Dean Jacqui: Border (Customs Excise and Tariff) Processing Bill — First Reading 
Dean Jacqui: Border (Customs Excise and Tariff) Processing Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7122] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to speak in the first reading of the Border (Customs Excise and Tariff) Processing Bill. I am excited to speak about the bill because of the announcement made in August by our Prime Minister John Key and the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that both New Zealand and Australia will install SmartGate to make it simpler and more efficient to cross the Tasman. The intention of the announcement in August by the two Prime Ministers was to help streamline trans-Tasman travel. It is not travel that I am particularly excited about but rather the opportunity for New Zealand to further enhance and exploit its opportunities with our major trading nation Australia. Now that has to be a good thing. 
We have not only an important and growing trade in passenger travel between Australia and New Zealand but also a very important trade in goods and services. Anything we can do at our borders to facilitate that trade has got to be a good thing not only for Australia but for New Zealand. I care less about Australia; I care more about New Zealand. I care a lot about the fact that Australians will now find it easier to travel to New Zealand and back home again just as I think it important that those of us with friends family and business across the Tasman will find it easier to travel there too. 
But more important than the economic impact of those closer ties with Australia is the opportunity—and it is an opportunity—to tidy up and strengthen New Zealand Customs Service biosecurity measures at the border. It is worth reflecting on the opportunities that those new technologies through SmartGate offer to New Zealand. That automated passenger clearance system uses biometric technology. Now that is a step forward. It is being used in Australia. It will be used over time in New Zealand. That offers us a great deal of comfort in terms of biosecurity threats to New Zealand. For example members might think about bananas coming across our border. Although a painted apple moth might come in via a container the biggest biosecurity threat is from fruit such as apples and bananas being brought in by passengers. Let us consider what can be developed in the future. With the scanning of bags happening in Australia we will be getting information from passengers as they depart the Australian borders. One might argue that Australians will not care that there might be a banana or a piece of fruit in some passengers’ bags when they leave Australia and one would probably be quite correct in that but we do care. It would be nice to think that over time New Zealand also will be able to develop technologies so that that piece of fruit in somebody’s bag that has been forgotten about can be detected as that passenger is travelling to New Zealand. That has to be a benefit to New Zealanders. 
Far from the Chicken Little rhetoric that we have been treated to from various parts of the House that the legislation is awful and that biosecurity threats will endanger New Zealand’s economy I think the introduction of these new technologies and the passage of the bill will result in quite the opposite. We will see benefits to the New Zealand economy in terms of enhanced biosecurity measures which are underpinned by some of the measures in this bill. This omnibus bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 1996 and the Tariff Act 1988. It makes consequential amendments to the Goods and Services Tax Act the Finance Act (No 2) 1993 and the Finance Act (No 2) 1995. 
In my brief first reading speech I say that I am looking forward to this bill coming to the Government Administration Committee. I know that we will get a number of submissions on it. I look forward to having some good level-headed discussion on the opportunities that the measures in this bill bring to increase the ability of the New Zealand Customs Service to tighten up and protect our borders from biosecurity breaches. With those few words I commend this bill’s referral to the select committee and I look forward to its further consideration. Thank you.