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 parliamentary website.

Before I call the Minister, I’m going to indicate that I’m going to be in the Chair for a period this afternoon and we are going to test the purposes of these legislative statements, and I’m going to be very tight on members not reading their speeches.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This bill is being passed on 6 May because the legislation that it replaces or updates will extinguish on 15 May. There were two contentious issues that came out of the second reading, the committee stage, and the select committee stage of this piece of legislation that were raised by the Opposition, and I want to again address those to make it clear as to why it is necessary to extend this bill by two years and also make the other changes to the bill that ensure that we have the flexibility that we need. To clarify for—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can members—as they’re leaving the Chamber, it’s very, very rude to stop and talk and have your back to the person who’s speaking. There’s an ability for whips to go and talk to other people or leaders, but not for other members to wander around having a chat.

The original piece of legislation passed, roughly, 12 or 13 months ago was in order to respond flexibly and swiftly and quickly to the global pandemic. That allowed Immigration New Zealand to deal with visa changes as classes and not as individuals, and I think there was a fundamental misunderstanding of that from the Opposition, both through the select committee and through the second reading and committee of the whole House, given the contributions that they gave in those debates and in the select committee process. Again, I will reiterate: this piece of legislation was brought in in order to deal with the border closures at this time last year and to give the flexibility to the Government to make those changes.

We do not know how long this pandemic will last for. When we introduced this bill about six weeks ago, there was talk in this House that things seemed to be improving around the world. In that short amount of time, we have seen just how seriously and how quickly the global pandemic can spread. So in order for us to have the flexibility, and in response to our immigration settings, this Government has sought a two-year extension to the powers that are currently in place.

The Opposition argued that that should only be 12 months. If that were the case, given the issues and the length of time that we imagined that our borders would be closed and that we think that the global pandemic will continue to have its way around the world, in order to extend beyond that 12 months, we’d probably be in this House in September or October, looking to extend these powers again. While arguments have been made across the other side of the House that it should be 12 months, we would argue that two years, or 24 months, is the right judgment to make in terms of the length of the extension of this legislation.

The other issue that was raised by the Opposition through a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) was to introduce the 28-day rule to the regulations or the special directions that I, as the Minister of Immigration, may make or that the Government may make in order to change the classes of visas or the decisions that the Government may make. We believe, given the last 12 months, that that is not practical.

One example of that not being practical in real terms is a decision that we have made this week for about 5,500 Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme workers who are already in the country. We have waived the right for certain conditions of renewing their RSE visas in order for that process to be more efficient and effective for them. We are able to do that as a class swiftly. If we had to do that with a 28-day rule, that would delay the process for them, and the suggestion that has come from the Opposition that we no longer need these powers—the fundamental powers within the legislation—would see 5,500 applications from those RSE workers make their way to Immigration New Zealand to process. That’s just not pragmatic in the current situation. It would cause issues for those individual RSE visa applicants, and, I would hazard a guess, the fortnightly meeting that I have with the horticulture and viticulture sector would be that they are experiencing extreme delays in those visa chain processes and that that time frame would not be ideal for them.

So, Mr Speaker, in order for you to see the benefits of the legislative statement, I believe I have dealt with some of the arguments that are going to come from the Opposition that they have made, obviously, at the first reading, the second reading, the select committee, and the committee of the whole House. I believe that despite not supporting the SOPs, we have a piece of legislation here that will enable us to continue to control the flows at the border in the way that the public has entrusted in the Government over the last 13 years to keep us safe, and I commend this bill to the House.

Before I call the next member, it sounded at the beginning of the Minister’s speech like he might have moved the first reading of the bill. I just wanted to check that he’d moved the third reading before I put the question.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: I believe I said “third”.

Well, we’ll—the question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill at third reading.

This bill is very important. This bill transfers a huge amount of power to a Minister to make decisions for whole classes of visa holders. At the stroke of a pen, thousands and thousands of lives are affected, and with this huge amount of extraordinary power comes huge responsibility to exercise these powers properly, to exercise these powers in a timely way. The legislation, in fact, requires the Minister to use these powers to benefit migrants, but this can easily be undermined if those powers are exercised in a way that, in fact, does not benefit those visa holders; for example, ignoring whole classes of visa holders or giving very short time frames for the notice period for those decisions.

Now, with this legislation, we had the opportunity and the ability to look at the ways in which these powers had been exercised—these extraordinary powers—and to make changes to this bill to ensure that we are actually benefiting migrants who, let’s face it, are in a very vulnerable and anxious situation in this country, who are moving from visa extension to visa extension. We had the ability to take a look at the current conditions, as they are now, compared to what they were a year ago and seek answers from the Minister as to whether or not there is a justification for these powers to continue, not only for one year but actually for two years. The difference with this bill is that he is asking for these powers, these extraordinary powers, for up to another two years, and it is up to us to make sure that he has the justification for that.

And what was the Minster’s justification for these extraordinary powers for another two years? Well, what we heard from him all through this and mostly last night was, in fact, “Well, I did things OK and you can trust me because I’m a nice guy.” That was basically his argument last night. So, basically, he was saying to us, “What’s your problem?” The problem that we have is that “I’m a nice guy, trust me, and I’ve done a good job so far.” is not a reason to extend such extraordinary powers for such a long time. We don’t hand over power carte blanche to a Minister without being satisfied that he is still answerable to this House. Thousands of lives at the stroke of a pen—thousands of people who are living visa extension to visa extension. He must be held accountable in this House. We must act as a check on those powers. We must be a safeguard. And he’s asking for these extraordinary powers for another two years. We must be confident that he is doing a good job and that these powers are warranted.

We made the argument that he should have to come back after a year and justify himself to this House to show that he has exercised the powers in the manner that we expect, to ensure that migrants, in fact, have been benefited from the powers that he is exercising. We need to make sure that he’s using the powers properly and that the circumstances still exist for those powers to be used. A year ago, things were very different. We were in a situation where COVID had only just begun, things were looking very dire and we didn’t know what to expect in the coming months. This House, as a whole, agreed that the previous bill was necessary.

