Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill

The House is in committee on the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill. Members, we come to the first part, Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 4 to 16, “Temporary powers relating to visas”. The amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 32, in the name of Ricardo Menéndez March, is out of order as outside the scope of the bill. The member, therefore, cannot speak on that amendment. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Can I begin by giving a little bit of context as to why the bill that we are amending was passed roughly this time last year. Obviously, earlier in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government made—[Change of Chairperson] that was very swift—one of the biggest and best decisions it could make. It was not an easy decision to make, to make sure that our population kept safe, and that was to close our border in order to put a protective armour around our country to keep New Zealanders safe and to keep COVID-19 out of our country. Obviously, by taking that relatively unprecedented action, the need to regulate the flow of people and also cohorts of groups of visa holders in New Zealand and those outside of New Zealand was necessary, and it had to be done in a different way. The purpose of the original bill and the current Act was to ensure that we could deal with some of those cohorts as groups and not as individuals, because you could imagine the logistical nightmare that Immigration New Zealand would have if we were dealing with changes of visas with people who are in the country on an individual basis. The time that it would take and the resources it would take would have been troublesome, and it would have certainly overwhelmed the system.

So the bill passed last year, which we are amending through this stage, gives the Government and the Minister of Immigration eight powers, and those powers have to be linked to responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those powers are to “vary or cancel conditions for classes of resident visa class holders; to impose, vary, or cancel conditions for classes of temporary entry visa class holders: [thirdly] waive any regulatory requirements for certain classes of application … grant visas to individuals and classes of people in the absence of an application: extend the expiry dates of visas for classes of people: waive the requirement to obtain a transit visa in an individual case, or suspend a transit visa waiver made by regulations in an individual case: certify immigration instructions under which an immigration officer may revoke the entry permission of a person who has been detained by regulations made under the principal Act to have been granted entry permission: make regulations suspending the ability to make applications for visas or to submit expressions of interest in applying for visas by classes of people.”

I would like to thank the Education and Workforce Committee for their very prudent work under time constraints for this piece of legislation. I do note, having had a look at some of the reports that came out of the select committee hearings, that quite a broad number of stakeholders came and gave submissions, and I thank all of them for taking the opportunity to talk either to the issues that they are facing or to the substance in the bill. I would also note now two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that have been put before the House both in the name of Erica Stanford. In essence, Supplementary Order Paper 30 is to reduce the extension of the bill from the current proposal of two years to an extension of the current laws and powers in the bill to one. Then Supplementary Order Paper 31, in essence, is to enforce a 28-day rule of enforcement of any special directions or regulations that may come about of the powers that are afforded to the Minister of Immigration and the Government within this piece of legislation.

I didn’t hear the contributions of the Opposition in the second reading speeches—the quality of them is not for me to judge—but I understand that the Opposition may be predicating its further support on whether or not those two SOPs will pass. I want to put the Opposition members out of their misery nice and early in this debate, because I know that—pre-empting a question—the Government will not be supporting those SOPs. I understand that those issues were relatively well thrashed out and debated in the select committee process and submissions were received.

But in order to deal with Supplementary Order Paper 31, which goes to the adding of a 28-day rule, what we have found when we are making decisions about using special directions, for example, is that having the flexibility in our response is important and in a small number of instances, some of the changes had to be made quite quickly in order to take action for cohorts of people who we were making decisions for. Including the 28-day rule within the purview of all the decisions that are made would take away that flexibility for us. So, in that respect, the Government won’t be supporting Supplementary Order Paper 31.

Then to go to pre-empt some of the questions that may come from the Opposition around truncating the extension of the current bill from two years to one, there is a simple answer to that. I know some concerns have been raised, but even in the short time since we had our first reading, COVID-19 has taken an even tighter hold in some countries. So just how long we will be dealing with this pandemic and to have the current border settings as they are is a question mark. So in order to make sure that we do have the tools and do have a flexibility to deal with this ongoing issue, we believe that two years gives us the ability to make the kinds of changes that we need to, that the powers within the current Act give us.

So I hope that will deal with some of the questions that might come from the Opposition at some stage. Happy to let the committee stage lie.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I have to say I’m very disappointed that the Minister doesn’t go back and look at my speeches on demand. I thought that’s what he did in the evenings—clearly not. But as it turns out—

💬 Matt Doocey: He does.

