Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's great to see that the House is in support of this bill and I'd like to thank all the speakers that have spoken this evening and also the Ministers that have been involved—the current Minister of Customs and previous Ministers as well—that have made this bill a reality by doing the hard work that we are now seeing coming to fruition today with the Labour Party.Kieran McAnulty: What a nice guy.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes what a nice guy. But that last speaker Virginia Andersen did mention something which was very interesting. She spoke about how the borders are so important and that is true. Our country is a country that relies on trade and as a trading nation our borders are crucial especially when we are a trading nation in mainly food products. Those food products require that we have a strong border and biosecurity system to enable us to be able to sell on the international markets in the way that we do. Everything that goes in the customs border security biosecurity area and enhances and makes that area stronger is something that's actually in the best interests of New Zealand as a whole and something that we should all be supporting as we do see in this House tonight so that is great to see.However when we look at our borders there's another issue at our borders and that's around immigration. It's difficult to see any support from the Government for immigration in these current times. Anybody that's an electorate MP will have significant cases coming to them where the Government departments are denying work permits denying the ability of people to make New Zealand their home and clamping down effectively on immigration. What we're seeing from the Government is not a change in the settings around immigration but a direction to the department to not approve cases. That's directly impacting the work that you're seeing as electorate MPs. Anybody from across both sides of the House will be seeing an increase in rejection rates at immigration and the rejection of cases that are fair and should be allowed to stay in New Zealand or come into New Zealand. That distinct directive from the Government to Immigration New Zealand to stop the immigration is something that is very destructive to the future of this country going forward.We see all the Labour MPs. They always turn up at events and say how supportive they are of migrant communities when at the same time they're deliberately stopping people coming into this country. If you look at the last immigration statistics—a 3000 reduction in the last month alone. I know the Assistant Speaker will be looking at the bill and saying This is a customs bill." but we are talking about borders and that last speaker said how proud she was of the borders in New Zealand and the work the Government is doing and what can be more important in a border than people? The Labour Party have taken a great interest in denying people their future in this country and they've done that in an underhand way.Hon Phil Twyford: What a load of rubbish.Hon DAVID BENNETT: I hear that member over there Mr Twyford say "rubbish"; we know Mr Twyford's preoccupation with people coming from the Asia-Pacific region and how he does not want people coming into this country from Asia. His propensity in that area has been very difficult to stop. There has been—and I challenge the Labour members to prove otherwise—a directive given to Immigration New Zealand—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I'll ask the member to come back to the bill.Hon DAVID BENNETT: As we're saying Mr Assistant Speaker we are dealing with our borders. The last speaker brought this up and I'm just following on from her point and just elucidating on the treatment of people coming into this country at this time because it is a disgrace for this country to be so restrictive to people that want to make their future in New Zealand. I'm just wanting to make that point so that people understood that when that last speaker made her point about our borders—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And I ask once again that you do come to the bill.Hon DAVID BENNETT: —it was not fair in the way that that was represented.But when we look at the Customs and Excise Bill it does bring together a lot of the things that most Ministers in this area have been working on for a while. It needed a bit of reflection and a modernising of the regulations to enable it to be more effective in the modern environment. Mr Assistant Speaker I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill but I'd just like to make it clear to New Zealanders that there is a directive from the Labour Party to stop people coming into this country. It's shown in the facts shown in the numbers and don't believe them when they go around trying to say that they support people coming to this country. It's not true. It never has been true. The unions will not allow people to come into this country—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And for the third time that has nothing to do with this bill.Hon DAVID BENNETT: —and so Mr Assistant Speaker thank you."