COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill

I present to the House a legislative statement on the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

This bill is a very simple bill. But by way of background first, the Parliament last year, in August last year, passed legislation in a hurry that allowed the Government to introduce charges for managed isolation and quarantine. Those coming into the country should be charged under certain circumstances. The policy intent there was that New Zealanders returning home—those who had been away for a period of time, a long period of time—should not be charged; those who were staying for a reasonable period of time—at that point, 90 days; subsequently increased to 180 days—should not be charged; but others should. So those coming in on essential work visas, those coming in short term—they should be charged. That was the intent of the Government and the intent that the Parliament endorsed.

What subsequently has come to light is that those Australians who have come to New Zealand on those visitor visas, on those short-term work visas and so on, regardless of the visa status that they came to New Zealand under, they automatically get converted to a residence class visa when they arrive in New Zealand. That was not made apparent to the Government, that that would have an implication on the charging regime at the time the charging regime was introduced. Therefore, this legislation corrects that anomaly and ensures that those who have been charged—and the advice that I have had is it’s impossible to estimate with precision exactly how many people could be affected, but it would be in the vicinity of around 600 to 650 people who could have been charged and could have paid. It makes clear that those charges should be validated—because that was the intent: to ensure that those people were charged and paid—and corrects this anomaly so that people in the future who are in that category can continue to be charged.

So it’s a very simple legislative fix. It is, of course, regrettable that this was not foreseen at the time the legislation was passed. I would remind the House of the circumstances under which it was passed back in August last year, which were that it was done in a rush. It was passed very quickly. This issue was not foreseen, was not identified, and has now been identified. It’s important that we fix it so that we can make sure that those people who had always intended to be charged and have been charged—to make sure that those fees are valid.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I want to start my contribution by saying thank you to the Minister for COVID-19 Response for actually explaining what the problem is that we are dealing with here. I have read the bill, I have read his six-paragraph legislative statement, and I have read the departmental disclosure statement, and, for the life of me, it has been very difficult to actually understand why we are legislating, because all three documents that I’ve just referred to actually don’t explain, with the precision and clarity that he just did, what the actual problem is.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: I’m from the Government; I’m here to help.

Labour Governments always say they’re here to help; sometimes you find the help’s not so good. So thank you to the Minister for doing that.

Look, we’re going to oppose this bill, on the Opposition.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: But you think everyone should be charged.

No, no, no, no—just, no; well, we oppose it for a few reasons. The first is that it is still not clear that this is actually necessary. The second is, as a matter of principle, retrospective law is a bad thing. This is the second time this week that Parliament has been put into urgency to pass laws to make good something that should have been fixed in the first place. So we are going to oppose it, and unless there is a fuller explanation from the Government as to exactly what the problem is here that we are trying to solve, we don’t think that it is a good idea to pass retrospective legislation. What this does is, basically, change the law as it was when people came in from Australia, back to August last year. Very short bill, as the Minister makes clear, but it does it so retrospectively.

There are a lot of questions that I have, really, for the Government, and perhaps we can get into them in the second reading stage, which will follow forthwith, and perhaps in the committee of the whole House stage. But one obvious one is: when did the Government find out that this was an issue, this issue of Australians coming into New Zealand and having their—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: About three weeks ago.

What’s that?

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: About three weeks ago.

“About three weeks ago”, OK. Three weeks ago. So it’s not so urgent that it had to be fixed three weeks ago or two weeks ago or one week ago, but it is apparently so significantly urgent that—and I can see my colleague Michael Woodhouse has gone over to talk to the Minister, because, no doubt, he has done what I’ve done, which is read the legislation and read the disclosure statement, and gone, “This is very confusing and it doesn’t actually explain what we’re trying to fix.” So apparently it wasn’t so urgent that we had to fix it three weeks ago or two weeks ago or one week ago. Instead, what’s really happened is the Government is embarrassed because, yet again, we are having to go and fix the law, to fix a stuff-up. The Government is embarrassed, so what they are going to do is ram it through under the cover of Budget urgency on a Friday morning. Here we are at 9.30 on a Friday morning, the press gallery is all hungover, and the front pages have been—

💬 Shanan Halbert: Be kind.

What’s that?

💬 Shanan Halbert: Be kind about our press friends.