But things now are very different. We have multiple bubbles that are opening, vaccination programmes taking place around the world and apparently in this country by the end of the year, and in a year’s time who knows where we will be? Things will be very different. And this is not just my opinion. Every single submitter on this bill who is an organisation—the hort guys, the ag guys, the winegrowers—all of them said, “Yes, we understand that the Minister needs these powers.”, but none of them agreed for another two years.

💬 Chris Bishop: Not a single one?

Not a single one.

Now, the Minister believes that because he’s done a good job and he’s a nice guy, he can have two years, because he doesn’t want to have to come back in a year’s time and do this all again, because it’s just a bit of a pesky annoyance. But every single submitter on this bill, including the Law Society, who made this argument a year ago, could see that this wasn’t right, that this can’t go on for ever, and, in fact, that he must come to this House to justify the need for extension of these powers after one year.

As it turns out, the second main reason for wanting two years was, as I mentioned just before, inconvenience. He mentioned not wanting to take up the House’s time, and he also mentioned that he didn’t want to tie up his officials by having to come back to this House. I would argue, and we did argue, in fact, that this is exactly the perfect use of this House’s time, to scrutinise and to examine the extraordinary powers that we are giving to this Minister in a highly unusual way. That is what this Parliament is for. It’s a check. It’s a safeguard to ensure that the Minister is using his powers properly and that they are in fact still required. It’s not just a pesky annoyance, as I said, that gets in the way of the Minister doing his job. There is nothing that he told this House that justified another two years of this power. There was nothing that he said that made any of the submitters or anyone on this side of the House believe that he needed an extension of two years.

And it’s worth noting, as we did throughout this bill, that he didn’t actually want two years. The Minister, in fact, wanted no sunset clause on this bill. He wanted these powers for ever, which makes us think, “What is coming in the next few months with the immigration changes that are going to be coming out?”

One of the things we argued strenuously for was a notice period for these decisions, and the reason that we did so was because we are seeing the effects on migrants of the very short period of time that he’s giving them when he makes these special directions. The situation in the last 12 months, if we go back to July last year, was that on 7 July, he extended visas for people whose visas were expiring on 10 July. That is three days’ notice. People had booked their flights. They were under extreme stress and anxiety, thinking that they were going to uplift everything and leave. In February this year, with visitor visas, they all got a letter to say: you need to leave. Five days later, the Minister decided that he would extend their visas for three months.

Now, the Minister has tried to argue, and he did again today, that this is about him being flexible and nimble and being able to respond really quickly. I say that this is a Minister being slow, asleep at the wheel, who is too busy in his other portfolios to pay attention to the thousands of lives that he has control over. He says, “We’re fixing this and we’re learning.”, but this term, in my electorate, there are children who cannot go to school because their status is unlawful because Immigration New Zealand weren’t given enough time to do the work in the background to change people’s status, because this Minister didn’t give them enough time.

The way in which he is exercising these powers over the last year—while we agree that he was justified in doing what he did, the time frame that he gave these people was not adequate. We argued vigorously all the way along through this process that he should have to give a far greater notice period. And we backed up the views of the New Zealand Law Society, who said he should have to give 28 days to give these people a period of notice so that they’re not booking flights and having to uplift their lives. Remember that they are vulnerable and under extreme pressure and stress and anxiety. The Law Society also argued that it would give an additional safeguard on the bill in that these special directions could be scrutinised properly before they came into force.

It’s entirely, though, I have to say—all of these last-minute changes—in keeping with this Minister’s modus operandi in immigration, his general approach to do nothing. We’ve had secret residency queues for two years, trying to hide a mile-long backlog. He’s ignored split migrant families until he was dragged kicking and screaming by me into doing something about it. And even with this bill, he didn’t bring a Cabinet paper—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I know it’s very late in the member’s speech, but I am going to now bring her back to the bill. The third reading is really the most restricted reading of the bill, and it’s only to discuss the bill as it comes out of the committee, not a general policy debate.

Well, Mr Speaker, what we’ve ended up with—in the last 20 seconds I have—is a bill that was unchanged, a bill that gives the Minister powers for two years, for these extraordinary powers, which he did not justify, even though it was requested by the Regulations Review Committee to have proper justification for these powers—justification that never eventuated.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to take a call in the third reading of the Immigration (COVID19 Response) Amendment Bill. Earlier this week, I spoke on the process that this bill went through as chair of the Education and Workforce Committee. It’s important to note that most supporters broadly supported the need for the bill and they also recognised the need for these powers to continue—and most people understood that that was all it was about. But as we have heard in the previous speaker’s speech, there were a couple of overarching themes that I want to touch on.

One was the extraordinary powers that Erica Stanford mentioned, as well as the fact that she made a mention of the situation now being very different. And so, first of all, I would like to talk about the parliamentary scrutiny that will continue all through this bill, because, of course, there are continuing checks and safeguards through this bill that were passed in the very first original bill but are continuing in this bill. One of them is the fact, and I highlighted it in my first reading—the major safeguard is the fact that the powers delegated to the Minister, they cannot be just exercised; they can actually be disallowed by the House. And that means that there is continuing scrutiny by the House. The second one, and this is also a really important one, is that the exercise of the powers must really clearly be related to COVID-19.

So, in effect, when the member talks about a time limit on this bill, whether that be one year or two years or not even any time line, that is actually naturally restricted by the fact that the powers have to be related to either the outbreak of COVID-19—and I’ll just read the specific measures out: “either the outbreak of COVID-19, measures undertaken to contain or mitigate an outbreak, or other domestic or international measures to contain or mitigate the outbreak of COVID-19 or its effects.” Of course, in New Zealand, we had a really successful response to COVID-19 and sometimes in a way that is a little bit—it makes it easy, perhaps, to forget that in the rest of the world COVID-19 is still raging. There is a massive pandemic and it infects and kills many people, and, in fact—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Come back to the bill, please.

