They said, “Yes, Winston, yes, Peter, you’re absolutely right. We want to tidy up the Act.”

New Zealand is a fantastically beautiful country. It is filled, in large measure, with hard-working people. There are some exceptions, and some of those sit across the Chamber. Tau Henare is one of them.

Waka jumper!

He is a waka jumper. He has been in five political parties. Sorry, he has been in four, because one was a sham.

💬 Hon Member: He has sat in every seat in the House.

He has, including one outside. This is a fantastic country. It is filled, in large measure, with hard-working people. Another asset this country has—and on a worldwide basis this is being recognised more and more—is that there are not too many of us. That is a huge asset for this country. If members do not believe me, they should look at the people who come here because they want to get away from where they have been or where they live right now. We must put a value on the low population. Of course we need immigrants.

More people like the member!

Exactly like the member. Immigrants should come here and offer the country a skill. That is the first priority. They must have good health. They should be crime free, and remain crime free. They should be able to speak English, and they should be prepared to integrate into New Zealand society.

The Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill is about the gatekeepers for a system that is letting people in. It is absolutely imperative, if we want desirable people to come here who will make a contribution, that the gatekeepers—the immigration consultants or advisers—are top-notch people also. We can do this only by regulation. New Zealand First has been an advocate for this sort of legislation for many a year. It is sad that it has taken the Labour Government 6 years or so to even get round to it. I heard the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith say that this could lead to too much bureaucracy. He may have a point there. But I say to National Party members that New Zealand First would prefer there to be too much bureaucracy than too many undesirables coming here.

And too much corruption.

And too much corruption, as the honourable member said. This is a very important bill. It makes up a very small part of the confidence and supply agreement, but it is a move in the right direction. There are some aspects of the bill that concern me, on first reading. It basically states that people will be prohibited from being licensed. We agree with everything that is in here, but we also think it could be a little bit more stringent in this regard. What about the people who are prone to having violent outbursts? If they have a criminal sentence, they are barred from being a practitioner. But what about the people who are prone to violence? Will we allow those sorts of people to become immigration advisers?

I will touch on just a couple of things that concern me on the surface. A register of licensed advisers will be kept by the registrar. The bill refers to the data that the registrar is going to keep on the database, but there is no reference to the fees or the methods of payment, etc. I believe that immigrants—who tend to feel quite vulnerable coming to a new county—should be advised on not only who is a suitable immigration consultant or adviser to speak to and refer problems to, but also on the level of fees or payments that are reasonably acceptable. We know from information given to us that some huge amounts of money are passing over from various hands to come into this country. It is huge money. One has to ask whether it is fairly earned, because New Zealand First has real concerns about how some people pay for the services of an immigration adviser.

I will conclude by saying that immigration is a problem area not only for this country but also on a worldwide basis. It is an area that New Zealand First has endeavoured to highlight for, now, many a year, and we are not going to let go of the issue. We will keep on keeping on until we have an immigration policy and immigration legislation that actually reflects the needs of the people of this country. New Zealanders are warm-hearted people who give a welcome to most people who come to these shores. They are entitled to know that the system protects them from undesirables, from criminals, and from people who have exceedingly bad health or who just want to rip off the country. This is the first step forward. We look forward to working with the Labour Party over the next 3 years under our confidence and supply agreement and tidying up many, if not all, of the immigration problems that we have.

In joining this debate on the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill, I wish to refer to the Treaty of Waitangi. I also wish to begin my remarks by speaking in the official language of this country: te reo Māori.

