Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill

Members, we come now to our final debate—clauses 1 to 3, “Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”.

Can I just suggest a different title, and I just want to discuss, on the title itself, that this bill may have been titled “Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill”, but let’s make it really clear: this bill should be “Immigration (Diminishing of the Human Rights of Asylum Seekers) Amendment Bill”, and, to make it the really lengthy title, I would follow with “Having No Regard and/or Commitments to the Wellbeing of Disabled or Under-age Asylum Seekers”.

Throughout the debate, and now that we’re arriving to the title of this bill, which ultimately serves as the more symbolic way of debating what this bill intends to do, it is important to note the language around mass arrivals. Because “mass arrivals” as a language isn’t in and of itself political language; it is loaded. “Mass arrivals” serve, as language, to actually fearmonger around the potential risks that asylum seekers may pose to a country. “Mass arrivals” implies that the people arriving, who are fleeing war, who are fleeing persecution, actually pose some sort of risk or will be arriving in “masses”. Seeking asylum is a right, and this bill did nothing to actually enhance the rights of those asylum seekers, despite the claims by several members from both Labour and National throughout this debate. What this bill is doing, despite its quite ambiguous title, is simply diminishing the rights of those asylum seekers, using a two-tier system of ways of processing asylum seeker claims, and the reality of this bill is simply that it is founded by fearmongering. Despite what Cabinet Ministers may have been privy of, this title simply does not reflect what the community organisations at the front lines have been calling for, which is resourcing the judiciary system and the community system.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Relevant? No.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: I know that this debate may feel like a joke for the members of New Zealand First, who have made a career of fearmongering the public when it comes to migrants, but the reality is, this bill is a load of rubbish. It simply diminishes the rights of those asylum seekers, and any member of this House should be ashamed of supporting this bill, instead of focusing on the issues that matter to those communities.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I think we could not have a more straightforward description of the intent and indeed the substance of the bill. “Mass Arrivals” refers specifically to those who arrive in a way that is a mass, as opposed to on an individual basis. That’s at the heart of the first definition, the first substantive provision, within the bill. It does exactly what it says on the tin—that is the regime that it generates—because without that we would have a lack of clarity. We would have the possibility of diminution of human rights, in the sense of not being able to have an effective management of the system. Again, I stand by the fact that that is, effectively, one of the purposes of the bill, because to have them processed in as timely a fashion as possible, to be detained in as minimal a form as possible, is the whole purpose of the bill. It’s appropriate that the title of the bill reflects that.

It’s also, by the way, while I’m at it, appropriate that the commencement date be the day after Royal assent, because we don’t know when and if this bill might be required, but we cannot afford to take the chance that we have a regime not in place, whereby we’d have a system overwhelmed and without a good capacity to deal with it. That’s the purpose of the bill. That’s why the title and the commencement are as they are.

I’m assuming that the members to my right are all looking for a closure. I’m not seeing any speakers on my left, so I’ll go straight to the vote.