Immigration Amendment Bill

I move, That the Immigration Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This Immigration Amendment Bill forms part of a package of measures aimed at deterring people-smugglers and asylum seekers from making the highly risky journey to New Zealand by boat. The bill will also enable the effective and efficient management of a mass arrival to our shores should one occur.

The Government understands the complex challenges that the international community faces in terms of refugees and asylum seekers. Last year the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that there were 42.5 million refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced persons worldwide. Our response to these challenges is significant. Our refugee quota programme is amongst the most generous on a per capita basis, and New Zealand is an active participant in a number of intercountry fora aimed at developing solutions that disrupt, deter, and manage the growing number of people who are seeking protection through dangerous and irregular maritime voyages.

Underlying this trend is the appalling reality of the high number of lives lost at sea. Since 2009 over 600 people are known to have lost their lives on their way to seeking asylum in Australia alone. Although a boat of asylum seekers has not yet reached New Zealand, we know that New Zealand has been in the sights of the people who arrange these journeys. The Government has been saying for a long time now that it is a matter of when, not if a mass arrival occurs. The landing in Western Australia just last week of a boat from Sri Lanka, with people holding signs saying they wished to come to New Zealand and flying a New Zealand flag, clearly demonstrates and reinforces this fact. This is the ninth such documented case in recent years of boats arriving or being intercepted in Australian waters where the smugglers stated that their destination was New Zealand. The denial by Opposition MPs of the likelihood of an irregular maritime arrival is at best naive and at worst grossly irresponsible. This Government is preparing for this likelihood before it occurs, not waiting till it does.

The policy package that this bill forms part of is about two things: deterring a mass arrival, and managing a mass arrival should one occur.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Where will you keep them?

The measures to manage a mass arrival—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Where’s the secure facility?

—include detaining—if the member will listen, I am sure he will have his questions answered—people under a group warrant for up to 6 months, and then extending the detention period for up to 28 days, as determined by a District Court judge. We know from overseas experience that asylum seekers who arrive as part of a mass arrival are unlikely to have travel documents and, after making the long journey by sea in dangerous conditions, are likely to need medical attention. It is in their best interests to be housed as quickly as possible so that they can receive the attention that they need, and it is in New Zealand’s best interests that these people are housed in a safe and secure environment while their identity and status are determined and any threat or risk to the New Zealand public is assessed. This is not arbitrary detention; this is to enable the effective and safe management of people. This is common sense.

In most cases, people will be housed in facilities such as the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre. Unaccompanied minors will be exempt—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: They could just walk out.

—from the process measures in the bill. Well, the member needs to decide what position he is going to take—either Māngere is a good place or it is not. The point is that these people will be housed in a centre that is appropriate to their level of risk and need, and it will not include children.

There are provisions in the bill that apply to all asylum claimants, not just mass arrivals. These changes will ensure the efficient processing of asylum claims and subsequent appeals.

I want to thank our support partners, ACT, United Future, and the Māori Party, for their continued support of this bill. Although they supported the bill at its first reading, both United Future and the Māori Party had concerns about some aspects of the proposed changes. I am pleased to note that these have been addressed in a cordial and cooperative manner, and both parties are supporting the bill at its second reading. I would also like to thank the previous Minister of Immigration, the Hon Nathan Guy, for his great work in getting the bill to this stage, my colleague David Bennett for his excellent work in chairing the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and the members of that select committee for their work.

💬 Hon Member: Thank you, Michael.

You are welcome. I also acknowledge and thank officials from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for their support of the select committee.

I also want to thank each person and organisation that made a submission to the select committee on the bill. In total there were 33 submissions to the select committee. Many of the submitters were concerned that adopting this legislation would mean that New Zealand breaches its international obligation in relation to refugees. I can assure those submitters and this House that the Government remains committed to meeting its obligations to refugees. We will continue to accept refugees through the quota programme each year, and we will continue to process refugee claims as efficiently and effectively as we can. We will continue to support refugees to settle into New Zealand and to make the most of what this country has to offer.

Other submitters were concerned about the use of what they described as mandatory detention. There are a number of provisions in the bill to ensure that detention is neither mandatory nor arbitrary. The judge has to be satisfied that the warrant is necessary before issuing the warrant of commitment, has discretion to issue a warrant for a shorter period of detention than 6 months, and can require an immigration officer to report to the court at specified periods on whether the warrant is still necessary.

The select committee recommended a number of changes that improve the bill, which the Government supports. It has recommended that the bill be amended to include the provision that a judge can revert to individual warrants if he or she is not satisfied that a group warrant is necessary. The select committee has recommended a number of other changes, including some minor drafting changes. I have no doubt that the bill is enhanced by the select committee process.

In addition to the amendments to the Immigration Act set out in this bill, changes will be made to immigration instructions for those arriving as a mass arrival group. These are a 3-year temporary visa leading to residency, and limitations on sponsorships of relatives to immediate family for entry into New Zealand. These changes are intended to reduce the perceived attractiveness of New Zealand as a mass arrival destination.

I plan to table a Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee stage to amend the Act to support people-smuggling prosecutions that may not be captured under section 98C of the Crimes Act. This was highlighted by a case recently brought before the High Court in Auckland, where a Thai national accused of smuggling migrants had her case dismissed because the court ruled that it met neither the people-smuggling definition set out in the Crimes Act nor the aiding and abetting offences set out in the Immigration Act. This amendment will help ensure that our legislation is watertight against those who illegally assist people to enter New Zealand.

I am also expecting an amendment to be moved by the Hon Peter Dunne to alter the definition of a mass arrival group. Originally this was set at groups over 10, and was considered by some as being too low a trigger point for when the provisions of the bill apply. I am comfortable with increasing the number to more than 30 to help ensure that the provisions are resorted to only where it is absolutely necessary.

I think everyone in this House would agree that we do not want people to risk their lives, and those of children, who have no choice, by making the treacherous journey by sea to New Zealand. But if these asylum seekers do make it here, the provisions uphold our international obligations, in terms of considering refugee and protection claims, and protecting those people found to have a justifiable claim. I commend this bill to the House.

