Tuiono TeanauTEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens and we will be supporting this Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. Just a brief description of the bill for families that have just tuned in: this bill is intended to make changes alongside the move to digitalise arrival cards that are not currently provided for in the legislation. This follows on from the changes made during the COVID-19 border measures and so as families and whānau were coming home there needed to be different types of information even more detailed information that needed to be given that couldn't be done by paper. So what I see this doing is picking up from the lessons learnt in terms of the way that things were processed at the border during COVID. But I did note what the Minister said in her opening statement that of course this is separate from COVID legislation and that will be dealt with appropriately within health legislation. But it's important for us to pick up and learn from the last two years because who knows what tomorrow is going to bring.I think once we get this to select committee we will start to look at different regimes around the world and I would say about the US one—and I remember going through there during September 11th and the Americans unilaterally got rid of transit and they haven't got it back yet. So they have a completely different system. They've got a lot more people moving through their borders. They've got a different profile in terms of you know agriculture and biosecurity and all that kind of stuff as well. So what I would say to the select committee is to not necessarily go straight to the US but if you're going to do comparatives look for countries which have a similar profile to us.This legislation involves establishing an explicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide prescribed arrival information in arrival cards which are currently done in hard-copy form. It's creating two new offences: one for failing to provide prescribed arrival information and one for providing arrival information that is erroneous in a material particular"—i.e. significantly erroneous information. The fine incurred would be a maximum of $1000. I was digging into the RIS into the regulatory impact statement and it said that the agency's preferred option was for $400. So there's $600 that just got pulled out of the air somewhere. So I would encourage the select committee to dig into where that $600 came from. Would it actually do what we want it to do? You know would pinging someone harder—$600 harder—do what we want it to do? Why not $500? Why not $700? Why that particular number? I think that's really important work for the select committee to get into and also trying to get a bit more around the rationale about why you would do that and whether it would actually deter the sorts of behaviour that we're trying to stop as well.The legislation also makes the power to make regulations: to set the time by which arrival information must be provided to the New Zealand Customs Service and also to exempt persons from the requirement to complete arrival information where it is not practical or necessary—for example people rescued at sea.The proposed legislation also will give "a power for Customs to collect certain information about persons arriving in New Zealand to verify compliance with traveller requirements set out in [regulation] administered by other agencies."—but only where this is provided for or authorised in other legislation. There are currently no examples for this but the regulatory impact statement speaks to the potential need for this in a possible future pandemic for example.As the previous speaker Steph Lewis got up and spoke I was just reflecting on her member's bill that we managed to get through the House a couple of weeks ago—a couple of months ago? One of the concerns that we had was around language and accessibility. When people come into the country not everybody has devious and mischievous means and we're out there to catch them. Some people just need to understand that these are the conditions you must adhere to when you come into the country. One of the things that we talked about was language accessibility of people coming in from different countries making sure that that is available for them in their language and to make sure that it's also accessible as well for people that are visually impaired or hearing impaired as well—to make sure that that gets picked up as well.Finally probably something that I've heard from both sides and that I think is really important is around making sure that we don't overshare information. I would expect the select committee to really get into the detail about that around privacy protections and making sure that you're getting the right information but then also having a really important rationale about why you're getting that information and taking on board the comments made by the Privacy Commissioner. I've got faith that the select committee will be very very vigorous in that regard in terms of acknowledging that a lot of information is collected anyway when you come into the country so the stuff that is being gathered—to make sure that it's in line with the concerns that the Privacy Commissioner has brought up. But also I'm sure members from around the House will also raise some concerns about that as well and that is good and important. Thank you Madam Speaker."