I’m a truth teller, Mr Halbert; I’m a truth seeker on this side of the House. So the front pages have all been done. The Government has done their Budget thing. The front pages have been published. Happy days all round. Everyone is getting ready for the weekend. Instead, we’re here on Friday morning with Parliament still in session, unusually, ramming through this dirty little bill to fix something that the Government got wrong back in August last year. The Government’s hope is that no one will notice that it is for the second time this week that we are passing retrospective legislation, and, frankly, they are probably right: not that many people will notice, actually. But, you know, that is a little bit depressing.

So the Minister tells us that the Government found out three weeks ago that there was a mistake. My question is why they didn’t do something three weeks ago, because if it is something that is so urgent that we have to be in Budget urgency for it, you might have thought that it would have been done a few weeks ago. But instead we are here using the cover—it is really just an excuse—of Budget urgency to fix up this problem.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: So cynical.

Well, “So cynical”, says the Minister, with a big grin on his face. Well, having worked for the Leader of the House before, yes, I am that cynical, Mr Hipkins. I know exactly how these things work.

The second thing that, obviously, comes out of this is: how many people are actually affected by it? The Minister says 600 to 650. Again, I do have a genuine question: why is that not in any of the legislation or any of the material published? That material is useful for the House’s information, but it’s not—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: That’s why I gave it to you.

—in the legislative statement—I know that’s why you read it out, but, you know, we shouldn’t have to tune in to your first reading speech at 9.20 for the public to find out about it. It is not in the departmental disclosure statement, which has four appendices which all say “insert data here” and “more information to come” and “this information will come later”. It is not in any of the very, very poorly drafted departmental disclosure material. And it is not in the bill itself.

So it turns out it is 600 to 650; OK, fair enough. No idea of the quantum of the cost that we are being asked to fix. No idea about any of that. The Minister says it is impossible to estimate, with any exactitude, exactly how much money may have been charged that shouldn’t have been charged. So we’ve got no real idea about how many people are affected by this, and no idea about the quantum that is an issue for the Government.

So where are we at? This is a very strange situation where we have a bill that doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Government can’t really explain what problem is being fixed. It doesn’t know how many people are affected by the problem. It doesn’t know how much money is at issue. In fact, it can’t really articulate what the public policy problem is. But yet here we are on Friday morning, in Budget urgency, passing a bill that we don’t really know what it does. And I’m sorry, that is a terrible way to make law—I really think that is a terrible way to make law. And, as a matter of principle, I don’t think the Parliament should agree to it.

The first overriding principle is that Parliament should very rarely do things retrospectively. That is the first principle. This bill breaches that. For those newer members there on the other side, if you go and read the legislative guidelines, and you go and do your constitutional law 101, that is the first thing they’ll tell you. If you go and talk to people who are the experts in these things, they’ll say, “Be very hesitant, Parliament, before you make retrospective legislation.” Well, here we are on Friday morning, under Budget urgency, passing retrospective legislation. OK, sometimes it is justified, but you’ve got to have a good reason for it to be justified. So then you turn to the reasons. Well, what are the reasons here?

If you read the legislative statement, it says, “Cabinet’s policy intent with regard to charging MIQ fees for Australians is clear”—well, I mean, that is actually a debatable point; I’m not sure it is clear, to be honest—“Australians who are ordinarily residents of New Zealand, the same liability to MIQ fees, all other Australians are expected to be liable for fees under provisions in the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill regulations related to temporary entry class visas, including critical workers and critical health workers.” But nowhere is there is an explanation as to what has actually happened.

Apparently, 600 or 650 people—we’re told; we’re not sure of the exact number—may have been charged fees that they shouldn’t have been charged. So Parliament’s solution to that is just to say, “Oh, well, that’s definitely the case; they shouldn’t have been charged in the first place, and we’re just going to retrospectively change the law to make sure that that was the case.” Well, does that public policy problem justify retrospective legislation? Frankly, I am utterly unconvinced that that is the case. I have no real idea why we are doing this. The Government, in a very short contribution, couldn’t really articulate much of a case for it, either, to be honest.

So, all in all, this is a weird little bill at a strange time in the Parliament. Doesn’t it say it all, really, about the Government’s priorities? We’re in Budget urgency—Budget urgency is like the one time when the Government can put the House into urgency and no one objects, because it’s the Budget, apparently; it is like a special carved-off time when urgency is justified for whatever you like—and the Government’s not using it to do anything particularly constructive; instead, the Government is using it to ram through a bill that will be finished by 1 o’clock this afternoon, to retrospectively change a law, to fix a problem that they can’t even articulate is actually an issue. What a strange little time in the nation’s history.

