Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill. The integrity of our immigration system is vital for the well-being of New Zealand, and this bill further ensures that our immigration system protects our borders, is responsive to the use of electronic systems, protects migrant workers from exploitation, and gives immigration officers the power they need to enforce the Act.

The bill extends the powers of immigration officers to enable them to undertake a personal search at the border, search a property or place for identity documents in order to facilitate a deportation or turn-round, and enter and search an employer’s premises in order to search for unlawful workers, check documents, and interview employees to ascertain whether the employees and the employer are complying with the Act. It will also enable immigration officers to apply for and execute a search warrant. Currently immigration officers apply to the court for a warrant, and a police officer executes the warrant on their behalf. This amendment will result in more timely compliance operations and contribute to the effective functioning of the immigration system.

The bill includes two amendments that will protect migrant workers from exploitation. They are part of a package of actions that this Government is taking to address the exploitation of migrants. They demonstrate that this Government is taking the issue seriously and will come down hard on employers who take advantage of vulnerable workers. We see this as very important, particularly in the context of the rebuild of Canterbury.

The first measure is to make exploitation of migrants on temporary entry class visas with work conditions an offence. There is presently an inconsistency in the legislation in that employers who exploit unlawful migrant workers can face hefty sanctions, whereas those who exploit lawful migrant workers face much less serious penalties. The bill will address that mismatch by adding the exploitation of lawful workers as an offence under the Act. Employers who exploit migrant workers on temporary visas could face up to 7 years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $100,000.

The second amendment will see employers who are themselves recent migrants and who have a residence class visa for less than 10 years liable for deportation if they exploit migrant workers. This will act as a further deterrent, and was a provision in the 1987 Act, but was not carried over when the Act was updated in 2009.

Although changes to the law are important elements in improving protection for migrant workers, the most important factor in achieving that is for exploited workers themselves to speak up. I want to take this opportunity to encourage those workers to do so in order that a brighter light can be shone on the practices of exploitative employers.

The bill changes the way biometric information is collected to address gaps in identity management capability, which will enable faster identification and improve the Government’s ability to manage risk. These amendments will enable biometric information to be collected from persons already known to be liable for deportation or turn-round, enable a compulsion order to be sought to require a person to allow their biometric information to be taken where that person is liable for deportation, and, where a compulsion order is made, enable police to use reasonable force to take the biometric information. It will also enable biometric information to be collected from non-citizens arriving in New Zealand, either before or after they have been granted entry permission and while they are still within the immigration control area.

The bill will help ensure that the Act has the ability to support the increased use of technology when the new Immigration Service delivery model is in place. These amendments will help provide a more efficient, modern, and cost-effective service to our customers and other stakeholders. It makes changes to the way information on the passenger name record is provided, in order to improve the identification of travellers who may pose a risk or require further intervention and to improve airline compliance with immigration law—compliance that I am very confident is in excellent shape. Certainly after revelations this week and my checks, I am even more confident, but it is important to continue to improve airline compliance. These changes specify that passenger name information can be accessed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment at specified times without having to make a formal request each time, and that the information can be accessed for longer than the current 14-day period before and after the arrival of an aircraft. The information will be able to be used to identify patterns and trends, which will help recognise and detect risks, leading to better-protected borders and a safer New Zealand.

The bill clarifies that the ability to request personal information under the Privacy Act 1993 does not apply to reasons for decisions made using absolute discretion. That parallels the existing exclusion under the Official Information Act and also includes a number of other miscellaneous provisions, mostly of a minor or technical nature.

I am confident that when this bill is passed, it will build on the strong immigration legislative framework already in place. I commend it to the House.

I am pleased to take a call on this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2), and to indicate to the Minister of Immigration that Labour will support this bill’s referral to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee because it does address a number of shortcomings that have been exposed in the immigration system—in particular, the exploitation by employers of immigrants and those who are here on short-term permits with work rights. So there is good reason to support it, which we will.

Labour wants to see a robust and effective immigration system because we as a country have become very reliant on immigration to a significant extent to meet our own national developmental aspirations. We would not have, for example, a growing population without immigration, because if the number of New Zealanders permanently going abroad continued without being offset by the number of incoming migrants, then, indeed, our population would be depleted and would certainly be on a downward trend, because our fertility rates are not good enough for replacement. Our trading partners are also significant contributors to our immigration numbers, so there is a lovely coming together of mutual interests. That has created very powerful diasporas in this country, in New Zealand, of those countries with which we trade and with which we will have an increasing relationship, particularly from North, central, and South-east Asia. That applies also to our trade and tourism targets.

