Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill

I present to the House a legislative statement to support the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

As has been canvassed in previous debates, this bill has been introduced to the House to address potential legal risks to a mass arrival coming to New Zealand. In 2019, a review of the Immigration Act identified shortcomings in the existing mass arrivals provisions that presented some legal risk to the safe and effective management of a mass arrival, if one were to occur—namely, the risk that the current deadline of just 96 hours is simply not enough time for an immigration officer to initially process a group, do security and identity checks, determine whether detention of a mass arrival group is necessary, and apply for a group warrant of commitment and have it heard and decided by a judge.

That means that if a mass arrival group were to come to New Zealand and if there were a need to detain them, a hearing on a warrant of commitment might need to be held without legal representation for members of that group. This is a breach of their fundamental human right to natural justice, and I do not consider that to be an acceptable scenario. So, as a responsible thing to do, I have progressed this legislation through the House to address this legal risk.

The bill and its subsequent amendments in the committee of the whole House will strengthen our immigration and court system and enable New Zealand to safely and securely manage a mass arrival, should one ever occur. Though I’ve only been the Minister of Immigration since November last year, I have followed the debate and engaged with this issue of mass arrivals and I remain convinced that this is a responsible thing to do. The debate on this topic, both in Parliament and in the public sphere through the select committee process, has highlighted strong feelings that Kiwis have towards upholding human rights and natural justice. The debate so far has demonstrated the difficulty that many had in engaging with this complex issue right from the start, highlighting the need for clear and accurate information. I’ll endeavour in my speech today to provide my parliamentary colleagues and the public with that information as clearly as possible to eliminate any confusion.

To those who remain concerned, let me assure you that our enduring commitment to upholding the fundamental human rights of all people remains intact. In that light, I’d like to thank all of those who voted for the changes to the bill at the committee of the whole House stage. There were four changes that I proposed. The first change was to establish that a mass arrival group cannot be detained in prison or at a police station. The second change is to require an immigration officer to establish why any proposed detention is necessary; that any detention sought is for the least amount of time and is the least restrictive necessary; and how a proposed detention meets our obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the 1951 Refugee Convention, and our other international obligations. The third change requires an immigration officer to report to the court weekly on a mass arrival group. The final change enables a judge to order that the location of proposed detention be changed.

These amendments will guide how Immigration New Zealand and the courts will operate in the event of a mass arrival and ensure that the right to natural justice and the right to not be arbitrarily detained are upheld. They were developed to allay the concerns of those who had submitted on the bill during select committee process and strengthen the human rights protections in the bill and reflect our longstanding reputation of upholding human rights.

I also want to touch briefly on the amendments put forward by my colleague the Hon Phil Twyford. I thank Mr Twyford for engaging with Minister Penk during the committee of the whole House. Mr Twyford’s tabled amendment covered three things: that families could not be separated during detention, that a third-party organisation be engaged to monitor treatment and conditions of detention, and that time limits on detention be scaled according to the size of the group. I’d like to reiterate what my colleague Mr Penk has expressed: that we wholeheartedly agree with the principles of those amendments—namely that the detention should be for the shortest amount of time and the least restrictive necessary, and that they are safeguarded against bad treatment stemming from their detention. Unfortunately, we did not agree with the text of the amendment itself, and I’d just like to touch briefly on why.

Regarding family separation: in no way do we want to separate families unless absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, there are some circumstances where it may be absolutely necessary, such as in instances of family and intimate partner violence, child trafficking, or where a real threat to security or the public has been identified.

Regarding independent monitoring. As outlined in committee, New Zealand already has a number of independent monitoring arrangements of immigration—notably the Ombudsman and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner as national preventative mechanisms under our obligations to the UN conventions against torture. These are trusted, independent Crown entities that are governed by legislation. I would implore members of the House to trust that they will execute their statutory functions appropriately.

And, finally, a scaled time limit system of detention wouldn’t be appropriate for this legislation as there are many reasons, beyond just the fact of the size of the group that factor into why a group may need to be detained, including if members of a group have health issues or distrust of Government officials due to circumstances from their home countries, or if a mass arrival were to occur during the Christmas period, where many on the refugee bar may be on holiday or otherwise unavailable. A scaled system based on size doesn’t always account for all of these factors.

I want to briefly touch on the security environment in which New Zealand operates, and, in particular, how this relates to the bill. We live in an increasingly disrupted and contested world. As was highlighted recently in the recently released national security strategy, New Zealand’s geographic isolation is becoming less of a factor for bad actors. Critically, this includes people smugglers and transnational organised criminal elements—groups that would be involved in organising ventures to New Zealand. These transnational criminal elements attempt to subvert the international rules-based system in which New Zealand operates and which we’ve always supported. These are not ghosts or phantoms; these are real threats that we know for a fact have attempted to reach New Zealand and we need to be prepared.

We also know that if a mass arrival were to occur, the stress it would place on our immigration and court systems and the challenges that it would bring would be immediate and severe. It is the responsible thing to do to ensure that we have a plan in place, that where there are deficiencies in that plan they are identified, and that those deficiencies be rectified. This piece of legislation is important to protect the human rights of vulnerable people who may arrive in New Zealand as part of a mass arrival and to uphold the integrity of our immigration and court system under what might be an unprecedented strain. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s good to be back here in the Chamber debating this bit of legislation. I want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Erica Stanford, for her contribution and make a few final comments as the bill makes its way through to the conclusion of the third reading.

The Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill makes a few tweaks to a system that was put in place, I think, back in 2013, if I remember correctly—legislation that provides arrangements for the kind of processing of members of a mass arrival who might arrive in this country, presumably making it to these shores in a steel-hulled vessel. This bill excited vigorous debate, both at select committee and in the House here, and in the community of asylum seekers, refugees, and human rights advocates, who pay close attention to these issues. Why did it do that? Because locking up asylum seekers is not a good thing. Arbitrary detention of asylum seekers is not consistent with New Zealand’s obligations under international law, and it is right that we should take this very seriously.

