Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill.

💬 SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Can I begin by thanking members of the Education and Workforce Committee for their work on this bill in the abbreviated time frame for submissions. I would also like to thank those who took time and effort to make submissions on this legislation.

This is a bill that will ensure that the Government can continue to respond adequately and appropriately and efficiently to the immediate immigration issues arising from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It complements the extensive immigration powers that the Government already has to make and implement policy decisions relating to future visa applications, and also to change the visa conditions for individuals through continuing to enable the Minister of Immigration, if appropriate, to change visa conditions with classes of existing visa holders, and to grant new visas to classes of visa holders.

The select committee, I understand, received 168 submissions from a range of organisations and individuals and heard in person from 43 submitters. I am aware that many submitters shared their concerns—many personal to themselves—that some families are separated on each side of New Zealand’s border and that some temporary visa holders offshore cannot enter New Zealand. I note that the powers in this bill do not manage the border exceptions policy settings which govern who can enter New Zealand and our managed isolation, but I do acknowledge the groups and individuals taking the select committee process as an opportunity to tell their story.

I also note that many submitters addressed the use of the powers for visa holders onshore. Many of those issues did not, however, relate to the use of the powers, and some could be addressed through a range of other policy options that I could consider, such as new Cabinet decisions on policy settings.

I also note in the National Party’s minority view from the select committee that neither I nor officials provided current numbers of temporary visa holders onshore. Can I assure the National Party that that was not by intent. I understand that officials provided them promptly once they were asked for and that they advised the select committee that there are approximately 236,000 individuals holding temporary visas onshore, of whom 23,000 held visitor visas and 182,000 had work rights. Of course, the powers can benefit people offshore, as well—and I note that 5,500 people offshore have had their resident visa travel conditions extended, for example.

The current global pandemic situation continues to evolve, and I think it would be a brave person who would say that we will be back into a 2019 travel environment even in a year or 18 months from now. Most submitters broadly supported the bill and recognised the need for the powers to continue; although I do acknowledge that a significant proportion felt that the powers should be extended for a year only, and one submission suggested that they be extended for only six months.

The legislative statement sets out the safeguards surrounding the exercise of the powers, and we also addressed them when we debated the bill in its first reading. I would like to remind the House again, however, that one very important safeguard is that in making special directions, I must be satisfied that the exercise of the power is reasonably necessary to manage the effects or deal with the consequences of the outbreak of COVID19, measures under enactments to contain or mitigate the outbreak of COVID19 or its effects, or other measures in New Zealand or elsewhere to contain or mitigate the outbreak of COVID-19 or its effects in New Zealand.

This means that the powers are time-limited and would be even if there was no expiry date, and they can only be exercised as long as the pandemic continues to affect New Zealand. I would also remind the House that I must also be satisfied that the exercise would not disadvantage the class or classes of persons to which they relate.

Given the global uncertainty over the progress of the virus and its variants, a further 12-month extension would mean I would have to bring further legislation before the House in 12 months’ time—probably on a longer time frame than this bill—meaning we would be debating it again possibly even later this year. I would prefer to spend the House’s time and my own officials’ time on a more comprehensive review of our legislation, with regard to lessons learnt from this pandemic.

Some submitters proposed that the regulation suspending the ability to apply for certain temporary entry-class visas offshore not be extended. I am sympathetic to the concerns that they raised. However, I note again that this restriction can be lifted earlier in whole or in part, if warranted, and, also, of course, that people who are invited to apply for visas can do so.

A number of submitters also proposed that the special direction powers should be exercised more widely for broader groups of migrants and also that there should be some provisions around the use of the powers, such as issues that I should take into account for notice periods. I would note that the powers are exercised at my absolute discretion and that explicit provisions of that sort could bring that discretion into question. However, I can advise the House that I’ve been broadly taking a number of factors into account when I consider this exercise of a discretion—and, to date, these have included the Government’s policy priorities for the labour market and the economy, the practical measures on managed isolation where applicable, and whether there are other mechanisms for achieving outcomes such as new Cabinet decisions on policy settings or through intervention in individual cases.

Can I acknowledge the concerns made by a number of submitters regarding implementation and communication issues for the use of the powers to date. This has been a year of learning both for the Government and the public sector and we will continue to put those learnings into effect. In particular, my officials are continuing to work to ensure that time frames allow for more proactive communications and for systems updates to occur before the changes have legal effect.

The select committee has recommended, by a majority, that the bill be reported back unamended. I am grateful for the committee’s work considering the bill and the submissions in this compressed time frame.

Finally, I would like to reiterate that the powers contained in this bill are necessary to ensure that we can be flexible and efficient in responding to the impacts of COVID-19 and the immigration system. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am pleased to take this first call for the National Party in the second reading of this bill. I had hoped that today the Minister would provide more clear evidence and reasons for the necessity of this bill. Unfortunately, neither his legislative statement nor his speech today provided that, apart from some updated numbers, which is in itself interesting because when we heard the arguments for this bill back in 2020, the underlying need for this bill was the amount of people in this country who are here on temporary visas and who required their visas to be extended or to have their conditions varied. The argument was that there are so many of them in so many different categories, and he broke all those numbers down, and he went even further to say that immigration officials were unable to work at their place of work and so were forced to work from home, but often they couldn’t do that because they weren’t able to take their paperwork home with them. So there were a lot of Immigration New Zealand workers sitting at home unable to work. That was the basis for this bill in the first place.