I bet he does.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: Not yet, not yet.

One day.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

But as it turns out not only did he not listen—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

—to my speech—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! You sit down when I stand up.

Oh, sorry. I apologise.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The Minister knows he should not be interjecting from the chair.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: I apologise.

It’s all right, a bit of banter. As it turns out, not only did the Minister not listen to my speech, it turns out he also didn’t read Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 31 in my name all the way through, because if he had he would have seen at the bottom it says, “that special directions commence no earlier than 28 days after publication unless the Minister is satisfied that extraordinary circumstances exist to justify earlier commencement.” Now, that bit there allows the Minister, when there are circumstances that require him to be nimble and flexible in the small amount of cases—in his own words—that exist from time to time, to require less than 28 days. He would have the ability to do that.

I’m going to come back to this later because I didn’t want to start with that because it’s probably not the most important thing. What our support hinges on, in fact, Minister, is not both of the SOPs—although, this is a very important one—but actually the two-year time frame that he’s giving himself.

I just want to remind the House of some of the important details around this two years. We have to remember, from the Cabinet paper that we’ve seen, that the Minister went to Cabinet actually wanting no expiry date, no sunset clause. His backup was three years. He ended up getting two. It’s important to note that he took this Cabinet paper, asking for no sunset clause, on 22 March this year. If he’d got his way and there was no sunset clause, we would’ve had an extremely truncated process—like we ended up having—for no sunset clause at all, which is a huge grab of power, transfer from the officials to the Minister with effectively no sunset clause and no safeguard.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! I’ll just stop the member. We’re debating in committee the bill as it was approved at second reading. It’s not appropriate for the member to be debating something that’s not in the bill.

I’ll get to my point. The point, Mr Speaker—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: He’ll make a good Speaker that guy.

Ha, ha! The point, Mr Speaker, that I was getting to—took a wee while there—is that the Minister ended up with two years, which is what we’ve got. The Regulations Review Committee wrote to us specifically asking us to make sure that we were happy that we had enough information as to why two years was required. That is a red flag from the Regulations Review Committee. Now, we weren’t satisfied in the select committee—the National Party weren’t satisfied—that we had enough of that detail. So I want to get into that today.

If you take a look at the first reading speech, the second reading speech, and both legislative statements from the Minister—in all of those speeches and statements that he gave—he only ever committed a very small part of those quite long speeches and statements to the reasons why two years was required. Now, this is really important because this is what the whole crux of this comes down to. It’s not the power but how long he’s got it for.

Now, the New Zealand Law Society themselves said that they weren’t satisfied that enough reasons were given. We weren’t satisfied that enough reasons were given. The only reason the Minister has given us is that COVID still exists—that was the first thing. The second thing that he said was he didn’t want to have to bring the bill back to the House later this year—having a bill two times in one year. Now, that’s not our fault; that’s the Minister’s fault for only bringing the Cabinet paper, as I referred to earlier, in March this year, when he should have taken it last year.

The fact of the matter is this is a huge transfer of power, and we want to know why, other than just COVID still exists—which, by the way, a year ago compared to now is extremely different and in a year’s time it will be different again, which is what all the submitters said. So my question—[Bell rung] Mr Chair, I’ll finish it up. My question to the Chair is—I want him to stand up and explain to us in detail why he needs two years other than just one. Because every single submitter to this bill who was an organisation, every single one—there wasn’t one that said anything different; they all wanted one year rather than two. There wasn’t a single submitter—oh, sorry, one submitter wanted six months. But there wasn’t a single organisation, not one, that backed the Minister up, and he ignored all of that advice.

I want to know from the Minister what overarching reason there is, because the Regulations Review Committee have asked us specifically and we’re not happy with what we’ve had so far. I’d like in detail why two years over one, and I don’t want to hear, “We don’t want to bring it back to the House.” Because, actually, that’s just inconvenient for you, but, actually, this House deserves it. Other than, “Well, COVID’s still around.”—COVID’s going to be around for a really long time, but it doesn’t mean that we transfer the Minister these powers for ever. There has to be a point where he gets his department to a point where they can process visas in the way that they normally would.

The Minister never came to this House and gave us figures of how many people—this is prior to last night—were still onshore or the capacity of the workers at Immigration New Zealand to be able to do their jobs. His argument in the first passing of this bill last year was “There are 350,000 people onshore and none of my officers can work from home.” And we agreed with that and we voted unanimously to transfer these powers to the Minister. But none of those arguments, not a single one, was brought up this time, and they were the main reasons for him to have this power in the first place.

