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

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

The bill does two things. First, the bill retrospectively validates the collection of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) charges from Australian temporary entry - class visa holders, including critical workers and critical health workers, as prescribed and collected under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020. This change is to ensure it is clear that previous charges are and always have been valid. This will be done by a new section inserted into the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020.

Secondly, the bill amends the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Regulations 2020 to clarify that MIQ charges should apply on the basis of the visa or border exception a person travels to New Zealand on, rather than the visa they are granted on entry if that is different. This change will help make sure this type of technical issue does not arise in the future.

I would like to, once again, state that this bill is purely technical and validates charges that were understood and intended to be lawful. The bill does not change Government policy around who is liable for MIQ charges or how much the charges are. I commend the bill to the House.

Well, here we are on the second reading of this shoddy bill, shoddily put together by this shoddy Government. And it’s still not at all clear why we are actually doing this. We continue to oppose this legislation.

There were some wild claims made during the first reading debate on this bill, not the least of which is the member for Taieri’s contribution, which basically amounted to: “I’d really like to go home and Parliament doesn’t need to be in session. I’d like to go home and, surely, there are more important things we can be doing.” Well, I want to make a very serious point: there is nothing more important to this House than the making of law. It is right and proper that the Opposition scrutinise that legislation, particularly when the Parliament is being asked to do something retrospectively, because it is true to say that this bill is a technical anomaly in some senses—that is true in some senses—but it’s also worth noting that the bill retrospectively changes the law. So the behaviour that was of a particular type on 11 August last year, that will now be seen, in May 2021, in a different way. As Helen White knows, and Arena Williams sitting next to her, both lawyers, both fine lawyers, as they know—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Steady on.

Simon Bridges says “Steady on”. I think both got their law degrees from the University of Auckland—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Oh, in that case, the second best university in the country.

So they’re sort of adequate. Second best law faculty in New Zealand after the Victoria University of Wellington law school.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: What about Waikato?

Well, I’d be a bit careful about what I say about Waikato University, given the Prime Minister got a degree from there.

But look, these two lawyers know that what we’re dealing with here is the serious stuff. And I want to make a serious point about the quality of the information given to the Parliament around helping us to decide whether or not to pass this legislation. It is pathetic in its paucity. It really is. There is nothing in the legislative statement, really. The legislative statement—as I may have mentioned in the first reading speech—says pretty much nothing. The departmental disclosure statement, at one point, says, in relation to Part 1—the general policy statement—“N.B. The text you provide to your PCO or IRD drafter for inclusion in the explanatory note should be identical to that presented here.” Well, it’s not and also that should clearly have been taken out.

There’s basically no analysis in “Part 2: Background Material and Policy Information. Are there any publicly available inquiry, review or evaluation reports that have informed … the policy to be given effect … ?” No. “Does this bill seek to give effect … in relation to international treaty?” No. Well, that’s probably fair enough. “Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that lead to this bill?” No. So no regulatory impact statement, no background policy information. And then, as I said earlier, the best explanation about what we’re actually doing here was given by the Minister in his first reading speech. And we had to wait until the Minister actually got up and, sort of, explained with some, at least, precision or clarity exactly what we were doing. That is not the right way to make law. If Parliament is being asked to do something retrospectively, it should be provided with the information well in advance of the bill being presented to the Parliament.

I don’t know which member it was opposite who said previously, “You know, you can’t really expect the Government to have done a full regulatory impact report.” Well, I’m sorry—yes, we can. Actually, we should demand that, because let’s be very clear about what we’re doing. If you read the general policy statement, it says “This visa-conversion process creates a technical issue where some Australians may have been charged an MIQ fee for which it could be argued that there was no lawful authority to charge.” So just reflect on that—Australians may have been charged a fee for which they shouldn’t have been charged. Basically, a bunch of people, we don’t know how many, a bunch of people were illegally charged a fee. So they’ve been subject to a penalty; not imprisonment or not, you know, a massive penalty. But they have been charged something that they shouldn’t have been charged. Well, the funny thing is the bill doesn’t even say that itself. It says “they may have been charged.” They don’t actually know. They don’t actually know. As Michael Woodhouse points out, it’s incredibly equivocal: “They may have been charged. We don’t know.” And that’s a whole other issue, as to why the Government doesn’t have any idea.

