Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Chair, and I’m grateful to the Minister for Social Development and Employment for her motion, which I also agree to. I think there are quite a lot of provisions in this bill and perhaps we don’t need to go through them all in order. I do want to ask specifically in relation to an amendment that we did pay particular attention to during the select committee process, which I was a part of, in relation to Part 2, and the section that relates to the retention of an employer of an individual employment agreement, and terms and conditions of that employment.

Now, when I was going through the updated legislative statement from this bill, I didn’t see some of the changes that you can see in this bill that have been made due to the underlining at the Education and Workforce Committee. I didn’t see those referenced in the legislative statement, and I wanted to know if that was simply because the Minister didn’t want to highlight all of the particular changes that were made and only wanted to focus on the Immigration Act changes—which I appreciate are probably the more substantive changes—or if that was just an oversight and maybe it should have been included in the legislative statement. That’s probably my first question in relation to that.

The other point was that we did have a significant debate at select committee, and I did mention this in my second reading speech yesterday, about the desire for terms and conditions of employment to be reciprocally held between employer and employee. We did make some changes in relation to that, but there was a little bit of concern that the fact of making sure that an employer retains a copy may put extra emphasis on the employer holding a copy and not the employee. We did discuss additionally the way that employment agreements might be shared in this day and age. For example, in the past, it might be that people only had paper copies, and usually you’d have two, one for each party—that would be best practice—but these days perhaps people are sharing employment agreements electronically more.

I had another thought—I wondered if there was any consideration to how this might be managed and, effectively, if any information will be going out to employees about this additional obligation as well. I think it’s something that we all support—both parties having a copy of the employment agreement—but it is a slightly new change to our legislation. There will probably need to be some education for employers about that additional duty and whether there will be any monitoring of that, and, of course, my original questions around the legislative statement.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the member for raising the questions. These regulatory systems bills, for those who are watching the committee, are unanimously agreed and are non-contentious. I thank the member for her question around education, and I’ll take that back and ask the Minister in charge to consider that.

I do have some other issues that I wanted to discuss with the Minister. Yesterday, when we had the second reading, the main parts that I was interested in, in this bill, were the changes to employment contracts, which we’ve already covered. I also was interested in amendments to the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The reason that I was interested in that is obviously, as previously mentioned, the scrutiny that I perform in my role as Opposition spokesperson in relation to WorkSafe, but these particular changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, which was brought in by the National Government after the Pike River tragedy that occurred—and interestingly, and perhaps also relevant to that tragedy, is the fact that there are changes in relation to mining in this. These changes, as I understand, are mainly in relation to clarifications of the difference between a tourist mining operation and other types of mining operations.

I think it’s worth just if the Minister had any thoughts around these particular changes and the improvements that it would make—the Minister will be aware that her colleague is doing a review of health and safety that’s fulsomely of the Act, so it may be that some of these provisions are looked at as part of the Minister’s review. I’m interested if she has any views that she can share, maybe she can’t because of the fact that it hasn’t been released yet, on how these will interact with that review.

Additionally, a question in general is these regulatory systems bills make sensible changes to Acts that help them to work more effectively, and I, in fact, wondered if the review that the Minister is undertaking in this area could perhaps, in many ways, be dealt with through a regulatory systems bill because of the fact that, in my view—and I’d be interested if the Minister shares this view, which I expressed yesterday—the health and safety in New Zealand should be ideally approached in a bipartisan manner. These are bipartisan bills that obtain support from parties, ideally, across the House and make sensible, pragmatic changes.

I personally think that is a really good place to start, in relation to health and safety. In relation to that part, I wondered if the Minister had any reflections that she wished to make on how this type of review of this very important Act would be able to maintain its bipartisan support moving forward, and any reflections or discussions she’s been able to have with the Minister on her work in this particular area. That’s in relation to Part 4.

I’m sure every member in this committee shares the member Camilla Belich’s interest in health and safety, but the review is out of scope of this regulatory systems bill, so I won’t be commenting on that.