I’m happy to take a call and offer a few comments in support of my colleague. He and his officials have done an exceptional job through COVID, I have to say, and put in place—very rapidly—the necessary legislation. He’s very, very good, but he’s not perfect. He’s not perfect, and so we have acknowledged that the intent of the bill in the legislation was really clear, but the implementation was not. So what we’re doing—and every Parliament has the responsibility to amend things that are clearly identified as being wrong

So the intent was quite clear, we did want to charge Australians who were coming in, but the ability to do that was not put in place through the legislation. So I think the Minister is doing the right thing—he’s come to the House to clarify any points that member of the Opposition want; we are here to help, always. So I think this is an appropriate thing to make the adjustments as necessary, as identified in hindsight as we’ve moved through this process. So I support the bill and its passage through the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand to lend my support to my colleague Chris Bishop, who has kicked off our approach to this bill. More specifically, we have concerns around the process that brings this bill to the House, and what’s rightly been asked is: why is it taking so long to address this? When did we first find out that this was an issue?

I think what that also talks to, if we look at the disclosure statement, the fact that any potential work or evaluation or supporting information around this is absolutely absent. If we look at the background material, are there any publicly available evaluations? No. Were there any regulatory impact statements? No. Has there been any impact analysis? No. Any cost benefit analysis? No. I mean, we could just make our way, page on page: had advice been provided from the Attorney-General around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? No. Any external consultation? No. And yet, here we are under urgency—let’s understand this: three weeks ago, they realised there was an issue, and none of those points have been taken into account. This looks very shoddy in the background.

I want to come back to the number that the Minister’s pointing towards—600 to 650. Why do we not know that number? How hard can it be to count people coming across the border, and to integrate information from the border, from customs and our border people, from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and to get an absolute number for people that are involved? You know, maybe this also talks to why there’s some issue in recovering fees for those who should have paid their managed isolation and quarantine fees, because we’re just not doing appropriate data collection and data analysis at the border, and I think this bill just lends itself, this very shoddy bill, to that sort of inquiry, when we don’t really have any information and we don’t have any detail around how we come to be here discussing this sort of thing.

So I’m hoping in the second reading and in the committee of the whole House, the Minister can add further information to that. The key points that you’ve heard us put on the table today is: when did they first understand it, what wider information have they gathered around this, particularly around impact analysis and cost-benefit analysis, and then, thirdly, I guess, we’d have to look at it and say the argument is being made that this happened because it was done under urgency around about August. Have they run a fine-tooth comb through other parts of that legislation to make sure we’re not here again under urgency repairing similar faults? So it will be very interesting to see, as this progresses over the next few hours. Thank you.

Helen White—good morning, Mr Speaker.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Is it Emily? Oh, it’s Helen!

Ha, ha! We have a small problem of too many blondes on this side of the House. Listen, I just—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Ha, ha! Can I say that? Am I allowed to say that?

Ha, ha! I stand in support of this bill, and as a lawyer, I take note of the issues with regard to retrospectivity, but I would also say it’s one of the areas where I’m most comfortable with that kind of decision, because as we know as lawyers, proportionality’s pretty important. So is the fact that nobody in this situation was misled or deceived. This was a situation where the people who were going to be subject to this change actually expected to pay the fees that they’ve paid, and that is the way you cause least damage. So this is a law that will change just to meet the expectation of the people affected, and it’s a very sensible change. It’s also one that happened in a situation of great urgency, and I join my colleagues in commending the Minister for COVID-19 Response for the way that he handled an incredible crisis in our society. We have managed that extremely well, much to the chagrin of the Opposition. Thank you. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I have to say I’ve never seen a better example of opposition for opposition’s sake than the National Party opposing a minor technical bill and making a deal about it being retrospective legislation.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: She couldn’t even work out how to vote on the last bill.

So I guess they’ll be here yelling all morning, but, honestly, this is a pretty simple technical fix. There’s no mystery. It makes perfect sense—[Interruption]

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Hon Simon Bridges and Kieran McAnulty—really difficult for me to hear the person speaking when you are having a conversation across the Chamber. You’re not meant to do it.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I apologise. I get wound up by socialists.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah—order! You’re also not meant to comment while I’m making a ruling or on the ruling, Mr Bridges.