I note that, when this bill was before the select committee, the National Party opposed it—publicly at select committee and in the House—and I note that the National Party in Government has changed its mind, presumably because it read the security briefings that indicate that, actually, a mass arrival, while a very low-probability event, is not a no-probability event. And it is something that we must as a country take seriously and prepare for.

There were four safeguards that we discussed in some detail in the earlier stages of the bill’s progression through the House, and those safeguards emerged out of the select committee hearings. They were developed by officials and taken to Cabinet, under the former Labour Government, and agreed in principle. Now they are in the bill, and it was Labour’s position at the second reading and at the committee stage, and now at the conclusion of this process, that we would only support the bill and vote for it if four of those additional safeguards were included in the bill. In our view they are substantive. They make a significant difference. They will have the effect of minimising and limiting the degree to which members of a mass arrival are deprived of their liberty, freedom of movement, and they bring judicial oversight to the whole process. And that is a good thing.

I want also to comment briefly on the three extra amendments that I tabled in the committee stage, on behalf of the Labour Party, that the Minister referred to, and I regret, actually, that the Government has chosen not to support these amendments. The first one would have been a commitment in the legislation not to separate families. I take the Minister’s point that there may be some particular circumstances where it would be very difficult not to, but I believe, actually, it would have been a pretty easy drafting fix to provide some space for those kinds of exceptional scenarios.

I feel worse, actually, about the question of the independent monitor. It is true that, for example, the legislative mandate of the Ombudsman gives that office the job of monitoring the treatment conditions of people in prison, and so on. But the fact that the Ombudsman does do that work and could do it in this scenario doesn’t mean it will. The Ombudsman is a completely independent Officer of Parliament and cannot be told what to do by the Government of the day. The fact that the International Committee of the Red Cross, and their New Zealand representative, the New Zealand Red Cross, routinely do this work of monitoring treatment conditions and conditions of detention internationally, including within immigration systems—the fact that they do that and are international experts at it and could do it—doesn’t mean they will. There’s no obligation to do it. Previous Governments did not have independent monitors of asylum seekers who were imprisoned while they were waiting for their cases to be heard. I’m not aware that any independent organisations monitored their treatment of conditions. So I regret, Minister, that that second amendment wasn’t taken up, and I honestly think it’s a lost opportunity.

In terms of the amendment around the scaling of the amount of time allowed while a warrant of commitment is being sought, linking the number of persons in a mass arrival to the number of days allowed for that warrant of commitment application to be processed, the Minister’s argument against that was that there may be other factors, like the health of the mass arrivals group, or if it took place at Christmas and therefore members of the refugee bar weren’t available to help. I honestly don’t think those are substantive objections. The calibration of the time allowed per number of people in the mass arrival, I think, could easily have been tweaked to allow sufficient flexibility. So I regret that.

I want to finish with a point that I actually did make at the committee stage, and that is that the reason why we should be going the extra mile to put safeguards and judicial oversight and checks and guard rails in this process is that, left to its own devices, the bureaucracy won’t always pay attention to those things. I remind the House again that for many, many years Immigration New Zealand was jailing asylum seekers—not big numbers of them but nevertheless jailing asylum seekers—while their claims were being assessed. There are documented cases of those asylum seekers suffering terrible trauma and abuse in our prison system. That was an egregious breach of New Zealand’s obligations under international law, and Victoria Casey KC said as much in her report that our Government commissioned that led to a change in the policy—that asylum seekers will not be held in Corrections facilities or Police facilities and there are extra safeguards in place to make sure that doesn’t happen again unless there are particular security or risk-to-the-public issues.

So that should be a cautionary tale for our system, and when we are creating a situation where asylum seekers who are convention refugees entitled to exactly the same protections and treatment as quota refugees—when we are putting in place arrangements for them to be detained for periods of time, we should be going the extra mile in terms of putting in extra safeguards. We are willing to support this bill and vote for it now at the third reading on the basis of those four safeguards going in. But I do regret that the three amendments that we put up at the committee stage weren’t supported. Thank you.

Of course it would be Labour and National politicians joining forces to create greater powers to detain asylum seekers arriving by boat. Let’s make it clear: for all the talk and pandering about how this is human rights - enhancing, no credible human rights organisation has actually told politicians that they want this bill to go through. This includes the Asylum Seekers Support Trust, Amnesty International, Community Law, the NZ Council for Civil Liberties, the Red Cross, World Vision, Refugee Family Reunification Trust, the Refugee Council of New Zealand, and the Office of Human Rights Proceedings, as well as the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Look, there is a small risk that there may be a mass arrival incident—which in and of itself is political language. We’ve chosen to call people escaping some of the most harrowing experiences that one can ever imagine, such as genocide and war and arriving by sea, “mass arrivals”. But none of these organisations woke up and said, “Oh, look, there’s some security briefings that, perhaps, talk about the real risk of this happening. Let’s not resource a judiciary. Let’s not adequately resource the groups that work at the front lines with refugees and asylum seekers. Let’s instead create detention regimes that, as those organisations have said and many experts have spoken about, will create a rights-diminishing regime that will also create a two-tiered treatment for asylum seekers.”

So it’s really important that we make it clear that creating these detention provisions in the bill is a political choice; it does not need to happen. It does not need to happen to guarantee that asylum seekers and refugees are treated with dignity. It does not need to happen to ensure that everyone in our communities remain safe. This is a political choice that was brought about by the legacy parties. Many of those politicians who’ve spoken throughout the debate have made a career, past and present, by scapegoating migrant and refugee communities in subtle or more overt ways.