Fair enough. Fair enough. So coming back to the bill, we had many submitters, as the previous speaker mentioned, that actually submitted on general immigration themes. And we do acknowledge that there have been difficulties caused by the fact that we had to close the border. But that is out of the scope of this particular bill. The original bill that was passed by Parliament was passed unanimously, and at the time it was obvious that the Opposition did see the need for these powers by the Minister to be able to be flexible and nimble and be able to, perhaps, respond to changing situations. There’s still a chance that there may be a variant of the virus coming along, so restricting this bill to perhaps only a one-year time line would be unwise because we would find ourselves back here—hopefully not, but it could potentially be the case that we would see ourselves here within a few months arguing an extension of the powers yet again. So it is still a very uncertain situation.

We had 138 submitters and 43 people actually made the effort to come to Parliament and submitted—gave us oral submissions predominantly during recess—so we thank everybody coming to us in person and submitting in Zoom. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to make two remarks in my speech, and they relate to the substance of the bill. The first is there is no justification for a power grab of this magnitude, for the length of time that the Minister of Immigration is grabbing. A two-year extension simply cannot be justified, and that is the principal ground upon which the National Party will oppose the legislation. We support the general intent around flexibility for the Minister, and as did my colleague Erica Stanford, who’s done the heavy lifting on this bill for National—and the heavy lifting on immigration more generally in the Parliament, actually. We acknowledge the circumstances and the difficulty that the Government faces when it comes to visas and it comes to immigration notices. But we do not believe a two-year extension is justified, and I want to come back to that.

The second thing is there is no justification for the speed of the passing of this legislation. This is very important legislation. It spent just three weeks at committee. Three weeks is better than no amount of time, but there should’ve been longer than three weeks used to allow all submitters to be heard and for the proper ventilation of the issues, particularly around the two-year extension and around the 28-day notice arguments that my colleague Miss Stanford has been making.

Just on the first issue in relation to the two years, because National moved Supplementary Order Papers to this effect: what are the arguments the Government has put up in relation to that? Well, the Minister told Parliament, I think at the second reading stage, that he didn’t want to come back here in October this year and have to pass another piece of legislation. We just heard from Marja Lubeck, the chair of the committee, that—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Great chair.

—well, I’m not on the committee, but I’ll take your word for it, Dr Webb—

💬 Marja Lubeck: Ask any of your colleagues.

—OK, I’ll do that—“We didn’t want to have to come back here.” So, essentially, the Government’s argument is just one of convenience. It’s basically, “Oh, it’s just a lot easier for us if we just pass the law through now and we don’t have to turn up again for two more years.” Well, I’m sorry. That is probably true; it will definitely be easier for the Government to have two more years of the Minister being able to wave a wand—or actually, you know, a biro pen—and sign off various visa extensions or cancellations or whatever. I’ve no doubt it will be easier for the Government, but, you know, that’s not really the way we make law in New Zealand. It’s certainly not the way we make law, and it’s certainly not the way in which we give executive power to the Government, because, actually, what we say is “In extraordinary times, we’ll give you extraordinary powers”, as my colleague Miss Stanford noted. And we are giving the Minister huge powers, but those powers are constantly checked and authorised by the legislature, which is Parliament.

So I don’t really buy this argument, as the Minister said yesterday and we’ve just had adverted to by Miss Lubeck, that, well, the officials would have to spend quite a bit of time—I mean, firstly, they’re not actually doing a lot at the moment, as Miss Stanford’s been highlighting in the media. There’s a stack of residence applications and other applications before the immigration department that they should be dealing with. But, secondly, again, the argument that “We don’t want to take up too much time of officials.” is not a satisfactory argument, or, at least, it shouldn’t be a satisfactory argument. So we reject the idea that a two-year extension is justified.

I make this point: the Government’s logic is round the wrong way. Back in May 2020, the Government turned up to Parliament and said, “Look, COVID’s happening. It’s chaos round the world. Things are out of control. We don’t know what’s going on. We need to give the Minister quite a lot of power in order to make visa variations, and can you please allow us that power?” OK, fair enough. Parliament unanimously passed that bill, and that’s now the Act we’re debating, or the extension. So Parliament said, “Well, that’s fair enough.” You know, this was May 2020; I think we were about to be in lockdown or, certainly, had come out of it, and the world was a very uncertain and scary place. Well, a year on, I acknowledge the world is still an uncertain and scary place, but I think it’d be fair to say we have a lot more certainty around the world in May 2021 than in May 2020—but yet the Government’s gone for a two-year extension.

So the Government’s logic is totally skew-whiff; it’s round the wrong way. “The world’s in chaos; we’ll just seek a year to give the Government some time to sort out what’s going on.”, and then we have a year—and I acknowledge that, you know, things aren’t perfect, but we at least have much more of a sense about what the world is like a year on, and yet the Government’s gone for two years. That doesn’t make any sense. I just implore the Government: you can’t change things now, but—well, I suppose I implore the Government to vote against it, really, because a one-year extension is far more sensible. You know, if it was a one-year extension, the National Party might well consider supporting the legislation, but because it’s a two-year extension, we can’t do that.

What the Government should really be doing is asking the Parliament to grant the Minister an extra year of the powers and then coming back later on and asking for more if they’re required. Frankly, they should do the policy work in the meantime to better tailor the legislation to the circumstances. Now, again, May 2020—chaos round the world. Things had to be done very quickly—“We’ll give the Minister these powers.” But what should’ve happened in the last year or so is there should’ve been a tailoring of the legislation and some policy work done to make sure that the Minister’s powers were constrained only to what was required, and as far as I can see, none of that work has been done.

We’ve had a year. I acknowledge there was an election in the middle of it—you know, members like talking about the election; we don’t like talking about it so much. But, you know, there was an election. Parliament was suspended, or prorogued, for a few weeks and then we had the election, and then we had to wait for the Government to be formed. So I acknowledge all that. There was a period of time when Parliament was sitting and couldn’t consider legislation, but, actually, with respect to officials at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the immigration department, once you’ve done the briefing to the incoming Minister in the pre-election period, that would’ve been the time to do the policy work, and put in the briefing to the incoming Minister—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I am going to bring the member back to the bill, not what’s not the bill, because that is not relevant.