That was a nice bit of soft-soaping from the Minister of Immigration about what is a bill that has caused enormous alarm in the refugee community and the United Nations community. In fact, they were outside Parliament today expressing that concern. They have written to the Minister, outlining once again their concerns about this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, the damage it will do to our very good international reputation, and the fact that it will do nothing to achieve its purpose, which is to deter people-smugglers. Well, that was how it was originally positioned when it first came to Parliament. The bill is really about ghost ships—or polar bears, I suppose—the ghost ships of boat people who will probably never arrive on our shores. They are ghost ships that the Government has used as a big stick to justify what is really a very reactionary and unnecessary bill. They are ghost ships of boat people whom this Government seeks to demonise through this bill and to make New Zealanders fear them, in the same way that we have seen Australia do in a very divisive policy that it has been unable to move away from through several Governments. It is a brutal policy that is proposed in this bill of locking away indefinitely ghost asylum seekers numbering what will be 30 or more as a group in mandatory detention.

The justifications for this bill are almost as silly as the Prime Minister’s claims that hackers are targeting this country for information to help create weapons of mass destruction. That is how silly some of the claims, particularly from John Key, have become. Last week John Key told us that the arrival of 60 Sri Lankans on a rickety fishing boat in Western Australia, flying a New Zealand flag and saying they wanted to come to New Zealand, vindicated him, and we should be apologising for daring to criticise this disgusting bill. He said it vindicated his stance, along with his agreement with Julia Gillard to take 150 refugees directly from Australia as part of our precious quota of 750. As part of that deal with Australia, John Key claimed that there was an agreement that asylum seekers, if they ever arrived here, could be sent to Australia for processing.

Putting aside the horror of New Zealand being responsible for sending asylum seekers to those places—those camps in Australia, in Nauru, and in Manus Island that are so reviled and internationally condemned, where men, women, and children spend years of their lives waiting, and where some are so desperate that they sew their lips together. There is a hunger strike going on right now in a detention camp in Melbourne, where desperate people do not know what else to do. Or they commit suicide. Putting aside all of that, I wanted to know what advice the Prime Minister had received on whether Australia would allow asylum seekers who arrived here to be processed in Australian camps. So I asked the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment under the Official Information Act to provide me with information on any advice it had given to the Prime Minister regarding an agreement with the Australian Government to send asylum seekers who arrive in New Zealand to mass detention centres in Australia. Funnily enough, it came back and said it could not supply that information, because it did not exist—it did not exist. So John Key made that one up on the spot, just as he has made up the weapons of mass destruction threat that we have heard today.

John Key told us that he reckoned it was a pretty good deal, when he was referring to the deal he had made with Julia Gillard. He got done. He went to Queenstown to do a deal he thought he could do something about, and he failed. He got done. It is not a good deal to trade our international reputation for a cheap trade in human lives, and that is what John Key is guilty of in trading 150 of our refugee places—our precious refugee places—in a political deal to appease the Australians. What we got was an effective reduction in New Zealand’s longstanding international promise to take 750 UN refugees; it is reduced down to 600. It is precious because we have always had a policy of taking those in most desperate need—the women and the children. This policy that John Key signed up to means that what we got out of it was a chance to join Australia in one of the most appalling offshore refugee policies in the Western World, and what we get with this bill is no better.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I was very much enjoying talking about ghost ships and ghost asylum seekers, and, thinking about it, I have been trying to understand the motivation behind this bill. If you go right back to the beginning of the bill in the first reading, in the regulatory impact statement that underpinned the proposed bill was an assumption that 500 people could arrive in a mass arrival, all from the same country, and all claiming asylum when they got here. Apparently that was based on the arrival in Canada of a steel-hulled vessel with 500 Tamils on board. The Minister has talked about this, and various Ministers have talked about this—John Key and others—but let us be clear about that particular incident. Those Tamils went to Canada because it has a well-established population of over 200,000 Tamils, principally around Toronto, and it has for years been a major source of fund-raising for the Tamil people. But in the bill, we were talking about 500 people one minute, then we went down to 11—there is a bit of difference there—and it is now proposed that there will be a Supplementary Order Paper that the definition be increased to “30 or more”. From Labour’s point of view, this does not change a thing about this bill. It does not change the fact that mandatory detention is not only internationally unlawful and inhumane but also completely unnecessary. We do not need this bill.

I cannot help but think that John Key and his Ministers have got a bit carried away when they have been meeting with the big boys and girls in the so-called five white countries of the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada. I have even heard theories that John Key has done a deal about cyber-security and national security biodata sharing—and, I mean, that might explain it, because this bill would be quid pro quo for the cost of joining that partnership. Of course, we will never know, because John Key will not reveal anything—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: He won’t remember.

Apart from not remembering, he will not reveal anything. He falls back on the defence of it being likely to prejudice—

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: He’s clueless.

—the security or defence of New Zealand, not to mention that he is clueless. That is right. I do want to express my disappointment about this bill, though. The Government has failed once again to listen—to listen to the 33 submitters, 32 of whom were opposed to this bill, from many respected organisations, both nationally and internationally, who all warned the Government that this bill represents a turning point in our international relationships and will have consequences for our reputation as we align ourselves with the failed detention policies of the Australian Government.

But we tried to be constructive about this. During the select committee process I approached the then Minister of Immigration, Nathan Guy, on behalf of Labour to offer a multiparty, non-confrontational, pro-convention approach to the possibility of a mass arrival of asylum seekers, as an alternative to this bill. Guess what! Guess what!

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: What?

That offer was rejected. The Government was not interested, because it wants to play politics with this bill.

I also know that others tried to help. I want to acknowledge here former National Party immigration Minister Aussie Malcolm. Let me be clear: he is no bleeding heart. He is no bleeding heart. I agree when he says that those who seek to engage in illegal activity to broach our borders deserve no comfort or special treatment. But Aussie Malcolm’s advice to the Government was this: apply the rules of the convention that we have signed up to. The rules work, if they are applied properly. Do not make up your own rules. But that is what we are doing.

According to John Key we face an imminent threat of mass arrival. He wants us to be fearful that a leaky boat will turn up on our shores any day. Of course, we know that is pretty well impossible, but John Key does not even seem to understand the basics of the convention. The basics of the convention are that a person who is seeking asylum must seek asylum at the earliest opportunity. It is impossible to arrive in Australia, as that boat did last week, and then say to the Australians that you want asylum in New Zealand. So this bill is unnecessary. It is an overreaction. We are not dealing with the real issues around migration and immigration. New Zealand is better than that.

On behalf of the National Party and the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee members I would like to support this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill. I am a very pro-immigration person. I think that New Zealand’s immigration rules are too strict, if anything, and I would like to see immigration opened up quite considerably, but the country is not quite ready for that situation yet.