The vast majority of New Zealanders have been extremely pleased with how the Government has handled the COVID-19 situation. Obviously, a lot of things had to be done incredibly quickly and it’s not surprising that they’ve realised that the special relationship with Australia meant that their visa status was technically different than it should have been if they weren’t normally resident in New Zealand.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Why are we here?

It sounds like the Hon Simon Bridges has some very deep philosophical questions about why he’s here—a good question. But anyway—look, the Green Party’s supporting the bill. There’s really no drama. I can’t believe they’re going to drag this out and make a big thing of it, but then I kind of can. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill confirms to me that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) should put “unintended consequences” at the top of its mission statement for all to read. Whether it’s the disaster that is Immigration New Zealand or mistakes such as the one that we’re dealing with right now that has come about due to bad border policy, which I’ll get into very shortly, this is all just getting very, very predictable and familiar. The ACT Party is also not especially interested in fixing up the mistakes of MBIE, especially under an urgency motion, because there is always the risk that we have to come back and do it all over again when the next unintended consequence arises.

I think it’s important to briefly mention the nonsensical way in which Australians were treated by Immigration New Zealand prior to the travel bubble, because it’s quite relevant. In normal times, Australian citizens and permanent residents are automatically granted a residence class visa upon entry into New Zealand. They don’t get temporary entry class visas; that’s the whole point of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. But MBIE decided to do it quite differently under COVID, requiring Australians who could get a border exemption to obtain a Critical Purpose Visitor Visa prior to travelling, which is a temporary visa—that’s new. Why it had to be done like this I have no idea, because Australians still had to apply for a border exemption. There was still a process. So here we are with this bill, an unintended consequence of, frankly, weird policy.

The issue is, however, bigger than the technicalities of visa categories in my opinion. We have a very special relationship with Australia, as is enshrined in the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement and other agreements, of course. Australian citizens and permanent residents, particularly the former, are not subject to the usual Immigration New Zealand rigmarole that other migrants face. The usual visa pathways do not apply. They’re often not even trying to get New Zealand citizenship, because there’s no need. This is a very special status that is afforded to no one else in the world. So whether Australians are ordinarily a resident here or not, I actually think the relationship is above that when it comes to whether or not we treat New Zealanders and Australians with a border exemption differently. That concept is, of course, open to debate, and I’m perfectly happy to have my mind changed on this, but we can’t really give it justice under an urgency motion like this.

Clause 5(2) of the proposed amendment makes for pretty unfortunate reading in my opinion. It states: “The charge is and always has been validly imposed by regulations”. Now, I’m not a huge fan of retrospective legislation generally but, in this case, it’s particularly tricky and nasty because it’s financial. It is also unfair, I think, given the spirit of the Australian travel bubble that we have today. If an Australian managed to get a border exemption, then their status here in New Zealand, including in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ), should revert to the spirit of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. In any normal year, Australians can come and go, work and live between the two countries if they wish. The Government shouldn’t use the technicality and unusual practice of granting temporary visas for the duration of a flight across the Tasman as an excuse to charge them, nor the fact that they may or may not be ordinarily resident here.

The one caveat to all of this, that I would say, is those that come to New Zealand, stay in MIQ, and refuse tests over and over again and they wind up staying for twice as long. But the bill doesn’t talk about that; that’s another story. It’s been a very long time since the underarm delivery and I think there’s no need for the Government to return the favour this morning. MBIE should move on and do better next time. We are opposing this bill. Thank you.

Fa‘afetai lava, Mr Speaker. It is a privilege again to rise to take a brief call on this first reading of the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill, which is a mouthful! It is pretty much—and many of my colleagues have mentioned—something that is trying to correct a technical anomaly with the bill itself. So I commend our COVID-19 Minister and the work that he’s done, and the ministry that has done the work for our people and community in New Zealand. I thank, and take this opportunity also just to acknowledge, the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) workers and also those who go in and do the continual testing of our people. I acknowledge my wife and her team; they go into these MIQ places, as well, in Auckland. This is a simple bill, and that’s why I commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call.

Mr Speaker, as my friend, as my colleague Mr Damien O’Connor mentioned, it’s hard to find the perfect man, and it turns out that even Chris Hipkins is not immune to imperfection. I said “imperfection”—he is human. We have done extraordinarily well. Chris Hipkins and his team, including the amazing border workers and the doctors, have done extraordinarily well. Every now and again you get a little technical hiccup. This is probably the moment to say that some of my best friends are Australians. They are our cousins, but they are not our brothers and sisters and they don’t get the same protection as New Zealanders do. This is probably a good moment to mention that my grandmother is Australian—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Oh, I’m sorry.

