O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Oh I was expecting more enthusiasm there. Can I firstly acknowledge actually Paolo Garcia who stepped in to act as the speaking chair earlier in this debate on behalf of foreign affairs and did an excellent job. I'll touch briefly on a number of the areas including customs; not only that it falls within this vote but obviously the Minister in the chair the Hon Jenny Salesa—to acknowledge her taking that role. But I would start with some thoughts that came out of the Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade. The member who has just resumed his chair Todd McClay touched on an important element in that around Israel. It was very timely and topical because in this case Immigration New Zealand had put up a false map and a misleading map that caused a lot of distress across various communities in New Zealand—of course within the Israeli and Jewish community more confusion and then increased frustration. So we were very pleased as a committee to raise that with the Minister not because it was a foreign affairs error—it was Immigration New Zealand—but we were heartened as a committee I think and I was that the Minister was forthright and has given assurances to the committee that this will not happen again and that the correct processes will be put in place. I've called for for a while as well that New Zealand should be relooking at how it does its diplomatic relations with Israel notably that we should not be having those relationships out of Ankara. That's not needed. In fact it arguably is the wrong symbolism—would certainly encourage New Zealand as we did in the discussion with the Minister to relook at how it does its diplomacy in that regard. Personally I'd like to see it in Israel; just as Israel's shown us respect by having its ambassador here we should be looking to have that in Israel. And secondly if that's not possible then the credentialling should be out of another embassy but not out of Turkey at this time. One of the elements of foreign affairs which I thought needed a bit of attention and gladly we talked to it was around APEC. Obviously in 2021 New Zealand will be hosting APEC. We're pleased to see that more money was put in. That's not unexpected but there are questions from this side of the House in particular whether enough money has been put aside. Just under NZ$200 million at the moment has been appropriated but we had noted that the Australians and the Papua New Guineans on their respective hostings had put over A$330 million into it so a substantial amount of money is required for APEC. I think we all on behalf of New Zealand Inc." want to see that succeed in 2021 so there were challenges coming from the committee to see that actually the money was going to be necessarily spent. There was a little bit of discussion around Scott Base in Antarctica. I had the great pleasure of actually joining people down there in January this year. I can see the needs but I think one of the questions that the committee had was obviously: what's the total spend going to be? There was some scepticism of the idea that millions of dollars would be given by private providers to fund Scott Base. I'm personally a bit sceptical on that and I'd want to put on the record here too that Scott Base is primarily about science and through the science we advance our foreign affairs. And to that end that has to be the priority and so the question will remain of whether the base development is simply about modernising or as I say supporting the science. We did challenge the Minister around the Government's relative silence around what's happening in Venezuela. We did also raise concerns around the pace if you will of our engagement around Brexit US and EU trade deals. It's all well and good to speak; we want to see some action. I promised to touch on customs. Congratulations to the Minister of Customs on taking the portfolio. It's a fascinating one. I suppose the only and primary question that I had and "concern" is possibly too strong a word but fundamentally the budget this year is lower than what was spent in the year previous; I think it's about 3 percent lower. I acknowledge particularly around child sex exploitation new monies and focus there. I don't think anyone in this House would oppose that but it was just a small question if you will of a ministry that had spent something like $249 million I think it was in the last year. We've seen a budget lower—lower—than that and so it just raises some question around capability particularly as the de minimis is changing: that is the amount of goods—value—coming through and there are some questions already that actually people are falsely bringing products into the country falsifying documentation and just making sure that the Customs Service has the money and support it needs to do its job."