So coming to the renewal of the sunset clause, we had thought that—and I even foreshadowed it in my first reading speech—those numbers would, in fact, be updated. If this bill was required because there are so many people here who need the conditions of their visas extended and because we’ve got people sitting at home who can’t do the work, those things would be traversed. We didn’t hear it in the first reading speech from the Minister; we didn’t hear it from officials at all. And I know the Minister said it wasn’t his intention, but that was the whole reason for the bill.

It should have been his intention and the intention of the officials to provide that information. And it wasn’t just the National Party that was saying that; the New Zealand Law Society said that, the Auckland District Law Society said that, the Road Transport Forum New Zealand said that. Most of the organisations said there is no given reason for this bill that we can understand to have two years rather than one year. I’d just like to point out that the Minister said that most of the submitters wanted a one-year clause. In fact, every single organisation that submitted on this bill—every single one—said they wanted one year and vehemently opposed two years. One went even as far as saying six months, but every single organisation who submitted on this bill said one year.

Now, I want to start by talking about the process and the time frame. The Minister, in his first sentence, mentioned an abbreviated time frame. When the Government brought this bill a year ago, they gave 10 days’ notice, and we understood why that was the case. We were in an emergency situation, we had no clarity on what was going to happen, there were only 12 submissions, and it was a very short time frame. Given that, we had expected, this time around, there would be a full process. As the Minister said himself, if it’s a one-year sunset clause then the bill would need to start to be thought about in about June, July, August, and then brought before the House towards the end of the year. That didn’t happen for reasons he has failed to explain, especially given the fact that he argued in Cabinet for no sunset clause—yes, no sunset clause. That’s what he wanted—that’s what he actually wanted. His back-up plan was three years. Luckily, his colleagues said, “Look mate, sorry, that’s not happening. We’re going to give you two. On your way, sonny.” But he would’ve given us the exact same time frame of three weeks to deliberate on this bill and hear from submitters for three weeks or no sunset clause. So, actually, this whole process of only giving us three weeks is really not good enough, and there has been no explanation as to why that was the case, and we are left to just ponder and come up with the reason that they actually just forgot. And most submitters said, when they came to committee and when they put their submissions in, that the time frame wasn’t long enough. And I heard from many submitters who didn’t get to have their say at all.

Going back to the two-year sunset clause which I alluded to earlier, the Regulations Review Committee wrote to our committee and said, “You need to ensure that you are satisfied that the two-year extension is appropriate for these powers and you need to seek advice from officials.” And what did we get from officials and what did we get from the Minister? We heard, “The Minister needs to be nimble.”; “It’s a continued need.”; “He wanted three years and no sunset clause, so two years is entirely reasonable.” They said that one year means we’ve got to come back again really soon and undertake a lot of work; it’s really inconvenient. I put it to this House that such a large transfer of power from Immigration New Zealand to the Minister, saying that it’s not convenient to come back in a year really isn’t an excuse when we are giving him so much unbridled power. They also said, “Don’t worry. It has to be COVID-related. So if COVID’s no longer a problem, he can’t use these powers.” Except that COVID is always an excuse. We’ve seen this right across this Government. Everything can be harped back to COVID. And even the Minister, with his long residency queues, has said that it’s because of COVID. Well, actually, those queues have been growing since 2018, but there you have it.

As I said earlier, no reasons were given for this—the reason for this two-year clause. The Auckland District Law Society, in fact, said that this bill is more convenience than necessity, which I think is telling. The Law Society said much the same. The Road Transport Forum said the policy work should have happened, but it hasn’t in the last year. And by the way, by the time the sunset clause expires, the Minister will have had these powers for three years. So many submitters came to us and said, “This is far too long for emergency powers to be given to the Minister, and a one-year time frame is far more appropriate.”

As I said earlier, in 2020 we had all of these figures given to us. In 2021, no numbers, no explanation at all of Immigration New Zealand’s capacity to undertake their work. So we’re none the wiser as for the reasons for this bill. Immigration New Zealand officials are at work, so why can’t they process these applications? What’s going on at Immigration New Zealand that they can’t process things that they would in the normal way? Is it the residency backlog that’s causing such a problem? Is it the fact that the Minister’s closed offshore offices and brought all the processing home? We are none the wiser as to the reason why Immigration New Zealand officials can’t process these in the normal way. Remember back in 2020 they told us that the reason for this was that Immigration New Zealand officials were sitting at home and they couldn’t work. Well, that excuse doesn’t exist anymore, but we were not given any reasons why they couldn’t do their jobs.

The New Zealand Law Society gave a very good submission, and one of the things that they talked about was having a 28-day commencement of special directions. Now, their reasoning for wanting this was different than my reasoning, but, actually, they made a very good point in the fact that they said—and I’ll bring it up because it’s always better to say what they actually said. They said there is “scrutiny by the Regulations Review Committee, and [it is] subject to disallowance”—and we agree with that, but the point that they make is that, “While these measures are commendable, the Law Society noted … on the 2020 bill that such checks only occur after the instrument is made.” And that’s the same in this bill. So those checks only are able to be undertaken once they’re already in force. And so for that reason, the Law Society wants a 28-day commencement of special directions unless there is an emergency or an unusual situation that requires an immediate action, and we agree with that.