The organisations who work at the front lines were constructive. They tried to take a harm minimisation approach by working constructively with members of the Opposition and the Minister of Immigration to plead for amendments and greater safeguards, but none of the organisations actually said the safeguards would create a decent enough regime. They realised that—because the two legacy parties have teamed up to diminish the rights of asylum seekers—they have to galvanise to increase those protections. The Green Party worked alongside some of these members of the community—who intimately know the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers—to better protect the rights of children, to ensure that disabled people would be treated with respect and dignity and that they would not be detained, particularly when detention would exacerbate their health conditions. We’ve all supported amendments around greater supporting, and we would limit the reasons for detention to only managing security risks.

The reality is that the Government members are not interested in actually upholding the rights of asylum seekers or refugees. They want to pander to imported ideas from countries like the UK and other parts of the world that treat asylum seekers as a risk, as opposed to recognising the right to seek asylum and treating people with the respect and dignity that they deserve.

Throughout the debate, we’ve heard these soft reassurances around the rights of children, and we’ve been told to just trust that because something is in the immigration operational manual, it’s good enough. But the reality is that all these protections that exist in the immigration manual are easily subject to change. All it would take is a Minister like Shane Jones having the reins of the immigration powers. If we were to take anything from his contributions and interjections in the debate—calling it continuously “boring” and making fun of the debate rather than taking it seriously—what’s to say that he would not simply change the operational manual. If the Minister and the Government were serious about protecting the rights of children, they would have put it in the legislation, not left it in pieces of paper that are subject to change. If the pandemic showed us anything, it’s how quickly the operational manual can change. So if the Government was serious about better protecting the rights of children—in the bill that is already undermining the rights of asylum seekers—these could have been put in legislation.

But all that this showed was a Government that does not take the rights of asylum seekers seriously and is more concerned around jumping in with the Labour Party—who introduced this bill and who now are claiming that they have all these concerns despite having introduced the bill with little to no consultation with the refugee and asylum seeker sector. I think this speaks more to what was a political tool to scapegoat our communities and not actually take into account the very serious concerns that human rights organisations have.

The answer to the issue of arrivals coming in, as I said before, would have been to resource our community centres. I particularly want to shout out to the workers in the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre, because that has been spoken to as a centre that is expected to take up the burden of looking after people who would be arriving in the provisions that we’re seeing in this legislation. The workers that I know who work with people in the Māngere resettlement centre are overworked, they’re often tired, and they’re caught trying to deal with people who’ve undergone massive trauma and stresses. So to assume that, without additional resources, they’ll be ready to deal with a large group of people arriving by sea—who will have complex needs, who will have faced trauma, and who may have health conditions—is, frankly, absurd. Without Budget commitments to adequately resource resettlement centres, all that we will be doing is putting those organisations at risk of being overwhelmed, rather than being supportive.

The Minister talked about managed isolation and quarantine staff facilities and hotels as areas that could be used, but, again, there’s been very little to no consideration to the wellbeing of children and disabled people within those facilities. In fact, the Minister basically told us that we should just accept that any detention facility is better than being in the sea. I think people deserve far better than being told that they’re lucky to not be stranded at sea and that instead they’re going to be detained. Because, actually, what we are saying to people is that we don’t care if you’ve been escaping a genocide or a war, that, actually, the answer to those experiences is detention while we process your asylum seeker application. The truth is that that detention could worsen people’s trauma, it could worsen people’s health. We’ve seen no commitments from the Minister around that additional resourcing that will be needed.

It’s really important that parties from both sides—National and Labour—actually don’t just pay lip service to the reports that we have had, including the Casey report. I think the Government could have—and this report was spoken about by a Labour MP—taken all of the recommendations, taken them in full, before even exploring this bill. Actually, a lot of what is in the Casey report would also create a fit for purpose system to deal with arrivals by sea of people who are often escaping some of the most unimaginable things that one could ever, ever, ever imagine.

So the Green Party is proud to have been the only party to consistently speak against this bill, to consistently be on the side of human rights organisations and advocates. Despite what New Zealand First MPs may call “boring”, we simply call it taking the lead from the experts. I would say most politicians here are not experts on issues affecting our refugee communities—I would say most of us are not; very few MPs themselves come from those backgrounds. And therefore we have to lean on those experts, who are aware that there may be a risk of people arriving by sea escaping war and genocide—because, surprise, greater conflicts around the world and climate change are exacerbating those same things. But the answer, which those human rights organisations have, is to resource the judiciary, resource the resettlement centres, not create a rights diminishing bill, and certainly not disguise the detaining of asylum seekers as caring for human rights. This is not what this bill is about. This is not a bill about caring about asylum seekers; this is taking the easy, politically expedient route, which is to create new detention mechanisms to diminish the rights of asylum seekers. The Green Party won’t be supporting this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT in support of the third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge all the changes that have been made to this bill in the committee of the whole House, and I want to thank all the members who contributed, and as this is the final reading, I, again, want to acknowledge the work that was done by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and everybody who contributed to make this bill, or bring this bill, in the form that it is now.

As we know, this bill is to change the Immigration Act 2009. It is to extend that time period that is there to process the applications for warrant of commitment from four days to seven days and then giving the authority to judges to extend that to 28 days if really needed.

Now, it was very clear in the committee of the whole House that members wanted to see that the time line is as minimal as possible. So that change, I want to acknowledge that. If this kind of incident happens in New Zealand, mass arrival happens, the maximum numbers of days will be utilised, but this is to make sure that there is enough time for processing of those applications for the warrant of commitment. And this is to include the natural justice component for people who arrive, if it happens here in New Zealand. So I think allowing this extra time actually is a really good thing, because it will help us ensure that these people will have fair representation and we uphold our international obligations as well.