Why was it, Minister, that you never came to this House and said, “Here are the number of people onshore now”—because we know a whole lot left—“and here’s the capacity of my staff in the Department”? Not one single time have we heard from this Minister or his staff as to why—with all of those immigration officials back at work—they now can’t process visas as they normally would. Let’s remember that they’re processing 450,000 fewer applications than they were in 2019 across four categories and there’s only, what, a couple of hundred thousand people onshore? Why is it, Minister, that your officials can’t do the job as they normally would?

This is a huge transfer of power. I think this House deserves an explanation given that those were the reasons you originally asked for the bill—an explanation as to why you never came to this House until we basically brought it up and said, “Hey, by the way, you haven’t given us any figures.” He did, at the last minute last night, and has never talked about the capacity of his immigration officials to do their job. It’s not OK to say, “I don’t want to bring the bill back, because it’s inconvenient for me.” It is a huge transfer of power and we expect that this House has the safeguard of one year.

The other point I’d like to make is that it was always trumpeted as a one-year safeguard because of the truncated nature of the first select committee. Well, the second select committee was truncated as well; a lot of people didn’t get to have their say. So, again, a one-year sunset clause would be a perfect safeguard for this bill, and yet the Minister has come asking for two. No credible reasons have been given to satisfy this side of the House as to why this bill is needed and certainly hasn’t given us any response that we could give back to the Regulations Review Committee to say, “Actually, yes, we’re satisfied.” Because we’re absolutely not.

So I want to be very clear: I want the Minister to be able to tell us today why he needs these powers for two years rather than one given that all of the submitters wanted one year.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m just going to speak very briefly and add my thoughts to this. The Minister has asked for a two-year extension of the extraordinary powers, and, as we’ve heard, he is not accepting one year. I think it is fairly obvious that the circumstances that New Zealand will be in over the next two years will be vastly different to when the original Act came into force. So I also ask: why is the Minister asking for two years? What is the basis for that power grab? What is the motivation? What is really going on in the immigration space, behind the scenes? And how does this all fit into a long-term, hypothetical immigration reset—whatever that means?

I have previously questioned the outcomes of the original legislation over the past year. They have been totally insufficient in addressing the critical needs of migrants, employers, and New Zealand at large. In particular, the state of the skilled migrant category, which we’ve spoken about, is an utter disgrace. So I’d like to know how the Minister plans on using his powers in fixing it. If the Minister has the temerity to ask Parliament for two more years of extraordinary powers, then I think he owes us this explanation. The debilitating situation for so many thousands of migrants cannot go on. I do wonder and worry what the Government has in store. If the Minister wants two more years, how about giving the people of New Zealand an explanation as to his thinking for both this bill and long term? Is it good news or just more bad news? Thank you, Mr Chair.

I might just take the opportunity to address a couple of the issues, because I think I may have addressed most of the questions that were asked in my opening statement.

The powers in this legislation have been framed as a power grab. Now, if they could have any negative effect on people, then I guess that concern in some way might be valid. But in order for us to use these powers within this bill, it cannot have any negative effect on any class of visa holder. So, in fact, the powers that we are asking to extend here—and alleged to be using in a power grab—can only be used to positively benefit visa class holders. We have used it on a number of occasions.

So for those of you who may be listening—or watching, if you’ve stumbled on to Parliament TV this evening—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Change channels!

Yeah, please do, especially if the Opposition is going to drag this out! Any connotation that this is some kind of power grab, I would push back against.

Again, going to the issue that is in Supplementary Order Paper 30, one of the reasons why we believe this needs to be two years, I will reiterate, is the global issues that continue to rage outside of New Zealand and the reality of what bringing back a piece of legislation that we would only have in force for one year would be, for this House—I don’t think that we should be using the time of very busy officials or the time of this House to be back here in September revisiting some of these issues to extend it for another 12 months.

The people of New Zealand, towards the end of last year, backed the Government to make the right decisions around our border settings to keep us safe, and they trust us that we are making the right decisions, in order that they can live with relative freedom at a time when things in the rest of the world are markedly different. Even in the first reading speeches from the Opposition, we did hear from some of their members that they did think that, when we used the discretion and the powers that are given to us in the Act that we are amending today, we had used them well. So any suggestion that a power grab is being enacted by extending this legislation actually doesn’t bear out from what has actually happened, and people on that side of the House, to my left, have actually agreed with us.