However, we have to record that we have not yet thought through in any detailed way how we might effectively capitalise on those diasporas. Development in this area is crying out for some serious attention, and a good, robust immigration system would do that.

Furthermore, when we reflect on the Government’s intention to double the value of our export education sector, which is currently assessed at $2.6 billion over the next 12 years or so, our immigration system takes on an even greater significance. That is because the export education pathway is becoming a pathway to residency for a growing proportion of people and for a growing number of those who come here initially on student visas. The education pathway also has a significant impact on our labour markets because of work rights that are granted to overseas students. So we could well ask, in the context of the importance of immigration, how good our current immigration system is, whether it is well placed to meet the future challenges that are coming up, and whether all aspects of the 2009 Immigration Act are fit for purpose or not. But that broader question must await another debate at another time.

The Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) attempts to keep the 2009 system fit for purpose by proposing a number of amendments. Some are technical in nature, as the Minister has said, and others correct minor inconsistencies. Those are not of concern to us. However, there are a number of amendments included in this bill that are serious and that will require intensive scrutiny at the select committee. As I said earlier, the proposals that have attracted the most attention to date relate to the exploitation of workers by employers. Stories of students who are being exploited in the labour market are now legendary and have been around for some time, for several years. It is a credit to the union movement and union advocates for exposing these and for being available to those exploited migrant workers that this matter has now reached this point and come to Parliament for it to be fixed up. So despite what people from both sides might say about unions, here is an example of how if it were not for unions advocating for this group, we would not be debating these particular provisions today.

The bill increases, as the Minister said, search powers for immigration officers, including the ability to enter premises and search for unlawful workers, as well as to examine employers’ records for their compliance with new employment law and the Immigration Act—all useful provisions. However, as other speakers on this side will raise, what are the checks and balances that those provisions are being appropriately used? These amendments will address the working conditions of workers who might be being exploited. However, it is doubtful that the provisions will address some of the rorts that are reported to us confidentially around false job offers. My colleague Darien Fenton will have much more to say about this aspect of the bill.

One of the changes is reintroducing the ability to deport residence class visa holders who are employers and who have been here for less than 10 years. I assume that there are very good reasons as to why that provision was not included in the 2009 bill, so I would like to know—and the select committee will want to know—why it is being reintroduced now. I am not really arguing against myself here, but I do wonder at what point a resident becomes a New Zealander. Here is a benchmark: 10 years. So we will now have two classes of people on residence class visas: those who have been here 10 years or less and who are subject to a particular set of standards, and those who have been here longer than 10 years and who are not held to the same set of standards and therefore have more rights, if you like. Without in any way wanting to be supporting the illegal activities of the migrant employers themselves, there seems to be an inconsistency here that needs to be addressed. That is one provision that we would have some difficulty with.

Also, there are some retrospective sanctions here, where if a person on a residence visa has committed an offence in the past 5 years and is exposed, they will now be caught—so this is retrospective. We would need to ask whether a retrospective legislation is a fair one. Again, I am not defending at all the activities of those who have offended in the past 5 years, but why do we not start clean and say that from now on these will be the expectations? I look forward to hearing those arguments.

The other major inclusion here relates to the migrant levy. We believe it is a major change. It has been changed to an immigration levy, and its purpose is significantly altered. In the current Immigration Act 2009, the purpose of the migrant levy is to assist the successful settlement of migrants and to carry out research. But in this bill, those provisions are extended quite considerably. The newly named immigration levy is to support “the infrastructure required for, and the operation of, the immigration system, … for the following purposes: (i) establishing and verifying the identity of persons: (ii) managing risk to the integrity of the immigration system: (iii) managing immigration risk … (iv) managing compliance …”, and, indeed, to attract migrant students and fund the Immigration Advisers Licensing Authority. That is quite a major change, and I want to hear some arguments about that.

The notion of absolute discretion of the Immigration Service, which is being protected here, is one that we are concerned about. It is not as if it has been a good week for the Immigration Service. We see what researchers are telling us about the rorts that are going on with people who are paying for job offers. In the present system, students after qualifying must get a job in management. That is a big step, researchers tell us, and it is resulting in exploitation. Today there is a secret immigration blacklist that exists within the Immigration Service—185 lawyers and immigration advisers are on a blacklist within this service—yet we want to give this service greater discretion. It has not earned it, and we want to know about the protections against some of the difficulties that have come up.

The Minister of Immigration, Michael Woodhouse, talked about Canterbury, where there is now, already, discussion about the rorts in respect of the Filipino workers coming through. It is almost like bonded labour, where Filipino workers have to pay a big price to middle people to come here. The Minister’s comment, as reported, is that “it is very difficult for me as the Minister of Immigration to control that.” But, indeed, we must control that.