But my reason for wanting a 28-day commencement of special directions is quite different, because the way that the Minister has been exercising his powers has been with very, very short notice. He gave five days’ notice to visitor visas, three days’ notice back in July last year to work visa holders, many of whom had bought tickets to go home, and so there is a whole lot of uncertainty and stress and anxiety put on people who are living from extension to extension with a Minister unable to explain why he can’t give a lot more notice to people. A 28-day notice period would lessen the stress, the anxiety, stop people from booking flights—people who are in a very vulnerable situation. And also at the moment, it would give more time for Immigration New Zealand officials to do the administration in the background. Currently, you’ve got people who have an extension, but it reads in their immigration file that, actually, they’re here unlawfully. Their kids can’t go to school, and they lose their jobs. I’ve got kids in my electorate right now who are being told they’re not allowed to come back to school this term because technically they’re unlawful, but they’ve been given the extension. A 28-day notice period would stop that, and we will have a Supplementary Order Paper to that effect.

Most of the submitters said that the conditions today are not the same as they were a year ago, and they will not be the same in a year. The Restaurant Association of New Zealand made that point, as did both the Auckland District Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society. But overarching—in my last few seconds—Immigration New Zealand is in big trouble. They’ve got huge backlogs. The residence queue has been frozen. The time frame for getting a residence is two years. And this is a very convenient way for the Minister to extend visas, not because of COVID but because of the mess that Immigration New Zealand are in. And while we agree that there are some cases in which he will need to exercise these powers, we will be arguing vehemently for a one-year clause that he should have to come back to this Parliament and explain why he needs a further year in that time frame, and we will be exploring this more at committee of the whole House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to take a call on the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill. As the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, I would just like to run the House through the process that this bill has actually gone through. As the Minister already stated, the bill was referred to select committee on 8 April and received 168 submissions from interested groups and individuals and our select committee heard from 43 of those submitters. Many made oral submissions to the committee in person over the recent recess period, as well as over Zoom.

Now, I would also like to acknowledge that the bill is being read with urgency and, as such, obviously, the submission period was shorter than it normally would have been, but I am actually very pleased with the level of engagement that we have seen from the submitters and from the public. I would like to again thank all those 43 people in particular who made the effort to come to Wellington or to join in over Zoom and make submissions.

Now, I would like to touch on a couple of the submissions that particularly stood out to me, and some of them have been selectively referenced by the previous speaker. It’s also worth noting that, in fact, all of the businesses that submitted on this bill—every single one—acknowledged the efforts of Immigration in what have been, obviously, such challenging circumstances. The Auckland District Law Society (ADLS) was quoted by the previous speaker, but what she didn’t mention was that ADLS actually said that “the Bill as drafted has sufficient safeguards in ensuring that the Minister of Immigration is unable to delegate the majority of the special direction powers, and that Parliamentary scrutiny will apply where such powers are exercised”.

So, as it seems that parliamentary scrutiny is such an issue for the Opposition, they’re downplaying—as they did in the first reading—the fact that the powers that the Minister of Immigration receives with this bill are actually disallowable instruments. That means that the House can disallow those powers and it means that the House will have continued scrutiny of these powers. That is one of the continuing safeguards of this bill, which, again, has been downplayed by the Opposition when they talk about that large transfer of power—that there are continuing safeguards within this bill.

Again, the Opposition spoke much about the two-year extension. Now, on balance, as our report says, the majority of our select committee was satisfied with the reasons for the time line and why the powers are time-limited. Even if there were no expiry date in this bill, the powers are still limited, and the Minister has clearly outlined that in his speech, because everything has to be clearly related to COVID-19.

Another thing that really stood out—the previous speaker did mention that many submitters raised general immigration issues that weren’t related to this bill, and we heard many stories about family unification. Now, our select committee wants to thank those submitters for telling their story, and we acknowledge that the decision to close the borders and protect New Zealand communities from COVID-19 caused difficulties and caused heartache for some people. But the work that sees family reunification is continuing, and, just to mention one example, 13,000 people have been granted border exceptions as partners of, dependants of, New Zealand citizens or residents. Over the past year, several border exceptions supporting the reunification of split families have been introduced, and, in fact, that work is continuously happening.

But as the Minister also said in his speech—our select committee report re-emphasised this particular point—the powers in this bill don’t manage the border exceptions policy settings which govern people entering into New Zealand and entering managed isolation and quarantine. Our select committee did note in our report that the Minister of Immigration has recently announced border exceptions that allow for family reunification.

So I would like to finish my short call by thanking everyone involved in this process, particularly regarding the urgency that was put on them—so that’s our select committee clerks, our officials, the Office of the Auditor-General, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and members of my select committee for all the additional meetings during recess and all their efforts. Therefore I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to make three very important points in my speech, because this is a significant bill and, sadly, the issues being dealt with by the House are so significant, and it’s, I think, sad to see very limited engagement on the substance of the issues by members opposite. It’s, I think, a tragedy that the process that this bill has gone through has been so curtailed.

I think what all members can agree on is that over the last few weeks in particular, there has been a real cognisance of the impacts of COVID-19 on families—and migrant families in particular. What you’ve seen is a couple of things. The first is that the trans-Tasman bubble’s opened, and that has allowed people who have been split apart for many months to be reunited. It has been a wonderful thing, actually, to stand there and watch the people on the news come through the gates at Wellington airport and hug their family that have been split apart because of COVID-19. That bubble’s been fantastic.