So Australians coming to New Zealand may have been, or probably were, charged fees they shouldn’t have been charged. So there’s sort of two things you can do in response to that: you can say, “We’ll refund them”, or “We can just do the easy—”—that’s the hard thing to do because then you’ve got to go and find them and then you’ve got to go and figure it all out.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: They probably haven’t paid yet.

Yeah, they probably haven’t paid yet because seven million bucks is overdue, including, by the way, just while we’re on that—riffing on that—$4 million from August, September, October, and November last year. So we’re now six months in.

💬 Hon Member: Honesty box MIQ.

Honesty box MIQ. So Australians probably were charged money that they shouldn’t have been charged. So as I say, you’ve got two choices then: you can go and find them and refund them, or you can do the easy thing, which is just retrospectively change the law to say, “Oh, don’t worry, you should always have been charged.” Well, no surprises what this Government chose. This Government chose the easy option, which is—under the cover of Budget urgency—put the House into urgency on Friday morning.

I should at this point clarify my remarks from the first reading speech in which I said the press gallery were hung-over—I’ve had a number of texts from members of the gallery and it just shows that you think no one’s paying attention and it actually turns out they are. I should clarify my remarks. I almost—

💬 Hon Member: Which is most of them.

Yeah, well. I almost did a point of order and made a personal explanation in relation to clarifying them—not all of them are hung-over, only some.

So we’re in Friday morning, we’re now at 10 past 10 and we’ve had a school group come in to watch this unedifying process—hello to all of you—where the Government is retrospectively saying to Australians who were charged, “Potentially, you shouldn’t have been charged, but you were, and that’s legal.” So they’ve taken the easy option rather than just go and refund people who were charged illegally. They’ve just done the easy thing which is to ram something through retrospectively. I think it was Helen White in the first reading who actually mounted at least a decent defence of it when she said that “Retrospective law can be OK because no one’s being penalised.” Except that is wrong; that is just wrong. Retrospective law can be fine if it confers a benefit that wasn’t otherwise available to you. Of course, because, you know, no one’s actually worse off; in fact, you’re better off. So that’s fine. That’s an acceptable form of retrospective legislation sometimes, although the general principle is still that it’s wrong. But let’s be clear, this bill retrospectively validates illegal charging. So this is not conferring a benefit. This bill validates something that may or may not have been illegal at the time and says it is legal now. So it does actually penalise people.

If I’m an Australian resident who came in under a critical purpose visa or whatever in, I don’t know, November last year, I might be one of those 600-650 people and I may have been charged a managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) fee for which there was no legal authority. Now, I’ve got to tell you, there is nothing more important to Parliament than working out whether or not people are charged fees and penalties appropriately. There is nothing more important to the power of Parliament. That is the whole purpose of Parliament—to allow the Government to raise revenue in a lawful way. What we are being asked to do, as a Parliament, is basically say that the Government made a booboo when they did the MIQ legislation last year, and then we’ve got to fix it up.

I’ve got a lot more to say about this. The other problem with the bill and the other reason we oppose it is we’re being asked to amend, through primary legislation, regulations. So clause 5 of the bill—regulations amended—means the regulations through the Schedule. Again, a shoddy way to make law. Regulations can be amended via the regulations. They’re made by the Governor-General through Order in Council made by Ministers. You’re not meant to put the House into urgency to put through one clause to amend regulations through primary legislation. That’s just totally inappropriate. The Government made a mistake. They should be upfront about that. And they should explain to the House exactly why this bill is so necessary and so justified. It’s a shoddy process and a shoddy way from a shoddy Government.

Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning. I thought I might recap on what’s been a riveting session where we had a dissertation read from an ACT member, we had the Greens accuse the Opposition of opposition for opposition’s sake, and then the lecturing from the other side became so intense that I fell asleep and nearly missed my call. We’re, effectively, litigating a technicality. And I’d just like to correct Mr Bishop. The best law school in New Zealand is the one I went to in Otago, as Mr Woodhouse knows. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’d like to continue this discussion and raise some points that came up in the first reading. The argument was made that no one misleads or deceives, and so this is actually OK. That’s the new standard, clearly, for setting legislation by this Government. So long as you don’t mislead or deceive, it’s all good to go. So you can impose a badness as long as you tell people about it—you haven’t misled them; you haven’t deceived them. That explains the philosophy behind yesterday’s Budget. They weren’t misled or deceived by the bad things that came through in the Budget; therefore, it’s good to go. That’s the interpretation we should take from that contribution, saying, “Nothing to see here. No one was misled or deceived.” I think it sets a principle for the legislative reform for this Government.