I found it very distressing and very sad that the Labour Party comes into this House tonight and tries to prey on the most vulnerable people out there and makes accusations about this bill that are simply not true. This is a Labour Party clutching at straws, trying to paint a picture of something that is not the case. It is trying desperately to create fear, and that is very distressing, I think, when people put their lives on the line when they are migrating. They make some very specific choices in their migration as well. So it is very sad that the left wing is taking that approach to politics here tonight.

It is also sad when you consider that we have a working arrangement with the Australian Government, and the Australian Labor Party is no doubt in control in that Government. It is unusual to see the Labour Party here being so different from its colleagues across the Ditch. I bet you a Labour Government here would actually be signing exactly the same thing, because Labour knows it is in the best interests of New Zealand and Australia going forward.

This is not a turning point in politics or in the approach of New Zealand to migration. It is certainly not a turning point in our approach to refugees. We have a very strong refugee focus in New Zealand. We are one of the few countries in the world that actually takes in refugees. We do our share. We do our share compared with other countries in this world. What we are doing here is making our share a bit more realistic for the problems that we face in our area. That is what we are doing. That is something I do not think anyone would hold against us.

There is one other big thing. I think we heard the Labour Party say things about the Tamil population in Canada being a reason for people to go there. That is just rubbish. There is a big population in New Zealand. There are the same incentives as any other country. But the real unfairness of the Labour Party’s argument—the real unfairness of the Labour Party’s argument—is to those people who follow the rules. It is to those people who come here the hard way, who have to come through the New Zealand Immigration Service, who have to learn English, who have to pass our English language tests, who actually do everything by the book; the people who come into our electorate offices week after week, struggling to get through our immigration systems—they are the real people whom the Labour Party is hurting. In putting those people down, that is what the Labour Party is doing. Those people are doing everything right. We need a migration system that understands that, and does not give somebody else a lift over them. That is not the problem.

💬 Phil Twyford: David, you still don’t understand the issue.

I understand the issue very well, Mr Twyford.

💬 Phil Twyford: You don’t.

We do; we do understand the issue very well. It is a bit of a disappointment for the Labour Party to take that approach to it.

New Zealand has a strong commitment to refugees. We have done that year in, year out. That commitment still stays. This bill assists the New Zealand Government in meeting its commitments. It looks after those migrants who are doing everything right, as well. It does not send the wrong signals. It is not an attack on migrants, as the Labour Party and Green Party say, and New Zealand First will just be against it because it does not like any immigration at all. The Opposition has painted this incorrectly.

This bill is in the best interests of New Zealand, it is in the best interests of our migrant populations, and it is in the best interests of our country going forward, especially our refugees.

Here we have another bill from the National Government following hot on the heels of Paula Bennett’s beneficiary-bashing bill last week. This bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, is all about the politics of distraction. It gives the Government the power to lock up any group of 12 or more asylum seekers under a group warrant for a period of up to 6 months. It is straight out of the playbook of John Howard. There are many things that we could emulate about Australia, but surely Australian refugee policy is not one of them.

Australia’s arbitrary detention of asylum seekers has done huge harm to that country. Its reputation on human rights has been damaged. The policy has caused human misery. Its poster children are the detainees driven to rioting, self-mutilation, and suicide while they are incarcerated in detention camps. The policy has divided the Australian people, it has polarised debate, and it has made any rational consideration of refugee policy in Australia extremely difficult. In fact, it is now widely recognised in Australia that that policy, nearly two decades old, has failed. As one submitter told us at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, “without any fanfare or public statement, Australia has started the rapid release of those held in detainment into community placements and is accelerating claims processing.”

Well, with this bill John Key is channelling the spirit of John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister who won an election in 2001 by lying to the Australian people by claiming that refugees, asylum seekers, in boats off Christmas Island, were threatening to throw their children overboard. That was proved to be utterly false by a Senate inquiry. But by scaremongering that a boatload of illegal immigrants is about to land in New Zealand, even though no such boat has arrived in this country since the time of Captain Cook, the John Key Government hopes to create a political distraction from the tawdry scandals that it is mired in and its failure to grow the economy. Just like Paula Bennett’s continual denigration of welfare beneficiaries as a means of political distraction, this bill picks on and tries to demonise an even more vulnerable and defenceless group of people—asylum seekers and the human cargo of people-smugglers.

The Labour Party accepts that this Government has a duty and a responsibility to protect our borders, but we do not accept the punitive, badly thought through, and unnecessary measures in this bill. The bill simply will not work. Its stated purpose is to deter people-smuggling, but it is very clear that mandatory detention is not a deterrent to people-smuggling, and nowhere is this more obvious than in Australia. After a decade of policy similar to this, between the years 2000 and 2001 the single greatest number of asylum seekers since 1976 arrived in boats off the coast of Australia.

As expert submitters told the select committee, most asylum seekers are desperate people—desperate enough to risk their lives in rickety little boats on the open sea for the chance of a life in a new land. Submitters told us that the research clearly shows that asylum seekers have little or no knowledge of the policies on detention in the countries that they are trying to get to. Why the National Government considers that this bill will discourage people-smugglers is totally beyond me. Does it think that if the asylum seekers end up in a camp in Waiōuru for 9 months, they will contact the people-smugglers back in Jakarta and ask for their money back? Do you really think they are going to do that?

The bill is totally unnecessary. The fact is that a boat carrying asylum seekers has never ever reached New Zealand shores. That is a fact, Michael Woodhouse. It has never happened in the last 150 years. I know that John Key thinks that 66 Sri Lankans landing in a boat 400 kilometres north of Perth with a sign saying “Take us to New Zealand” vindicates his little fantasy that we are about to be swamped with asylum seekers.

💬 Mike Sabin: How far did they come to get to Perth?

It was 400 kilometres from Perth. People, look at the map. Look at the map. We are one of the most geographically isolated countries on earth. The Tasman Sea is one of the most dangerous stretches of water anywhere. There is no threat, and if there is, the threat is likely to be so small and so unlikely, how can it possibly justify the Draconian measures in this bill? Do the members opposite really think that our system of Government could not cope with processing a group of asylum seekers who survived thousands of miles on the open sea?

