Goff gets tough on people smugglers

By FRANCESCA MOLD

The Government has drawn up tough new laws against people smuggling, designed to quash suggestions that New Zealand is a soft touch for illegal migrants.

The laws target employers who hire illegal migrants and those who bring them into the country.

Traffickers caught sneaking people into the country will face up to 20 years in prison or up to $500,000 in fines.

Employers who hire people without work permits will no longer be able to claim they did not know about their illegal status and could be fined up to $10,000.

Fines for businesses that "knowingly" hire illegal migrants will jump from $5000 to $50,000.

Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff said there was evidence that smugglers looking to bring people in by air had come to New Zealand to set up systems.

But there was no evidence that traffickers who used boats as transport were operating here.

"There are rumours, of course, and there have been for months about ships coming down to New Zealand," he said.

"They haven't eventuated yet but we take the possibility seriously and obviously want to try to stop that at the beginning rather than the end."

The legislative changes include:

* Giving Customs officers the power to intercept vessels and arrest smugglers without a warrant.

* Increasing penalties for those who for their own "material gain" help people enter or remain in New Zealand illegally from three months in prison and a $5000 fine to up to seven years and $100,000.

* Imposing penalties of seven years in jail and a $100,000 fine on employers convicted of exploiting illegal workers by paying them less than the minimum wage, withholding their documents or forcing them to work in the sex industry or sweatshops.

* A new conditional release category allowing asylum seekers to leave prison or the Mangere Refugee Centre as long as they report to officials and live in a certain place.

* Stronger disclosure provisions, enabling Immigration officials to share information with international law enforcement and border security agencies.

The stiff new measures come after Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock predicted that the New Zealand Government's acceptance of 131 refugees from the Tampa - the ship Australia barred - would make the nation an attractive target for people smugglers.

Mr Ruddock said last month that intelligence suggested many of the smugglers were now talking more about New Zealand than about Australia.

They had noted New Zealand's high approval rates for the Tampa refugees.

Mr Goff said the new laws would target those who smuggled for financial gain, not people who hid family members who overstayed their permits.

The heaviest fines and jail terms would be imposed in situations where people were injured during the attempt to breach the borders or if the smugglers were connected with international crime organisations.

In one of the few cases of people smuggling to come before the courts, a Saudi Arabian man was convicted last December of helping three Iraqi women enter New Zealand without visas.

Judge Jeremy Doogue said at the time that he had to weigh up whether to jail Fahad Hubaitir Alshamari so New Zealand was not seen as an "easy target" for smuggling people, or send him home so he would not be a drain on the taxpayer. Judge Doogue fined Alshamari $1730 and ordered him to leave on a flight that the Saudi man had already booked. The women have since sought political asylum.

Mr Goff said the international people-smuggling business was worth $US10 billion ($24 billion) a year.

"We have largely been protected against it by virtue of distance and by virtue of the bulk of Australia standing between us and the transit countries," he said. "But we cannot rely simply on those things in the future."

National's Immigration spokeswoman Marie Hasler said she supported attempts to stop people smuggling, but was concerned businesses would bear the cost of some of the new measures.

The sophisticated smuggling operations involved supplying illegal workers with false passports and other documents and it would be unfair to expect employers to detect fraudulent papers.

She believed the Government should concentrate on stopping illegal migrants at the border rather than putting the responsibility for policing them on business.

The introduction of the Transnational Organised Crime Bill yesterday will meet New Zealand's obligations to the United Nations.

It came as Mr Goff and Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel left for an international people-smuggling conference in Bali.

"The message the two ministers will take to Indonesia will be that anyone who has ideas about setting off for New Zealand should know of the most unpleasant welcome which will await the criminals behind the trade and crews that come on the boats," Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday.

Anne Knowles, executive director of Business New Zealand, said the threat of heavy fines would force employers to become immigration officers.

"Look at seasonal fruitpicking," she said. "There's huge demand on growers to get their product picked and packed quickly. They take people on in good faith and fulfil all their legal requirements, but now they are going to have to look closely at everyone who looks vaguely foreign. These people have enough to do without being immigration police as well."