Now, in this regard, we also want to take into consideration the capacity that we have at the moment. And we know that the capacity that we have at the moment is not going to be sufficient if we had any incident of mass arrival, especially if hundreds of people arrive here in New Zealand. We have limited numbers of lawyers who specialise in this field, and we want to see that enough time is given to these people, because the current legislation says it’s four days, and four days may not be enough time for hundreds of people to be represented in a fair manner. And also when we talk about the capacity, it’s important to note that—in terms of the resources that the Green MP talked about just now—this is also part of making sure that the resources are available so that these people can be fairly dealt with. “Resources” doesn’t mean only buildings but “resources” also means that those who are doing other things, important things, to keep our borders secure are not diverted to this job because all of a sudden we have this mass arrival.

And this will have impact at multiple levels. If I want to just highlight two, one is, of course, how these mass arrivals are dealt with if we don’t have enough capacity and enough resources to give them a fair representation. The second level is about New Zealanders, because if something of this sort happens, it can make New Zealanders quite anxious if they see that the New Zealand Government, the Government of the day, is not prepared to handle that mass arrival. So this is also to give that signal that if anything of this sort happens, then, yes, we can handle it, because there will be enough time allowed for the resources to be made available to these people and be handled, and also our court systems can be managed. So it’s not just immigration; it’s also our court systems. And we have to also keep in mind our border security, and we don’t want to divert all the staff to just deal with this if something of this sort happens.

Now, we know that our geographic location, of course, we always say, is good in some circumstances and not good in some circumstances. And, in this case, so far, our geographic location has been beneficial to us. But we cannot take it for granted. Things can happen. As we know, in the last few years, we have seen the numbers of those seeking asylum, around the world, increasing. So anything can happen. And these kind of things, when they happen, don’t happen with much warning. So this bill is about ensuring that we are prepared for anything if something of this sort happens.

Now, I also want to, in this third reading speech, give the message that this bill is not about saying that New Zealanders are ready to welcome mass arrivals with open arms. That is not the message we want to give, but I want to acknowledge that people flee their country for many, many reasons. It could be political unrest, it could be a prosecution or other reasons, but sometimes people leave their home country because of economic reasons. And to those people, I would say don’t fall in the traps of human traffickers, because human traffickers usually exploit vulnerable people. They will charge big sums of money and put people on these boats without caring about their wellbeing or even survival on that boat. And they are made big promises that they will arrive at the port and, then, all they have to do is seek asylum and they will be totally fine. So, to those people, I would like to give this message: do not fall in the traps of human traffickers, because New Zealand takes human trafficking very, very seriously. It is a crime, and there are good provisions in our immigration system, if you are looking for economic opportunities, to come to New Zealand through various visas that we have.

Now, for any mass arrival, of course they need to be processed individually, individual by individual, to see what their circumstances are. And talking about improving or increasing the capacity that we have at the moment—the Green MP talked about the Māngere refugee centre—it has been clarified in this bill that when we talk about “detention” in this bill, it doesn’t mean a prison. So detention is basically going to be a place where they will be kept. It will be not as restrictive as one would imagine because of the term that has been used, and this was one of the concerns that came up during the select committee process as well.

So this has been already addressed. Time line has already been addressed, and making sure that we uphold our international obligations in regards to human rights has been also clarified in the committee of the whole House. So the form of the bill that we have in front of us, actually, is quite a balanced way of going forward. Of course, we have to identify that there is a risk. This can happen, and as I said before, it can happen without any warning. We need to be prepared, and this bill is to make sure that New Zealand is prepared to handle these arrivals and also to give assurance to New Zealanders that if something of this sort happens, then we can handle it. But, on the other hand, I want to again emphasise on this that this is not to send any signal that New Zealand is, basically, willing to welcome mass arrivals with open arms if they are just being exploited by some human traffickers. So we need to be really careful here. So the ACT Party supports this bill, and we look forward to seeing it going through. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. Irregular maritime arrivals present a complex challenge to New Zealand’s immigration system, demanding a delicate balance between humanitarian obligations and national security imperatives. As a nation, we must ensure that our borders remain secure whilst upholding our commitment to treating migrants with dignity and respect.

This bill aims to amend the Immigration Act 2009 to enable New Zealand to manage irregular maritime arrivals in an orderly and safe manner while protecting the rights of all who are involved. It has been noted by many that the risk of a mass arrival reaching New Zealand is actually low. However, while the risk is low, it is not zero. It is possible, hence the need to be prepared, and in the introduction of this bill we are showing that New Zealand is now taking the necessary steps to be prepared.

The sad reality is that there are victims of exploitation. The sad reality is that there are people out there who are willing to manipulate, and this is something that they choose to do to people who are so vulnerable in our community. This bill is necessary to ensure that there are sufficient protections in place for those who are vulnerable. Now, this bill is a practical and logical step in the right direction, and it is preparing us and it’s also sending a message to the world that we are prepared and would be prepared. And we are demonstrating that we are taking action.

Now, I won’t go through all of the amendments. There are a number of amendments, but I will mention a few. One is to extend the time for the District Court to consider a mass arrival—the warrants. And this will ensure a fair legal process and it will respect the natural justice principle. Now, this bill also clarifies entry requirements for members of mass arrival groups, and it also ensures the detention of such individuals is limited and consistent with refugee rights.

At the heart of New Zealand First’s approach lies a steadfast commitment to protecting New Zealand’s sovereignty and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of its citizens. We believe in a robust immigration system that not only safeguards our borders but also reflects our values of fairness and compassion. By supporting this bill, New Zealand First recognises the importance of striking a balance between our humanitarian obligations and the need to safeguard our nation’s security. By working collaboratively to enact this meaningful immigration reform, we can ensure that New Zealand not only remains safe but also a welcoming and a prosperous nation for all of our residents.

