Ngaro Alfred: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 15 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7303. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): Fakaalofa atu ki a mutolu oti. I just want to acknowledge that it is nearly the end of Niue Language Week. How that relates to the Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) is that Niue is one of the nations of the Realm of New Zealand. It is one of the three nations of the Realm of New Zealand that actually use a New Zealand passport as well. So I just want to acknowledge that it is Niue Language Week.Passports have become very important because they allow us to travel. I just want to acknowledge that just recently I with the New Zealand Parliamentary Rugby Team and my colleague and friend over there Kris Faafoi and nine other members of Parliament went over there to represent the New Zealand Parliament.Carmel Sepuloni: What happened to the cup?ALFRED NGARO: Yes well if it were like it was for the netball girls where we had two games and we won we actually would have come back with a cup. Unfortunately we had a situation where the rules were set against us—the rules were set against us. I am sure that my colleague friend and playing colleague Kris Faafoi would agree that we put our bodies on the line. We did everything that we could to make people proud of us and at every border that we went through—Los Angeles—it was an honour to pull out our New Zealand passports and then be able to enter into London and over there.Just in regards to this bill in its third reading I am proud to take a short call. I acknowledge the work of the Government Administration Committee and of the Minister in this intent. I just want to make some comments about the previous speaker and the previous Government in 2001. There was some sense that it had overreacted in reducing the validity period of the passports from 10 years to 5 years. I think that that actually was the right thing to do. Obviously evidence and experience has shown that other countries—in fact Canada was one of those countries that did reduce its validity period from 10 years to 5 years as well. Canada has now increased it along with the Netherlands so I think actually that the New Zealand Government has shown that as now it is felt that there are issues around security and integrity around border control with these passports it is time to increase that validity period from 5 years to 10 years.I just have a couple of comments to make to add to the debate in this third and final reading. I think that what is also important is that the bill also reduces the maximum validity period of certificates of identity. In other words these are non - New Zealand citizens who may be within New Zealand borders and therefore need a certificate to be able to allow for them to travel outside New Zealand. So we grant them a certificate—the period at this time is 4 years. What the select committee has come up with—international convention is 1 year; we have now secured that at 2 years. We think that that is important and it is in line with international conventions.The other thing that I think has also been important is that we have seen since 2012 that the online renewal of passports has increased. In fact 40 percent of adults are now renewing online so that upgrade to technology is important as many have talked about. Being able to be chipped in your passports and going through SmartGates has also made the ability for people to transfer into New Zealand and other countries much more easy as well.I have just a couple of last comments that I want to make. The other thing I think—just for those in the public—is that we have talked about a 10-year validity period. This is only for adults so that is for people aged 16 years and up but children will still have to have a 5-year validity period. I think those are some things that are important.Many have talked about our passport. It is a passport that is recognised overseas as being world class. We know that 170 countries acknowledge our passport and therefore do not require us to have visas and that shows that our passports have both the credibility and integrity that is important internationally as well.This is a bill that is a very simple bill really. It makes some changes. It upgrades into the latest technology as well and I think that is important. But at the same time it makes sure that passports are affordable and accessible. I commend this bill to the House.