That again goes to the fact that the people of New Zealand have entrusted us, again, with a responsibility to keep that armour around the country and to have the settings of that right to keep us safe. So all of those things in totality mean that we want to ensure that we have these powers for whatever length of time we believe is necessary—and at this stage it is two years—to keep the country safe. If anyone in this hall has got a crystal ball about how long they think the COVID-19 pandemic situation is going to last for, I would happily buy it off you. But I would hazard a guess that we will be in a similar position with our border settings in a year, and therefore we will need to continue having the flexibility that is within this bill to make the decisions that we have been trusted and will continue to be trusted to make.

Thank you. I didn’t get the answer to my questions, so I’m going to ask them again, because the Minister has reiterated what he said the whole time, which is just “COVID”. But actually the arguments in the first place, the arguments he came up with in the first place, were why it was that Immigration New Zealand couldn’t process these visas themselves. He said last year it was because they were all at home and we were in lockdown and they couldn’t process as they normally would. That is not the case now. This is not about keeping people safe in COVID. This is about the department being able to process visas.

Why is it that they are unable to do that? They are now back at work. That was one of the single biggest arguments a year ago as to why this bill was required. And we agreed with the Minister, because those officials were at home and they were unable to do their job, and we got that. They are now back at work. Why is it that they are not able to process visas as they normally would, given that their workload has significantly dropped off, because there’s 450,000 less applications going through at the moment—why is it? And I’ll keep talking to give the Minister time to chat with his officials. Why is it that they can’t do their job as they normally would?

And also, why is it that it took until last night for the Minister to come forward with the information around the number of people who are on shore, given that that was such an important reasoning in the first place? But the main question here is: why is it that these visas can’t be processed in the normal way that they would be?

I’m not sure how that—and maybe I might be wrong—pertains to any clauses in the bill, but I’m happy to address some of that question.

💬 Stuart Smith: Oh, how magnanimous of you!

Are you done? So I think the question goes to a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on with the immigration system and the processing system at the moment. Yes, we aren’t able to process visas for people offshore, because the border restrictions are in place. The member may have noticed, though, that there is a border exception regime in place. A lot of the resource that is taken up for some of the very complex processing of visas is actually being taken up by assessing the large volume of border exception applications that are coming into New Zealand. I think I’m right in saying that, as of about two weeks ago, 135,000 people went through managed isolation. Roughly 10 percent of those came into the country on a border exception.

So we don’t just take an application and rubber stamp those and say you can come into the country. The process is that there are very strict criteria—given the border closures at the moment, as to whether or not people who don’t have the absolute right to come into New Zealand—they have to meet in order to get a border exception and to be able to come into the country. The criteria vary depending on whether you are wanting to come here for six months or over six months or some other humanitarian or cultural reason.

All of those applications have to be processed, and they are not simple processes. They are complex processes. And sometimes, as with a lot of visa applications, some of that information is incomplete. So it does take some time to get through that process. And the people who would otherwise be processing visas as per normal are doing a lot of that border exception work.

Can I thank them for that. They are under extreme pressure. As you can imagine, there are plenty of businesses, communities who would like either workers or their loved ones to come to New Zealand for some reason, and I’m sure that that issue will come up at some stage during the debate. But that work is being done by that processing staff, and I want to take my hat off to them for doing that work, which is new work for them, obviously under extreme pressure because the volume of those applications is large.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’re OK with the extension of the two years and the extension of those powers, but I think it’s really important that there is direction in the way that those powers are used and that those powers are used responsibly. One of my concerns and one of our concerns is that, if you use those powers to just plaster over the cracks, people start to fall in those cracks. The mandate of those powers is actually an opportunity to deal with the inaccuracies and the cracks within the system that are already there.

With the COVID crisis, we know that there are people here who have been overstayers, people who have been on temporary visas, and the COVID crisis has exacerbated the material conditions of those people as well. So to me it’s like this two-year extension argument that we’re having here is a solution looking for a problem. I would suggest that the problem that we need to be addressing here is helping to create pathways to residency for those people who have been caught here—creating a broad amnesty programme for people who have been overstaying.