Right, OK, fair enough, Mr Speaker. I’d just make the point that we should’ve been considering a more tailored legislation.

The second point, which I’ve kind of already covered, is in relation to the speed of the passing. Three weeks at committee, as I’ve mentioned in my opening remarks, was not enough time, and simply saying, as the Minister says, “Trust me; I’ll do the right thing.” is not an appropriate basis for lawmaking. That is essentially his argument: “I will do the right thing.” Well, Kris Faafoi’s a good guy. He’s a sensible bloke. That may well be the case, but he may not be the immigration Minister in six months’ time, and Parliament deserves better than what we’ve been dished up today.

We wanted to support this legislation. We did support it at first reading to send it to the committee. We wanted to support it because we do believe the Minister does need some discretion around visa extensions and around visa law, or immigration law. We do accept that, so we’re not opposing it holus-bolus, but the two-year extension that the Minister has sought is unjustified, the speed of passing is unjustified, and, also, the 28-day notice period that Erica Stanford argued for we do believe should be in the legislation. We wanted to support the bill; it’s regrettable that we can’t.

Sometimes, extraordinary situations need an extraordinary response, and that’s exactly where we are now. This bill went through scrutiny—intense scrutiny—and a lot of people submitted on it, and we have listened to all the submitters and we’ve listened to their stories. Some of them are quite sad stories. Me being a refugee who came to this country, I sympathise with these people and I see their points. But, at the same time, a lot of them, in fact, asked the Minister to act, to do something. Well, unless he has these powers, the Minister cannot do anything about this.

Now we’re hearing that the argument is that the Minister is going to misuse the power and the Minister is not going to do this and that, but the reality is, in the last year, the Minister did not in any way misuse his powers. If the Minister is misusing his powers, there is a process in place, and Parliament can simply revoke the powers—as simple as that. So to argue otherwise is just, to me, cynical. Also, the Minister’s exercise of powers has to be clearly tied to COVID-19—nothing else, nothing more.

Last year, when COVID-19 was raging—this bill was introduced in May—no one had thought that in 2021, 12 months later, this virus would be killing more people, infecting more people. But the reality is, it’s still infecting more people. It’s still killing more people. We never knew in 2020 the way it was going to be killing more people and infecting more people, and the advice that we got was two years is a proper response—two years is enough. Maybe if we’re talking about more than two years, maybe it’s not; but two years is perfectly enough. So if it’s going to be one year, and then in September the select committee has been—we would be going through this process. So it’s not worth it.

People talk about, yes, we’ve got the vaccine; we’re doing well. Yes, because of the response that we have taken, the stance that we have taken, we are in a stronger position. We are safe, but a lot of countries are not. As we speak today, in the last 24 hours: more than 700,000 infections, more than 12,000 new deaths—this is a sober reminder that this virus is deadly and it’s going to be around for a while.

So with that, I highly commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I rise to make a statement on the third reading of the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge, as many of us have done, that COVID-19 changed everything for all of us. But it did create specific challenges for our migrant communities, many who have been stranded in their homelands. Ultimately, as we finish the discussion on this bill, I think it’s important to centre our discussions on the communities that are going to be most affected by this bill and the decisions the Minister uses with the power granted by legislation, which are those on temporary visas, those who may have overstayed their visas, and those who are currently in their homelands.

The legislative statement was quite clear around why this bill was needed in the first place, which was in regards to the impact COVID-19 was having in Aotearoa, around the need to act swiftly, and flexibility on our border controls, and in recognition that, ultimately, what we’re dealing with is a deadly and very aggressive disease. But, I think, what is often missing is the impact that it has on some of our most vulnerable communities who cannot fully participate in society.

The legislative statement, as well as the bill, is quite clear on how this bill may be used. I want to draw attention to a couple of those points, which include extending expiry dates on visas and granting visas to classes of people in the absence of an application. What we heard from submitters at the Education and Workforce Committee was not so much an issue of misuse of the power but rather that the powers have not been used to the full extent to ensure that the wellbeing of our migrant communities is at the forefront. So we heard from people on post-study work visas who are facing uncertainty and a lack of clarity about whether they will have a visa by the time the border restrictions end. Our submitters were really clear that they support the intent of this bill, which was to be able to take a public health approach to the pandemic response and for our borders to be able to respond adequately to the pandemic, but they were very clear that, ultimately, these are people who—many have made Aotearoa their home—still have livelihoods and connections to communities in Aotearoa and who are facing ill physical and mental health as a result of the uncertainty in not knowing whether their visas will continue.

We also know that the powers in this bill are able to be granted to enable our communities to fully participate in society. And I think that’s particularly important for disabled people and temporary visas, many who are not able to attend school and who are not able to access income support. This bill is really clear that we could be using the powers granted to the Minister to ensure that disabled people are able to access residency class visas and, therefore, be better equipped to deal with a resurgence of the pandemic locally here in Aotearoa.

With the continuous risk of the pandemic reaching our shores and us moving from alert level 1 to, potentially, level 3 or 4, it is all the more important that our temporary visa holders are able to access residency visas. I’m talking about the ability that the Minister has in this bill to be able to grant visas to a certain type of people, and we are talking about residency class visas.

We saw during the lockdown the difficulty that migrants faced when it came to accessing income support. And even though emergency benefits were rolled out for migrant communities, if the powers had been used to enable people to access residency class visas, they would have been able to access assistance through our welfare State and be better protected and, therefore, better participate in our public health response to the pandemic.

So the issue that the Green Party has with this legislation is not so much with this arbitrary discussion about whether it should be two years or one year—because, ultimately, we do acknowledge the need to respond flexibly to the effects of the pandemic—but it is more about the fact that our communities were quite clear that the powers have not been used to their full extent to ensure there is equity with our migrant communities. The Green Party offers our support to work productively with the Labour Government to ensure that the Minister understands the needs of our communities.

