Williamson Maurice: Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill — First Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:14090] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 The Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill is a double bill because last night as we introduced it we also introduced the Customs Amendment Bill. I am disappointed that Damien O’Connor is not going to take his 6½ minutes to speak on it because last night he got up and got so many things wrong in the first part of the bill as did “Sio” William Sio that I want to correct just two of them. I could spend the rest of the speech on them. 
First of all they said that the Government had increased the import transaction fee but that is not true. It has been $24.75 and it will stay $24.75. Then they said that it would apply to passengers coming in from travelling overseas. Damien O’Connor said that he was now nervous about coming back through customs because he might get socked with it. Well no he will not. The import transaction fee will not apply to any passengers coming through. It does not apply no matter whether they are over the $700 limit. The misinformation we got from Labour members last night including Su’a William Sio was that we had increased it. The other one was a cracker! It was that the Government had increased the fee to pay for the joint border management system that is coming. That is not true. It is a straight cost recovery for the transaction fee alone. That is where the expansion to cover a few items was. 
I will come to the bill. The bill will allow cost recovery of passenger clearance services at new and restart international airports. Let us get that clear—a new international airport. Let us think of a place that has not got one at present—for example Taihape. If Taihape wanted to— 
Jo Goodhew 
: Timaru. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: OK. I think our member from Timaru has a very good case for having an international airport. I am not sure it will happen soon but maybe one day. Timaru wants to get an international airport. We are saying in this bill that it is too easy to put up the case and have somebody else pay for things like the Customs Service the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries service and the Aviation Security Service. This bill will allow the Government to set a time frame—although in this legislation it is up to 3 years we have signalled we will go up only to 2 years—for which a new international airport has to charge the airlines and the users for the cost for the provision of that service. That is a sensible thing. After that has settled down and has proved to have some longevity—that it is not going to run for 3 months and then shut down—then that will be the case. 
In the case of restart airports this legislation does something different again. It gives a period of grace of up to 6 months—it will be put into regulation but the legislation says up to 6 months. Let us say we have an airport operating as an international airport and it decides it will no longer carry on so it shuts its international services. We have had this in the past and I can tell members that my Customs Service has faced a huge amount of costs to pay out for redundancies to close down operations to move the plant and equipment and to resettle the whole operation because an airport that was operating is no longer international. We are saying that if an airport is going to close there will be a grace period of up to 6 months which will be prescribed in regulation. During that time the airport might try to find another international operator. If it can find one in that time frame good stuff; it gets the operator and it carries on with the regime being funded for it. But if it takes 18 months before it decides to start again or if on a whim somebody says they will have a crack at flying some in there is no way it can expect the Government to pour a fortune of money into the system to get it all back up and running with aviation security Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries inspections and customs inspections only to find that it might last 3 months and then close again with all the associated costs. 
This bill is a component of the overall funding arrangements for passenger clearance services. It was actually agreed by the previous Labour Government and the aviation sector back in 2005. That is when the agreement for this came in. I think the previous Government got it right and I gave it praise for that 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Sorry? Can you repeat that please? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I will say it again: I give the previous Labour Government praise for getting this agreement through. This legislation will now confirm that. It is a good step in the right direction. I repeat it so that everyone is clear: it simply provides that if any city in New Zealand wants to start a new international air service into that town as Timaru may want to then the new airport will have to find the funding through its passenger charges and so on for at least 2 years—maybe a year but no more than 3 years because the maximum can be defined in the regulations as 3 years. The Government has as members will see in the cover note to the bill indicated that we are going to start at 2 years. 
Let us take another airport that is currently running. I will not give an example in this case because if I pick one there would be a kerfuffle with people running around saying that the Minister said in the House that that airport is closing. Let us take airport X which is operating out there as an international airport. If it decides that it will no longer be an international airport because an international airline is pulling out and will not carry on flying into this airport so it is not economically viable then a period of grace of up to 6 months will lie for that airport company to find a new operator to get it in and get it operating. We will give them that period of grace with no extra charge. If the airport does not do that the clock stops and it will then be treated as a new airport. 
This is a very good bill. It is heading in the right direction about putting some real responsibility on people as to how they behave and about how costs fall best where they lie. I commend the bill to the House.