But there’s a class of people out there called the split migrant families, who are still separated from their loved ones, who are in the invidious position of part of the family being in New Zealand and part not being in New Zealand because of COVID-19. These are people who were granted visas to come to New Zealand for work: in the case of Cameron Conradie from Hutt Valley High School in Lower Hutt, a maths teacher—a male maths teacher; there’s not many of them in New Zealand—he came to Lower Hutt, and his family sold their house in South Africa. They packaged up their possessions and got themselves ready to move. And then COVID-19 hit. He is in New Zealand and his family are still in South Africa, and, as yet, there is no light on the horizon for him and his family to be reunited.

I think there’s been a real recognition in the last few weeks that COVID-19 has had a demonstrable human impact on people like Mr Conradie and on people like the split migrants who turned up at Parliament in the last sitting period and protested—not in an exuberant, violent way, but in a passionate, to be sure, protest—outside on the forecourt. I believe the Labour Party will look back at that period, and the fact that not a single Labour Party member of Parliament went down to that protest, with disdain and shame in the years to come.

💬 Jamie Strange: We weren’t invited, Chris. There was no invitation given out.

Mate, take a look outside or read Facebook. There’s 65 of you guys; the fact that not a single one of you knew that the protest was on—that in itself is an extraordinary admission from Jamie Strange, the member of Parliament for Hamilton East. The fact that they didn’t know it was on—number one, take a look outside; number two, read Facebook, check your email, because—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! Wrong pronoun.

If that member was doing his job, he would know that there are hundreds of people in New Zealand affected by this, and they have been very public about it. My colleague Erica Stanford has been questioning the Minister of Immigration about these families for weeks now, and we get told by the Prime Minister that Minister Faafoi is sorting it out. Well, we’ve had some brief solution in relation to the migrant nurses, but not for the wider issue.

The things we are talking about here matter. The process that this bill has gone through is a disgrace. Firstly, there was a shortened amount of time for the select committee. Now, we can accept, back in 2020, the first iteration of this Act being passed very quickly. It wasn’t ideal, but the legislature had to move quickly to respond to a pretty extraordinary set of events, and we can accept that. We could accept a truncated process in the select committee. But it is not acceptable in 2021. Very few people were allowed to submit. The chair of the select committee, Ms Lubeck, just spoke and she said that there were lots of submissions and it was pretty thorough. Well, I would reject that. I wasn’t on the committee but I talked to colleagues who were, and I would reject that. It simply—a few weeks. A few weeks was it, Ms Stanford? A few weeks is not enough time—three weeks, I’m told—not enough time, to properly ventilate the issues. It’s just simply not enough time. And of course, there’s no excuse.

💬 Marja Lubeck: It’s OK to do 90-day trials overnight. It’s OK to do contractor rights away overnight.

There seems to be muttering about something unrelated to the bill, but she’s not very happy about the fact that no Labour Party members went to the migrant protest. So I think that’s the real unhappiness. So three weeks is not enough time to ventilate critical issues.

Then the second point is this: it was passed extremely quickly. Again, we look back and say, “2020—OK, sure, you pass something through under urgency. We had to deal with a difficult situation.” But here’s the question for Parliament and that Labour members have to answer: what have they done over the last year? Why did this Act run up right to the end of its time—it’s expiry date—and then, all of a sudden, the Government realises it’s about to expire and we’ve got to extend it? Why did it take so long to realise that? Now, I realise there was an election in the meantime—sure—and I realise that Parliament wasn’t sitting, but this Act was passed in May last year and here we are, again, in May, 2021. There’s plenty of time to pass this piece of legislation and that would have allowed a proper ventilation of the issues, and it would have allowed a proper ventilation of the issues of split migrant families. Their submissions to the committee were ruled out of scope. The reason why they were there is because the Government keeps saying that they will do something about it, but yet they are not.

You know, there are a thousand rooms in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) right now—over a thousand rooms vacant—because we’ve opened the bubble and Australians and New Zealanders coming from Australia to New Zealand don’t have to go into quarantine anymore. Last week, there were 1,400 rooms available one night across the country. And for people like Cameron Conradie and his family, and the nurses in Auckland, and the teachers elsewhere, and the engineers and the construction workers, and the split migrant families who have one person here and their family offshore, they look at this and they say, “Well, hang on a minute.” We’ve got a Minister who claims to be solving our problems but isn’t, and we’ve got thousands of rooms or hundreds of rooms available every night in MIQ and they can’t get in. Why won’t the Government move? So that’s why they turned up to the select committee.

We reject this two-year extension of time. This is an untrammelled power grab by the Minister. Two years is not needed. It’s not necessary. It should be one year, no more. The Minister is giving himself absolutely extraordinary powers. And you could argue it was necessary, after the events last year, to have some discretion—some extraordinary discretion—to make changes to visas, but to go for two years smells like a power grab for convenience, not on principle. There is no justification in practice for a two-year extension of these powers. There just simply is not. Ministers can’t muster one. Officials can’t muster one. The only argument in favour of it is mere convenience. But I’m sorry, that is not how we make law in this country. We do not grant Ministers extraordinary powers on the basis that it might be easier for them. Or if we do, we should not do it in that way. Ministers do not need an extra two years—one year, tops, and then come back to the Parliament and if you need another year, put another bill through the Parliament and argue on that basis and justify to the House why that’s needed. But do not accept the two years.