Tēnā koutou! Kua oti kē taku mōhio, ki ētahi ō koutou ko te Tiriti o Waitangi he mea kino. He mea whakawhiu, whakawehe, whakapau tangata. Ki ētahi hoki o koutou ko te Tiriti o Waitangi ko ngā kerēme kua whakatakotoria i raro i te maru o te taraipiunara. Ki a koutou rā, he gravy train tēnā. Atu ki ēnei, kei te mōhio ahau ko ētahi o koutou, kāre i te mōhio he aha te take ka kōrero Māori mātou i roto i te Whare nei. He mea tino hōhā tēnei ki a koutou ki te rongo mai ki te tangi o te reo Māori, ā, ka tāria te whakamārama i roto i te reo Pākehā. Tātau mā! Ko mātau te Pāti Māori! Kōrero Māori mātau i ētahi wā, ā, ka kawea rawatia e mātau ngā kaupapa, ngā tikanga o ngā tīpuna Māori kua heke iho nei, mai i ngā whakatipuranga, ā, tae noa mai ki a mātau o tēnei wā. Ka whai haere mātau i ngā tapuwae o ō mātau tūpuna, arā, ō Tā Apirana Ngata, ō Tā Turi Kara, ō Tā Māui Pōmare mā. Ko mātau nei te kanohi Māori o te rā nei, he reo Māori e tū motuhake ana hei māngai mō ngā hapū, me ngā rohe Māori o Aotearoa nei. Nā reira, kei warewaretia e ngā tāngata o Aotearoa nei te āhua o te tangata whenua, ka kōrero Māori ahau i tēnei wāhanga o aku kōrero.

I te 6 o ngā rā o Pēpuere 1840, i hainatia te Tiriti o Waitangi. I hainatia e ngā rangatira o ngā hapū Māori, me te āpiha mō te Kuini Wikitōria, te Karauna ki Ingarangi. Nā te mea i hainatia e rātau, e ngā rangatira Māori he kawenata, ki a mātau nei he kawenata, ā, nā te mea hoki i hainatia e Te Hāpuku o Ngāti Kahungunu, nāku anō i haina.

Nā reira ki ētahi o koutou, ko te Tiriti he kaupapa tawhito. He kaupapa hōhā, he kaupapa moumou tāima. Ki ahau nei ki te Pāti Māori, ki te iwi Māori whānui ko te Tiriti he kaupapa matua, he kaupapa hōhonu, he kaupapa tika mō tātau katoa mō Aotearoa i tēnei wā.

He aha te take ka kōrero pēnei ai au i tēnei wā? Nā te mea kei roto i te Tiriti ngā wāriu, ngā uaratanga hōhonu rawa kia whakakotahi ai tātau i a Aotearoa i tēnei wā, ā, mō te wā e heke mai nei. Kei roto i te Tiriti o Waitangi ngā kaupapa matua o te Pāti Māori. Kua whakarārangitia ēnei kaupapa i roto i tā mātau mana tōpū, arā, te Tū Tohinga mō te Pāti Māori.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[Greetings to all. I am aware that some members do not view the Treaty of Waitangi positively. It is seen as oppressive, divisive, and a waste of human resources. To some, the Treaty of Waitangi means the claims under the Waitangi Tribunal. To them, the claims are a gravy train. In addition, I know that some members are not really aware why we speak Māori in this House. To some members, hearing Māori spoken is something quite annoying, as well as having to wait for it to be translated into English. I say to members that we are the Māori Party. At times we will speak Māori and articulate the philosophical beliefs of our Māori ancestors handed down to successive generations and to us of this era. We follow in the footsteps of our ancestors Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir James Carroll, Sir Māui Pōmare, and others. We are the face of Māoridom today, a Māori voice that stands apart to act as representatives for Māori subtribes and regions here in New Zealand. So to serve as a reminder to the people of New Zealand about this aspect of the indigenous people of the land, I present this part of my address in Māori.

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed on 6 February 1840 by chiefs of Māori subtribes, and an official on behalf of Queen Victoria, the Queen of England. Because the Māori chiefs signed a covenant, to us anyway it is one, and because Te Hāpuku of Ngāti Kahungunu signed it as well, I consider myself a signatory too.

To some members the Treaty is a document that is past its “use by” date—one that is bothersome and a waste of time. To me, the Māori Party, and to the Māori people at large, the Treaty is a founding document, its principles are deep, and it is appropriate for all of us of New Zealand today.

Why am I talking like this now? It is because within the Treaty are the values and aspirations of immense depth that we can use to unite New Zealand as one today and tomorrow. In the Treaty are the key principles of the Māori Party that are listed in our Māori Party charter, our policy document.]

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is very interesting listening to the member, and there are obviously some issues that he wants to get across, but it sounds like he is giving a speech on the wrong bill. This is the Immigration Advisers Licensing Bill and I think there is some obligation on the member to at least refer to the bill and to talk about its content. It is a first reading speech, not a speech summarising the end of Parliament.

