Hon. Dr Lockwood Smith MP National Party Immigration Spokesman

05 April 2006

Labour immigration 'review' underwhelming

National's Immigration spokesman Dr Lockwood Smith says Labour's review of the Immigration Act is "fantastically underwhelming".

"After six long years of a Labour Government, National was expecting some significant policy to be announced today. Instead, all we got was another review. It is what you expect when a tired Government has no policy."

Dr Smith says good government process normally requires a government to announce its policy proposals, consult on those, and then develop legislation to implement those policies.

"But this legislative review is now inevitably to be held in a vacuum as the Government admits the discussion paper does not review immigration policy.

"This underwhelming release by Labour makes a farce of the secrecy that preceded its announcement, the extraordinary lock-up with media and the embargo on the information. This unnecessary grandstanding all adds up to a Government that is losing the plot.

"National plans to carefully examine today's announcement. There are bound to be aspects that we will want to look at more closely and comment on in due course," says Dr Smith.

ENDS

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