As already mentioned in previous readings by various members, detention in the bill does not equate to imprisonment but refers to safe accommodation options like the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre that has already been mentioned this evening. Now, it was emphasised that the bill aims to protect both national security and the human rights of migrants, ensuring that they receive the necessary support and care upon their arrival, which in many cases was very stressful.

New Zealand First has a commitment to uphold the principles of fairness and due process. Hence, on behalf of New Zealand First, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Let’s be clear: this bill is a technical solution on a hypothetical scenario while masking a much larger issue—an underlying issue—of chronic court underfunding.

As we have heard before, we could mask things by saying that we are here to uphold the refugees’ human rights; we are here to reaffirm our commitment under the convention relating to the status of refugees and under the relevant international obligations. However, as we have heard before from my colleague, no refugee organisations who actively work with refugees on a daily basis have asked for this and have wanted this.

So what does it mean for this particular bill? When we were at the committee of the whole House stage, we explored various options around this bill. For us, as the Greens, we put up four Amendment Papers—none of which were accepted but they were done in a way to address some of the issues that we see with this particular bill as it stands today in the third reading.

Some of them we have already talked about around the commitments that the Government have, or the commitment in the event that something does happen, and I think it has been mentioned multiple times that this is a hypothetical situation with a very low chance of actually occurring, in which case, at the committee stage, when we asked about additional and alternative hypothetical situations where our facilities—the facilities that people have talked about that uphold the rights of these refugees—are full due to other events such as another pandemic or other major events happening in the city at the time, no other commitments were able to be made that these facilities are appropriate for, to name a few, children and also disabled whānau. This is something that they were not able to make a commitment on.

In terms of the bill, there are additional specificities that I would like to bring up because you will hear people talking about 28 days—that’s the maximum amount of time that the people coming here will be held in detention centres. But that is on the basis of the application being made, which would have already taken 96 hours—i.e., four days. So let’s be clear that what we’re looking at here is a maximum of over a month, of 32 days, as being the absolute maximum. Also, there has been no indication or suggestion as to where people will be housed in those first 96 hours because the commitment made in terms of the suitability of the detention centre is only made when a judge makes a ruling.

The other level of specificity I would like to address is this notion that the reason we’re doing this is because of the fact that the District Court does not have the capacity for this. However, in clause 9, an amendment to section 317AB on “Limited period for decision on mass arrival warrant”, we are seeing that the judge will, in fact, need to make decisions twice and have the doubling handling effect of saying “within the seven days [it] was made”—that it cannot be made within seven days and have to make an alternative ruling much, much later—and there’s been no modelling on the resources it will require for District Court to do this.

So, in short, this bill has a lot of loopholes. No one asked for this. It’s a hypothetical situation. It doesn’t gain anything other than the fact it violates the rights of these refugees who are arriving in Aotearoa in this situation. So the Green Party will not be supporting this bill.

I’m pleased to be speaking on the third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. This is a bill we’ve discussed and debated at length over the last wee while. I think that the greatest point that has been made across all of these debates is that while it is a low probability, it is high risk, and it’s something that we need to prepare for. So we’ve heard from members opposite about what they see as not being necessary or what shouldn’t be done. Ultimately, if we don’t address this and something does happen, we are not preparing our system to be able to prepare for it, and that is what is most fundamental here.

So the member opposite said that this is hypothetical. What I worry about is if we don’t address this and the hypothetical becomes reality, what then? Imagine people coming to New Zealand, as it says in the bill, on one or more craft—you know, a vessel that comes to New Zealand via sea—let’s just say, and arriving in the Far North, Grant McCallum’s electorate. This is hypothetically, let’s just say, the most likely place for a craft to arrive. Now, we’re expecting the District Court to be preparing and providing for these people. Now, this is 30 people or more, and we were, unless we change this bill, expecting this all to be dealt with within four days. It is absolutely impossible.

Now, what we are doing with this bill is providing the people that inevitably come to New Zealand in a state of distress—we have no way of knowing in what way they are going to arrive, how many, or where. We need to prepare for the situation that may occur, and that is what we are doing in this bill.

So let’s just say they arrive in the northern beaches of the northernmost point of the North Island. How does our District Court system work with that? We have only 40 qualified lawyers for this particular situation in the whole country. Our court system has to be able to be prepared to work with these people. We need somewhere for them to be housed, looked after, health checks, identification—all of the processes that that come in place. We can’t assume that they come in the best of health. There is triaging that might need to occur. All of these things need to come into account.

I remind members opposite that have been so opposed to this bill that this is not a target of time; this is an allowance of time that enables us to do the right thing for these people that come into New Zealand when and if they do arrive.

So what we can’t assume with the escalating situations around the world is that this isn’t more and more inevitable. We talk every day about New Zealand being the perceived safe haven in the South Pacific. We talk all the time about how lucky we are to be in the bottom corner of the world, but, actually, that poses a great, I suppose, attraction to a lot of people, and that is something we need to be prepared for. If we’re putting ourselves under pressure where we do wrong by these people when they come to New Zealand, that is a situation we will all regret if we don’t do something about it.

So to allow ourselves 96 hours from initial arrival—or arrest and detention; let’s just use the terminology—to then be able to determine the application and go through the process, following 28 days after that to go through the full process, this is giving us the space to be able to do the right thing by these people. It’s not to say, “Oh, we don’t have to do anything for another 28 days.” That is not the point. We are giving our system the space and the options to do this properly, to give people that come into New Zealand under distressing circumstances—very much likely with trauma; that has been discussed on all sides of the House—the process that they deserve, and, of course, at the same time, the treatment that they need, which is very likely in this circumstance.