The immigration system should be a robust one. We will want to make sure that the changes made in this bill do provide for a robust service. Thank you.

I just want to join in support of this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). I just want to thank the previous speaker, Rajen Prasad, for his support from the Labour Party for this going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. The 10-year rule is a general rule within immigration policy. If you commit a serious offence within that period of time, you can be deported. I think it is just carrying that forward into the employment realm.

I would just like to thank the Minister of Immigration for his special interest in this area. As new migrants to New Zealand, many people face a lot of challenges, and one of those is employment. Making sure that we have rules and regulations that give those people the most protection when they are in a vulnerable state is a very important thing. This Minister has taken a particular interest in that and has worked hard to deliver this result, which will look after new migrants going into work and protect their rights, so I would like to thank him for that.

I also note that we have the New Zealand First leader, Winston Peters, here. I am sure he is going to get up and take the New Zealand First call and it will be another attack on people coming to New Zealand to make a better future for themselves. That is sad. We want an open and free country that has the best environment for people to make the best of their opportunities. To use these kinds of bills as a political stunt to try to attack people in vulnerable positions is something that you would expect of New Zealand First. We are soon to see it in the next half an hour, I am sure. It is a very sad approach when a politician has to stoop to those levels to try to get some publicity. Thank you.

I call Darien Fenton.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Oh, come on, Darien. Give me a break here. He attacked me, you know.

Take a point of order, Winston. Take a point of order.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure I could indulge my colleague from the Labour Party and say look, seeing as I was the subject of that very unwarranted attack—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order. The member will get a call in due course to deal with those matters.

I am pleased to support this Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) at the first reading for it to go the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I am also pleased to see the actions of the Government attempting to deal with the growing issue of migrant worker abuse. I am yet to be convinced that the bill does everything that it needs. I will talk to that a little bit more.

We are seeing things in New Zealand that we have never seen before with migrant worker abuse, particularly where I live, in Auckland. Many MPs will have had migrants come to see them to talk about what has happened to them. I was an MP who had the workers from the Indian restaurant chain Masala come to see me. Their stories were horrific. They were being required to live on the premises. They basically had their jobs sold to them for something like $10,000. It turned out they were being paid something like $4 an hour, a minimal wage. I am pleased to say I went to see the Minister—it was not the Minister of Immigration; it was Simon Bridges, Minister of Labour. I reported that fact to him as the Minister of Labour, and then there was an investigation. I have also had an update from the labour inspectors in Auckland on that particular case. What they tell me—and I know they are working hard on it—is that it is really, really hard to get the information to get the prosecution happening.

Although it sounds straightforward, it can be very complicated. It goes to the records that the business is keeping, whether they are accurate or not, or whether they are phoney, as that can happen. It also goes to having migrants who are prepared to speak out. On the one hand I agree with the Minister of Immigration that we need migrants to stand up and speak out when they are being exploited in this way, but on the other hand I think it has to go hand in hand with really good inspection powers both of Immigration New Zealand and of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. I have repeatedly said that I do not believe that there are enough labour inspectors. There are not enough to deal with the health and safety issues we have got, let alone the issue of migrant worker abuse. What it really needs is a team of people who go from place to place and inspect the wage and time records, like they used to—labour inspectors used to do that—and talk to the people on the ground and just dig out these cases, rather than waiting for poor migrants to stand up and say: “I am being exploited.”, because the difficulties that they face are enormous.

Job selling is something that we have never seen in New Zealand until recently. It is an abhorrent and disgusting practice where people who are desperate for work because their visas depend on it, they want to stay here, and they also want to support and feed their families are absolutely exploited by people who sell them their jobs. So they are told: “I will get you a job and if you pay $10,000 or $20,000 you can have this job. But you do not get paid.” Actually, they pay for their own job. We have seen a lot of that. We have seen it. I think my colleague Rajen Prasad talked about the student visa issue. There are issues with students who are able to work 20 hours a week. There are also issues with the graduate visa programme where if people want to use the graduate visa programme to work towards residency, they have to have a management job. So we have got managers in Burger King, in—

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: Shift workers. Shift supervisors.

Shift supervisors? No, they are managers. They are managers cleaning motels, but they are called managers so that they meet the visa requirements in terms of working towards residency, and that is just simply another form of exploitation.