In relation to the 28-day rule that my colleague Ms Stanford has spoken about, we believe that would be an improvement to the legislation. We advanced that as a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in Ms Stanford’s name, in good faith. We share the view of the Law Society that this would be appropriate for instruments created by special direction. What we had last year was Ministers issuing directions, giving visa extensions, only a few days before whole classes of visas were due to expire. And again, I recognise the exigency of the circumstances, but there should be no justification for that now, and a 28-day notice rule for special directions would ensure that at least some modicum of notice is given. We need to remember that temporary visa holders, as members opposite will know from their constituency work, are in very vulnerable situations.

This is an important bill. The Government is not allowing Parliament enough time to debate it properly and to debate the issues contained within it. Two years is a power grab that is not needed and therefore we oppose the legislation, unless the SOPs we’ve asked for are granted.

I feel very proud in taking this short call in support of this bill. Chris Bishop, the previous speaker, has just mentioned that none of the 65 Labour Party MPs turned up to the protest. He also said that there were too many of us—65 of us. Yes, there are 65 of us, but none of us was invited to this event, to this protest.

But the other thing I want to mention is that prior to 2017, when I was active in the community, I was active in the union movement. We marched, screaming for migrant workers who were being exploited. We marched to double the quota. We marched and marched and marched. At the time, the National Party was in Government. There were so many of them at that time. There were so many of them—about 50-plus—and we were inviting them to each and every single event. None of them turned up, but, four years later, we don’t blame them for that. Now, they—

💬 Erica Stanford: Sounds like you are.

—are playing a blame game, but that’s fine. But if we are invited, Erica, we are going to turn up because we care.

This bill maintains important powers to enable the Government to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak as it may develop over the next two years. The Minister of Immigration has just stated the number of people who have benefited from this legislation. I’m not going to repeat that. I was privileged to be a member of the committee that heard the submissions in the last couple of weeks, and we have heard a lot of the stories—stories from international students, split-family members, but also from the skilled migrants who have been stranded overseas, and they were heartbreaking stories we heard. But this is the reality that COVID-19 has created.

This time last year, when this legislation was introduced, COVID-19 was killing people and it was infecting people, but now, a year on, it’s killing more people and it’s infecting more people. Just in the last 24 hours, there are about 660,000 new infections. There are more than 10,000 dead, just in the last 24 hours, and that is the reality that we’re dealing with.

The migrant workers are always going to be an integral part of our workforce, and we value them—there’s no question about that. They’re going to be part of our recovery plan, but we always have to be vigilant. We have sacrificed so much to stop COVID-19 and to stamp out the virus from our country, but we cannot undo that.

With that, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the second reading of the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill. I want to begin by acknowledging that our migrant communities are flourishing, and our Government should act to ensure that they’re able to fully participate in society. History has shown us that during times of economic downturns, or when we face uncertainty, our migrant communities have been one of the groups that have been often scapegoated. We are still seeing the legacy of the dawn raids, where people from our Pacific communities thought to have overstayed their visas were targeted and deported, and that legacy still lives with us today in our broken immigration settings. It also lives in the current scapegoating of our migrant communities for having caused the housing crisis, and inequality in general.

But as the submitters to this bill in our select committee showed us, we don’t have to repeat the mistakes of the past. In times of hardship we can rally together to uphold the wellbeing of all of us, including our migrant communities. Migrant workers have played a critical role in our response to COVID-19. Our communities rallied together to provide kai and look after our elderly. Many sectors who were deemed to be essential rely heavily on migrant workers, whether it’s for supermarkets, the healthcare system, or aged care. And while the pandemic changed everything for all of us, it has created specific challenges in our migrant communities. Families were split by our border restrictions, and temporary visa holders who were in their homelands during the pandemic were stuck, despite having deep connections to communities in Aotearoa New Zealand—many who still rent a property or have cars here that they own.

Our migrant communities understood the need to act swiftly to protect us all from the pandemic, and, in fact, submitters showed support for the initial purpose of this bill, which was to keep us safe. While the bill was initially used to keep us safe, I do believe that the powers of this bill haven’t been used to the full extent to ensure there’s equity within our migrant communities. People from non - visa waiver countries are unable to be reunited with their loved ones still, some having to travel to their homelands in order to do so. Post-study work visa holders and people with temporary visas have been anxious about the uncertainty they face—whether their visas will be renewed or when they will be able to come back to the country. These were the sorts of stories that we heard during our time at select committee. I want to make sure that our speeches are centred in the stories of the people who came to us and spoke about their experiences, not about political point-scoring. Ultimately, the bill needs to be used to uphold the wellbeing of our communities.

As outlined in the select committee’s report, many of our submitters asked that the powers of this bill be used for things like family reunification for border exemptions and visa extensions, as well as visa extensions for people offshore who are unable to travel. People also highlighted the need to grant new visas for those whose temporary visas have expired, and the granting of visas to people unlawfully in New Zealand, as well as implementing a 20-day notice period for the commencement of any special directions, which members of the National Party have spoken to plenty.