I know; it’s hard. But this is a good bill. It is a simple bill. It is technical, but there’s no fuss to be made over it, and I’m really surprised that anyone would be trying to get in the way of what’s been a superb response to COVID. I commend this bill to the House.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill. National oppose this bill. I think my colleague Mr Chris Bishop articulated very clearly in terms of some of the concerns and issues that we have with this bill. Once again this morning I’m standing up talking about trying to fix problems of sloppily drafted legislation, within about 20 minutes, and I must say this is not what I want to be doing on a Friday morning in this House. We should be focusing on the priorities for this country, which are about getting people into jobs and getting people out—

💬 Chris Bishop: You could be on the North Shore.

I could be in the North Shore and I could be focusing on my electorate, but I’m not.

Look, managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) charging has been a travesty, effectively operating on an honesty box system. I grew up on an orchard, so I know a little bit about the honesty box. It has absolutely been a joke. I think it’s in the region of $7 million that’s currently outstanding in overdue fees for MIQ, and now we’re calling in the debt collectors. So while this bill works to clarify the procedure for Australian MIQ charges, and, admittedly, that is minor—it’s a technical change. But as we’ve heard this morning, and from the Minister, this was identified about three weeks ago. Nothing has been done in terms of providing us with any evidence or substantiation or background or consideration around costs and benefits, around impact. We’ve had three weeks. The Government’s had three weeks to do that, and now they’ve decided, under the guise of Budget urgency, that they’re going to slide this through, push it in under the carpet, and just basically take it off the radar—another example of error and mistake by this Government.

I guess the aspect that concerns me most about this is my reading of that is that we’ve unlawfully taken about $3 million off Australia—$3 million taken off Australians unlawfully. What we’re trying to now correct today in this House this morning, because of our “special relationship”, is we’re basically trying to retrospectively say, “Well, I’m sorry, we unlawfully took $3 million off Australians and now we’re going to change the law to say that that’s OK.” Well, that’s an absolute joke. Where was the review? Where was the advice from officials and the Ministers around this to look at some of this detail and just think, well, maybe taking money off people without any lawful basis to do that is not a good thing, yeah? Maybe they might have thought about that. But no—no, no, they haven’t. Six hundred to 650 people have been impacted by that. That’s no small number. Three million dollars—that’s not a small number, yeah?

💬 Chris Bishop: We don’t know exactly how many.

And of course—yeah. Well, I’m interested—I can’t wait for committee stage, where we can actually start getting into that detail. What was the cost-benefit? What was the impact on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? We haven’t had any of that stuff.

I think the other context that I want to raise is how many times, Mr Bishop, did we ask for a little bit of clarity in the Health Committee about getting some of these guys in to explain some of this information?

💬 Chris Bishop: We’ll be asking about this one.

Absolutely we have. Every single time—

💬 Chris Bishop: Add it to the list, Mr Watts. Add it to a very long list of things we want to ask about.

I’ll add it to my list. I’ll tell you what, it’s a long list here. It’s a long list, I must say—it’s a long list. Every single time, in the Health Committee, we asked to get some of these officials, the Ministers, to front on COVID-19 response, what’s the answer? We’re voted down—we’re voted down—a lack of transparency around the key issues that are facing this country week after week in that session. It’s becoming a little bit repetitious. I stand up and I say, “I want to propose a motion. I want to get these peoples in to explain the COVID-19 response. What’s happening around MIQ? What’s happening around all the issues that we’ve got in this country in that regard?” And we’re getting absolutely no answers. We’re getting stonewalled. I’ve even got the Greens supporting us on that call, and along with ACT. So it’s not just part of this House asking for transparency in regards to COVID-19.

I just want to use the last 44 seconds just to cover off one final point, and that is that too many of these MIQ breaches have resulted in impacts on our business community. Some of these legislative examples of errors and lack of drafting is just causing more compliance and impacting the confidence of our business community. We saw nothing yesterday in the Budget that helps our businesses, and that is a real, real disappointment. I’m really expecting a lot more from this Government. So far, I’ve been underwhelmed. We oppose this amendment.