This bill will damage our reputation. If it is beyond the National Government members to realise that it is ethically and morally wrong, that it is unnecessary, and that it will not achieve its stated objectives, then they should at least consider the damage that this bill will do to New Zealand’s reputation. It breaks with a long-standing cross-party understanding on refugee policy. It will undoubtedly be a blemish on this country’s international reputation, which has been built up over decades from respect for the United Nations refugee convention and our agreements with, and support for, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It is inhumane and against the convention to punish asylum seekers and curtail their rights because of the way that they arrived in this country—because they might have arrived on a boat instead of on an aeroplane. It is completely illogical. It is a breach of the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Remember that two-thirds of the asylum seekers who come to this country are found to be genuine refugees—two-thirds. We have in this country a robust refugee claims system that weeds out the false claimants and gives genuine asylum seekers the chance to make a new life. Many fine New Zealanders came to this country as refugees, and many have made great contributions in all walks of life. The children of refugees have gone on to achieve great things because of Government policy that respected human rights and took seriously the principle that how a State deals with its refugees is a measure of its social and political health. I remind the Prime Minister of that.

Finally, let me say that National MPs in their great enthusiasm for this bill and their keenness to mimic John Howard’s disastrous policy in this area have gone around talking about queue-jumpers—as if somehow asylum seekers are simply economic migrants dishonestly trying to worm their way in ahead of skilled migrants. The brains trust of the Waikato, David Bennett, entertained the House in the last speech with this idea that illegal migrants arriving here, or asylum seekers, are simply queue-jumpers. Well, I say to Mr Bennett to remember that 90 percent of the boat people locked up in Australian detainment camps are eventually classified as refugees. They meet the test—90 percent of them, Mr Bennett. Second, there is no queue for people who are fleeing for their lives. There is no queue. Only 1 percent of refugees, Mr Bennett—only 1 percent of refugees in the world—ever get the chance of resettlement. The other 99 percent languish in hell.

I urge the National Party not to carelessly throw away that party’s liberal tradition. Listen to the voices of people like the Hon Aussie Malcolm, former immigration Minister in the Muldoon Government. He came to the select committee and urged that this bill be dropped. Think about what this bill will do to New Zealand’s reputation. Work constructively to find solutions. Beef up the cooperation with Australia, with Indonesia, and with Malaysia to tackle the scourge of people-smuggling at its source, but do not throw it all away with this nasty, petty, divisive bill.

The Greens will be opposing the Immigration Amendment Bill. Tonight I want to start this speech against this appalling, unnecessary, and divisive piece of legislation by reminding this House about why we have a refugee convention. In the words of Rosa Sacharin, who was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany—I have the quotes from a British Refugee Council video—“People don’t like foreigners coming in. People didn’t like me when I came here as a refugee from the Nazis. I escaped. Many millions didn’t. I never saw my father again, nor my brother. When Hitler came after the Jews, we had no legal right to go into any other country.” The refugee convention gave people all around the world, after Rosa, the legal right to enter other countries when they were fleeing for their lives or escaping persecution.

The bill breaks 50 years of consensus in this country of upholding that convention. That is no light thing to do. I want to speak to the people of New Zealand who may be hearing the discussion coming from the Government about these asylum seekers and refugees and having a sense of this blind mass of people coming to invade this country, and remind them of some of the people who have been refugees: the Dalai Lama, who became a refugee in 1959 from Tibet, and is today seen as one of the world’s greatest spiritual leaders; and, more recently, Fang Lizhi—excuse my pronunciation—a Chinese astrophysicist and pro-democracy activist who entered the United States Embassy in Beijing after Chinese authorities cracked down on pro-democracy protests. Something I would have thought this Government would want to encourage in the world—democracy.

Since signing the convention in 1960, New Zealand has accepted refugees and asylum seekers from Czechoslovakia, after the Prague uprising; Asians fleeing Uganda in the 1970s; Chileans fleeing General Pinochet in the 1970s; Jews and Eastern Europeans fleeing the Soviet Union through the times of repression in the 1970s; those fleeing wars in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos in the 1970s and 1980s; and Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the 1990s. We have offered shelter to these people. We have been a refuge for these people in their times of greatest need. Tragically, the world still has too many horrors, and it is an unsafe place for all too many people.

Being as remote as we are, not many of these people make it to our shores. In fact, only about 300 asylum seekers every year make it to New Zealand. I really, really want to remind the House that when we talk about doing our fair share internationally, this is compared with the 2.7 million Afghans to whom Pakistan and Iran gave refuge in 2010. I would dare anyone to suggest that their economy and their society would be better equipped to process and handle that arrival of refugees than we would be. We are so remote. We are in such a privileged place, and we have gained so much from refugees who have come to this country, who have started their life here, who have started businesses, started families, and contributed to our society.

So what will this bill do to help these people needing a safe place in this world? It will enable the courts to detain any group of 30 or more people—we are hearing that the amendment will be to 30—who arrive together. It will limit family reunification to immediate family for those claiming refugee status after a mass arrival. It will provide the power for suspending processing of all refugee and protection claims by regulation, without the oversight of this House. It will remove the right of some claims to be heard before the Immigration and Protection Tribunal—for subsequent claims—along with the removal of certain rights of judicial review. In short, this bill breaches the refugee convention, international law, and our own New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

We heard wonderful submissions on this bill, very powerful submissions that offered a huge amount of expertise from organisations working in New Zealand, from people who have seen the impact of this kind of policy in Australia, and from people who have provided us with expert advice and told us that this is not the way to go. We heard from submitters like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, making a rare public submission; Amnesty International; the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network; the New Zealand Law Society; the New Zealand Human Rights Commission; and the International Detention Coalition. All were opposed to this bill on the basis of the evidence.

There was one submission supporting the bill. This submission advocated for the definition of mass arrival to be dropped to two people. I think that gives an indication of the quality of that submission.

The Human Rights Commission made comment after the bill was reported back. So when the Government says: “Well, we’ve made amendments. Actually, it doesn’t do any of those terrible things you’re saying it does.”, well, let me let you know what the Human Rights Commission had to say. It said: “the Bill and associated policy changes unduly penalise asylum seekers for irregular entry to New Zealand in clear breach of Article 31 of the Refugee Convention. The detention provisions in the Bill will result in arbitrary detention in breach of both New Zealand’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and section 22 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The suspension of applications from nationals of specific countries without providing them protection is discriminatory and may violate the right to seek asylum as guaranteed by international law. Restrictions on the right of judicial review proposed by the Bill goes against the basic and longstanding constitutional right to challenge the legal validity of government actions as protected by … the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.”