I want to particularly acknowledge submissions from the Auckland District Law Society, the Migrant Workers Association, and the Association of New Kiwis Aotearoa, who spoke about pathways to residency and amnesty to overstayers. This is the time to ensure that our migrant communities are able to participate in the recovery from our pandemic. It is a time to ensure that overstayers are not feeling like they have to hide in the shadows and can participate in the public health response, particularly in the stage of immunisation.

The Green Party stands behind the submitters who called for these changes, and this is why we actually launched last week a series of policy points in order to address our broken immigration system, including pathways for residency, a broad amnesty programme for overstayers, decoupling work visas from single employers, requiring immigration to stop visa delays, as well as removing the salary criteria for skilled visas and parent reunification categories, and ensuring our partnership visas are culturally competent.

One of the things that struck me, as we’ve been discussing these issues of immigration, is just how discriminatory our settings still are. For the past few weeks we’ve heard almost on a regular basis the fact that disabled people have been stopped from being able to access residency class visas. We’ve heard how our disabled community has, in fact, been one of the most impacted by current immigration settings, and we know overseas, as well as here, that disabled people are some of the most at risk from the ill effects of COVID-19. So the pandemic and the effects of the pandemic should be a wake-up call for us to act swiftly to hear the needs of our community.

The submitters were really clear that the issue wasn’t so much with the bill itself but how the power is being used, and the Green Party is making it clear that we are providing support at the second reading but with the call for the Minister to address the issues addressed by submitters, as well as to look into some of the broader structural issues that our immigration system faces. Many of these were discussed during our select committee stage. Some of these may not be able to be addressed by the nature of this bill, but we do believe we cannot be waiting for a Productivity Commission inquiry to start acting on some of these key issues, such as Immigration New Zealand being run as a business, relying on visa fees in order to sustain itself. Issues around visa processing delays ultimately have been a political action to lower residency and immigration numbers, and it has caused ill and damage to our migrant communities who are facing anxiety.

Ultimately, the stories that we heard at select committee speak of an immigration system that’s been broken due to the inaction by successive Governments to ensure that our wellbeing is put at the forefront. The issues of migrants being able to be reunited with families is not new. In fact, prior to the pandemic, we heard many stories of what low-income families faced when it came to being able to be reunited with families. Successive Governments have actually closed the family reunification category. The previous Government changed the sibling category and they restricted the ability for migrants to participate in the education system.

So the Minister will need to look beyond the powers granted by this bill to address our broken immigration system, and the Green Party offers our support to work productively with the Government to ensure that our submitters’ voices do not go to waste, and that our Minister acts responsibly to address people who are offshore who actually poured their hearts out to the committee, speaking of the lived experience. We must centre these voices to ensure that our migrant communities are not disproportionately affected as we look into the recovery of our pandemic. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On the first reading of this bill, the ACT Party took a principled stance in opposing this bill—the only party to do so—and our stance remains unchanged. It’s not about one year or two years; the issues are much bigger than that. Of course, it’s unlikely that we could’ve changed our minds, since it’s been so little time since that first reading, though, admittedly, more time than has been afforded to the many other pieces of legislation that have passed under urgency this year without consideration for their obvious consequences. New Zealanders can consider themselves, perhaps, lucky that the Government has shown at least a token appreciation for democratic lawmaking with this bill. However, frankly, the outcome will be the same as if we had a select committee or if we didn’t have one.

Outside of the select committee, I’m sure many members of this House have heard of migrants’ personal stories via e-mail, phone calls, social media, or in person at electorate offices. There’s also—good news—going to be another demonstration very shortly outside Parliament, and I hope at least one Government member makes the effort to attend this time. So consider this your invitation.

During the select committee, members heard about the unending misery caused by loved ones not being able to reunite with their families for over a year and, in some cases, many years. The most recent announcement on family reunification offered a glimmer of hope, but the reality soon became very clear: few migrants qualified despite ongoing managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) capacity, which has been spoken about, let alone the ability to scale up MIQ.

They’ve also heard about international students who have been begging to come back in, in huge debt, and schools and universities would like to see them back here as well. Many workers are in the same situation: some migrants here already have visas but with expiry dates looming and uncertainty around whether or not they’re going to get an extension under the powers that have been granted.

There is never any proper communication or transparency from Immigration New Zealand, no effort to improve on their processes. I’m not even going to delve into the delays in processing residency applications, though I’ll note that the skilled migrant category just increased to 90 percent completed by 24 months, and it’s only going to get worse.

The attitude of the Government in introducing last-minute legislation as an excuse to have a shortened select committee process is very much in line with the Minister’s long-established approach of being disinterested and disengaged with migrants and with stakeholders. We’ve got the annual immigration law conference coming up in Auckland, and normally the Minister of Immigration is the keynote speaker. It’s been like that year after year, but I’m afraid there’s no such luck this year, it seems.

We’ve heard the call for a formal inquiry, and it seems we’re back to the blame game around housing and infrastructure, with the Government trying to distract from the real failures. We’re also back to pipe dreams around meeting skills shortages without relying on migration; blaming sectors for a supposed lack of training despite businesses trying their best for years to engage a local workforce. We’ve also heard time and again about the need for an immigration reset while the opportunity presents itself in this COVID environment. And I’m not opposed to that. We absolutely have that opportunity, but that work should have started this time last year, and by now we should have a pretty good idea of what a shiny new immigration system looks like and a time line of when we might see that, but all we hear is a desire to clamp down on the system rather than solve existing problems.