I think there are other points in the second reading that just need a moment’s thought. One of my colleagues said, “Some of my best friends are Australian.” Surely that is my “ ‘I can see Russia from here.’ moment”—surely that is the equivalent for that. I’d have to say, the Minister’s first reading, where he led off with a legislative statement for three minutes—that’s not a legislative statement; that’s a haiku! That’s the only way you could call it. That was so brief; that’s a haiku. And, really, we need a lot more detail than what the Minister presented leading up to the first reading to make any sort of valid judgments here.

So a lot of work to do on this bill. I think my colleague Chris Bishop and others are pointing out a lot of faults and flaws that bring us here under urgency, for a bill that shouldn’t be under urgency and that is weak in its background and detail. Reluctantly, we will see this progressing through the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Can I acknowledge everyone who is wearing their pink shirt this morning on this wonderful Friday morning, that I love to spend with you all. Now, Pink Shirt Day works to create schools, workplaces, communities, and whānau where everyone feels safe, everyone feels valued, and everyone feels respected.

💬 Simon Court: Just not Australians!

Just not Australians, in this discussion. But I do encourage those that are wearing pink shirts today to uphold those values in the work that we’re doing on this wonderful Friday morning.

But my support for the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill this morning—I acknowledge our wonderful Minister and Prime Minister in the work that they’ve done on COVID-19. There are some steps that we’ve had to work through, and these are one of them—it’s a simple amendment, it’s nothing for us to sweat over, but it is something that we have to do.

And to the Opposition: I do encourage you to scrutinise the Government, scrutinise the work that we do, but today you are opposing this for opposition’s sake. That is not the style of politics that I want to participate in, and I’m calling you out for it. So, this morning, I commend this bill to the House.

I rise to take a call on this because I feel like on Friday morning there is about 85 other things we could be doing. I actually agree with the member for Taieri and the point Simon Watts said, but, instead, what we’re doing is we’re here debating an absolutely—it seems to me—pointless bill. I actually want to know—we haven’t had any good answers to this; I hope we will get them in the committee stage—whether this actually needs primary legislation. Does this even need that, given that it’s a regulatory matter? It’s in the rules and I wonder out loud, actually, whether this could have just been done regulatory-wise in secondary legislation—if it even needs the bill that we’re talking about.

I stand here and Julie Anne Genter thought I was getting rather metaphysical on things—why are we here? What are we doing? Are there paranormal activities going on in this Parliament? No, that’s not one of the things, but I do ask: why are we doing this right now in urgency, given that it seems this is pretty pointless? I note it’s retrospective. Actually, that’s not good enough. I thought Chris Bishop was rather generous in the way he approached this by saying there are occasions when retrospective law is appropriate; not many, actually. And, yes, for a supposedly busy Government that’s had a big Budget, spent a lot of money, has talked a big game, actually, in the 24 hours post that, on a Friday morning when some are tired and emotional, here we are right now doing this.

💬 Shanan Halbert: Who’s tired and emotional?

Well, not me, but ask Chris Bishop because he got himself in a barrel of hot water, not naming names, but certainly throwing a few lines out in that regard. I say once again: this seems unnecessary. It’s wrong in principle that it’s retrospective. I hope Chris Hipkins, while he’s been out of the House, has found the paranormal activity, shown David Parker where the UFOs are—I don’t know, done something useful with his time because he’s certainly not on this day at this time, in bringing this little bill before the House that I question is even necessary.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai. Firstly, to everybody, happy Pink Shirt Day: Kōrero Mai, Kōrero Atu, Mauri Tū, Mauri Ora!

This bill makes a technical fix to the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act to retrospectively clarify that charging managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) fees to Australians who have come here, who are not ordinarily resident, that it was actually legal.

In the 52nd Parliament, the Green Party supported Government policy and legislation in this area when we decided to apply charges to anybody re-entering this country. We had negotiated a few changes at that time, and we supported it. So when those were implemented—and we understand the policy intent very much was to be consistent—that Australian citizens, permanent residents, they would have to pay like everybody else. This bill also clarifies that those who arrive with temporary entry status were definitely liable for that. We note that it also amends regulations that tidies these things up. And so, because this is a technical fix, we are going to support it.