I want to point out—and I pay tribute to my colleague to the left, Ibrahim Omer, when he mentions his background—that a lot of the discussion in this House about the impact of this bill on our communities is not centred from members who actually belong to our communities, members who have a lived experience with the immigration system. I am concerned that we’ve seen plenty of white saviourism around the discussion of this bill and the impact that this bill has on our communities. So my call is for members of Government to listen to the members of our community; not so much members of the community who may just have a stake in political point-scoring around the use of the powers.

This is reflected by the fact that our select committee heard, predominantly, from members of our migrant communities. The few industries that presented to the select committee were all actually quite clear that the powers should be used for the betterment of migrant communities. In fact, some of the industries even supported that the powers be used to grant residency to a large class of people, which is something that the Green Party supports.

So going forward, it will be important for the Minister to use the powers of this bill to close the gap that exists in our immigration system—to close the gap that means that investors and millionaires are able to promptly access residency class visas while disabled people are not able to access residency visas whatsoever—to ensure that our migrant workers that are here in Aotearoa are able to access the support that they need.

And so, as we move forward and we continue scrutinising the use of the powers by the Minister that come from this bill, we will extend our support and also our critical eye to ensure that the wellbeing of our migrant communities is at the forefront. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill extends the extraordinary powers granted to the Minister for pretty much the remainder of this parliamentary term. ACT has been consistent in our messaging from the start: the Minister is asking for too much, and even if he was asking for one year as opposed to two years, we are simply not satisfied with the performance and the execution of these powers over the last year to support it in any way. It is also good and refreshing to hear that the National Party has changed its mind and has come over to our side of this debate.

The questions I’ve had, aside from the term length, are (1) will the powers be used for good, and with agility; and (2) will they be used in conjunction with significant and transparent work on immigration policy and, crucially, fixing the worst performing and most dysfunctional Government agency in this country? That is the big picture.

I do wonder if the Minister will have to ask for additional powers during the rest of this parliamentary term in order to deal with the wide range of self-inflicted challenges, because these extraordinary powers are a band-aid for failed policy and a lack of vision, or even a vague attempt at efficiency. Policy needs to recognise the long-term and generational benefits of migration and the economic and cultural benefits that come from the networks that new migrants have in their home countries.

What we need is an immigration system that is fit for purpose, simple in its pathways, transparent, and one that rewards and encourages hard work and enterprise. What do I mean by transparency? Well, for one, it’s about getting rid of these last-minute announcements, which, to be fair to the Minister, has been a feature of our immigration system for many years, even before he became Minister. It is also about engagement with stakeholders, which has been totally absent from this legislation.

We also need to deal with the dual purpose of visas. They’ve got to be fit for purpose. Delays will resolve themselves by simplifying and streamlining policy, because visa processing delays are a symptom of policy failure. In many cases, policies are designed for one purpose, but they’re being used for other purposes. This encourages fraud, is confusing to applicants, it creates enormous processing delays, and, frankly, in my experience, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) staff are often incapable of applying complicated policy.

As I’ve stated in previous calls, we currently have a mass of backlogged applications, and onshore migrants stranded on their pathway towards residency. INZ processing is absolutely at breaking point. I personally think that they should consider wiping the slate clean and allowing applicants to enter a transitional pathway to residency, with clear and simplified criteria. There should be a focus on directing the current onshore migrant community to qualifications, industries, and regions that need them, while new policy is drafted and debated.

We also need to acknowledge the realities of the immigration space in New Zealand. We must compete internationally for investment and skills. There is a need for migrant labour at all skill levels and sectors, and that policy can be a driver of fraud and exploitation. Honesty and a fit-for-purpose immigration system will provide clarity for migrants, will reduce abuse, and simplicity will enable operational efficiency. And the criteria can be adjusted to meet the needs of regions and businesses, including recognised seasonal employers, who have been totally abandoned over the last 12 months.

The Minister should also be using his extraordinary powers to bring in more international students, and simultaneously focus on improving student visa policy to reward and incentivise international students. There should be a list of qualifications that are in demand and a simple and clear pathway to residency upon graduation. Student hardship should also be alleviated with broader and larger working rights, which will reduce immigration fraud.

As we’ve said, ACT supported the original legislation, given the uncertainty around the novel coronavirus at the time. The world will look very different in 2023, and we feel that it would be irresponsible for us to support this bill. We put our trust in the Minister to use these extraordinary powers wisely, and for good, to reunite split families, which is well overdue, and to address the longstanding issues at Immigration New Zealand. But, alas, all we’ve heard is excuse after excuse, and a border exemption process that fails to meet our expectations.

I wish the Minister well in sorting out his department and for developing policies that create real, positive change for New Zealand. It would be great to be debating and supporting a new immigration bill that achieves everything I’m talking about, but instead all we’ve had from the Minister in the immigration space is this bill—a disgraceful power grab that is full of excuses. But that’s all from us—we’ve said our piece, and we once again oppose this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I stand to speak yet again on the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill, and I’m going to start with that title, just to remind the member who previously spoke that this is not a bill that was ever about addressing any of the challenges that may be present in our immigration system. This is only about a response to COVID-19, and that is really important. Because that is the line that has run through every decision that is made, and it is the line that will be run through when this legislation could—these powers could—actually be lifted before the two years is up if necessary, because it’s only about COVID.

So I just want to remind people why it was a truncated policy, because it came to the House unchanged. The reason it was unamended from last year, when it did have support from the House, as we have been reminded by the other side, was because it worked. It enabled the Minister to respond nimbly and appropriately to keep everyone in New Zealand safe. Those borders are the only way that COVID can get into the country, and so it is really important that we manage them appropriately.

