Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you Mr Chair. It is a great pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to talk on theme two the powers and obligations of this the Customs and Excise Bill 2016. It is a piece of legislation that actually goes back to 1913 I believe. It was amended again in 1966 and of course for the last time in 1996 and that is a long time ago. Things have moved on a lot. I mean back in 1996 Sean Fitzpatrick was captain of the All Blacks Lee Germon was captain of the Black Caps—a great Cantabrian. I don't know if Simeon Brown was born then but probably around about that time. But it will be of great comfort to the nation that Winston Peters was Deputy Prime Minister and leader of New Zealand First then as he is now so those people watching at home I'm sure sleep in their beds safe at night under that safety blanket of the great Rt Hon Winston Peters.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): And now to the theme.MARK PATTERSON: Yes so the 2016 bill—and I will now I've got my list placing secured for the next election—I will commend the Minister in the chair Meka Whaitiri. This is a serious bill and these are serious clauses. I will commend the Minister. Customs is a very important part of our economy. I see it as one of the three pillars along with biosecurity and food safety that underpin the economic growth and financial well-being of this country.This bill establishes some specific thresholds for the search of electronic devices and I will pick up on that in a moment but it does not change those core functions. Rino Tirikatene informed us in one of his previous contributions to this debate that it goes back to before the Treaty of Waitangi which shows you that this is a longstanding important part of our economy.This bill also clarifies travellers' obligations. It protects privileged information as well. New Zealand First was pleased that within this process the Privacy Commissioner was heavily involved in the formulation of this bill. That gives us a lot of confidence. We've heard tonight already all the speakers talking about the balance. If we're giving people powers of search over and above what they would normally have had then that is something we have to take very seriously as legislators—so to have that comfort blanket of the Privacy Commissioner endorsing these provisions.Of course it is a very different time now. We have 3.7 million international tourists coming through our borders every year. We also have I think a couple of million New Zealanders travelling overseas every year. We've got record exports for the December quarter under this Government. So for customs it is very important that these provisions are up for review and are fit for purpose in the 21st century. The bill streamlines the processes for imposing controls on imported and exported goods.I'd also like to touch a bit later on the controlled deliveries provisions in this bill which are long overdue. Clause 207 covers secure devices—the power to seize devices and the provisions around that and the legal thresholds; these two threshold tests and the need for reasonable suspicion. An example of that I understand would be someone that may be coming in on a visitor visa whom customs may suspect is here to work illegally under the table. This would give customs officers under this threshold the opportunity to look into this device localised—they can't go on the cloud and look at Facebook or social media; it can only be localised to what is contained on that device. Of course beyond that it also has that higher threshold where more serious criminal offending is suspected. The provisions within clause 207 obligate the travellers to supply passwords.