Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2)

I was half expecting the Minister in the chair, Mr Woodhouse, to take the call given that there is a rather substantial Supplementary Order Paper in his name, which he may have wanted to outline to the Committee so that we could consider it more fully. I am sure the Minister will be back soon to explain this rather weighty Supplementary Order Paper. I am looking forward to it—obviously a bit of a tidy-up is required on this legislation.

As the Labour Party has made clear in previous readings of this legislation, although we supported its referral to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—because we certainly agree with the Government that there are considerable issues with the abuse of migrant workers in New Zealand, and we hoped that this legislation would make some inroads into dealing with that abuse—we have not been able to continue with our support after the select committee consideration. A lot of concerns were raised by submitters and a lot of matters became apparent at the committee, and to date, sadly, those have not been addressed, although I must admit, having only just come across this rather large Supplementary Order Paper, that I wonder whether the Minister may be planning to address some of those issues in those amendments.

I do have some questions for the Minister around some of the areas that we have specific concerns about. I think it would be useful to the Committee if the Minister was able to answer some of those concerns. Firstly, why is it that the Government chooses, with this legislation, to give the power to search private dwellings without a warrant to immigration officers rather than labour inspectors? Obviously we are talking about people who are here on work visas and it is an immigration issue, but we are also talking about the abuse of people working in New Zealand. And what we are trying to get to the bottom of is abusive and exploitative labour practices, rather than abusive and exploitative immigration practices.

The other reason we have a concern with giving those powers to immigration officers rather than labour inspectors is that the use of those powers could very easily be misinterpreted by the migrant workers whom the Government wishes to protect. These are vulnerable people who often may not fully understand the English language. They may not fully understand the New Zealand way of doing things. They may not understand our law. They may not understand our processes. And they may be used to a different use of Government agencies than we are used to here in New Zealand.

The threat—which is indeed how it could be perceived—of giving immigration officers the power to search private dwellings without a warrant, which is quite a significant power to give any Government agency, and the threat of that power being able to be used may give utterly the wrong message to these migrant workers. In fact, it could serve as a disincentive for them to come forward with their complaints about the abuse they may be suffering at the hands of unscrupulous employers.

We understand the need to be able to provide additional powers of search. We are generally uncomfortable with the concept of warrantless search, and that has been something we have canvassed in other legislation in recent times in this House. But we certainly have that question—why choose to give this power to the immigration officers rather than to the labour inspectorate? That is a genuine question that we would appreciate a response to from the Minister in the chair, Michael Woodhouse.

The second question is around one very specific aspect of the legislation, and that is concerning the Legislation Advisory Committee’s recommendations around the proposed immigration levy. At the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, the Legislation Advisory Committee recommended that the purpose and the use of the proposed levy contained in this legislation ought to be much more tightly focused. At the moment the potential use of that levy is so broad that it in fact looks a lot more like a tax than a levy.

There is an important difference between a tax and a levy. General taxation is something that we empower the Government to carry out through this House, and it raises those taxes in order to pay for the general expenses of running the Government. Levies, on the other hand, are supposed to be for a very specific purpose. The fuel levy, for instance, goes directly into the National Land Transport Fund and is specifically for the purpose of providing transport infrastructure. The proposed levy in this legislation ought to have a much more defined purpose and a much more defined use than it currently does. That was not the view of the Opposition, necessarily; that was the view of the Legislation Advisory Committee. But those proposals were not taken up, and a question for the Minister, which we would appreciate an answer to, is this: why not take up the advice of the committee and narrow the focus of that levy so that it is genuinely a levy and not just another stealth tax to be placed—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Oh, no, I am now going to apologise to the member because I thought he was straying into the next part of the bill, but we did take leave to take it together.

That is right.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I apologise. No wonder I could not find it.

I accept the Chairman’s apology. Thank you, Mr Chairman. So that is—ha, ha!

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I withdraw and apologise, yes.

