Browning Steffan: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3892. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):We will be supporting this bill. We see that this sort of user-pays method to fund some aspects of biosecurity and customs processing is appropriate. But this levy is no magic bullet.Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s a tax.STEFFAN BROWNING: It is a levy. It is a tax. It is a whatever. It is a source of income for these processes at the border. It is just a fraction of what is needed for biosecurity. We will be speaking obviously at another time on the total budget for biosecurity. The Government has added—supposedly added—only about $25 million to biosecurity and that is a very very concerning thing. This is just another revenue source. The $100 million that is anticipated in 2017-18 is only a source to basically cover the limited amount that is being used already out of other revenue streams. Biosecurity at the border needs a lot—a lot—more money.I have put it to the Minister for Primary Industries that even if you used 50 percent of what you are going to get from this new income stream and added it to existing biosecurity money it will still not be enough for biosecurity. Think of the fruit fly. How did it get in this last time? Previously up in Whangarei we thought it was probably by a yacht and then another time another yacht possibly. Are these people going to get taxed? Is someone going to be tapping them on the shoulder to pay their levy? I hope so.Hon Nicky Wagner: They are as they come in as they clear customs.STEFFAN BROWNING: Yes so is the Customs Service going to be there for these stray yachts—waifs and strays—as they come in to inspect them properly and to gather their tax? I hope so because they need to be paying their part of it.However then we had the Auckland incursions the more recent ones. What has that cost so far? And it is not over yet. We have to wait until spring to see whether there is a re-emergence because it was not nipped in the bud quick enough. Worse these Queensland fruit flies actually got in here and were able to sit in New Zealand and breed for at least one generation and by the look of it there was more than one generation of breeding in New Zealand because we did not nip it in the bud. Is this levy/tax going to do the job? No it is not. It is just going to make sure that some of those people who could have been responsible are going to be paying their way.Back in the mid-1990s even when HortResearch looked at the potential cost of the Mediterranean fruit fly—a good proxy for the Queensland fruit fly—the cost for the Bay of Plenty should it get going there was $820 million and a cost basically of 3500 jobs. In the Hawke’s Bay it was $390 million with over 3000 jobs lost and in the Nelson area it was $265 million with close to 2000 jobs lost. It is critical that we do biosecurity to the nth degree and do way way better than we are doing at the moment.I would actually like to pat the Minister Nathan Guy on the back. I have been watching biosecurity very closely well before I was in Parliament and right through to this time. Unfortunately in 2008 when National got in there were significant cuts to biosecurity in this country. There was an immediate loss of almost 60 jobs and I think a year or so later there were another 200 jobs down the gurgler in biosecurity. Importantly many of these were on the front line. What we have been seeing is an incremental increase and repair to that. I will speak further on this in a later speech. Thank you.