Lewis StephSTEPH LEWIS (Labour—Whanganui): Thank you Madam Speaker. I am very pleased to rise and take a call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. I'm very excited I am doing this as in a former life I was Customs' senior privacy adviser. So I'd like to begin my call by reassuring my colleague across the House—Todd McClay—that the information that is currently collected on the arrival card is in fact used and is needed by the Government. The interesting thing about the arrival card is that while it's collected by Customs as the initial point of contact the information contained on the arrival card and requested is actually done on behalf of Customs the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) Immigration New Zealand and is used by Stats NZ in the calculation of GDP. It's actually counted as tier one statistic information; so it is vital information. I just really want to get that on record and reassure you there.In fact the other reason I'm really excited to take a call on this bill is because while I worked at Customs one of the projects I was lucky enough to be involved in was the collection of GST on small goods being bought overseas and brought into New Zealand. That helped to level the playing field for our local retailers. I can tell you again that Customs and the other border agencies really take their collection of information very very seriously and they make sure that they consult rigorously with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to ensure that they are compliant with principle 1 of the Privacy Act—that is that they're only collecting information that is connected to a lawful function of their agency.The other project I was lucky enough to work on at the New Zealand Customs Service was in fact the digital arrival card trial. In fact I wrote the privacy impact assessment for the digital arrival card trial. So I'm incredibly excited to see it coming full circle and we're now making moves to implement that permanently at the border. That will actually make the experience for travellers be they returning New Zealanders or visitors to New Zealand much simpler. It means that with the digital arrival card and the utilisation of the e-gates or the smart gates at the border a traveller can disembark go through the e-gates and not have to talk to a customs officer and potentially even get right through MPI without having to have contact or stop and talk to border officers. So it will in fact make a traveller's process through the border and into New Zealand much more seamless and much more efficient and will result in a lot less queuing at the border. So I absolutely applaud the Minister for bringing this bill to the House.The other interesting thing to note is that currently with the paper-based arrival cards airlines are having to set aside huge amounts of space on aeroplanes and it's costing them a lot in emissions to carry around the paper-based arrival cards. So not only will this improve traveller experience but it is also going to result in space savings and emissions savings for our airlines. So I wholeheartedly support the Minister's desire to move us to a digital border and I commend this bill to the House.