We are able to keep our people safe because we are managing the borders, and industry has said so. Industry has said it has worked. They made submissions despite the truncated process, they came along, they wrote huge submissions, and, as we heard earlier, many of them—dozens of them—came along and talked to us about their experiences. The meat industry came along and told us how much they appreciated the exceptions that were able to be made for their industry. They appreciated the tension, the very fine balance, between supporting industry and protecting our people—my mum; not just the meat industry, horticulture and winemakers. They said they appreciated the approach that our ministry and our Minister made when they talked about the problem solving, the collaborative approach that was taken, because every day—as we were reminded of earlier this afternoon—the situation changes. You have to be creative and responsive in order to have the smartest border in the world.

So that is why it was unamended. We heard earlier that about 12 months ago, things were looking dire, and we didn’t know where we would be in 12 months’ time. Well, actually, quite frankly we didn’t know we would be in this situation a couple of months ago. Who would know that we would have a couple of international bubbles on the boil? Who knew that the variants that are rampaging the rest of the planet meant that we’ve actually got countries where we’ve had to make the border restrictions even tighter? Who would have known how the roll-out of vaccinations is going globally? Who would know? And so this is part of the problem; this is where it feels like some people on the other side are a little bit confused, because they say we don’t want a truncated process, we need time to engage and consult. So that would have meant we would have to bring it—if we had only 12 months—back to the House in a matter of weeks.

Now, my mother always said I was a bit of a procrastinator, but she also said that the good thing about being a procrastinator is you make just-in-time decisions. So to start making decisions about what would be appropriate in a year’s time, or in 10 months’ time; in two months’ time doesn’t seem to make any sense at all, because the information that we will have in two months’ time about what will be appropriate then doesn’t make for good decision-making. So what we could do is bring it back in a couple of months when we really don’t know what the situation will be like in a year. Or we have the more accurate and nimble checks and balances that are in the legislation.

The exercise of these powers has to be clearly tied to COVID-19, or the responses to COVID-19. If circumstances change and suddenly the variants disappear, we have enough oxygen for our poor comrades around the planet and everyone gets vaccinated, and circumstances change so that our borders can suddenly reopen, the regulations can be revoked, in whole or in part, by Ministers with powers to act. I think it is a very cynical response to suggest for a moment that our Minister can’t be bothered bringing this back to the House. Our Minister has worked tirelessly to keep our borders safe, and you know that, because look at how many of our people are safe. He has worked really, really hard. If circumstances change and we can open our borders, then we will be able to do so. It is a cynical, very cynical, suggestion to think that he can’t be bothered. This is about the best decision-making to keep our people safe.

I just need to remind you of one more thing. There, again, to come right back to the title of the bill. The challenge—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Tell us again what a good guy he is!

Well, apparently some people still aren’t very clear on it. This is a very narrow-focused solution to a very big problem. This is not a power grab; this is about responding to COVID and COVID only. We’ve done it, industry has said so, and thus we will continue to act in a way that works for our people, and I commend this bill to the House.

I understand this is going to be a split call. I call the Hon Paul Goldsmith.

Mr Speaker Muller, it’s very good to have you in the Chair and to have the opportunity to make some comments on this bill. This is a bill that this Government will pass—they have the numbers—and that we supported last year as an extraordinary measure to give the Minister of Immigration extraordinary powers to deal with circumstances brought about by this COVID-19. The point that concerns us, however, is that this lazy Minister has come up and just extended his extraordinary powers for two years, because, apparently, it would be too much trouble for Parliament to consider whether or not it is appropriate to extend those powers one year from now. The only point we’re making is that we think one year is more than sufficient an extension, and then we can reconsider that. That doesn’t mean we have to start legislation in two months’ time; it means that we should be able to give sufficient thought to this in the months ahead, as to whether it’s necessary to extend these extraordinary powers.

Immigration has an enormous impact on people’s lives—many, countless, people in New Zealand and overseas whose lives are on hold because of decisions made through our immigration system. It is absolutely important that we have a rules-based system as soon as we can. We acknowledged the need for extraordinary measures under COVID19, but we do not think the Government should be lazy about extending those powers for very long periods of time. The Minister, apparently, wanted a three-year extension of those powers, and we firmly hold the view that Parliament should scrutinise more regularly than that and that New Zealanders should have a say about exactly how they’re organised. What happened was that they were brought in under an emergency last year for a certain amount of time. The Minister didn’t do anything about the problem until it was very late in the piece and then rammed through legislation very quickly to extend it for two years. That’s no way to run a Government. He should have taken the time to allow people to have a decent amount of input into the decision, and then, with humility, extend it for a year, and then let’s see how we go beyond that. That’s how any good Government should deal with what is an extraordinary situation.

The only further point I’d like to make is an acknowledgment of the extreme challenges facing many families across New Zealand and beyond because of the border restrictions that we, in the interest of all New Zealanders, have imposed, through this House, for our public health reasons. We acknowledge the terrible strain many families are under. We do want to return to a situation approximating normality as soon as possible. So with those parting comments, I will finish this speech.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker, and congratulations, Mr Muller, on your new position. I hope it goes well for as long as it lasts!

Now, this bill—and I’m really surprised and a little saddened at the changed direction of the National Party, in the sense that this bill has been shown to be essential. Whilst we would love to think that COVID-19 and the response that goes with it is a thing of the past, the tragedies around the world have shown us that we need to be constantly vigilant and that things are not going to change for the better in any significant way any time soon. And we’ve seen only very recently the need to close our borders. Very unfortunately—and unfortunately for many people who would love to come to New Zealand—we’ve had to close our borders to India. We need to be able to do that very, very rapidly indeed. That’s why these kinds of executive orders which are set out in this Immigration (COVID19 Response) Amendment Bill are so important.

But there seems to be some sense on the part of the other side that there are not protections here. The fact of the matter is—as is clear from the legislation and the framework in which it sits—that there are plenty of ways in which those powers, those regulatory powers, are controlled. Most importantly, of course, any regulation is subject to review by the Regulations Review Committee. The committee is, in fact, as anyone who’s sat on it would know, a very important and powerful committee in that it can either look at any complaint about any regulation made by a member of the public or it can inquire into things of its own volition. In fact, any member of that committee can bring things to this House for consideration. So if the Opposition is so concerned about a regulation that the Minister chooses to make under this Act, its members on that committee are fully within their rights to come to this House and this House must debate and approve that regulation, and if they don’t, that regulation is disallowed. To suggest that this is some sort of carte blanche is just entirely inaccurate.