I want to emphasise that one of the questions that we will be asking a lot about during the select committee consideration on this bill is resourcing. I am looking forward to hearing from migrant groups. I think it will be very instructive for the select committee to hear from migrants themselves. Sometimes they will be represented by migrant organisations. So I suspect the Migrant Action Trust will have a lot to say, and also Dennis Maga’s organisation, Migrante Aotearoa New Zealand, which is called something else now, is it not—Union Network of Migrants. He is a really good advocate for migrants in New Zealand. He is constantly speaking out and can speak not only from his own experience but also from the experience of the people whom he has represented.

I think there are some issues around employment law, and when I spoke to Simon Bridges about the Masala situation he indicated to me that there was going to be a package. The Minister of Immigration, Michael Woodhouse, said just before that this is a package of measures. I have no idea what the other parts of the package are and it would be good to have some indication of that as we go through this. What it does need is some changes to labour law. It needs strengthening around that. Unfortunately—I have to say it—we are not seeing changes to labour law going in the right way to provide protection and make it easier for migrant workers. The changes are going backwards. It was very pleasing to hear the Minister of Labour today assure me that he is listening and taking into consideration submissions around proposed changes to Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act, because, in fact, it is mainly migrant workers who end up in low-paid cleaners jobs. Those are the ones who are most vulnerable to exploitation. It is another form of exploitation if their jobs can be sold to the lowest bidder, and they are dumped on the scrap heap with no redundancy pay and nowhere to go. A package would include actually not changing the Employment Relations Act in the way that the Minister is proposing. It would include actually strengthening it and making it easier for migrant workers to access their rights, and would also look at things like the Wages Protection Act and prosecutions.

One of the things that I have been told by migrant advocates is that it is very hard. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment can prosecute, and it is hard enough for it, but migrant advocates have migrant workers who come to them who have clearly been exploited and the employer has clearly broken the law, and trying to take that through a court case is incredibly difficult, particularly where the employers themselves are new migrants and have set up a business. There are all sorts of veils—corporate veils and other things—that cannot be unravelled. So although migrant workers often win a court case that exposes the breaches of employment law that they have been subjected to, they cannot get any enforcement. The remedies are just simply impossible to obtain because the business disappears, it does not have any money, or it is hidden somewhere. There needs to be some consideration, I think, given to the Wages Protection Act whereby we are able to prosecute not just employers but individuals. I think, again, we will hear from lawyers who represent migrant workers in their situations, and I know that they are quite strong on that.

We do need to take this very seriously with the Christchurch rebuild as well. We have heard stories, of course, already, and the last thing I heard was that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment was investigating 12 breaches in respect of migrant workers who have come to New Zealand and Christchurch. Again, I do not think that it is resourced to do the job that needs to be done, given that we are going to have 17,000 migrants in the Christchurch rebuild and about four inspectors and have immigration offices that are actually not going to have people in them. They are going to be an online presence, rather than enforcement. I think we do have to consider very seriously how we make this happen. If we are serious about stopping migrant worker abuse, we have to think about how we help make it happen, rather than simply sitting back and expecting migrants to come forward. I look forward to the discussion on that.

The only other thing that I would say about this bill is that there are some things in it that seem to have come from the 2009 Act. They seem to have been left over and were maybe rejected at the time. We will be looking very closely at those, and I am sure that we will have as much interest in those issues as we did in the Immigration Act 2009 when it was passed, actually under Labour, and when we went through a very extensive select committee process. But, as I said, I am pleased to support this bill. We will closely scrutinise it. It is good that the Government has taken some steps to deal with this very serious issue, which could get completely out of control if we do not do something soon.

The Green Party will support the referral of Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. There are aspects of this bill that are critically important in concept, and we are very keen to explore the detail of them to ensure that they deliver for the people who need protection. There are other aspects of this bill that give us cause for concern, and we look forward to also rigorously investigating them to ensure that they provide New Zealand with the solutions in immigration that we need.

The primary purpose and the flagship of this bill is making the exploitation of migrants on a temporary entry visa with work conditions an offence and making the employer liable for deportation. Previously, these sections covered only unlawful workers. It will enable employers who exploit workers to be liable for a sentence of up to 7 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $100,000, and, as mentioned earlier, it opens them up to possible deportation. It is really important to increase penalties. At least one of the reasons for needing to increase them is that up until now the penalties have often been less than the benefits of the exploitation, and that is clearly not going to change the culture. Over the last few years we have heard of an increasing number of examples of the exploitation of migrant workers, and I want to specifically thank FIRST Union for its fine advocacy on this issue and bringing it to the attention of all of us.