That is commentary on this bill in front of this House, not what we saw in the first reading or in submissions. It is what we are considering now. It clearly breaches Acts and conventions that we have had consensus on for 50 years. This is a big deal. This bill is being promoted by the Government as being a deterrent to people-smuggling and just a sensible preplanning initiative to enable it to process a group of asylum seekers. Well, to very quickly address those points in turn—one, it is nothing to do with being a deterrent for people-smuggling, and, if it was, that is an indication of it being a breach of the refugee convention, actually. We have legislation to deal with people-smuggling, and the harshest sentence that we have had around that has been 8 months’ home detention. So if the Government wanted to do something about addressing people-smuggling, then, actually, I would have thought that would be an area to start work in, rather than locking up the people who are most desperate.

Further, on the point of this being a way of processing people, actually, the way people arrive at the moment is that they arrive and the Customs Service tells them whether they are allowed in or not. If they are told they are allowed in, then they head out, they get a short-term visa, and then their application is processed. In Auckland we have a hostel for asylum seekers who do not have financial support, which may provide some ability to assist people during that time, and this Government has withdrawn funding for that centre. Does that not strike anyone as ironic? Here the Government is, talking about needing assistance for processing people, and it has withdrawn the funding for one place that is actually providing support for people at this time and also enables the Government to access and work with these people more easily. This is not about anything to do with administration, and it is not about people-smuggling. To be honest, I am lost for words to know what on earth this could be about and what could be worth breaching our consensus on the refugee convention and undermining fundamental human rights and people’s sense of security and belonging in this country—people whom we should be valuing.

I am very pleased to take a call on the Immigration Amendment Bill on mass arrivals. I will steer a little clear of some of the rhetoric from the Greens. There is nothing unusual there. The fact that the Greens do not support this bill is usually a fairly good indication that we are on the right track.

We have heard also from the Labour Party about this being somehow ethically and morally wrong. Well, I submit to those members that what is ethically and morally wrong is people-smugglers bunging people into boats and sending them off on their way, high jumping those who are working their way through a legitimate process and have genuine refugee status. That is what I think is ethically and morally wrong, and to do nothing about that would be an affront to those who actually are looking for genuine refugee status—those 750 per year whom we do look to address under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’s provisions. That is a significant contribution on the global scale.

We are a long way away. We are geographically isolated, and that is a blessing—that is a blessing. It is also an incentive. There needs to be an adequate deterrent to those who see this as an attractive location. The naivety that I hear from members suggesting that there is no way a boat could arrive here—well, go back a few hundred years and ask yourself how Māori ended up getting here. What, did they fly a jumbo jet over, did they? Take a look at those who have rowed across the Tasman. Take a look at those who have kayaked across the Tasman. To suggest that it cannot be done is just ridiculous. At $50 million for a mass arrival I bet members and people in this House that the first people to be up on their hind legs about doing nothing about it would be the very Labour Party members who are opposing the fact that we are doing something about it now. Would that not be an ironic thing to do?

But it is really a case of how the Labour Party operates, because this Government actually deals with the challenges. It actually does what the New Zealand public expects us to do. It does not just pick the winners. It actually deals with things as they arise, because it has to and that is what it is expected to do. Whereas the team on that side—if I can call them a team; they are fairly dishevelled—chooses to just pick the winners, ignore what it wants to, push to one side things like the Canterbury earthquakes or whatever else when it suits, and then pull that out of the bottom drawer and throw that one up when it does.

This is another good example of a party that would criticise us like there was no tomorrow were we to do nothing. I think deep in those members’ hearts they know that this is something that must be done. I am sure they can find it within themselves to support this bill. I commend the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for its work on it, and the Minister of Immigration for the way in which he has carried himself in this bill. I commend it to the House.

In early Māori history when the first canoe passed north, beyond Auckland, the waka actually ended being holed, and they went ashore to fix the waka up. The local people helped them, so who do you think they were? Why I am saying that is that some of us have been here a thousand years and we think we have got the right to say something about who comes here and on what terms. The second thing I want to say is that this misnomer that we are all immigrants is absolute balderdash. An immigrant is someone who is living legally in a country not of his or her birth. To use apologetic language to try to excuse the callousness by which you regard a democracy eventuating in a country like New Zealand is actually shameful. We have had a long conscience. It resulted in 750 people a year under the United Nations registered quota coming to New Zealand. That was where the consensus was, but what I am hearing tonight are all sorts of things about bringing all manner of people here regardless of their entitlement or the fact that they are seriously jumping the queue ahead of people going through the registered UN process—the one that we signed up to. Let us get that straight.

To hear, as Mr Bennett from Hamilton East said, that he is for far more immigration despite Auckland being massively logjammed and gridlocked every morning and every night now, and with thousands and tens of thousands of people without homes, just shows you how far away from reality some people in this Parliament are. Do you realise how many of the MV Tampa boys were first deemed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to be eligible? Do you know the answer? The answer is not one. Yet they came here on an arrangement between Helen Clark and Mr Howard, who has been pilloried tonight in this House, and then they brought hundreds and hundreds under family reunification with them. Which part of the New Zealand population was ever told about that?

We know that on immigration the Government is a total mess. It had a recent review of just 1,800 of New Zealand visa applicants who have been successful just a year ago. It looked at just 1,800 of those visas, and it found 15 percent were fraudulent, were false, and were not even legal in the first place. So where are those 15 percent now? They are humming around New Zealand working, and just carrying on as though there is no law whatsoever.

Where we stand in New Zealand First is very clear. We will support this law on one condition: that there is a real plan of action capable of being put in place tomorrow if a boat should—

💬 David Bennett: There is.

No. No, there is not. Oh no, there is not. Mr Guy, the predecessor to this Minister of Immigration, told me: “Well, they’ll go to Māngere.” To which we said: “What? Climb over the wall and just walk off?” Well, he looked a bit bemused by that, but that was the plan. Now he is talking about going down to Waiōuru, down in the freezing cold. For people who come out of a hot climate that could be murderous. This is a Government that is doing a dog whistle because it is concerned a boat might arrive and it does not want to be seen to be the hopeless, incompetent Government on immigration and refugees that has been its record. We have had record immigration in the last 25 years and, pray tell me, do you think we are better off as a country?

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes.

