Ardern Shane: Border Security Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Border Security Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13293] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 At last I have the opportunity to stand and speak in favour of a part of this bill. Let me just acknowledge the fine work of the Government Administration Committee and the officials. The officials grappled with some of the difficult issues around civil rights and powers to detain and that type of thing. Part 2 amends the Immigration Act. It is quite different from the measures we have been debating and it addresses quite a different issue. It is all about what happened on 9/11 and how a small island nation like New Zealand can protect itself against terrorists. It is all about supporting what the Ministers and various speakers have said earlier about our support in the US: getting our products to and from the US and getting passengers in and out of New Zealand. The National Party looked carefully at these provisions. I was not at the select committee for the entire debate. I came in at the end of it but I know that the members listened to the submissions and that by and large the submitters were in favour of this part of the bill. Some concerns were raised. Most of them were addressed through debate in the select committee and at the end despite some concerns about civil rights there was an overwhelming desire to go ahead. I think the Government may have struck the right balance. The Opposition will certainly watch and see. I know that the officials said that is probably what has happened. 
The bill gives the chief executive some powers that may cause some raised eyebrows but at the end of the day how do we stop terrorists from invading our shores and wreaking havoc of the type we have seen around the world? We looked at those issues listened to the advice took counsel from civil libertarians—who raised some legitimate issues—and looked at how this legislation ties in with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. After taking advice on that we managed to convince caucus colleagues that on balance this was probably the right approach to take. I know that my colleague Lindsay Tisch took a very close interest in this part of the bill and there are some lawyers in our caucus who raised a few concerns. At the end of that process we concluded that we should take the advice of the officials and allow this part to pass. 
It is just unfortunate that the whole bill has had to be sullied by the debates that have gone on earlier about the pledge on the Labour Party’s pre-election pledge card in 1999 that it would “Create jobs through promoting New Zealand industries and better support for exporters and small businesses.” and then on the 2002 pledge card that it would “Work with all sectors to create an innovative growing economy with more jobs.” It is just unfortunate that Labour campaigned on that because most New Zealanders would sign up to that—and the majority did—and has now introduced this sneaky tax which has put a real dampener on what otherwise would have been a very good piece of work in terms of tightening up our borders and enabling our exporters to go through the “green lane” in getting exports into the US which the Ministers have been keen to talk about tonight. We want to have a speedy process for imports and exports with some confidence that it can take place without the added cost of security that is being put on all small nations and all exporters and importers as a result of this recent phenomenon and as a result of the 9/11 attacks in the US. 
 It would be interesting if one of the Government members or one of the Ministers would take a call tonight and explain to the Committee and to those listening to the radio broadcast of this debate why it is that the Government was able to listen to officials with regard to Part 2 of the bill take their advice and come up with a very reasonable compromise but in Part 1 it had to introduce the sneaky backdoor tax that has been so vigorously opposed in Parliament here tonight. I look forward to those contributions I look forward to this legislation finally being amended so as to exclude that sneaky tax and I look forward to the Ministers on the Government side of the Chamber realising the error of their ways. They have partly done that in acknowledging that requiring exporters to pay $8 million was the wrong thing to do and they have reduced that now to $4 million. Why do they not admit they were totally wrong—which clearly they are—and admit that it is a security cost they are trying to enforce here and not a trade access cost? 
This is a tax. It is no more than a tax and it is being imposed at a time when the Government has record surpluses. Why does it not acknowledge that? Why is the Government not big about it? In fact it would probably gain something politically from doing that because New Zealand overwhelmingly rejects the notion the Government has put forward that somehow or other this measure is an industry good and not a national good or a taxpayer good. Why does the Government not acknowledge that go the whole hog and accept that it is wrong once again do a U-turn—as it has done in the past—and drop the silly tax?