I understand that there’s around about 14,000 people who are overstayers in this country as well. A large number of those people are essential workers who helped get us through the COVID crisis. Also, a large number of them are Pasifika people as well; so it would embed the relationship with Aotearoa and with the wider Pacific, as well. I think these powers should be directed in that way. I think it would go a long way in addressing the inconsistencies within the immigration system, and I think that is a good way for you to move ahead.

Can I thank the member for that contribution and acknowledge that the safeguards that are in the bill that we’re amending remain, and certainly the powers that are within the bill that we hope to extend, we have, I believe, used extremely responsibly over the last 12 months.

But I did want to take his speech as an opportunity to acknowledge some of the issues that are related to the likes of those who don’t have regular immigration statuses at the moment in the context of what we’re trying to do to make sure that people are safe. I want to take this opportunity to reiterate that, in terms of vaccination, we want to make sure that everyone in the country gets vaccinated. Regardless of your visa status, everyone in New Zealand is able to get vaccinated.

I certainly know, from some of the Pacific communities that we have spoken to, that they are concerned that if they come forward for testing or vaccination, it may affect their visa status if that information was to be passed on to Immigration. So I want to use this opportunity in the House tonight—and the member has raised some issues like that—to ensure that we reinforce that the information that people hand over to health officials, if they aren’t holders of valid visas, will not be passed on to Immigration New Zealand at all. We want them to know that they are safe to get the COVID vaccine and that, if they fear any retribution because of their immigration status, because they’ve engaged in the vaccination system, they do not need to worry about that.

We want to make sure, first and foremost, that everyone who should get vaccinated does get vaccinated and, in order to do that, that the information they may hand over to officials, to make sure they have the vaccinations and can be, for want of a better term, ticked off on the vaccination spreadsheet, will not make its way to Immigration. That will not affect them. They do not have to fear anything out of that. I do think that’s one of the side issues that we have at the moment in relation to the community that that member has mentioned, and I want to reinforce that they are safe when they get vaccinated and they are safe in an immigration sense once they get vaccinated and have been through that process.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to come back to my Supplementary Order Paper and the need for two years, because the Minister in the chair, Kris Faafoi, again is continuing to use COVID as an excuse. COVID is going to be with us for a while—who knows how long?—and it’s not a reason for a wholesale transfer of power, as he actually originally wanted, for a long period of time. It’s up to Ministers to get their departments match fit to be able to deal with what happens as a consequence of COVID.

Now, a lot of the submitters, and also in my opinion, said that nothing happened over the last 12 months by the Minister to get his department into a position to be able to deal with this, and, actually, the truth came out today in the Minister’s previous response to my question. We finally got down to the reason for this bill, and the reason, as the Minister told us, is that his department does not have the capacity to process visas as they normally would. So when he told us a year ago that it was because they were at home and they couldn’t process visas, that actually wasn’t the reason, because that reason doesn’t exist now and there are fewer people here. The real reason was that back then, and now, the department of immigration doesn’t have the capacity, even though they’re at work, to be able to process these visas.

So the question is: are we giving the Minister an extra two years of this extraordinary power because of decisions this Government has made prior to COVID, like closing down offshore offices and transferring that visa processing capacity to onshore? Are we now transferring that power to the Minister because of decisions that they’ve made for our immigration department, who are now not able to process a couple of hundred thousand visas? As I said before, there’s 450,000 fewer visas being processed across four different categories. We’re only talking about a couple of hundred thousand people onshore and, the Minister said, 10 percent of the people who’ve come through managed isolation, which is only 13,500—you add those two together, we’re still only maybe at around 250,000. That’s still 200,000 visas shy of what we were doing in 2019. So why is it that the immigration department can’t process these visas and that we have to give the Minister the power to do it?

It’s really interesting, actually, I find, that the Regulations Review Committee wrote to us and we asked—[Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Can we please not have side conversations in the Chamber? Sorry about that.

That’s OK—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Carry on—sorry, sorry.

That’s OK; apology accepted. This is important because the Regulations Review Committee wrote to us and they were concerned about two years, and so I’m concerned about two years. The New Zealand Law Society is concerned about two years. In fact, every organisation who’s submitted is concerned about two years. So it’s really important that we get to the bottom of this as to why the Minister needs the powers for such a long time, why his department don’t have the capacity to do it. A year ago, it was because they were at home; today, it’s because we don’t have the capacity to do it. Which one is it, because there are fewer visas being processed today than there were two years ago, by 200,000, and yet your department doesn’t have the capacity to do that. There’s only 13,500 Critical Purpose Visitor Visas that they’re approving. That’s not that many, even when you add it to the people who are onshore. So what are the reasons that this bill is required for such a long time?