We all lose when workers are exploited. In a case publicised last week, an Auckland-based Korean food preparation factory is alleged to have exploited migrant workers with 16-hour working days, few or no breaks, below minimum wages, and no employment contracts. A spokesperson for the Union Network of Migrants, Dennis Maga, has noted that this bill “… needs to be passed as soon as possible because migrants working on the Christchurch rebuild are being ill-treated.” As my Labour colleague Darien Fenton has mentioned, there are 12 investigations under way, but only four inspectors for what is expected to be 17,000 migrant workers. We need to make sure that we have a system in place to protect our local economies and protect those workers from exploitation.

There have been cases that the FIRST Union has mentioned of employees signing agreements in the Philippines, yet when they arrive in New Zealand that contract and agreement has been changed, and it knows of workers whose local employer is threatening to send them home if they do not work during the weekend without pay. That is not good for our international reputation, that is not good for vulnerable people, and that is not going to be good for the quality of the work on the rebuild in Christchurch, either. Migrant workers, and especially temporary migrant workers, are vulnerable. Often they have limited knowledge of their rights. Sometimes they find it difficult to communicate and feel that their ability to speak up is constrained because they feel, quite rightly, that their immigration status may be at risk.

There has been reporting where a migrant worker himself has described some of what he has seen happening up in Auckland. He talked about how when migrants arrive here to work, for them work is their top priority because it will enable them to survive. But, unfortunately, as many of us know, decent and well-paid jobs can be pretty hard to find, no matter how keen or qualified someone is. Desperate migrants try to save money as hard as they can. Sometimes we have heard about people being sold jobs before they start, which is a very deep form of exploitation. We have also heard stories of people being moved into sheds or garages in cramped, cold conditions, basically as a provision of their conditions of work, and sometimes the money comes off the wages to pay for what are incredibly substandard conditions. There are also stories of people being asked to pay exorbitant rates for those same below-standard conditions. Then we have also heard of people being paid between $4 and $10 an hour, without breaks and without their legal entitlements. As a Parliament, we really, clearly need to address these problems.

I do want to, via this bill, point out a few of the concerns that have been raised by the people who are desperate for it to be implemented, and I hope that we can have a discussion around that within the select committee. The FIRST Union has suggested that we also need to have stronger requirements on employers at the point of accreditation and tougher penalties for bad practice. This bill delivers on the tougher penalties, but I have not seen the point around accreditation. The union has also raised the point—again, raised by Labour—about the need for more labour inspectors, up from the very low levels that we have currently, because if we are going to ensure that the system that we put in place is able to work, we need to have the people out there making it work and checking for people. The union also said that funding support to local community centres and organisations providing induction for new migrants needs to be strengthened, and many of these groups are currently struggling. That is something that we also would endorse, and I think it would be better for the long-term well-being of our communities, as well as for the migrants. It ensures that New Zealand gets the most out of the involvement of the people in our community. We can encourage them to stay and contribute, rather than have a terrible experience, leave, and go somewhere else to add their labour to those communities.

Also, and possibly most important, the Union Network of Migrants has raised concerns that if a migrant worker speaks out about abuse and leaves that exploitative job, they will lose the work visa that is tied to that job. This is clearly a very significant barrier to those workers being able to get justice and be treated fairly. A visitor visa does not give them the ability to earn, and this risks workers going underground into unlawful work in order to survive. What the union has been recommending is that an open visa should be given, allowing affected migrants to find alternative work while their cases are being heard. It seems to me that that is the least we could do if we have not managed to protect them from that exploitation in the first place. This is clearly a very important area of work. We would like to offer our thanks to the Minister of Immigration for bringing it to this House and look forward to properly discussing it and working out the best solution for our communities and those workers.

I would just like to mention briefly some of the other aspects of this bill that we see as not necessarily being an essential part of that policy platform and that raise concerns for us. This bill gives immigration officers the power to undertake personal and property searches, including employees’ premises, but is not specifically related to that aspect of their work, at all. We would need to see evidence that immigration officers are unable to do their job properly at the moment without these extended powers. We have not seen evidence of that, and we are very reluctant to see what is traditionally the work of our police force extended any more than it absolutely has to be. We also have concerns around privacy in relation to the extension of the collection of biometric information, which is to be gathered for identity management. There is some lack of clarity around the purpose and extent of that, which we would be keen to investigate.

We are very clearly in opposition to what has been put in as an aspect in this bill in reiterating that requests for personal information under the Privacy Act will not apply to the reasons for decisions made using absolute discretion. We oppose that policy. We believe that people have a right to information and that the best systems are challengeable systems, and we will encourage the Government to take that approach. Thanks to the Minister.