Thank you for raising that point. I was just about to bring it to the member’s attention myself. It is important that the member relates whatever he is saying to the bill before us.

If the member had waited one more verse he might have—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thought you were coming to it, yes.

Ka kaha taku tautoko i te Tiriti o Waitangi i tēnei wā nā te mea ko te Tiriti te tū tohinga tuatahi mō te hekenga mai o ngā manene ki Aotearoa nei. I whakaae ngā rangatira Māori i roto i te Tiriti kia whakaheke mai a tauiwi, arā, ngā manene o Ingarangi ki Aotearoa nei noho ai. Nā tēnei au i kī, he kaupapa tino pai rawa atu te Tiriti o Waitangi hei kaupapa whāriki mō tātau, he punga hoki mō tō tātau noho tahi. Ko te Tiriti he kaupapa whakakotahi i a tātau.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[I strongly support the Treaty today because it was really the first charter for migrants who migrated here to New Zealand. In the Treaty the Māori chiefs allowed foreigners, that is migrants from England, to settle here in New Zealand. This is the reason why I stated that the Treaty of Waitangi is truly a fine philosophy for us, as a foundation, and also as something to anchor us together. The Treaty is a means of making us one.]

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think I am allowed more time because of the translation.

Yes, you are in good hands.

E te Matua Rangatira ka kōrero ahau ki tēnei Pire. Nā te iwi Māori i whakatū te Ratonga Manene tuatahi i roto i te Tiriti i tērā rau tau neke atu. Ērangi, mai i taua wā tae noa ki tēnei wā, nā te Kāwanatanga anake i whakatakoto ture mō te whakahaeke manene. Nō rātau anō tēnei ratonga manene. Ki a mātau o te Pāti Māori kua tae ki te wā kia uru atu te tangata whenua ki roto i te roopu whiriwhiri kaupapa mō te ratonga manene kia noho te tangata whenua ki roto i tēnei roopu, arā, te Immigration Advisers Authority.

Kei te tautoko mātau i te pire nei. Nā tēnei pire ka whakatakoto ai te kaupapa kia uru pai ai ngā manene ki roto i te ao o Aotearoa nei, kia ngāwari ai ō rātau noho i waenganui i a tātau. He pire nui mō tātau i tēnei wā nā te mea ka haere mai ngā manene ki konei nō ngā hau e whā, nō ngā pito katoa o te ao. Me kaha tātau ki manaaki, ki te awhi i a rātau. Me kaha tātau ki te ako kia mōhio tātau i ō rātou tikanga, ā, ki te tautoko i ngā rerekētanga i waenganui i ngā iwi katoa o Aotearoa nei.

I roto i aku mahi i ngā tau kua pahure ake, i rongo ahau i ngā āwangawanga maha kei roto i ngā manene hōu. Ko ētahi o tātau kāre i te tino manaaki i a rātau nō te mea, he tikanga kē ā rātau, he reo rerekē, he hāhi wairua kē, he kiri rerekē rānei. Mā te Pāti Māori e kī, mēnā e whakaae ana tātau kia hara mai rātau ki konei noho ai, me manaakitia, me āwhinatia rātau. Kia kaua tātau e whakatū whawhai ā-iwi pērā i tērā i Cronulla, i Ahitereiria i tēnei wā.

Ki te kōrero i puta mai i te National Business Review i Hepetema—Mahuru—i tērā tau, kāhore tātau katoa o Aotearoa nei e tautoko ana i ngā momo manene kua heke mai nei. I tērā tatau pōti 45 ōrau i kī he nui rawa atu ngā manene o Āhia i konei, 39 ōrau i kī he nui rawa ngā manene o te Middle East, 39 ōrau i kī he nui rawa ngā manene o ngā moutere o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa i konei. Nā reira tātau mā anō ahau e kī, ki te whakapuare i te kuaha ki ngā manene, ā, kia kaha tātau ki te manaaki i a rātau. Ā, kua mutu i konei.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[I address this Bill by saying that over 100 years ago the Māori people established the first immigration policy through the Treaty. But from that time to the present, only the Government has been involved in determining immigration laws. This is a Government policy as well. We of the Māori Party say that the time has arrived for the tangata whenua to be involved in formulating immigration policy and also to be represented on the Immigration Advisers Authority.