I hate to burst the member’s bubble, but she may want to go look at the explanatory note, and I think in the version of the Act as it is now, because it says the Act as currently drafted—and this is the original Immigration Act—has a very limited ability to deal with applicants as a class or groups of individuals. In emergency situations, this creates challenges and constrains the Government’s ability to respond flexibly where, for example, large numbers of visas need to be changed or extended at once. So to cherry-pick one of the reasons as to why this piece of legislation was brought in in the first place because of closures under either level 4 or level 3, I believe, is disingenuous.

The explanatory note also goes on to say—and it’s pretty obvious—that at the time the immigration system was facing unprecedented challenges in managing a large number of migrants who, practically, are unable to leave New Zealand due to COVID-19 outbreaks. Ordinarily, temporary migrants are required to submit individual applications for a new visa or to vary its conditions where circumstances change and, for example, they need to be redeployed by their employer into a different role or different region. Now, the reality of what the Opposition is asking us—and if I can take an example of the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme (RSE)—is that if we wanted to change the conditions of some of those visas, the 4,500 RSE workers that were here before we allowed the extra 2,012 in would’ve had to put their applications in to vary or change a circumstance on their visa, whenever that may have come up, on an individual basis. Now, if we allowed that to happen, I can bet quite a lot of money that the Opposition would be in this House saying, “This is taking too long. What is happening? This is not happening at a fast enough pace.”

I have been on that side of the House when you have to try and find something wrong with a piece of proposed legislation, and this is what the Opposition is focusing on, but in order for us to have the flex and the ability to move swiftly, in order to benefit—benefit positively—large cohorts of visa holders, these are the powers that are within this bill. So, to answer the question, this bill was brought in so we could deal with classes of visas, and our ability to deal with individual changes would be very difficult for the immigration system, and I think we’d be here having another conversation which would be remarkably different because things wouldn’t be moving fast enough.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you Minister Faafoi. I’m pleased you’ve raised the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) issue. It is an issue very dear to my heart, and actually the Minister really hit it right on the head: it actually is about speed and moving it through. So I’d have to ask the Minister: why did he not, then, deal with RSE workers last year under these provisions, when it was a real problem and people were in Central Otago waiting for their special directions so they could go and earn a living in Marlborough? With the stroke of a pen, the Minister could do it; he dragged his feet for weeks. So it’s all very well having these powers; we have little confidence that the Minister moves with the pace that this bill allows. It’s all very well to have that, but, Minister, you have to back that up.

I think it’s quite rich—it was very interesting that 13,500 number—and it seems very clear that this hasn’t been thought through. We had the Minister, in his Cabinet paper, seeking this to have no time limit at all. Then he got knocked back by his Cabinet colleagues to two years. Now we’re hearing a whole lot of shifting sands as to why these two years are needed. First thing, it was essential because of COVID—and this is my question to the Minister: what is the definition, then, of COVID? COVID is out of the box or out of the laboratory now; it’s with us for ever. It’s not going to be eliminated, like other diseases, I deeply suspect, and I think most of the scientific community agrees with that. So what is the definition of when COVID isn’t with us?

As per section 50(4B), “However, the Minister may not make a special direction under subsection (4A) unless satisfied that (a) doing do is reasonably necessary to manage the effects, or deal with the consequences of, (i) the outbreak of COVID-19; or (ii) measures taken under this Act or any other enactment to contain or mitigate the outbreak of COVID-19 or its effects; or (iii) any other measures (whether in New Zealand or elsewhere) to contain or mitigate the outbreak of COVID-19 or its effects;”. So is this COVID only in New Zealand? Is this COVID-19 overseas? What are the numbers? How many visas—what’s the maximum number or the minimum number that you would say, as Minister, is OK for your department to actually cope with? Because we’re hearing different things from you: it’s all because of COVID; it’s all because we don’t have the capacity; we can’t process the visas—so, very much a shifting sands thing. I think, actually, this has not been thought through. I think, if we go right back to the RSE issues I started on, it is a Minister that is not moving very quickly, not across his portfolio, and he’s trying to make this up as he goes along.