I think that we need to be very aware that we can’t assume that they come to New Zealand in a manageable size of 30; it could be 500. That is something that we have to be prepared for. What we don’t want to see is that in, say, two or three years’ time when the inevitable does happen, we haven’t made this change, and, as a result, we are scrambling to make this work and we are making the wrong decisions, we are making fast decisions, we’re making rushed decisions, or we put people in further distress as a result.

I think it’s really important to home in on the fact that when I mentioned the 40 lawyers qualified to represent a mass arrival group, this is a direct result of the fact that this is not a situation we currently deal with. So every single thing in this bill that’s being proposed to amend the current law is not to address a situation we’re already dealing with but is something that may happen. So to be talking about the fact that this is hypothetical—absolutely, this is hypothetical, but this bill aims to address the hypothetical until it becomes a reality. What we cannot be doing is sitting here in urgency on the day that it happens, trying to rush through law so that we can better support the people that arrive in New Zealand. That is exactly what it is here that we need to be doing in preparation for potentially the inevitable—the low probability but high-risk event. We need to be making these changes that do the best by people that do end up coming to New Zealand under distressing circumstances. So, with that, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a slightly unusual situation today with this bill because often when we’re debating bills, they’re bills that we want to see enacted because we think the enactment of the law will improve the legislative situation in New Zealand. But I think we’re all agreed across the House that this bill is one that we would all like to see never have to happen.

We don’t want to see people smugglers coming to New Zealand, putting vulnerable people in harm’s way, and we certainly don’t want to see them put through further distress. But, unfortunately, although—as many members have reflected on in this particular case—this is a situation that hasn’t occurred, there is not a zero risk of it occurring. So that is why this bill is in front of us.

I think we can all reflect on the current instability globally at the moment—due to conflict, due to climate change—that may result in more mass arrivals, not just in New Zealand but in other countries where we do know they are grappling with these issues. I know that this is a controversial piece of legislation and I want to acknowledge that. I think it’s really good that we have a democracy where potential pieces of legislation which do come across important human rights issues are challenged, and that there are submissions and involvement by civil society and also with parties across the House making sure that when we do place some limits on people’s freedoms, even people who have just arrived in New Zealand, these are balanced and necessary and are not stepping too far over lines that they shouldn’t do in relation to human rights, because it is that serious.

We also face a difficult situation, because of the low probability of this occurring—although not a zero probability—in terms of being able to resource for such a situation. We heard that there are issues in resourcing, I acknowledge those. I think we would all like to see more resourcing in our courts. We would all like to see the amazing work at the Māngere Refugee Settlement Centre be supported. I know that they do incredible work and I’ve seen that when I visited there. I also think it just provides quite a challenge for us when we don’t know where or when the situation would occur, to be able to—even if we’re in that position to resource it properly, it’ll be very difficult.

I think that there are a number of changes that have been made to this bill which do make it a better bill than when it was first introduced, and I know that that came through some measures that Labour took in Government and also some that have been brought through the House under Erica Stanford as the current Minister. I think those are commendable changes. I will briefly touch on them: making sure that someone is detained for the least amount of time, making sure that the detention meets the obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, making sure that it meets New Zealand’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, making sure that there’s a report to the court at least weekly, making sure that the judge has overview of the location, and also, very importantly, making sure that a prison or a police station is not used as a form of detention. This is absolutely not about punishing people who might arrive due to the actions of people smugglers; it is about making sure that they’re treated with dignity and respect if they do arrive.

I am disappointed that the amendments put forward by my colleague Phil Twyford weren’t accepted. I think those are amiable and would have further improved this bill, ensuring that families be not separated. We’ve seen that overseas—I don’t think that is acceptable. Also, inserting a third-party organisation to monitor terms and conditions. And also limiting—I think his final one was limiting the amounts of time for detention based on the size of the group. I think those would have further improved this bill, and I would look to Governments on both sides of the House, when they are in the position to make changes, to consider those further changes. I think if we did have a mass arrival, we should revisit this piece of legislation and make sure it is fit for purpose.

So I think we all take this very seriously, and I take on board the criticisms of this. We will be supporting this bill, but would recommend that it’s monitored very closely—especially in the situation, which I hope never occurs, that it may be utilised.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise this evening and speak in this third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. I just want to acknowledge the work of the Minister of Immigration in getting this through the House, something that wasn’t able to be achieved under the previous Government. We’re now getting it delivered and getting this risk management framework, essentially, in place, to ensure that in the circumstance that we have the occurrence of a mass arrival, we have a framework and a structure to deal with it. Essentially, that’s what this bill is about.

There’s been a lot of talk this evening about taking it seriously. I think it’s important that everyone who’s watching this debate this evening—and watched the first and second readings and the committee of the whole House stage—appreciates how seriously the Government and the members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that would have been responsible for this on the Government’s side are here this evening. We are engaged in making sure that we get this framework in place. As part of that process, there have been four amendments that have been brought to the House and passed by the committee, to date, under the Minister’s leadership. They are important to making sure that we have the right framework in place, and the Minister spoke to those earlier this evening.

Let’s look at what this framework is, essentially, about. Currently, should there be a mass arrival event, there’d be 96 hours in which the legal profession would have the ability to come together and support those asylum seekers, to do the necessary processes in order for their applications to go in and their status to be determined. And it’s simply not practical. It’s not practical, because we’re talking about people and their families—men, women, and children who have travelled across the seas in boats that are probably unlikely to be in any good shape for that journey. They are highly likely to be malnourished, highly likely to have significant mental health challenges or social challenges from that crossing, and upon arrival on our shores they will need those challenges supported—before we even start talking about the legal process that they’ll be going through.