We support this Bill. It provides a policy that ensures safe entry for migrants into the New Zealand way of life and makes it easy for them to settle in amongst us. It is an important bill for us now because migrants come here from the four winds and from all points of the world. We must work hard to look after them and to embrace them. We must work hard to learn about their ways so that we can understand them, and to support the differences among all peoples here in New Zealand.

In jobs I have been employed on in the past, I heard many concerns relating to new migrants. Some of us were not really welcoming to them, because their customs, languages, spiritual beliefs, and ethnicity were different from ours. The declared position of the Māori Party is that we allow them to come here and live. We should look after them and help them. We must not replicate the racial riots like the recent ones in Cronulla, Australia.

According to a statement published in the National Business Review of September last year, we here in New Zealand were not in total support of the types of migrants who migrated here. In the last poll, 45 percent stated that there were too many Asian migrants here, 39 percent stated that there were too many Middle Eastern migrants, and 39 percent stated that there were too many Pacific Islanders here. And so I say again, if we open the door to migrants we should also work hard to look after them. I conclude my address here.]

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wanted to raise a question in response to the point made by the Hon Paul Swain in his point of order, and also that Dr Sharples raised in relation to the time available to members when speaking in Māori and then having a translation. I also raise it because of the difficulty for members to follow the eloquence of Dr Sharples and other members who speak in Māori, because of the broken time with the translation.

I ask you to consider, and your office to consider, the question of simultaneous translation in this House. I know it is an issue that has been mentioned by other members outside of the Chamber—I think of Tim Barnett in particular, and I know that other members have considered it—but I really think it is time that this House started to address the question of simultaneous translation. We are officially a bilingual nation and I think it is ludicrous that we cannot provide that facility in this Parliament. I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to consider how that issue might be progressed.

I thank the member for raising the issue. I can tell the member that the Speaker and the Standing Orders Committee are addressing the issue. How long it will take, I do not know, but they are certainly addressing the issue, and the member is quite right. I thank Dr Sharples for his contribution. Sufficient time is always allowed by the Chair.

The Green Party will be supporting this bill. We want to remove any corruption that takes place in terms of people who make a business of assisting migrants. We want proper procedures and accountability, and the registration of immigration advisers will assist in this. But I think we have to look at the whole question of immigration advisers as, in part, a criticism of our immigration system. We need immigration advisers for two reasons. One reason that we cannot get around completely is that a lot of people want to come to New Zealand and many of them will go to any lengths to try to get the best advice to get entrance into this country for themselves and their families. We cannot really stop that. In fact, it is a tribute to New Zealand that so many people want to come here.

One of the main reasons people go to advisers is that the Immigration Service itself is not very transparent in its processes, in terms of what people need to qualify to get into the country, etc. If the service were much more efficient in that respect, then, as in other Government departments, the advice would be given properly and adequately by the department itself without people having to get—and often paying large sums of money for—independent advice. The very flowering of immigration advisers I think means that we need to have another look at the system.

I think that problems with immigration are reflected in the migration figures for the current year, in that although the Government had quite a high target, the latest figures I have seen show net long-term migration to New Zealand over the last 12 months to be a little under 6,000. That shows that a lot of people who cannot find ways to come to New Zealand are often people we could benefit from having here. Of course, there are problems that have been identified previously, such as the English language test being set at too high a level in the past, which excludes a lot of people and tends to be more biased against Asian migrants in particular. Then there is the whole problem that has developed since about May or June last year, when Winston Peters started talking about the number of Iraqis coming in, whom he thought should not be coming in. He even got a lot of his information to the House wrong, and people were taking cases against him to try to get him to apologise, etc. All of that hoo-ha produced a defensive reaction on the part of the Government in the setting up of the immigration profiling unit in the New Zealand Immigration Service. The unit employed a huge number of people to work very long hours, trawling back through all the visitor visas, immigration approvals—you name it—and creating a barrier to people, particularly those from the 54 high-risk countries. These are mainly the poorer countries whose people find it very difficult to get into New Zealand at all and, no doubt, have more recourse to immigration advisers.