This was absolutely necessary last year. It’s necessary now, but I’m not convinced, and the Opposition is not convinced, that it’s necessary for two years. In addition to that, we have, of course, ADEPT, and I’d like to hear from the Minister about ADEPT, which is a programme that will process visas much more quickly. When that kicks in—and it will be later this year, I understand—won’t that take all this pressure off? Why is it two years, Minister? I think you’re trying to have a dollar each way on this one, and I think the Cabinet paper was very, very revealing. Clearly, the Minister did not want to give up any of this extraordinary power.

I don’t think the Minister actually understands what he’s actually asking for. He says it can only be used for good. Well, I’m sure there are lots of authoritarian Governments that have said that very thing. That’s not the point, Minister. The point is we have these laws, and we don’t have “Henry VIII” powers just because you’re a decent bloke and you’re not going to use them inappropriately. That’s not the point. Every action that the Minister has, particularly when he has these special directions powers, will have some effect. It might be positive—it might only be positive—but they will have an effect, and that is why we normally have processes. Otherwise, we would have only good laws that the Minister could make and change as they chose as they went along. That’s not how our system works, and, quite frankly, Minister, to get the powers that you’re seeking we have not heard a convincing argument yet. All we’ve heard is a whole lot of bluster about things that aren’t backed up by numbers or facts. I think even your officials aren’t looking that confident there, and I think that says it all, quite frankly. So I’m very interested to hear your response.

I might just begin by saying I’m the one in the chair, so I would appreciate it if the member could leave the officials out of it, actually—I don’t think that’s appropriate—and I thank him for his earlier kind words. It means a lot to me.

I find it difficult that the Opposition—I won’t label the whole Opposition—or that member hasn’t quite grasped the seriousness of the COVID pandemic. So to ask the question “What is COVID?”—maybe that member should go away and probably watch the news in about 35 minutes and look at what is happening around the world. The simple fact is we don’t want that happening here. It’s that simple. That’s why the border restrictions are in place, and, Mr Stuart Smith, if you don’t get that, then that’s on you.

Kia ora, Madam Chair. First of all, I would like to begin by acknowledging and thanking the Minister for the assurances that he has given our communities who have overstayed their visas, around their ability to access vaccinations. I think that’s an important reminder in our response to the pandemic.

But participation from migrant communities and for those who have overstayed their visas is clearly about much more than vaccination; it’s about being able to access income support when we potentially go into lockdown, since we’re not immune to a resurgence of COVID-19, and we’re very well aware of that. It’s about not being in exploitative situations as we move from level to level to respond to the pandemic. Ultimately, what we are saying is that the bill needs to ensure that our migrant communities and those on temporary visas are able to fully participate in society and are able to access the support that they need as we need to respond to the pandemic. This is why we’re very clear that the powers granted to the Minister, by nature of this legislation, should be used to grant pathways to residency, as the legislation is clear that these powers can grant visas to individuals and classes of people in the absence of an application. Even though it needs to be in the context of the pandemic, we do believe that the more that people are able to fully participate in society, the more swiftly and nimbly we can all respond together, as a team, to the pandemic.

I want to acknowledge as well that the Minister did touch on the fact that this legislation cannot be used to affect people negatively. But I do want to point out that, in the absence of action that benefits our migrant communities, we are left with a broken immigration system that already puts a lot of stress and pressure and has a lot of inequities in our communities. For example, even for the Minister, it talks about the rigid criteria for border exemptions and applications for visas. We do have inequities that mean that wealthy individuals and investors, for example, can be granted a visa while our overseas whānau who are on post-study work visas are facing uncertainty. These are not so much inequities that exist because of this legislation but, rather, because of our immigration system more broadly, and this legislation does present an opportunity to ensure that there’s equity in our response to the pandemic and our immigration system more broadly.

So there are also inequities that exist based on country of origin—who can apply for border exemptions just based on where they’re from—and also the ability for disabled people, who may be here to apply for residency class visas in order to participate in schools, in order to participate in society more fully, and, therefore, for disabled people who are on temporary visas to be able to be part of the team that is responding to the pandemic. It’s a lot harder to respond to the pandemic when you don’t have full access to State services.

