Immigration Bill Completes Committee Stage

An immigration bill to increase punishments for people exploiting migrant labour has completed its committee stage.

Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse said theImmigration Amendment Bill (No 2) would be amended in the committee stage. There had been some heated debate about it and the Greens and Labour did not support the bill because of the search powers it contained, though they supported the wider notion of it.

The bill created a heavier sanction regime for those who exploited immigrant labour and the search powers had easily passed a bill of rights test, Mr Woodhouse said.

Sue Moroney said Labour opposed the bill for wider reasons as the bill did not address the problem of migrant labour exploitation and was just window dressing.

The bill completed its committee stage with amendments with votes going 61 to 58 with National, ACT and United Future in favour.

MPs then began the committee stage debate on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill.

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