Rurawhe Adrian: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second ReadingText is subject to correctionRurawhe Adrian: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 08 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:1. Text is subject to correction.]ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru):It is a pleasure to rise to speak to this bill. First of all I would like to say that we support the Passports Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to congratulate the Minister of Internal Affairs again on bringing this bill to the House. Over 1 year ago Labour announced that we indeed would extend the period for passports to 10 years. So it is great to be able to see one of our policies come to the House.Although 5-year passports were very important and they were brought in for a particular purpose that purpose is now no longer needed and that is due to biometric technology as the Government Administration Committee found out last year.Five-year passports have been very unpopular with Kiwis. A lot of the public feel that they have been ripped off that the 5-year period is not long enough and that some countries having an expectation that you have a certain amount of time left on your passport really in effect means that the passport is valid for only 4½ years. So we in the Government Administration Committee as the Minister has mentioned heard the submissions and most of the submissions were in favour of extending the passport period to 10 years.In fact if I was to summarise the submissions they basically said that we agree with 10 years; get on with it. Some of them literally actually said that: “Get on with it.” So I am pleased that the Government Administration Committee as efficient as we are did actually get on with it and brought forward the commencement date to 30 November. I think that was done as much as anything so that Kiwis who want to apply for passports in November or December to travel overseas during Christmas and the New Year will be able to do so. So I think that is a little something that the Government Administration Committee was able to achieve collectively. Of course as I said before 5-year passports have been very unpopular so it is good that we were able to do that.The other issue that I want to talk about is the cost. There have been reports and information that Treasury really wanted to charge $400 for passports. That indeed would be very unpopular as well. So I congratulate the Minister again on getting the cost at $180. But I just want to say this: it needs to be sustainable into the future beyond 2018. I understand there is a commitment to keep the price at $180. It is important because not only are passports travel documents they are also identification documents. Some businesses departments and different organisations require identification such as passports for certain activities and certain processes. I think it is important that we make sure that there is access to the ability to have identification of oneself. So it is not just a travel document.We want to make sure also that in supporting this bill the cost needs to be kept at a manageable level for ordinary Kiwis. The one million Kiwis in particular who live under the poverty line need to be thought about in this instance—$180 is a lot of money for some families. If one family is applying for passports for mum dad and two or three tamariki then that cost is a huge amount in some people’s budget.I also want to mention the employees at the Department of Internal Affairs with regard to the extension of passports to 10 years. We expect that over time there will be fewer passport applications to process because people will do that every 10 years not every 5 years. We have just heard concerns about the Employment Standards Legislation Bill which has just gone through its first reading. I want to raise the issue about Department of Internal Affairs’ staff who currently process passports. They ought to be redeployed within the department and not made redundant I think. I think that ordinary Kiwis out there receiving the ability to have 10-year passports rather than 5-year passports would be in general very concerned that people would lose their jobs under this bill. I think that is an important issue.I want to acknowledge also that there are some technical changes within the bill that the Minister has talked about. There are some I am sure that we will talk about further at the Committee stage. But for now we question whether or not it is really necessary for some of those technical issues and we look forward to debating those further.This bill is very straightforward. It is very much understood by the general public and we commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.