The other thing to note is this: that it’s all very nice to say that these are terrible powers, but six out of the eight powers set out in the bill are powers to give indulgences to people who need special consideration. So we’ve seen people stuck in New Zealand on student visas or work visas or even visitor visas. Now, travel has been very difficult; so the Minister has been able, when appropriate, when those visas are coming up to expiry, with a stroke of the pen, as Mr Bishop—well, you said biro, actually; a stroke with the biro to extend the visas of those people. Now, that’s really important because if we had to go through an arduous process, that wouldn’t be possible and those people would be in New Zealand illegally. That’s not good for anyone at all.

Further, there is a decision-making framework within the bill. It’s not simply the case—it’s quite fatuous and inaccurate to say—that the Minister can just wake up one day and feel like granting a few more visas. There is a very clear decision-making process, and it must be shown that the power exercised is necessary. As Angela Roberts said, “necessary for the safety of New Zealand” is an important aspect of that. I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that it is exactly these kinds of measures which have protected New Zealand.

And the other thing, just by way of conclusion, is to remember, of course, that if the Minister exercises those powers outside of the constraints set out in the Act, they’re reviewable. The exercise of executive powers is subject to the supervision not only of this House in some cases but also of the courts. So here we have a piece of legislation that, incidentally, the Māori Party, despite their protestations that they would scrutinise every piece of legislation, have chosen not to speak on this afternoon, but here’s a piece of legislation that’s good, it’s robust, it’s subject to scrutiny by this House and by the courts. It’s a good piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.

Mr Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak this afternoon. Before I move to the bill, I would like to acknowledge the passing of Hamilton city councillor Margaret Forsyth. Margaret Forsyth, unfortunately, passed away yesterday after a short illness. Margaret Forsyth was a Hamilton city councillor in the ward in which my electorate resides. I knew her personally. She was also a member of the Silver Ferns from 1979 to 1987. I’m sure the House would join me in sharing our most sincere condolences to her family during this time.

Like I said, I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on the third reading of the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill. As we’ve heard from previous speakers on this bill, COVID-19 continues to rage around the world. I use that word “rage” quite deliberately because I regularly speak to people who have friends in countries like India, you know, parts of South America where COVID-19 is, effectively, out of control, unfortunately, during this time and it’s an incredibly difficult, difficult environment for those countries. The reality is that in New Zealand we have a relative sense of calm. Obviously, unfortunately, we have had people die of COVID-19, but when we compare that context to the rest of the world, you know, the decisions we have made have certainly held us in good stead.

I’m quite confused by the view of the National Party on this bill because the National Party are not supporting this bill. I believe that they need to lift their heads up and have a look to see what’s happening around the world, because this bill is required in order for the Minister to have the flexibility to respond to the COVID-19 challenges that are obviously happening around the world but they do affect us because no country lives in isolation. We heard from the National Party—to me, what I found quite a staggering statement from Chris Bishop, who said that they would have supported this bill except for the two-year time frame. So basically, what the member was saying was that he agrees the bill is necessary but that they’re not supporting it simply because of this two-year time frame. The reality is—so what they’re doing is then putting people at risk who need visas extended or people who need to move around the country or come to New Zealand or have various freedom of movement. They’re putting all of that at risk because of this two-year time frame, so I’m going to start my speech by talking about that.

It’s not certain that the impacts of COVID-19 will be over by mid-May 2022, and that’s one of the key reasons for this two-year time frame. So a one-year extension would be likely to imply that the Government would be prudent to introduce a further bill during this year to enable the powers to be continued, if necessary, later into 2022. Now, this would obviously not be an efficient use of the House’s time. But further than that, if COVID-19—and this is a point that the previous speaker made—is overcome earlier, the requirement that the exercise of the powers must be reasonably necessary to address the impacts of COVID-19 means that those powers would, effectively, expire at that point. I’m not sure that the National Party understand that because we are in an incredibly dynamic environment, as I outlined before at the start of my speech—the fact that COVID-19 continues to rage. Yes, we have vaccines, and we’re making really very good progress as a world on those vaccines, but the reality is COVID-19 will be with us for quite a long period of time.

The fact is, if we touch on those words there: “reasonably necessary”—the powers must be “reasonably necessary”—I have faith in the Hon Minister Kris Faafoi to interpret the fact that when the powers are no longer reasonably necessary, the powers will not be used. There is a natural time line of COVID and of these powers and, as we’ve heard previously, the Regulations Review Committee will play a key role in that if we are obviously more successful than we think we may be in terms of COVID time frames. But the reality is we don’t know the exact time frames for COVID. We haven’t got a crystal ball. We’re doing well. As a country we’re doing well. The vaccine is starting to roll out but we don’t know those exact time frames.

So that’s the point I’d like to mention first—that two-year aspect—because I do find it staggering that the National Party are forgoing their support for this bill and all of the important aspects of this bill simply because of this two-year period.

💬 Hon Member: Politics.

To me it does seem like politics, as my colleague has alluded to.

I’m on the Education and Workforce Committee at this time—a very, very good, hard-working select committee. We appreciated the opportunity to meet in recess to hear from many of these submitters. We had 168 submissions on this bill so there’s certainly quite a bit of engagement in the parliamentary process, which was good to see. Forty-three of these submitters submitted oral evidence and quite a few of these oral submissions were actually around personal circumstances, and it was certainly harrowing to hear some of these stories, but particularly around the split families aspect. As people will know, I have children. Many people in this House have children and we can only imagine how difficult it must be for those families who are separated from their loved ones. Actually, up in Hamilton I recently hosted a meeting for split families and we had around 150 people turn up. It’s certainly a very challenging environment for them, and rest assured the Minister is working hard to support those families and we continue to feed through to the Minister those stories as we hear them.

