SpeechSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Madam Speaker. Look a few introductory comments but before I get to that because I'm sure the Minister and the Government's at bated breath: National will be supporting this bill. So everyone can just chill and relax. I mentioned in my first reading speech how excited I was that we are dealing with a customs bill and I just want to put on the record that on the second reading I'm still excited. It's very good to have a customs bill here. I'm going to go through why this side of the House supports it. The second though very quick and general comment is to thank those on the front line of Customs. As the Minister knows they are working incredibly hard with some amazing drug busts of late. But one encouragement too because I know—and Barbara Edmonds the Minister will know—they've just finished training two dogs for Fiji which is brilliant; Customs dogs which is excellent. And just an encouragement to the Customs team that they should follow the line of the Fire Service and the Police and get themselves involved with the Friday floof. It's incredibly popular in the social media space; it genuinely is.National supports this bill because it's a sensible set of changes. We all know intuitively anecdotally and otherwise that the world is changing to a digital platform and the days of filling out pieces of paper or card are changing. And so for those at home wondering what this amendment bill is all about fundamentally there are several elements and they would have heard that from the Minister but as I understand them the fundamental change is that people are now going to be asked to fill out their arrival information online. In a similar way for those who have travelled in recent months they had to do—granted it was the health declaration and I know there's some controversy around that and so forth. But actually you went online and you filled it out and that's what's going to happen here. So in many ways the same questions which New Zealanders and others are familiar with in filling out that blue declaration card is now going to be online. A little element towards that which people need to understand—I think they need to understand they can choose not to of course it's a free world but actually the arrival card is a mixture of information from multiple Government departments. Customs asks a series of questions the Ministry for Primary Industry is asking a number of questions Immigration's asking a number of questions. And so that is pulled together into one card one piece of paper at the moment. Now that's going to be manifest online. And that was certainly where a lot of the committee work—and I was pleased to be there—debating and trying to understand first and foremost who is getting to set these questions. And there was a concern—at one level academic—going you know well actually could a whole series of questions which in some ways breach privacy or are unnecessary could that be asked? There was concern that actually in this primary piece of legislation this amendment bill it does not specify what exact questions should be on the card. A lot of time was spent debating that and it was quite generally one of my concerns as well. And that's not a reflection on those who run our ministries but it's just you know when you pass a piece of legislation you want it to be as tight as possible. We were assured time and time again—and it made sense to this side of the House and hence why you have a unanimous report—that actually the existing Customs and Excise Act of 2018 already gives powers to the chief executive first and foremost to set what the questions are but also sets some parameters. They do already set parameters of what can and cannot be asked and the Minister in her own contribution noted that trying to if you will change that aspect through this amendment bill would not make sense. And a good example in fact it was also used by the Minister—if tomorrow it was the decision to change how much alcohol or tobacco or whatever else you are to bring into the country that would naturally affect the questions and we'd have to come back into this House to pass primary legislation to make that change where it seems to be a good principle and subsidiarity to actually allow that to be with the chief executive. So that makes sense to us. And the assurances we've been given helps. We also know we can turn up to the Regulations Review Committee and elsewhere if there were challenges as well. And I suppose also—quickly to phrase it in the positive—I think on this side of the House and I assume it's the same with the Government we understand that questions will naturally change over time. There will be other requirements which arise where you go You know what? It's good that the chief executive can quickly introduce those."There was also questioning in a similar vein around data sharing. It's no surprise that you know you are giving away quite a bit of information when you come into the country. How is that being used? Posed in the positive we know from submissions from the tourism industry they are very keen to get hold of that data swiftly and quickly so they can understand who is coming to New Zealand which countries they are coming from and so forth. And Customs and our advisers were very very quick to assure us that access to data is important in an aggregated sense but also really keen to stress that while this data now is being collected in the more efficient form it will be shared only by agreement. And really importantly which I think put a lot of members—well certainly I should personalise it it put my mind at ease that Customs already has a number of memorandums of understanding and agreements with a number of Government departments to share information. So again I suppose the long and the short of it is it doesn't matter if it's the data privacy side or the data-sharing side the setting of questions—these are already mandated. The way these are operated or operationalised is already current under the excise Act. So again the amendment's not changing any of that. The fact that there are new penalty offences does make sense. But the committee also spent a little bit of time debating that. And look I'm not a lawyer—I know you hear me say that all the time—so I'm very happy to be corrected.Andrew Bayly: Thank God for that!SIMON O'CONNOR: I know thank God for that. Unfortunately I'm a philosopher which probably makes things worse; I don't know. That's off the topic. At the moment you fill out your arrival card on the plane as you are coming to New Zealand as you are arriving. This traveller declaration requires you to fill out the form arguably before you've arrived. You are going to be filling this out hours if not days prior to leaving. So you are doing an arrival card before you are arriving. And so the bill had to tweak some of the language and thank you to PCO and others who helped—so that's the Parliamentary Counsel Office our internal lawyers—just to make sure the wording of the legislation as proposed is rather tight to say it's not just in the act of arriving but in anticipation of it. So I myself found that quite interesting. And consequently too there's liability offences for those who do not fill out these forms. The transitional arrangements which the Minister alluded to also make sense. These arrival documents will need to apply to our military vessels and to those coming from the maritime vector. Making sure that that is done correctly is important. It's been one of my little bugbears over the years how we correctly police for want of a better word those coming through on seagoing vessels particularly the cruise ships. Again for most of us who travel on airlines you can only come in via one port. You've all got to go through those e-gates and hand over your documents and passport. It's slightly different when there are the thousands disembarking from the various cruise ships about how things are done. And I'm very keen to see that travel vector clearly policed and tightened. So it makes sense that time is going to be given there. And again for people just to intuitively think—I mean I'm an Auckland MP—how are you going to fill out these forms easily and swiftly online? You can imagine for want of a thought experiment if you're running late at Auckland Airport as you are arriving you'll be able to access a terminal. Are they going to roll out said terminals at the Auckland maritime border? Maybe they will. We will see. But it just takes a little bit of time. And that then leads me to my last thought and I'm pleased with what the Minister said which is support will be in place. That's National's only concern. But I just want to signal that's a low-level concern; it's just to make sure that there is sufficient support in place for those New Zealanders who are struggling to use the online systems. Mum and Dad I might be looking at you but I'll try to be a dutiful son and help them out. But there is actually a group of New Zealanders who will find it difficult to use online systems. And so from the National Party side we're just hoping there will be sufficient support in place from those call centres liaison officers and just people at the arrival gates to assist those people who need help obviously to use the online system. But really pleased to hear the Minister confirm that there will still be the option of these paper copies. And so with that just to thank—well to the extent that I can—the select committee. Jenny Salesa is a fantastic chair of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and helped guide this through. We didn't have a lot of submissions. I think we had five in total but they were five good ones and actually really got to the core of what needed to be done. And so with that I am happy to commend the bill with the House with the proviso that Customs as I say Minister engages itself along with Police and the Fire Service putting those amazing detector dogs up on a Friday."