Oh no, we are not. Oh no. The per capita growth that we were promised has never been delivered. All the warnings of many years ago have been clearly borne out. Here we are in Auckland now asking everybody from Kaitāia to Invercargill to pay for Auckland’s gridlock problems, and the Government has no plan to slow down immigration so it can deal with present problems in Auckland—none whatsoever. Do you know why? Because the Business Roundtable just wants more cheap workers and it wants more consumption to prop up a failing economic strategy. If the Government was so good on the issue of people, why are 58,000 leaving every year? Please explain that.

Tonight you have seen exposed the fact that we have here some members getting up and thinking that this is a black swan event. The black swan event is something that comes out of thin air—not likely to happen. But, frankly, we all know that there is every chance it will happen. Not for a moment, though, do I think that the boat that arrived in Geraldton in Western Australia was ever coming here. But it is a great public relations stunt to take the heat off the Australian authorities and claim that you were heading all the way to New Zealand. And here is the rub. The boat on which they arrived, you people, was a fishing boat given by the Australian people to Sri Lanka when they had the last tsunami. So Australia, out of its good heart, gives a major fishing boat to Sri Lanka to help out in a time of post-tsunami crisis, and what do you get from them? Return to sender, but loaded up with refugees. Do members here not read anything? No, they do not. They work on in provincial ignorance without a concern for the facts.

Look, there is a real threat. We think there should be a system in place to deal with it. If it is not dealt with by detention centres, pray tell me here, what do some members think you are going to do with them? If you have got 10 percent, 15 percent, 25 percent, or maybe 40 percent who will never be legal, what do you intend to do? Other than to make dog whistle promises or to say that your heart is filled with goodness and you do not give a darn what the mass majority of New Zealanders—Māori, European, and all new immigrants—actually think on this issue. Tell me where in Asia is there one country following the current debate that you are hearing in the House today in New Zealand? Find me one country in Asia that tolerates this sort of woolly-woofter argument. We have a right to defend our country. We have a right to put the people of New Zealand’s interests first—not last, first.

💬 David Bennett: Well, vote for it. Vote for it.

No. If the Government puts in place proper plans for a detention centre and we see those plans—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: We’ve got a plan.

Oh no! I do not want to hear the last lot I heard, which was we might put them in the Devonport naval base. Oh, really? So where is the security there? We know that people have come in their hundreds to this country. Never ever—

💬 David Bennett: We’ve got a plan.

Excuse me, how many Afghani refugees came here and were never tested for TB?

💬 David Bennett: Who was in Government then?

The National Party.

💬 David Bennett: You.

No, the National Party was. Oh no, you do not. Well, you know it is only a fool who laughs at his own foolish joke.

💬 David Bennett: Well, you were there.

No, it was the National Party—all its own work. You know what happened? You go to any Auckland hospital and look at the “Third World disease wards”, and they are packed with immigrants—not New Zealanders; all immigrants—being paid for on our welfare system. Why? Because no TB tests, among other things, were ever done. You know what their excuse was when they were asked “You mean you imperilled the safety and health of the New Zealand population?” They said: “Well, they wanted to be reunified with their families.” How do you like that? Careless, mindless—a soft heart and a head to match.

We have a right in this country to say who should and who should not come. Our history has been, and it has been the consensus of this Parliament for decades, that we will take 750 people from the UN—on the register, on the list, properly processed, and deemed to be genuine. But what you are going to see here, if we keep on sending these messages that we are a soft touch, is hundreds and hundreds dying while trying to get here. Then what will the bleeding hearts say—then what will the bleeding hearts say?

💬 David Bennett: Vote for the bill.

No, no. They will, by their condemnation of weak, insipid policies, have actually caused that event, tragic as it will be, to happen.

Let me just say again: if the Government votes for our Supplementary Order Paper on a proper detention facility in this country, then we will support its bill. We will vote for it in the second reading. But if, at the Committee stage, it ignores all warnings of sane, sensible, historic, and international advice, then we will oppose it.

This bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, is a compassionate bill. This is a bill that aims at deterring desperate people from putting their lives in the hands of unscrupulous operators. We know that since 2009—that is not very long ago—600 people is the pretty strong and accurate estimate of those who have died, but that does not include ones whom we do not know about. Those we do not know about. This bill aims to discourage and deter people from putting their lives in unscrupulous hands.

It is interesting. I am pleased to hear that the Rt Hon Winston Peters agreed that there is a threat. I am surprised to hear that the Labour Party, with its “eyes wide shut” stance, thinks there is no threat—the threat is so small, so unlikely, so we will forget about it! How far is it? What is the distance between Colombo and Perth? The answer, in case you have not looked it up, is just over 3,500 nautical miles—3,500 nautical miles. That is 5,700 kilometres. This boat, which the right honourable member pointed out was given by the Australians, a small fishing craft, was piloted from Sri Lanka to Perth and arrived. How far is it from Perth to Auckland? Well, it may come as a bit of a surprise: 3,300 nautical miles. How many kilometres is that? It is 5,300 kilometres. It is not very far. It is totally possible that such a craft could easily, if it had not been intercepted, have arrived in this country. It is remarkably naive and misguided and completely disingenuous to suggest that mass arrival cannot take place and could never happen to New Zealand.

New Zealand takes 750 refugees a year through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—properly processed and looked after. This legislation is not about punishing people with a genuine claim for refugee status; it is about sending a strong message to people-smugglers, and also for the protection of the vulnerable. I commend the bill to the House.

I call Sue Moroney.

💬 David Bennett: Oh, this will be a bleeding heart.

Thank you to David Bennett, who has just said that this will be a bleeding heart. Well, I am internalising a complicated situation, because what we have got here is a situation where we have been convinced, or at least the media has been used to try to convince New Zealanders, that there is a very real and imminent threat of boat people arriving on our shores and invading our country—and not only invading our country. The little dog whistle from the National Government to New Zealanders is that they will threaten our standard of living somehow, and must, therefore, be dealt with.

But when the boat that was supposedly on its way to New Zealand some time around the Christmas holiday period did not materialise, and questions were asked of the then Minister of Immigration to give some evidence to that situation that had been drummed up through the media, there was none. There was no evidence that could be offered by that Government that there was, indeed, a ship full of refugees on its way to New Zealand shores.