I have asked the Minister—and have put down various written questions—to name those 54 high-risk countries. I was told that because of diplomatic and security reasons I as a member of Parliament could not be told any of the names of those 54 high-risk countries. I asked a second question about the criteria used to determine a high-risk country. The answer came back saying that was a diplomatic and security matter and that I could not even be given the criteria. So that is a problem. Even people applying to come to New Zealand from those 54 countries do not know—although some of them can probably guess—that their country is defined as high risk and therefore their chances of getting in are small and they are wasting a lot of money going to immigration advisers.

There are also a whole lot of problems relating to qualifications, particularly for people who do not happen to come from Anglo-Saxon countries such as America, England, Canada, and Australia. Their qualifications are often not looked at seriously enough. That is still a problem. There is also a whole set of problems around the question of family unification that people go to advisers about. We MPs all know that in the end they often come to us about these questions. In terms of family unification, there are big problems for people who have an older parent or grandparent whom they want to get here. Mainly, they are deemed to be a burden on the health system, because, being older, they might just happen to have a disease. Even younger people who have a disability have a big problem coming in under the family unification criteria, and that creates a greater demand on immigration advisers.

As we have seen over the last couple of years, even when the migrants get here and become citizens they have problems. They have problems with immigration and customs at the border. I was in Hamilton on Monday night and a whole lot of people came up from the Muslim community there with all sorts of cases. As members know, the head of the New Zealand Federation of Islamic Associations, Javed Kahn, has complained in the media—and I issued a statement supporting him—that people who had been New Zealand citizens for many years are held up by the immigration and customs services when they return to this country. They are searched, interrogated, and held for 2 or 3 hours. I was talking to Somali people who have been New Zealand citizens for some time. They are sick of it. Just going to Australia for a few days means that when they return they get held up for 2 or 3 hours. These people are citizens of this country. The Immigration Service has no reason to waste its time on citizens. If people have committed a criminal offence, then they should be checked by the police of this country, not by some mickey mouse immigration and customs interrogation system at the border that is not designed to cope with that level of criminality. Our immigration and custom services should be concentrating on visitors to New Zealand, not on people who are already New Zealand citizens.

Then there is a whole array of cases that involve MPs and immigration advisers—not so much at the level of migration but in getting visas to this country. It is very hard for anyone from those 54 unnamed, high-risk countries to get visitor visas to this country. An example I had recently was of a family whose members were all New Zealand citizens, and had been for some time. They were of Iraqi origin. In 1998 their mother visited them from Baghdad. She had no trouble getting a visitor visa. Now, post all this immigration profiling and the reaction to Winston Peters’ activities, the family cannot get a visitor visa for their mother to visit them in New Zealand to see her grandchildren, etc. There is no question that she would not go back. She did in 1998. The reasons the Immigration Service gives are not specific to her. The reason for not letting those New Zealand citizens have their mother come to visit them is that allegedly she has no incentive to return to Iraq because there is a war on. That reason applies to every single Iraqi who applies for a visitor visa to visit his or her relations in this country, who are probably New Zealand citizens.

So a whole array of problems is producing a market for immigration advisers. This bill, of course, will help straighten things out in terms of their advice and it will make them much more accountable. But the problem is a big one. As Pita Sharples said, we have to look in a much more open and compassionate way at migrants coming into our country. We should not apply cultural discrimination, and we should accept the different religions and languages that are involved. At the moment there is prejudice, particularly against people from Middle Eastern countries who might be of Islamic origin. Once we start targeting those people, as the Immigration Service is today, we create in the population racist feelings, such as we have seen on the beaches of Australia this last week. The responsibility for what is happening in Australia is largely to do with that country’s so-called anti-terrorist campaign targeted at Muslims—with the way the Immigration Service is getting involved, in handling people at the Australian borders. That is creating a feeling amongst the frustrated white youth in Australia that the Islamic people are the cause of their problems. We will undermine the fabric of our society if we do not deal correctly with immigration problems in our society.

Do we want to go down that Australian track? To an extent we have been down it, in terms of young people daubing the mosques. But at least the response of the Islamic community and the rest of the New Zealand was that they got together. They responded very well, building greater unity in New Zealand. So we can avoid the Australian tragedy. We should take the discussion around immigration as a way to take a step back and look at ourselves to see whether we are getting too caught up in the American so-called war on terror and the flow-on it has in terms of prejudice.

Debate interrupted.