I’d like to touch on a couple of aspects of what the bill does. As we’ve heard, it extends the powers granted under the Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Act 2020 until 15 May 2023. The National Party supported the bill—the first bill. Now they have revoked their support for a bill that is, effectively, the same. So I think there’s a bit of confusion over the other side and I look forward to the next speaker on the other side giving us a little bit more clarity on that—just to clarify: is that the reason why they’re not supporting this bill, this two-year provision? I do find that staggering that they would put visa holders at risk in New Zealand for that purpose, but we look forward to the next speaker—we look forward to the next speaker from the Opposition side.

In my final two minutes, I would just like to highlight some of the powers that this bill grants the Minister and just talk through some of those. So the first aspect is the power to amend visa conditions for large groups of people. Now, why is this important? The reason this is important is because we are in a volatile environment, both globally and in New Zealand, because we are affected by COVID-19, you know, in terms of people travelling from other countries. People are here on work visas, working hard, and we appreciate their contribution to the economy. At times, those work visas need to be extended and we have seen that happen. So this, basically, you know, it’s a very practical piece of legislation because what it does is that it provides opportunity for the Minister to respond in real time to the effects of COVID on New Zealand.

The second point is that it extends the visas of large groups of people for varying periods of time. The third one is that through regulations it can stop overseas people from making applications while we have border restrictions. Our borders are constantly being monitored. We’ve seen recently a travel bubble open with Australia. We don’t know what the future will hold so the Minister of Immigration needs the flexibility to respond in real time to what’s happening with COVID. A key aspect of that is around visas, it’s around the borders. Effectively, it’s around the movement of people and that’s what this Government is doing: we’re making very careful decisions to ensure, first and foremost, that the health and safety of New Zealanders is paramount, but at the same time working where we can to enable the movement of people. This is a practical piece of legislation and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on this bill although we don’t support it, as has been stated by the previous speaker, Jamie Strange. I’d actually like to begin by acknowledging the Marlborough Boys’ College students who are sitting up in the gallery—a fantastic school and a magnificent class of students, who asked very good questions earlier in the Legislative Council Chamber.

Now, from what we’ve heard from the previous speakers on the other side, one would think this bill should be renamed the “Pfizer Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill”. It is not a cure for COVID. Actually, they’re conflating this with some sort of border control, which this bill does not actually address. This is about addressing people’s visas within New Zealand and also giving the power to stop people from offshore applying for visas. That is what it will do, and it will have a life—we believe one year is all that is needed for this bill. The Minister wanted no limit on this—just leave it in for perpetuity—and we don’t think that’s right. It’s too much power for a Minister to have. Of course, it’s convenient for the Minister but that’s not how we do things in New Zealand.

I think it’s an appalling piece of legislation, and it’s totally unjustified. Immigration New Zealand have a programme called ADEPT, which they are actually testing now, which will process visas electronically. It will enable visas to be processed in a much more efficient manner than they are now, which is a very cumbersome and labour-intensive process. This bill is all about processing visas; it’s not about COVID as such, but that is the justification that we’ve heard from the other side. The Minister needs a year—that is all—and to take it out to two years is an overreach of biblical proportions almost, and I think that we need to call it out for what it is.

So we put up a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—or, actually, Erica Stanford did, an excellent SOP—that would limit the bill to one year. She also put up another excellent SOP, which would require the Minister, unless there were extenuating circumstances, to not bring in these conditions for 28 days. He’d notify what it was, but 28 days later it would be enacted. The purpose of that was to force the Minister to act in a timely manner so we didn’t have the situation we did in Auckland where school students were refused entry into school because they were, effectively, illegal in the country because their parents’ visas had expired. That was about the Minister not acting soon enough to actually use the stroke of the pen and these extraordinary powers that he had to do it in an efficient way.

We also, as I raised in the other readings of this bill, had the situation of vineyard workers, Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers, stuck in Queenstown who had run out of work down there and were unable to shift to Marlborough to work where there was work. They were reliant on charity, and the community rallied around them to help them, because they couldn’t earn money, they couldn’t support themselves, and they didn’t have winter clothes in a Central Otago winter. They all had a puffer jacket by the time that was over. The community were fantastic. They stepped up and helped these people.

The Minister had the power to do this, but he simply didn’t get round to it, and I think, when we see the shoddy way that this bill has been put together and the Minister’s overreach, there’s a bit of a pattern here. There’s a significant pattern here. I think everybody has recognised this. The reality is the Minister just has to do his job and do it in an efficient way. He’s hanging people out to dry totally unnecessarily. He hasn’t done his job properly. He’s put a bill before the House that is totally, in my view, an overreach—and the National Party’s view. We don’t support it. It’s a shocking piece of legislation. And so, with that, I will finish my contribution. Thank you.

It is my privilege to wrap up this debate about this bill, and I think when I’ve sat here and listened, it’s really been about certainty. The National Party, on the other side, think things are much more certain in the COVID world than we do. And may I remind the House that three leaders ago, they were certain we could open the borders to Australia when there were 350 people per day being infected by COVID. Two leaders ago, they were certain we could open to Australia when active cases were around 7,000.

So I don’t apologise for the fact that we believe that the uncertainty caused by COVID warrants the extension of the powers that the Minister has for the next two years. The Opposition would have you believe that nobody wanted the extension, but may I read from this press release, dated 8 April this year, from the Hospitality New Zealand organisation, welcoming a move to extend the Government’s ability by two years. The press release says, “It will allow the Minister to adjust settings as they arrive, and that’s exactly what we need to make the most of the opportunities.” And it goes on to talk about giving everyone more certainty.

In these uncertain times, business confidence needs certainty. The reason we have a good economic recovery and saw those positive statistics come out today about debt being lower than forecast and tax intake being higher than forecast is exactly because we have been able to keep our borders safe. And the powers under this Act give the certainty to the Minister and to the sector so that he can be flexible in responding to their needs and they can go on confidently with their businesses.

So this is about certainty in very uncertain times. These extra powers are needed for two years, and we commend this bill to the House.