I support the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2).

First of all I want to address Mr Bennett, who got up and attacked me. I know that Mr Bennett has a love of Russians. I know that he has a love of Russians. A lot of us do, but it is no reason to predicate our immigration policy. The second thing I want to say is that this Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) purports to be robust. It talks about clarifying the existing Immigration Act and ensuring the integrity of the immigration system. The Minister of Immigration said that this bill will be strong support for the immigration framework already in place. I would like to know what planet his colleagues are on, and what planet he is on, because there is no evidence whatsoever to back up these fine words.

Once again we are in the land of “Things are going to get better, because the National Party says so”. It has had 5 years to sort out a sensible immigration policy. Today, the immigration department is a corrupt mess. Very shortly I will name some of the things that back up that claim, with evidence. Just the other day the Minister was asked how people get into this country and what is going on, and he called it a heinous lie. Then, 5 minutes later, he was out talking to the media and saying: “Oh, well, we’ve got 30 cases of people getting here, ripping up their passports—but they didn’t come from Lebanon.” What would that have to do with the price of fish?

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: It’s only half of what was going on when this member was supporting Government.

If he had studied the programme properly, he would have known that it was not restricted to those people. No, no, no—do not come here with your untrained Dunedin mind, and think that you can give a shallow once-over to this very complex problem.

It is all window dressing. It is camouflage. What we need is not this bill, but a full-scale, independent inquiry. We have the United Nations every year talking about people trafficking to New Zealand. The Minister denies it. So do all his colleagues. We know that women are used as sex slaves in this country. He denies it. So do his colleagues. We know that, for example, people are working in slave labour conditions 16 hours a day, in substandard conditions. He has denied it. So have his colleagues. What we want is a full-scale investigation.

In 2008 the Auditor-General set up an inquiry under Helen Clark, reporting in 2009. I want to say that it said this: “We recommend that the Department of Labour … review the emphasis on target setting in Immigration New Zealand branches to ensure that the quality of visa and permit decisions is not compromised.” Did those members do anything about it? They did nothing whatsoever.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Done.

“Done”, my big toe! Just lately there has been an internal report that says 20 percent of the decisions made by Immigration New Zealand are of poor quality.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Used to be 40.

What does this Minister do? Do you know what he just said? He said that it used to be 40 percent. He is just excusing his total incompetence of at least one in five—20 percent—and his excuse is that it used to be 40 percent. Minister, you should be fired. You are incompetent. You do not know what you are doing.

I want to say this too. I refer to the report of the Office of the Auditor-General of May 2009, Inquiry Into Immigration Matters. This is what it said, on page 49 of its investigation and review of Project Crusade: “The Department told us that the managers involved were held accountable for not adhering to the expected quality standards.” That is an utter lie. I will tell you why. I will just name you a number of people, five in particular, who were part of that investigation, and this is what happened to them. Team manager Sarah Clifford, undertaking Project Crusade, was promoted to branch manager. She still continues to derive huge financial benefits in various roles in Immigration New Zealand. There is the first person. Then there is Ross Grigg, at that time regional manager, who has recently been promoted to area manager in the Waikato.

Where is the accountability going on in this organisation? All the people who have been fingered by the inquiry are now getting—not demoted, not held to account, no—promoted. Team manager Kate Woodwards is still in the Christchurch branch, and was recently presented with an award for her work. She was presented with an award for her work. What a joke. Immigration officer Dominic Ford was responsible for approving bulk visas. He has recently been promoted to assistant area manager in Shanghai, with full diplomatic allowances worth $200,000 per annum.

What is going on in your corrupt department, Minister? Do you not know? Branch manager Rex Heesterman was responsible for visa approvals in the Palmerston North branch as part of Project Crusade. That was the branch they called the visa factory. It was just stamping them left, right, and centre. There was no examination—just get the numbers up. Again, Rex Heesterman has been promoted to an area manager role in Tonga as recently as July 2013. Where is the accountability? The Minister comes with this bill. He says that it is going to strengthen an already effective department. What a ministerial joke. Is that the best they can do?

Listen to this. These five promotions are a clear example of institutionalised corruption within the department. The Office of the Auditor-General has a look and says that it is all going wrong. It gets told: “Oh no, they’ll all be held to account.” They were not, were they? Oh no, they were not. This goes on and on and on. This department continues to abuse taxpayers’ funds by creating unnecessary diplomatic seconds, with very generous allowances and salaries, in places like Shanghai, Pretoria, Beijing, and even Viet Nam. The department has recently appointed numerous managers in the Shanghai branch. These are the jobs that thousands of candidates would be willing to do on a locally engaged basis. Shanghai is obviously not such a Third World place that Immigration New Zealand could not attract candidates from New Zealand on a locally engaged basis. This is an utter and blatant example of abuse of taxpayers’ funds.

