Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. I would like to begin by acknowledging the previous speaker the Hon Nicky Wagner for her work on getting this enormous piece of work—as she's noted—under way and of course the current Minister of Customs as well for completing it. I would also like to acknowledge the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee as others have done. This is really an example of a piece of work where people working collegially together and the submission process have really worked.This is a bill that will essentially futureproof our customs law and practice making those processes more able to respond to new technologies to new trade practices and making them more transparent and fairer as well which the Green Party supports. Some of the problems that we did have initially with this bill before the select committee process began were centred around privacy. I think most New Zealanders would be quite surprised to know that we don't in fact have a right to privacy in our law so it is really important that our privacy rights are safeguarded properly within legislation that affects them. The Customs and Excise Act is one of those pieces of legislation.Now in terms of the way that the Customs Service is able to work alongside our criminal justice system it has always been concerning where frameworks around securing our privacy rights and search and seizure rights have not been in line with that of the police force in our criminal justice context. I am glad to see that some of those concerns have now been allayed so to speak.So there are things like you know the way that customs can look at electronic technology that's in somebody's possession. This is something that the courts have been really interested in as have courts around the world including the United States Supreme Court where rights of privacy are actually very important. How much can customs who have an enormous amount of power when they stop you at the airport do to look not only in your possessions but actually go through your phone and look at your pictures. I think most of us would agree that those pieces of technology should attract and do attract the highest level of privacy rights because most of us carry the most intimate of information on those pieces of technology. This bill now sort of secures some of our rights by requiring judicial oversight of customs powers to seize and to get that information.The other area of privacy that we were concerned about that we feel has now been addressed was the collection and sharing of mass information which is going to become more and more of a concern in New Zealand—it is already a concern. We all know that Government agencies now hold an enormous amount of data and may begin to share it between themselves in a way that affects people's rights so we do need frameworks around that so that information that's been collected for one purpose in one context isn't then inappropriately shared and used in another context to disadvantage or prejudice those affected. We feel again that that has thankfully been addressed through the select committee process and through changes to drafting in this bill.Some of the issues that didn't relate to privacy that have now been addressed that we raised as the Green Party initially were around the way that the value of imports and exports is recorded essentially. Some work has been done through consultation with the IRD on the redrafting of this bill so that foreign corporates for example can't bypass our tax system and are paying fair tax which is an important role of customs as we know.The other issue that we felt was concerning was in the way that this bill initially prejudiced manufacturers over importers in the way that it treated them in excise duty. That has now been addressed as well and as we know it is important to support New Zealand manufacturers to compete fairly in the market so we are very happy to see that that's also been addressed.It is a pleasure to support this bill. It has been by all indications a huge amount of work for everyone involved who have done incredibly well and have futureproofed our customs laws. I commend the bill to this House.