Mr Speaker—[Interruption] Sorry, Mr Speaker, I must have been a little bit asleep during the ACT dissertation on the reasons—the deep philosophical reasons—why we should not be passing this legislation. And I can’t believe that the Opposition are seriously suggesting that we do a full impact report involving officials’ time and money on something that is correcting a piece of legislation. It is opposition for opposition’s sake. We’re not relitigating the border policy. It would be great if ACT and National actually put as much care into people and policy rather than these technical minutiae, which is putting some of us who had a rather large night celebrating an incredible Budget yesterday—it’s making it very difficult to sit here and listen to these dissertations. I’d just like to crack on and get through the day; so I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. That’s the hard-working Government we’ve come to know and love. All they want to do is go home and put their feet up because they feel a bit tired.

💬 Chris Bishop: Yeah, back home to Waiheke!

That’s right—will that be Waiheke or Dunedin? Quite, quite interested to know which direction the member is moving after the House lifts. I’m delighted to see Messrs O’Connor and Mahuta here, because they are—well, let’s just say they’ve been around this place for quite a while, and they must be chuckling at this debate, because they know that if the shoe was on the other foot and if a National Government had introduced two pieces of legislation in Budget urgency to correct mistakes that a National Government had made, we’d be here till Monday. I was here 12 years ago last week when, out of a fit of pique, a Labour Opposition put up 36,000 amendments to a bill that they didn’t like, and then they voted in English and Māori and we were here till doomsday. So for them to sit there and Dr Henderson and Ms Leary to say, “Oh, gosh, isn’t it terrible the Opposition is actually questioning the Government on their mistakes?” is kind of like a parallel universe.

I think there are some significant questions to be asked. We got three minutes from the Minister for COVID-19 Response, and we’ll be quizzing him more in the committee of the whole House, I think, because there are some really serious questions to ask.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Mmm.

Mmm, yes, there are. But the staggering revelation that we got from Mr Hipkins—and these were the words that he said—the fact that Australians are granted a residence class visa on arrival at an international airport is “not made apparent to the Government”. It’s the Government that runs the immigration system. It’s the Government that actually decides who comes and goes and under what circumstances. That was a damning indictment on the Minister of Immigration, Kris Faafoi, who would’ve been sitting around the Cabinet table in COVID time saying, “This is what our visa system does.” The other thing he hasn’t explained—and it’s not explained in the departmental disclosure statement; it’s not in the purpose and explanatory note of the bill—is whether or not, actually, the Government was, as it says, issuing a visa to people who were allowed to come into New Zealand when there was the COVID lockdown, or whether it was a form of permission to enter that didn’t constitute a visa, because Australia is, essentially, not a visa-free country; it’s a visa on arrival country, and that visa is a residence class visa. But prior to that, no other entry permission is required, unless one might have a conviction or a character issue that would warrant them testing their eligibility for coming to New Zealand.

The other question is: why are we even doing this, because for the number of people, the 600 or so—and it’s amazing that we don’t even know—that would be affected by this change, is that he said, “Well, you know, New Zealanders returning home permanently or New Zealanders coming home for 90 days”—and then it got changed to 180 days or more—“wouldn’t be charged.” But the high-skilled chief executive of a company who’s an Australian citizen, who’s about to take up a role at a tech company in Dunedin, who couldn’t even find a space in managed isolation and had to work from Melbourne for six months but who is dedicated to coming here permanently—why would that person? Is it fair that that person actually gets to pay the managed isolation and quarantine fees when a Kiwi who’s coming home for a holiday for three months and one day isn’t—may not have been in the country for years, decided to hunker down, stay here for 91 days to avoid managed isolation fees, and they get to do it for free.

The last thing that hasn’t been explained is, if the extension of time from 90 days to 180 days for Kiwis was not required to have a change to primary legislation, why is this? This is a simple commercial transaction. It’s an offer and acceptance. If you want to come in to managed isolation, in these circumstances you have to pay, and in other circumstances you don’t. The broad levying powers were already given under the emergency powers. So why are we here at 10 o’clock on a Friday morning fixing another mistake by the Government when, actually, primary legislation might not have been the vehicle for this in the first place? Far too many questions that haven’t had answers for the Minister to stand there for three minutes and say, “Nothing to see here. We’re just going to charge 600 people that we didn’t have the legal power to charge, and that’ll be fine.”

The Greens are fine with it. Greens don’t want to support people with minimum family tax credit increases, but they want to actually charge Australians who are coming here. I mean, that is the most confusing issue of all.

But there are way more questions that I have. Yes, we will get through this, but don’t think that this legislature is a plaything for the Government to fix up its mistakes without question.

I commend this bill to the House.