The other matter which I would be interested to find out some additional thoughts from the Minister on is in relation to Part 7, which is the section that talks about pre-term baby payments. Now, the Minister—and I thank the Minister for this—answered favourably in relation to the idea of education following this bill, but I think that perhaps this section is even more important.

Just to sum up, essentially, Part 7 of this bill makes it clear that a pre-term baby payment will be available to those parents who have a baby prior to 37 weeks and that that is in addition to the parental leave that they’re entitled to. Although it’s a change that is, I think, appropriately made under a regulatory systems bill, it is actually something that I think would benefit from having some education and some publicity around the fact that this is actually the case.

I reflected yesterday in the second reading—and I’m sure everyone agrees—that when you have a pre-term baby, it’s an extremely stressful time. I think we can all be very proud that we are supporting legislation to make it clear that 13 weeks, at maximum, in addition to your paid parental leave payments will be available for pre-term babies. That’s for, I think, babies as small as 24 weeks, which is a very, very early baby to be born, but of course, through the incredible health professionals that we have who work with pre-term babies, they are able to have very successful outcomes with some of these very early babies.

Of course we all acknowledge that parents need support, and this is a very good policy, I think. The fact that it clarifies that it is in addition to and not kind of coinciding with parental leave is really important, but I do want to ask the Minister how we will best be able to tell New Zealanders about this. I think it’s something that’s positive and I think it should be information which is available to people in hospitals, perhaps. Perhaps that would be the best way for people who are in neonatal intensive care units, if there’s information available. It may be—as this is a clarification of, I think, something that should have already been the case—that this information is currently available to people, but if that’s not the case, then the Government, I believe, should be providing information to people to make sure that they are clear about their entitlements.

I just acknowledge the incredibly difficult time that a lot of people who have pre-term babies go through, which I’m sure is shared with everyone. It’s great that we’re doing something about it and that we can all agree—everyone agrees with that. It’d be great to have some clarification from the Minister whether she has any thoughts on that, and about further education on the pre-term baby intersection with parental leave under Part 7.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question for the Minister with regards to Part 5 of this bill, if I may, on the amendments to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007. I’m specifically looking at clause 25 on the replacement of section 9 of the Act, and I want to home in on section 9(1)(b).

The reason I mention this, and I mentioned this in my second reading, is the fact that if you’re looking at section 9(1)(b), which is those who are exempted from the requirement to be licensed under section 11 of the Act, it specifically refers to—and this is section 11 of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, section 11(h)(i) and (ii). The reason I want to ask the Minister whether the Minister or the officials have considered making an amendment to this is because, for section 11 of the bill, (h)(i) and (ii) talk about those people who are exempted being “persons who provide—(i) immigration advice offshore; and (ii) [the] advice only in respect of applications made under the Immigration Act 2009 for a temporary entry class visa—temporary visa—student visa:”.

Now, one of the things I highlighted in the second reading is the fact that we do see this loophole in our immigration system where unlicensed immigration advisers offshore are able to provide advice to potential international students when they are coming onshore to study. This has been also highlighted in media a number of times, where we do see international students being exploited as a result of having unlicensed immigration advisers offshore. My question to the Minister is: if we are making these sorts of technical changes, which is what the regulatory bill is doing, was there any consideration being given when we are looking at potentially amending section 11?

I can see that clause 26 does, in fact, amend section 11 of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act—so, whether that has also been considered when it comes to amending section 11(h); if not, has there been any advice the Minister’s received or been given on why that part wasn’t amended? Noting that we do have quite a serious issue around international student exploitation by offshore unlicensed advisers. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for his question. This was a matter that was raised in the select committee consideration of the bill, but it was considered to be outside of the scope of this regulatory systems bill. They’re very tight in scope in nature and are non-controversial, so it wasn’t able to be considered as part of this bill.

Parts 1 to 8, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.