John Key, you know we cannot legislate for your ghost ships. We on this side of the House are not going to legislate for your ghost ships. That is, in fact, what the National Government is asking us to do. It is using this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, as it uses many other bills, as a weapon of mass distraction. That is what it is, in fact, trying to do here. It is trying to distract from the many, many problems that that Government faces today.

Just look at today, for example. I can imagine that when those bombs went off in Boston, it was then that the National Government decided it would be a good day to announce that it has appointed one of its own MPs to a watchdog role as the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner. I think—

💬 Simon O’Connor: That’s disgraceful.

Well, have a look at your Government’s record—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! You are including the Speaker in that by the use of your pronouns. You are also straying away from second reading material.

I just ask members opposite to look at their Government’s record when it comes to using legislation through this House and other matters as distraction from issues that are, in fact, going on. I think they would also be quite pleased that the second reading of this bill comes up on a day when they have appointed another one of their supporters to the Human Rights Commission. They are starting to use that commission as if it is a recruitment agency for National Party supporters.

The Human Rights Commission is concerned about the very bill in front of the House this evening. That is why it is so important that we have people who are not under the influence of the National Party or any particular party in these watchdog roles within the Human Rights Commission. Bills like this, which do contravene human rights understandings and conventions and legislation, need good, strong watchdogs in place to be able to come out against the Government when it does these things. That is why the way in which that Government is using the Human Rights Commission is just so wrong.

But I want to come back more explicitly to the details of this particular bill, because we had the member for Hamilton East, David Bennett, speak before, and it was very, very disappointing. He comes from a city—well, he does not come from that city, but he is now in the city—where there are actually a large number of refugees, and there are—

💬 David Bennett: Where did you vote last election, Sue? It wasn’t Hamilton West, was it?

Well, the member asked where I voted at the last election. I voted in Hamilton West, if he must know.

💬 David Bennett: Rubbish! Prove it.

Well, I can prove it, if that is what he wants the House’s time taken up with, but of course I voted in the electorate of Hamilton West at the last election. I am not sure what the point is that he is trying to make. But, look, the point that I am trying to make is that Hamilton actually is a city with a large number of refugees. In fact, it has such a good reputation in terms of refugee resettlement that the Afghan translators whom Labour fought that Government to bring to New Zealand—and we actually won on that occasion—are being resettled in Hamilton. I am really proud to say that in that city, and it took me a little while to work this out, we have one of the best processes. It can always get better, so it is by no means perfect. But we have a migrant resource centre where a whole lot of services that cater for migrants and refugees are co-located in one area. It makes a real difference in terms of the ability of those organisations to resettle refugees and migrants in a fashion that makes them quite included and welcomed into the community. I think one of the most touching things that happens on a regular basis in Hamilton is the pōwhiri that happens when new refugee families are welcomed into our community. It really is a very embracing situation.

But contrast that—contrast what is happening in Hamilton, and the welcome and the pōwhiri that those refugees are given—with this piece of legislation. This dog whistling piece of legislation is actually all based on something that has never happened. There has never been even a threat of it happening, but it uses that ghost scenario to try to do a dog whistle to the rest of the New Zealand population. That, I think, is really an outrageous thing to do. It is outrageous because it undermines and puts other New Zealanders in a really bad context, because that Government actually thinks that New Zealanders are silly enough to respond to this in the way that it hopes that they will. What it hopes they will do is start to blame other people for the sorts of things that that Government is doing, like not getting on top of the recession, and all the things that are creating problems for New Zealanders today.

If David Bennett really believed that this bill was something that was in the interest of all refugees—certainly, he tried to invoke the idea of queue-jumping and that this bill was designed to stop queue-jumping—then why is it that the Refugee Council of New Zealand, which represents all of those people he thought he was talking in favour of, has written to the Minister to express its grave concern about this bill? It called it a sledgehammer approach to the issue. It said that as a signatory to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, New Zealand has an international legal obligation not to discriminate against asylum seekers based on their mode of arrival. The council warned the Minister that the bill was unnecessary, that it would not achieve its stated purpose, and that it would breach human rights obligations. But, more frightening, it actually jeopardises New Zealand’s international reputation as a world leader in this area, and it hinders progress towards a genuine regional solution. I think that is the most insidious thing about this bill. Yes, it is a dog whistle to hard-working New Zealanders, but it actually risks the international reputation.

It was interesting to watch the members opposite as they squirmed while they listened to Winston Peters’ speech, but what he was doing was speaking out loud what the National Party really believes when it comes to the issue of refugees. National members need to stand up and be accountable to the dog whistle politics that this bill is, and stop using these pieces of legislation to try to distract the New Zealand public from their woeful performance in Government.

We have this classic case of where the Opposition is, I suppose, dog whistling supposedly on our behalf. I do not believe that anyone from this side has used half the words, terms, or descriptions that the other members have. In fact, I find it disgraceful that the member who has just sat down, Sue Moroney, has decided to politicise Boston today. As someone who has lived in Boston and has friends there, I just find it appalling that one would try to politic within hours. We then hear from New Zealand First going down the sort of scapegoating, scaremongering side, which, I am sure, plays to certain elements in New Zealand, but certainly not with National. And if you listened to the Greens, well, you would basically think that political activism becomes human rights. I would certainly encourage members of that party to go back to the textbooks and get down to the basics of what human rights are about.

One part around human rights allows Governments like our own to manage how we deal with refugees. This is what the core of the Immigration Amendment Bill is about. It is providing a legal framework to deal with a mass arrival. Will it happen? When will it happen? We do not know. But, as other members have rightly pointed out here on this side of the House, it would be the Opposition who would be the first to cry foul if we did not have any legislation like this in place. So it is very timely.

I want to acknowledge the Minister of Immigration and the work that he has done to bring this to the House. I acknowledge David Bennett, of course, the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. We have worked very hard. We have listened to the submissions. We have made the appropriate recommendations. This side of the House once again stands strong and firm and rejects the constant assertions of an Opposition that really is lacking in ideas and constantly trying to tell us what we might be saying. Well, New Zealand, we believe in New Zealanders. We believe in appropriate migration. We believe in looking after those who come to the shores in an appropriate way. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the interest of allowing that member to formulate a debate, I move an extension of his time, so that he can actually say something that is relevant to this conversation tonight.

The member cannot seek leave for another member. The next call is a split call. Iain Lees-Galloway has 5 minutes.