We’ve also had the Productivity Commission give their unfortunate view of what immigration should look like, including the suggestion that the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme somehow hampers technological innovation, including automation and local employment. The thing about automation, though, is that it actually reduces the need for workers in any event, whether local or from overseas—but that’s a sad analysis for another day.

We support the recommendations of the National Party for improving this bill. However, regardless, the ACT Party will not be supporting it. Thank you.

I’d also like to thank everyone who made the effort to make submissions to the Education and Workforce Committee. There were some really painful stories that were brought—often out of scope, but I appreciate that people were taking the opportunity to have their voices heard. But what I do need to bring to the attention of this House is some of the feedback we got from industries who were very appreciative of the opportunity to engage in a situation that is still in a constant state of flux. We had industries who came to select committee and they told us about the useful processes of engagement and the problem solving that happened over the last 12 months and will continue to be able to happen when this legislation passes.

The New Zealand Winegrowers, you’ll be pleased to hear, Mr Smith, talked about the extension of dates and removal of conditions from holders of working holiday visas, so they remained legally in New Zealand and were able to work in any industry for any employer, which has enabled those visa holders to help bring in the 2021 vintage. They talked about the extension of the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme visa time frames for those workers who were in New Zealand and either were unable to return home or wished to remain in New Zealand to continue to work to support their families. Horticulture New Zealand also talked about the continuing issuing of extensions. Why they support it: it provides much-needed workers for industry and ensures that people stranded in New Zealand can work and earn their cost of living. And, of course, the Meat Industry Association of New Zealand is grateful to the Government for the visa extensions and for the delay to the introduction of the stand-down period.

It is industry who supports this bill. They are happy for the ability to engage with the Minister, to respond nimbly and appropriately. It has been tough, but this law is necessary and it will pass with our support.

The member who just resumed her seat left out five very important words about the submissions that the committee heard by business, and that are these: “One year, not two.” They were very clear that their support was not for the sort of powers that the Minister wants to grant himself for two years. They were unanimous that one year was any amount, and therefore members who agree with those submitters should be supporting Erica Stanford’s Supplementary Order Paper at the committee of the whole House.

Now, the Immigration Act 2009 gives the Minister of Immigration extraordinary powers, unmatched in any form of Government or the public sector in New Zealand. The Minister is basically granted the power to allow people to come or not come, or stay or leave, at his or her discretion, setting out the plethora—the myriad—of immigration instructions that are required for Immigration New Zealand to operate. But even then, the Act enables the Minister to make a decision, to say yes or no to a visa application, regardless of those immigration instructions, and not give reasons for why the Minister is making those decisions.

Now that is unprecedented in any part of Government. One couldn’t imagine the Minister for ACC, for example, saying, “Well, that claimant has a claim on the boundaries of accident or non-accident, but I’m going to direct ACC to grant cover and to pay the entitlements to which that person would then be eligible.” Doesn’t happen. In fact, there is a very strong separation between the ministerial, the governance, and the operating side of almost every part of Government—but not so immigration. So in the light of the significant powers that the Minister of Immigration is granted through the Immigration Act 2009, the Minister wants more power. In 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, when the country was locked down, when people were stuck either offshore or onshore—non-New Zealanders—and could not have their visa applications processed because Immigration New Zealand itself wasn’t able to function in the way that they did, that law was appropriate. Not so much now.

Indeed, I have a huge regard for the people who work for Immigration New Zealand and it pains me to see the confusion and the disarray and the lack of ministerial leadership that is currently the case with Immigration New Zealand. Because they don’t know whether they’re the decision makers or the Minister’s the decision maker, or the grounds of what decisions are being made—and fewer decisions are being made. Put aside the principle of whether or not this bill is necessary to continue, and look at the reality of the quantum of the work that is being embarked on by Immigration New Zealand. Now, in four visa categories only, in the full 2019-20 year, a year that was affected for at least seven or eight weeks by COVID—maybe more, maybe 12 weeks—they nevertheless in those four key categories of resident, student, visitor, and work visas, processed nearly 700 visas. They made 700,000, rather, decisions. This year, they are on track to make, in those same four categories—wait for it—just 269,000 decisions. So more than 400,000 fewer decisions are going to be made by Immigration New Zealand this year than last year.

Now, as far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a material reduction, if at all, in the number of staff that work in Immigration New Zealand, and so why on earth should we be giving these powers to the Minister? Now, one of the reasons the Minister has the discretion that he or she has under the Immigration Act is because every application is different. We’re guided by those instructions, but nevertheless there is a chime to exercise a discretion and say, actually, despite the instructions this is the right thing to do, and the Minister and delegated decision makers at Immigration New Zealand can do that. Only they’re not doing it now. It doesn’t matter that those individual decisions for an applicant might warrant an examination by an Immigration New Zealand staff member or the Minister. Whole classes of visa decisions are going to be made.

Now, the National Party does hold its nose and agree to a limited extension to those powers, but two years is far too long. This House should be supporting a shorter time for those powers.

I call Dr Duncan Webb, five minutes.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. I stand and rise in light of fact that the Māori Party chooses not to speak on this bill, which I do find surprising, seeing they had a commitment to scrutinise every bill in this House but they seem not to be doing it with this one. But really, other than that, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a very brief call on this bill, the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill. I wasn’t privileged enough to be on the select committee to hear the submissions—the 168 submissions and those 43 submitters who were heard, either face to face or on Zoom. I acknowledge their submissions and, after reading the report, have seen that they’ve made some key themes there. I commend this bill to the House because of its safety for our whānau.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Unlike many who have spoken, I actually was on the Education and Workforce Committee when the legislation went through last year.