Along with that, we’re talking about whether or not there are actually enough lawyers in place to be able to support that mass arrival process in the first place, and the reality is there simply aren’t. There’s about 40 lawyers, as I understand it, across the nation, who would have the ability to be mobilised to support an event like this. Should it occur, for example, on a Friday night, that they land at Ninety Mile Beach—as was suggested earlier this evening by my colleague the MP for Napier, Katie Nimon—in the grand electorate of my colleague the MP for Northland, that would take a couple of days out of that 96 hours before the lawyers had even got the opportunity to start working. It simply isn’t practical.

I don’t want to see this happen. None of us want to see this happen. It’s unbelievable, actually, that our colleagues across the House—and I’m not speaking about my Labour colleagues, but some of the others—have made suggestions that we actually want this to happen, or the sort of attitude that we’re not taking this seriously. I tell you what I find extremely difficult to take seriously: this idea that we should somehow have a whole lot of lawyers on standby, a whole lot of places on standby, ready to support this should it occur, so that it can happen in 96 hours. At the same time, those same members opposite are talking about how this is unlikely to happen in the first place.

It’s a little bit like Budget week’s come early, because it seems to me that those members opposite think that there’s a bottomless pit of money that could be spent on hiring a whole lot of asylum seeker lawyers, training them up, and having them ready to support an event that is highly—or not highly but certainly unlikely, has a low probability of happening; not something that we want to happen but something that we need to make sure there’s a framework in place for. The idea that we should just resource them, that we should just appropriate it, I just can’t take seriously. It is simply nonsensical to suggest that as a Government we should be doing that.

There is a reason why there are a small number of lawyers in this country that would have the ability to support a mass arrival, a group, should it arrive on our coastline, and that’s because it’s unlikely. There’s not a huge amount of this work. If we had to be in a situation that we didn’t pass this legislation, that we didn’t put in a framework that enables us to manage this risk, however unlikely it is, we’d be in here under urgency trying to pass a piece of legislation that would end up being retrospective, and those same members opposite would have a problem with that. It’s because those members opposite simply do not understand how to make decisions, create practical frameworks, and ensure that we’ve got the sort of legislation in place to support this sort of event, should it happen, and I’m sure we’re going to hear much more of that unnecessary bravado from members opposite in the days to come this week. I commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call, and I call the Hon Rachel Brooking.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s useful to be talking about a bill about planning, in a sense, and planning for something that nobody wants to happen, with it being a mass arrival by a craft, which, of course, could be a plane or a boat. We’re very proud of the fact that we can now settle 1,500 refugees in New Zealand, and we have a very wonderful facility. People work helping refugees in Auckland learn about what it is to live in New Zealand, and all the benefits that come with that.

I’m also happy to be talking about a bill that has been amended in the committee of the whole House stage, and there have been some very useful amendments at that stage. My colleague Camilla Belich touched on many of those.

One that I’ll just note, in clause 12, is the amendment to section 330, which is “Approval of premises for purpose of immigration detention”. At the moment in the Immigration Act, it says that “The chief executive may approve any premises for the purpose of detention under this Act.” Then what happened? One of the changes in the committee of the whole House was that it now says, “Despite subsection (1), the chief executive may not approve a police station or prison as a place that may be used to detain 1 or more members of a mass arrival group”.

So that’s an important change. Perhaps it should say “must not approve”, but it’s clear in the context of the legislation that police stations and prisons are not to be used, and that’s an important change. I commend the bill to the House.

Good evening, Madam Speaker. I previously spoke about what this bill was really about. Firstly, it was about risk and management of it, should a mass arrival occur—that risk that could potentially manifest itself as a threat to our own national security and also the risk that could very well be a reality to those that may arrive. I also talked about due process and the need to have a fair and equitable process in place, and about the need to have a plan to enable timely access to legal advice to allow for fair representation and applications to be considered, and I also spoke about how this Government is practical and sensible enough to change our position. We’d previously held a position of opposition to this bill. However, once we were able to access what was previously considered confidential information, we did change our position and now support this bill.

Although there’s a low likelihood of mass arrivals to New Zealand, we’re living in a false paradise to assume that a mass arrival won’t occur. Who are we kidding? You’ve only got to look at what’s happening around the world—the political unrest, the conflicts, the persecution—and you very quickly realise that there is an elevated risk of a mass-arrival event occurring here, and a failure to anticipate and plan for this would be a mistake. A failure to plan would simply be a plan to fail.

This bill’s not about imprisonment or incarceration, as some members on the other side of the House would have us believe; nor is it about saying that immigrants are dangerous to this country. I’d reiterate the value that immigrants add to our communities and to our economy, with the culture and the values that they bring with them, and I’d acknowledge all that they add—certainly, in the many recent visits I’ve had in the Wairarapa, in the Tararua, in the Hawke’s Bay, with many, many groups. They’ve been nothing short of inspirational, and I’m incredibly privileged to have been welcomed into their families, their lives, and their communities.

This bill is not about scaremongering and misinformation. It’s about one thing only: having sensible, pragmatic legislation that allows us to have a balance—a balance between detaining any mass arrivals while ensuring they also have a right to access legal advice and representation to support their applications.

I spoke previously about allowing extra time. That’s not a negative; it’s common sense. This bill is about protecting those arrivals’ rights, along with ours, and having a right to put forward a case to remain in New Zealand—again, in the unlikely event of a mass arrival. The current time frames are entirely impractical. Security and health-screening checks are likely to need significantly more time to complete, and allowing more time will ensure that judicial decision makers are afforded all the information that they need to make a fair and considered decision which has taken into account every relevant piece of information.

To finish, I’d like to reiterate that whilst initially, as a party, we didn’t support this amendment bill, we’ve made sure to now expedite this process. As my colleague Carl Bates mentioned before, the previous Government that introduced this bill had the means to pass it and had the ability to deliver it into law, but they didn’t. Well, we will deliver it. We are the Government of delivery. We’ll finish the job. We’re back on track. I commend this bill to the House.