But it does not stop there. Recently, the Minister went to a big function in Wellington.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: How many New Zealanders worked in diplomatic offices when you were the Minister of Foreign Affairs?

No, I was never the Minister of Immigration, son—I was far more powerful than that. I was Deputy Prime Minister. I was the Treasurer. I was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I was never as lowly as the Minister of Immigration. But I think that next time I might take that job and fix it up. I could do it in 6 months flat—I could do it in 6 months flat. The first thing I would do is get rid of people who think like that Minister over there.

But here we go. Immigration New Zealand had a recent eating and drinking - fest conference in Wellington for all offshore and onshore managers. The Minister of Immigration himself—this man over here, Woodhouse—attended the conference. More than 30 Immigration New Zealand offshore managers were flown to New Zealand on taxpayer funds. More than 30 were flown in on taxpayer funds. Who is paying for such lavish abuse of taxpayers’ funds? Has the Minister not heard of videoconferences? Why fly all these people in and then go along and lavishly live and stay in the hotels? The Minister comes along and it is all hunky-dory. I thought he was supposed to be from the party that believes in accountability and efficiency. It is just one scandal after the other.

Of course, the worst thing was that earlier this year he was asked how many overstayers there are in New Zealand. He said there were not 14, not 1,400, but that there were 14,000 overstayers in New Zealand. He dismissed that with a contemptuous view so renowned of some accountants. He said it was a low number—14,000 to him is a low number. Well, I do not know anywhere in Asia where you would find such incompetence in the immigration department. I do not know of anywhere—in fact, in all of the Pacific—where you would find such incompetence in an immigration department. But the other day he was told by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners programme that there is a whole lot of smuggling going on , and all the way to New Zealand. No, the Minister bounced into the House—straight up, no evidence, no facts, and no research—and he called it a heinous lie. Then outside, he gets caught by the media and he says: “Well, I’ll have to investigate that. I’ll have to investigate that.”

You see, he said it was a lie, but here is the real point. When I asked the Minister whether he would resign if he was wrong, all we heard was not a syllable, not a sound, not a mutter, not a murmur, not a squeak. He said: “Oh no, no. I won’t resign if I’m found to be what I know I am.” Incompetent. If he had any courage or conviction he would have said: “Yes, I’ll resign. I’ve told the Parliament it’s a heinous lie. If I’m wrong, I will resign.” Minister, save us all the trouble and resign now.

The member who has just resumed his seat, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, seems to apply the standard of resignation to everyone else in this House. If he was to apply that standard to himself, that member should have resigned about 15 times over, but what he does instead is that he actually takes a Government down to avoid his own resignation. This is another good example of the xenophobic brand of New Zealand First, and absolutely nothing to do with this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2).

He wants an independent inquiry. What that actually translates to when we put that through the “complicator” is that he wants an independent media platform so that he can try to stand up to get a few cheap media shots away, because he has been finding that he has been struggling to get some time on air, with the old Green Party talking about their recent agenda and so forth. So he is trying to squeeze himself in to get a bit of time on air. He has done it time and time again, but, interestingly enough, I looked around this House while the member was puffing out his chest and hot air was emerging forth, and no one in this House was paying any attention whatsoever other than the Minister of Immigration, at whom the allegations have been levelled.

What Winston Peters is going on about here is the equivalent of when a Nigerian prince emails us all to tell us we have got $100,000 sitting in a bank account because we are lucky enough to have won a lottery. That member, Winston Peters, would be the first to say: “Look at this! Look at this! There’s $100 million in the account.” It must be true because the liars, the vagabonds, and the people smugglers are apparently the people Winston Peters listens to and wants to get a media beat-up over. Why is it that the Minister has to prove that that is not true, although Mr Peters does not have to prove it is true? If he had any clout, if he would put his money where his mouth is, that is what he would do. But he will not. He will not because he cannot.

I understand that this is to be a split call. Andrew—Andrew Little, 5 minutes.

