Ardern Shane: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:4519] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the National Party in support of the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2). We will be supporting this bill going to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee but with some reservations. As the Minister has stated the bill gives the Customs Service a better ability to deal with false and fraudulent travel documents and that has to be a good thing. Its origins are in the response to the 9/11 event in the US and other terrorist activity around the world. Therefore we would be foolish not to look at what can be done with regard to detecting risks and enforcing our customs law in line with other laws around the Western World. But I cannot help wondering whether this Government has missed an opportunity—a much-stated opportunity—to build better relationships with the US and with other Western nations around the world. 
The US has on many occasions offered the hand of friendship to this Government with regard to designing and supplying modern technology in the detection of not only criminal activity with regard to terrorism but also with regard to biosecurity and to the best of my knowledge thus far this Government has bitten that kind hand and not accepted it. I ask the Minister and the officials who will be examining this bill in the select committee to look closely at what is on offer internationally and to take full advantage of whatever that technology may be. I understand through some of my contacts in the US in relation to this matter that there have been occasions when offers to install some sophisticated equipment such as X-ray equipment that can detect in a container biomass down to the size of a matchstick have been turned down on the basis that the equipment would be too sensitive and may therefore create too many difficulties for our customs officers and Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officers to be able to carry out that work. I ask the Government to please take full advantage of the opportunity it has had presented to it. Given its tardy performance the last time it looked at reforms in the principal Act I ask it to do something sensible in the process of passing this bill. 
I have been informed that during the recent Aer Lingus strike New Zealand Customs Service officers at Auckland airport were instructed not to target South American passport holders for immigration purposes or for compliance with immigration laws because of the difficulty and cost of obtaining tickets back to South America. I wonder whether that is true; I do not know. But if it is true it is amazing that we now have before us a further amendment to the Customs and Excise Act tightening up the controls around passports when customs officers themselves are being told that the Customs Service simply does not have the capacity to cope with that situation at the moment and that they are to give it a once-over-lightly and hope that the problem will come right. 
Also the staff turnover particularly at Auckland airport is something this Government should be concerned about. The facilities at Auckland airport are and have been for a long time totally inadequate. That is a total indictment on this Government’s policy. The reason of course is that the airport is a commercial activity and it is better to rent the space out to shopkeepers or someone who will provide a higher return than the Government is prepared to pay. So it is all very well for the Government to front up to Parliament talking tough with regard to different changes to legislation— 
Colin King 
: Five years later. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: —as my colleague says 5 years or some time after the problems were known about. It is all very well fronting up here with tough legislation but to not provide the engine room the horsepower and the facilities that are needed to carry it out does ring a little hollow. 
Modern technology can and should help in this regard. The Minister knows that a lot of work needs to be done in relation to the synergy between customs officers and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry biosecurity officers and I ask why that work is not being carried out right now. I see this bill proposes a tightening-up of the powers of customs officers to seize products that may be deemed to be a biosecurity risk in the Customs and Excise Act but why has that not also happened in the Biosecurity Act where the reverse situation is the case? I would say to officials that they have the chance while the bill is going through the select committee to look at some of the work that could be done there and it would be churlish and short-sighted not to do so. 
The bill allows for the collection of duties on the importation of alcohol and I think that is probably a good thing. My understanding about the origins of that provision is that proprietors of liquor outlets in Auckland or wherever they may be have all the members of the whanau coming through the airport and buying up large quantities of duty-free liquor and then presenting it on the proprietor’s shelf in a few days’ time. If that is the case and if that is the purpose of this provision then I say to the Minister that it is a good thing and we should get on with fixing up that situation. 
The bill also prohibits the use of communications computing equipment in suitably signposted customs areas and this relates to an issue of grave concern. We know about the massive growth in the use of the P drug and the agents used in the production of that drug namely the methamphetamine imports that have gone on and the various carriers involved in the transmission of that drug. We also know that the use of modern technology has played a key role in that happening. As the Minister said it is a good thing to be able to stop carriers communicating with others who are coming on a later plane or who are farther down the line of the customs queue to tell them that the dogs are not on that the number of staff is light at the moment that three planes have arrived at once or that now might be a good time to try to sneak though. So the bill addresses that issue. 
I now bring the House’s attention to the work that has been done by the Law Commission which is chaired by Sir Geoffrey Palmer a former Prime Minister of this House. The commission has some major concerns around the legal term “forfeiture”. I share those concerns and when the select committee looks at the detail of that provision it should probably ask members of the Law Commission in so committee members can hear what the commission has to say. This is a very comprehensive report. In essence it states that the legal term may not best fit what the legislation intends and what the Government is trying to achieve by passing it. The report basically states that we need to focus upon developing a framework that best achieves an appropriate balance between the necessary powers of the executive and fairness to the individuals involved in importing or exporting goods. It states that in doing so the concepts of reasonableness and reasonable limits which are the tests to consider under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act are encompassed in the considerations but are not explicitly analysed in terms of the rights of jurisprudence. 
To the average lay people out there that may not make a lot of sense but I know from reading the detail of the bill it basically means that by forfeiting something to the Crown the ownership is transferred to the Crown and that that may not be necessary while the investigation is going on. A different wording could provide a better way forward and I ask once again please that that suggestion should be listened to. It is always difficult when we are passing laws like this—with a very sound objective—to get the balance right and this may be one area where we have got it slightly out of line. 
We need to look carefully at the duty of care in relation to goods that have been confiscated. I have received several complaints about goods that have been confiscated—in particular about nursery stock when genuine importers have wanted to bring in something new. The importers are happy to pay and to go through the proper process of biosecurity but they find by the time they have got to the end of that process that because of various aspects of current law the stock they have imported has been destroyed through unnecessary delay or because the customs office itself is constricted by the legal terminology that applies to it. The officials no doubt will have a view on that and during the select committee process I hope that some of those things are given a fair hearing. 
Further and finally I say that the bill does not go far enough in regard to synergising those known areas of comparison we have between Biosecurity New Zealand—the No. 1 agency in respect of protecting New Zealand’s shores and more so in view of a potential terrorism strike—and the Customs Service. Both services have duplication that needs to be addressed and here is an opportunity to do that. National supports this bill going to the select committee.