From time to time, this Parliament, unfortunately, considers bills that can be described only as a solution looking for a problem. It is sad to say that the Immigration Amendment Bill is most certainly one of those bills. If we look at the stated purpose of the Immigration Amendment Bill, it is “to deter people-smuggling and to enable the effective and efficient management of a mass arrival of ‘illegal immigrants’.” Let us look at the first part of that stated purpose. The most significant deterrent that we have to people-smuggling will never be a piece of legislation. It will be the Tasman Sea and our geographical isolation from the rest of the world. I know that John Key—

💬 Simon O’Connor: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe it is clear—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think I can guess what it is.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Yes. I believe a member is able to use props.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. Only the member may use a visual aid at the time he is actually speaking. It is not for other members to display.

💬 David Bennett: You’ve got it the wrong way round.

No, it is the right way round. I know that John Key thinks that the arrival of 66 Sri Lankan refugees in Western Australia vindicates his decision to push this legislation through, but I have news for Mr Key. I know that he admitted today that he really does not have a clue. But the fact is that Western Australia as the crow flies is more than 5,000 kilometres away from New Zealand. Cam Calder tried to suggest that this was not actually too great a distance for a boat to traverse. I would be interested to see a boat ploughing its way through the middle of the Australian desert to make its way to Auckland, New Zealand. The distance by sea is much farther, and it is a treacherous and difficult journey, one that no other boatload of people seeking asylum in New Zealand has ever been able to achieve. And besides which, that group of people, by landing in Australia, actually made themselves ineligible for asylum in New Zealand. So, again, Mr Key cites a problem that does not exist. We already have the law in place to deal with that group of people. Mr Key is clutching at straws, to say the least.

The second part of the stated purpose is to deter people-smuggling by creating a system that is so punitive that nobody would want to take it on. Well, we know from experience that it simply does not work. Let us look at Australia. From the 1990s to the mid-2000s, Australia introduced a range of policies aimed at deterring asylum seekers arriving by boat. Despite that, between 2000 and 2001 there were 94 boats carrying 8,455 people that arrived in Australia. It is not the legislation that will allow people or stop them getting into a country. It is simply the access and their ability to get there, and getting into Australia is an awful lot easier than getting to New Zealand. The other side to this is the effective management of large groups of people arriving. This was modelled on 500 people making it to New Zealand, but it actually talks about groups of 11 or more. Our system can already deal with those. This legislation on that front is absolutely redundant.

The true purpose of this legislation is that it is another one of John Key’s WMDs—his weapons of mass distraction. Remember the first reading of this bill? The first reading coincided with John Banks getting found out for his dodgy donations. The Government needed a distraction back then, so in came this bill’s first reading—for John Banks.

The second reading coincides with the Government Communications and Security Bureau debacle—again, this Government in desperate need of a distraction from John Key’s cluelessness. What will it take to get us to the third reading? That is what I want to know. What will be the next debacle that this Government wants a distraction from to get this bill to its third reading? This bill is quite simply about National’s natural fall-back position, which is that when it is in trouble it engages in the politics of division—the nastiness, the vindictiveness, and the Draconian approach that only National knows how to do.

The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has reported back on this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, and has recommended only a few changes. As a result, the fundamental weaknesses of this bill remain. The stated purpose is to enhance the ability to deter people-smuggling to New Zealand by making it as unattractive as possible to people-smugglers. In November 2010 the Minister of Immigration was requested to provide the annual figures for the last 10 years showing the number of people listed in prosecutions confirmed to have been smuggled into New Zealand. The Minister replied that “The department’s prosecution records do not record the number of people confirmed to have been smuggled into New Zealand. Accordingly, I am refusing this part of your request.”

This bill rests on a fear based on complete ignorance of the facts. But whatever they might be, the numbers will have been minuscule, and so the only real significance of this bill has to be in its symbolism. Let us look at the symbolism. It is based on a misperceived fear, it succumbs to the temptation to dog whistle to certain segments of the population, it misunderstands the distinction between refugees and asylum seekers, it exhibits a meanness of spirit, and it dishonours our ancestral tradition in this country.

On 18 June 1842, 171 years ago, Robert Graham embarked from Glasgow in the Jane Gifford, one of 255 souls.

💬 David Bennett: Speed it up.

Three months and 3 weeks later, in a leaky boat, he stepped ashore. Whether he was an asylum seeker or an economic migrant is neither here nor there. Either way, he stepped ashore and had an excellent life thereafter.

The member who just intervened, the member from Hamilton East, offered criteria for admission of people coming to this land. Let me respond. My ancestor—and, no doubt, his—did not have to pass a language test on arrival. My ancestor became fluent in Māori very fast and became friends with Hone Heke. He did not have to show a minimum net wealth. He did not have to provide proof of guaranteed employment. The following decade he entered the second Parliament, in 1855, and served in the second Parliament through to the fourth, in 1868.

I know that this is the 21st century, not the 19th, but the issue of symbolism remains the same. Cam Calder offered some neurotic fear of people arriving in similar fashion from Sri Lanka. As the father-in-law of a beautiful young Sri Lankan woman, I can assure him that he need have no neuroses—they are not shared here. Eleven years ago the survivors of the Tampa came to New Zealand with a humanitarian gesture from this country, and the issue worked out so well, it made everybody proud to be Kiwis. I dare say that before long somebody from the Tampa will enter this Chamber.

Much as I respect Dr Kennedy Graham, the member who has just resumed his seat—and I do thank him for making a thoughtful contribution—I cannot agree with him that this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, represents either meanness of spirit on the part of the Government or an overreaction to a fear or a threat that does not exist. I want to remind members that at the start of this debate the Hon Michael Woodhouse set out, in what I thought was a very comprehensive and compelling way, the reasons for this bill. In the short time that I have to speak I just want to remind all members that we could well be in the position that Canada found itself in a few years ago, in 2010, when the MV Sun Sea, carrying nearly 500 asylum seekers, reached the shores of Canada. It was not prepared for that event and it had to react legislatively after it.

This is an example of the New Zealand Government being prepared for a threat that is real. We all would hope that no asylum seekers would attempt the incredibly difficult feat of getting all the way to New Zealand, because it would be fraught with risk and nobody wants to hear of another tragedy on the high seas. But the fact that asylum seekers arrived on the west coast of Australia just last week signalling their intention to try to come here shows that it is an ever-present threat, and something for which we must be prepared. For that reason, I commend the Minister for the work that he has done, I commend the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and I support this bill.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee by majority be agreed to.