So the Green Party does support the powers of this Act being granted for two years, but we’re very clear that the Minister has a responsibility to use the powers to benefit our migrant communities and to address a lot of the points that were raised in our select committee’s report around extending visas for people offshore. I talked earlier about post-study work visas, particularly giving assurances for members of our migrant communities who were back in their homelands and who come from non-visa waiver countries such as India to be able to know that they’ll have a visa once the pandemic truly subsides and once the world contains COVID-19.

The whole point of this legislation was to keep our communities safe. I don’t want to minimise the effects of the pandemic, as some members in this House may have. The reality is that the pandemic is continuing to kill people, and, actually, people in non-visa waiver countries are some of the places where the pandemic is raging really, really rapidly. For those people stuck overseas, who may have already made Aotearoa their home, they are particularly vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic, and the least we can do is give them reassurance that they’ll be able to come back and that their visas will continue to be valid as our border settings change.

So we call on the Minister to act in the benefit of our communities to use the powers granted by this bill. We hope that, in two years, while the wider review of the immigration system happens, our migrant communities will know that this Government backs them.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and it’s my pleasure to speak in this debate. So this legislation that’s been introduced in this House in a hurried fashion, like most of the legislation by this Government in recent times, is wanting to extend for two years extraordinary powers given to the Minister of Immigration to deal with immigration matters made more complicated by the crisis that we face with COVID-19, and the point of this Opposition is to say that, yes, we agree that those powers are necessary at this time, but we do not agree that it needs to be for two years before we come back and revisit this. We think that one year is sufficient time for those powers to be extended and that the Minister should trouble himself, and his ministry should trouble itself, to come back to Parliament in a timely fashion to allow the people of New Zealand to consider this properly and to have a normal submission process.

Now, the Minister regards this as an intolerable inconvenience. He doesn’t want to do this, he doesn’t want his ministry to be troubled with this, and he doesn’t want to be troubled with it himself. In fact, he regards, in an incredibly arrogant way—

Tim van de Molen: Pesky.

—that this is a pesky requirement from the Opposition and that we shouldn’t be annoying him. The point that I want to make to the Minister is that he should remember that he is serving the people of New Zealand and he is accountable to this Parliament. If he wants to have extraordinary powers extended to him in a time of crisis, he should be accountable for those powers, and we should come back on a regular basis to this Parliament and give New Zealanders an opportunity to talk about it properly.

Now, what we saw was it was rammed through urgency originally during the crisis, and we can all understand that. What we’re not so impressed by was the complete lack of organisation on his part, and the part of his officials, to get this legislation into the House early enough so that it could be properly considered by New Zealanders. Because of their incompetence and their slowness and their slackness, it was introduced rather late in the piece, and we haven’t had much time to deal with it. The submitters haven’t had the normal time in order to be able to make their submissions on it—but we’re dealing with it in a timely fashion in this House, nevertheless—and he has the temerity to turn up and say, “I demand another two years.” Apparently, all the word is that he was expecting to have even longer, three years maybe, and at least his Cabinet colleagues pushed back against that and said, “No, no, you need to come back within two years.”

We’re saying that it is actually important that New Zealanders have a chance to have a say about this. Why? Because the powers in this legislation are extraordinary. This is an area where it is an incredibly fraught area of Government policy: how to handle with the rules around immigration. People’s lives are affected by these decisions in an enormous way, and all New Zealanders are aware—and everybody in this Parliament is aware—of the lives that have been put on hold by the situation that we face with COVID and the extraordinary pressures on many families. So how we handle these issues is incredibly delicate, and it is important that New Zealanders feel absolutely confident that the decision making is made in a way that is defendable, robust, and predictable. So the situation that we have with the extraordinary powers handed into the hands of the Minister is, like I say, something that we accept as a reality that is required.

But the question I have to the Minister is: why does he have to react in such an arrogant way when we, as the Opposition, are asking what I think is a reasonable request to ensure that, on an annual basis, he takes the time and effort to come back to this Parliament, and we ask ourselves, with a situation that is moving so rapidly, where there is so much change around the world and we can’t predict what the situation will be within nine months’ time or eight months’ time and the consequences thereof—we believe that it is important that Parliament reconsiders this in a timely fashion.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is that Erica Stanford’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 30 be agreed to.

The amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 32, in the name of Ricardo Menéndez March, is out of order as outside the scope of the bill.

The question is that Erica Stanford’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 31 be agreed to.