It is one of those days when it is easy to forget even some of those who make a good contribution in the House. On that note I just want to make this comment about the honourable member who spoke last, Mike Sabin. The Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) follows on from one we had earlier this year about immigration. I recall the debates about that bill, which was all about people-smuggling and the vast hordes of armies of people ready to be hoovered up and brought down here, people who are sailing across the Tasman. It was the Government and its members who were saying that this was a real threat and that those people-smugglers had those potential refugees on the horizon ready to come down, sweep down from parts hither and thither, and flood the nation with otherwise unmeritorious claims for refugee status. It was the members of the Opposition who were saying: “This doesn’t sound right to us. Where is the evidence?”. I am pleased to see, however, that the Government, now having seen the evidence, which is a grainy recording of an alleged people-smuggler somewhere in Australia saying that there are people ready to come down here, treats it with the scant regard we gave it at the time.

This bill makes some important modifications. It is worthy of examination by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and for that reason we are supporting it. But I just want to sound this note of caution as we go into that process, that scrutiny process, and just say that there are some aspects that cause us concern. It goes back to that hoary old chestnut that seems to apply to so many pieces of legislation from this Government, where basic human rights and citizen rights are ridden roughshod over. We can justify those things with all sorts of claims to nationalism, saying that those people are a scourge and that local people will be affronted and affected by it. But the reality is that, like it or not—and irrespective of the origins of people, how they sometimes get here, and the nefarious means by which they travel here—they are people.

So I look with alarm at clauses like clause 33, which creates a new section 111 in the Immigration Act that allows the taking of biometric samples and information irrespective of the status of the immigration application. In fact, the application could be declined and, under this amendment to the legislation, the unsuccessful applicant would still be obliged to provide that information. Regardless of all the assurances that we have had in the last 18 months or 2 years about how much work is being done to secure the information systems and the databases of the Government, the reality is that they are not secure. People are being required to give evermore personal, important, and intimate pieces of information about themselves, and we have no assurance about the security of that information. Nor do we have any assurance about how it might be used. We do not know whether the information, having been collected for one purpose, might be used for another. When we start talking about biometric information, which can sound somewhat innocuous—it can be irises, it can be thumbprints and fingerprints, and all those sorts of things—I nevertheless have real concerns about giving Government officials of whichever Government the power to get more personal and intimate information when there may not be any need to do so.

So we will look very carefully at those particular provisions that give power to override citizen and human rights and we will want to make sure that they are properly justified in the context in which they are being given.

Denise Roche—5 minutes.

The Green Party will be supporting the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) to go to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. However, we do have some concerns about it. We support the bill’s attempt to address the exploitation of migrant workers. However, we are concerned that the provisions in this bill as it stands now may make it more difficult for migrants who are working in sweatshop-type arrangements. We have all heard the stories and seen the newspaper reports about immigration scams where workers are employed for extremely long hours for low pay or no pay, and where some workers have had their passports taken off them by their employer. We have also heard the reports of workers who have actually paid their employer in order to work for them and get their applications for a work visa through. It is a growing problem, and Darien Fenton, I think, spoke quite passionately about this. Certainly in Auckland, where labour inspectors are working for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, it is one of the major issues that they deal with for a lot of their time.

Although we support the provisions in the bill that are directed at employers who are migrants themselves and who exploit others—the provisions that make it an offence for employers who knowingly employ migrant workers on non-work visas—we are still concerned that this might force the problem of exploited migrant workers even further underground. These workers are so desperate to live and work in Aotearoa New Zealand that they are working illegally in the first place and they work in an environment where, if they speak up, they are likely to be deported. Although this provision may be a disincentive for those types of employers, it raises the stakes for those who might be employed by them to ensure their silence. The pressure on them to remain silent increases and we may need to look at developing an open type of visa for those workers while those cases are being investigated.

There is a climate of fear for those people but, sadly, it exists for many low-paid workers across the board, and it is not helped by the amendments to the Employment Relations Act that are currently before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It was not helped by the introduction of the 90-day trial period, and it certainly has not been helped by the introduction of youth rates, which legalises discrimination on the basis of age. Combine those factors with a punitive approach to the safety net of welfare, where those who are on benefits are now deemed to be job seekers, and we have an entire industrial relations environment where workers do not speak up anyway. For those who are even more vulnerable, for migrant workers who are way over on the weak side of the balance of power between the employer and the employee, it is even worse.

The solution, as we see it, is to improve worker representation. That means to improve the rights of unions and promote their ability to bargain collectively. And we need to improve the industrial relations climate as a whole so that workers’ rights are the norm, instead of having the current Government’s moves to deregulate the workplace environment, which actively encourages bad employers to rip workers off.

We do have some other concerns as well around other aspects of the bill, which our colleague Andrew Little from Labour has already touched on. Those are the things like creeping biometrics, privacy, and the powers of the immigration officials. However, we will be supporting the bill to go to the select committee because we want to see and hear from migrant workers themselves. Thank you.