I would like to comment as a member of the Health Committee that I actually support some of the comments that were made earlier that perhaps we might have identified this earlier, and if the Health Committee were actually able to do our proper scrutiny and to speak to MIQ officials, we might have helped pick this up sooner and dealt with it sooner.

So the Greens do not normally support retrospective actions. In this case, we think it is technical, and urgency seems justified to us to get it sorted. The policy is in effect, it’s all happening. Let’s tidy up the mess and anything that’s untidy. So we commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Madam Speaker, thank you very much. It is a great shame that Ingrid Leary didn’t appreciate my opposition or “dissertation”, in her words. But I actually think it is important that Government MPs actually understand immigration and border law, because I suspect they’re getting their advice from the Minister of Immigration, and that really does worry me. Furthermore, based on some of the speeches that I’ve heard this morning from the Labour MPs, they possibly don’t seem to understand this bill either.

Bad immigration policy-making led to this point. There is so much bad immigration policy out there in the wild. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has changed their immigration policy towards Australia—well, they changed it during COVID, for God only knows what reasons. It was a very strange approach and unnecessary. But very obvious issues like this will arise, and, somehow, more than 4,000 staff at MBIE didn’t see this coming. I just think what else have they missed? My goodness.

So our opposition—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: All the Immigration staff missed it too, apparently.

Exactly, Mr Woodhouse. So our opposition is simple: retrospective charging is unfair, especially under urgency like this. MBIE’s bad policy-making towards Australians is their problem. They should move on and do better next time. Lastly, we should treat our Australian cousins in good faith and not do stuff like this. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I commend this bill to the House.

I commend this bill to the House, Madam Speaker. Thank you.

I just want to comment on the irony that is that the ACT Party is talking about actually holding the charge for this, when this actually is a prudent move in terms of tax. New Zealanders have paid for this and Australians don’t, and it’s really important that the cost lies with the people who actually ate the food and stayed in the hotels and came here knowing that they would be charged for it. So it’s an important and prudent move on the part of the Government. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m delighted to talk, again, on the “fix” morning we’re having here, on the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill. I just want to signal to the Minister that when he does assume chairing the committee of the whole House, there’ll be a number of questions about why on earth we have to do this. Members on this side of the House have raised questions about the relationship between primary and secondary legislation that I think are necessary to have answered.

But I want to go back to the question that Chris Bishop did—speculating on whether there were two options here: we could either change the law, validate it, or we could actually refund them the money, because, if the Minister believes his own officials, it was an unlawful levy at that time. The previous Government had to do that a couple of times. The choice was made that even with a reasonably substantial sum of money, we refund it. Mr Bishop speculated that perhaps we couldn’t find them. Well, it’s not that difficult to find people who may be due several thousand dollars in refunds. All you’d have to do is put an ad in the Herald, the Dominion Post, The Press, and the Otago Daily Times, and they’ll come running. Only, why on earth would the Government draw attention to their own failures by advertising that fact in major city daily papers? And, actually, they’d probably have to put one in The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald as well, because those people might be back in Australia by now.

So rather than do the right thing and actually follow the law and refund the money, because it would be embarrassing for them, we’re here on a Friday morning, passing retrospective, validating legislation to justify the money having been taken out of the pockets of those people unlawfully, albeit that they’re not even sure that that’s the case, because the general policy statement is pretty equivocal. It could be argued that there was no lawful authority to charge. Well, argue it. They should test the question. I’d be interested to know, from the Minister—whether or not somebody’s actually asked for a refund on this basis—how it was drawn to the attention of the Government. Why? So that we didn’t have so many questions and only found out about the details of this yesterday afternoon—a paucity of information.

Did the Minister not think it appropriate to come and talk to other parties and say, “Look, this is the situation we had.”? He had three weeks. I think there has been a track record of constructive dialogue on matters like this in the past, and yet we have this popped up on a Thursday afternoon for debate on a Friday morning, which, frankly, is a bit disrespectful of this place. And that’s not like the Minister, who’s usually pretty good at engaging. He has responsibilities for the management of this place through the Business Committee and in this House, and this, I think, falls below the standard that he has set for himself.

So I am a bit disappointed about that. But, nevertheless, I think we can try and be as constructive as possible, despite the cries of “Let’s go home.”, wherever those homes are, and “Let’s get to the golf course or the beach.” But, actually, we’ve got a job to do. It’s called Opposition; it’s called proposition, and we’re going to continue to do it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

This bill is set down for committee stage forthwith. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill.

In Committee

Clause 1 Title