💬 Hon Member: It’s your fault.

Well, it partly was my fault, I guess, because we voted for it, but, actually, at that time, it was the right thing to do. We had to do something, and we brought this law in, or this Act in, and now we’re back to give it another extension, and, unfortunately, we have a Minister who doesn’t seem to do anything quickly except for wanting to do the legislative process quickly. Unfortunately, he had plenty of time to get this bill before the House to have an adequate process of consideration through a select committee, and he did not choose to use that. We’ve seen the track record of the Minister in action when these special directions are being made by leaving it too long.

I want to take the time to talk about the time I spent down in Central Otago last year with a group of Recognised Seasonal Employer workers whose work had run out. Their visa conditions didn’t allow them to go to Marlborough, where the work was, and they were there almost literally starving. They didn’t have access to money. They didn’t have access to food. They didn’t have access to warm clothes in a Central Otago winter. All it took was one special direction that was done at the stroke of a pen, but the Minister didn’t get around to it until extremely late, after a period when they had been weeks without work. It is totally unsatisfactory. We have to wonder what the Minister is doing.

Now, we’ve seen this—and a number of my colleagues mentioned before the very short 28-day period that we want to have as a minimum notice of those special directions, but what we have seen in the last year is virtually no time for people to plan. Children, as my colleague Erica Stanford said, were notable to go to school because they were there illegally, effectively, because they no longer had an adequate visa. So we need these powers, but these powers have to be used correctly. They have to be used in a timely manner. We have to have a Minister that’s actually doing the job, and I have really serious questions about this Minister’s actual focus on this job and getting on with it.

We didn’t have the numbers, as my colleague mentioned. A year ago, we had all the numbers of how many people’s visas were outstanding and how many were to be processed. We asked, through the select committee this time, for those numbers. We expected to have those numbers. It would have helped us with our consideration of the bill. I would imagine it would take probably 10 or 15 seconds to get those numbers, if that was desired to be done. It wasn’t—until after the select committee had finished its deliberations. Then we get the numbers about how many visas are outstanding. As we heard the Hon Michael Woodhouse talk about before, actually, there’s been 400,000 less visas going to be processed than last year, so that’s just outrageous. What’s going on?

In addition to that, we’ve got this programme, ADEPT, which is an electronic processing programme for visas, which will take a huge labour requirement out of that processing of visas. That’s being tested now. That will be available and up and running within a year. So how does that square with a two-year sunset clause in this bill? It doesn’t make sense.

Look, we know COVID’s being used as an excuse for everything these days. But “Henry VIII” powers given to a Minister when they’re not needed is outrageous. My colleague Chris Bishop gave an excellent speech, but I told him as he left the House he made one major mistake in his speech, because he said, “This is not how we make laws in this country.” Well, he’s wrong. We do. We are making them now. This Government has a track record of doing this, and it’s outrageous. It’s an overreach, and we’re seeing it around the world, I guess, so they haven’t got this on their own, but the Government’s taking the opportunity under COVID to reach for more power. And do you think they’ll let it go? I don’t. I don’t think they will. They are trying to advance their powers further and further, and particularly in this case, when it’s totally not needed.

When the Regulations Review Committee recommends that we recognise the importance of a justification for the powers that this bill is giving to the Minister, that’s a real red flag for everyone who’s a legislator, and the fact that it’s being completely ignored by the other side really does tell a story—a story that’s not a very nice story, actually. We have a real responsibility as legislators to do the right thing. Even when we don’t agree with a bill, when we’re working in select committee, it’s our job to make sure the bill comes out of that select committee in as good a state as it possibly can be. We all work hard across the House on these sorts of things. On members’ bills, we sometimes don’t agree with them. We hold our nose. We do the right thing, try to get it in the right shape.

We support this bill to the point of a one-year extension, a sunset clause of one year, but we won’t support it otherwise. I think the members on the other side are only doing what they’re told. But, actually, when you have a good think about this, there are some things in your political career that you’ll look back on and say, “Oh, we shouldn’t really have done that.” Well, this is one of them. I think that those members on the other side should think that. Most of them are new members, so they’re getting some real black marks on their career right from the start, and I think they should really think long and hard about that.

So, as I said, we have support for this to a point. We are holding our nose to a certain extent about it. But we’re doing it only on the understanding that this has a sunset clause of one year, as in Erica Stanford’s Supplementary Order Paper, which will come before the committee of the whole House. We’ll have a lot more to say about it then. So it’s with that that I commend, with my nose held quite firmly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill, which helps to support the Government’s strategy to eliminate COVID-19 from our communities. It is an important bill because it enables the Government to respond to a COVID-19 outbreak as it may develop over the next two years. We know that we can’t predict the path of this virus, and we need these powers to continue. I think it’s important for us to realise that we can use these powers only if they are tied to COVID-19 or the effects of the response to COVID19, and that they can be used only to benefit or, at a minimum, not disadvantage visa holders. I commend the work of the select committee and in particular its chair, Marja Lubeck, for handling this with grace. I commend this bill to the House.