I am a little taken aback, but I will recover. Thank you, Mr Chairman. The other areas that we have some concern about are the inclusion of clauses that provide for regulations that override or depart from the primary legislation. That is always a fraught area of concern. The body that is supposed to pass legislation—the body that has the authority to pass laws in this country—is Parliament, but there are clauses in this legislation that provide for regulations that override that primary legislation, effectively giving the Government the ability to override the will of Parliament at times. Why are those clauses necessary in the legislation? If there is a good reason, we would like to hear it from the Minister.

This is legislation that is full of very, very good intentions. But, unfortunately, because the advice that was given at the select committee by the submitters was not heeded, the bill has ended up being a piece of legislation that in its current form could actually, potentially do more harm than good. We on this side of the House have been quite happy sometimes to vote for legislation that we think will do very little or will make only minor changes or may not do any good at all. But as long as it does no harm, and if the Government thinks that it might be taking us in the right direction, we will support it.

Unfortunately, we think that this bill in its current form—and, again, I do recognise that there is a very large Supplementary Order Paper here—has the potential to do quite a bit of harm and to potentially put the people whom it purports to protect in an even more vulnerable position.

I have raised some of the areas that we have concerns about, and we would appreciate some response from the Minister on those. I have no doubt that other members will be interested in asking the Minister questions as well.

I rise to speak in the Committee stage of the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). This is a bill that there was a lot of public interest in when it was first introduced, because this was the bill that was going to help us as a country to address the very real problem of exploitation of migrant workers. I am sure everyone in this Chamber will remember the stories that were in the media at that time, of people being paid a pitiful amount of money, well—well—under the minimum wage; of people being sold jobs; of people living in slum conditions and being charged exorbitant rent. They are very real situations of exploitation, which we know are ongoing. We have been hearing of a number of stories from Christchurch and Auckland, in particular. We have heard many stories from those two areas in particular.

So this was the bill that was going to help us solve this problem. We have been following this with a lot of interest because this is a problem that desperately needs solving. I want to thank the Government members for bringing forward this legislation, but I just cannot bring myself to thank them because what we have been told from the union, which is working most closely with people who are bringing forward claims of exploitation, is that this is not going to help. In fact, too many provisions in this bill will actually put barriers in front of people coming forward and reporting exploitation.

Just to specifically address some of the concerns—I also, like my Labour colleague, do need to admit that I have not had the chance to read the Supplementary Order Paper and go through that in detail. Maybe that will address some of my concerns, but, sadly, I have been in the Chamber addressing other legislation since it was introduced—[Interruption] And I am hearing from a colleague that it does not address any of our concerns, sadly.

Our concern is that, although this will penalise people who are exploiting migrant workers—and that is a good thing; we absolutely need to be increasing penalties from the kind of slap-over-the-hand penalties that we have at the moment for people exploiting migrant workers—on the other side, to be able to find out the information about the exploitation, we have to create an enabling environment for workers to come forward to say: “Something is wrong, I need help.” What we have heard from pretty much everyone—the union, the workers themselves, and people of their communities—is that the way to do that would be to build and ensure people have visa protection, so that they will not get deported because they have lost their job. This bill fails to do that.

So although we talk about setting up community networks to help people to find people to go to, we are not protecting their visas or their ability to stay and have a job. Often, tragically, the exploitation is that they live in the hope that maybe they will find something else and be able to go forward, and they continue in that stuck place. And that undermines our local economy and other businesses that are paying people the minimum wage—or, hopefully, more. So this is something that is a problem for all of us, not just the migrant workers—even though they are the ones most woefully affected by this.

Another aspect of this bill, which is deeply concerning and which has been mentioned by my Labour colleague already, is the enhanced search powers for immigration officers, which—

I regret to inform the member that the time has come for me to report progress.

Debate interrupted.

Progress to be reported presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill with amendment, the Social Security Amendment Bill (No 3) with amendment, and progress on the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2).

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.