Talofa lava. Happy Samoan Language Week. Manuia le Vāiaso o le Gagana Samoa. I appreciate this opportunity to debate the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. This bill came through the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. We received over 300 submissions. Most of them were either in opposition or in strong opposition against this bill. Only four were in support. I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Immigration, the Hon Erica Stanford, for taking on board a lot of the concerns that so many of the submitters made during the select committee process, and making quite a number of changes to safeguard this bill and to ensure that this amendment bill that we have before us is much improved.

People seeking asylum, and refugees, who come to Aotearoa New Zealand, whether they come by boats or whether they come by plane, they have certain protections under the 1951 Refugee Convention as well as the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.

The 1951 Refugee Convention recognises that, by virtue of fleeing persecution often in urgent and dire circumstances, people seeking a safe haven may be forced to enter a country without the required documentation, and without the legal authorisation that they often need before entering another country. But we’ve been concerned about what happens when refugees and asylum seekers come to our country, which is why a few years ago we commissioned a review on this issue.

This review was completed by Victoria Casey KC, and she made several recommendations to improve the asylum and refugee processes, and to ensure that they are aligned with both New Zealand’s legal standards as well as our international obligations.

I won’t go through all of the recommendations that she made, but I would just like to highlight a few. One of the recommendations that Victoria Casey KC made is, first, that detention should only be used as an exceptional measure of last resort. Detention must be individually justified, and regularly reviewed in order to ensure that it remains necessary.

I believe that adding additional safeguards to the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill, especially in the complex and often challenging landscape that immigration deals with—we’ve heard from many of the speakers at the first reading, second reading, and third reading, that the likelihood of a boat arriving in the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand is actually very low. However, we believe that it’s still crucial that if such an event were to occur, we balance the need for national security with our commitment to human rights and to ensuring that we uphold the dignity of all the people that arrive.

One of the other recommendations that Victoria Casey KC made is that we should protect the family unity and children’s rights. I want to point out that this is also an amendment that my colleague the Hon Phil Twyford tried to make, but, unfortunately, it didn’t go through.

Victoria Casey recommended that detention practices should prioritise keeping families together, and ensure that the rights of our children are fully upheld. This includes providing appropriate facilities and support services for the children and families to minimise the impact of detention on their wellbeing. We should ensure that family members are kept together, especially if they are detained. We know that the separation of families, particularly parents and children, can have devastating emotional and psychological impacts. We’re concerned at the fact that this bill actually does not ensure that families will be kept together. Children should not be subjected to the same conditions, we believe, as adults in detention. Their rights to education, to recreation, and to psychological support must be prioritised. Ensuring that our children’s rights are upheld in detention not only complies with our obligations against international conventions but it also, I believe, reflects on our compassion and our humanity as a society.

It is unfortunate that the extra safeguards did not go through, but I concur with my colleague Camilla Belich that if indeed the event of a mass arrival is to occur sometime in the future, hopefully we can revisit these issues. Malo le soifua.

It’s a great privilege to rise to make the final contribution to this very important debate on the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill in its third reading. We’ve heard some contributions tonight where members have highlighted that they’ve thought that it’s unlikely to happen, and, yes, it is unlikely. But it’s really important that we are ready for that situation where desperate people—and we’ve only got to look around the world today—are in situations where they just feel they’ve got nothing to lose but to try and get in a rust bucket of some description and head towards a place like New Zealand.

We need to be ready for them, because they could turn up, and it’s highly likely if they do manage to come across the seas, as our forebears did in various types of boats in the past, and if they manage to come to this country, they could easily end up in a place like Ninety Mile Beach, which has been mentioned before, in the great area of Northland. Then these people would be here, and we’d have to look after them and make them feel welcome and treat them appropriately.

It’s really important to remember that what we’re trying to do when they come here is to make sure that we can actually deal with them, and so the increased time frames that we’ve allowed are really, really important. It just allows the processes to flow through. It’s absolutely vital that we do that, because we don’t want a situation where we’ve got people turning up here and we’re not prepared legally to cope with it, because that would just lead to all sorts of problems. That is not the sort of country we want them to come into.

Now, if they turn up here and we haven’t got the legal right to detain them while we process them, we assess their health and their mental health, and we probably feed them, because I suspect they would probably be short of food for the time they’ve come across the Tasman Sea—all those sorts of things have to be taken into consideration. It’s really, really important. It’s for these reasons that we’re passing this bill, so that we are seen as a country that’s ready to deal with these situations.

As the bill has progressed through, we’ve made some adjustments which have been well thought out. I commend the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for the work they did, mainly in the previous Parliament, obviously.

The safeguards establish that we require an immigration officer to establish, in making an application for a group warrant of commitment, why the proposed detention is necessary. They’ve got to establish that the detention sought is for the least amount of time and is the least restriction necessary to achieve the outcomes—right? The proposed detention actually now meets the Government’s obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which was something that was a concern for many. The proposed detention meets New Zealand’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and our other international obligations because we’re a good citizen of the world and we want to be seen that way. That’s very really important. It requires an immigration officer now to report to the court weekly, unless that is varied by a judge during a period of warrantless detention of a mass arrival group.

These are just pragmatic, sensible changes—OK? It allows a judge to order the location specified in the application of group or warrant of commitment to be varied to allow for this to all work smoothly.

It’s really important that New Zealand fulfils its obligations to people that are so desperate to come here and can make them feel as welcome as we can and process them appropriately. It’s really, really important. I feel really proud to be part of a Government and part of a Parliament that is actually dealing with this properly. I’m disappointed that some parties have opposed this. It’s very disappointing to see that the Green Party have decided to oppose it, and I commend the Labour Opposition for their support on this bill.

I commend my colleagues for their speeches and, on that, we’ll leave it there. I’d like to now commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.