Ardern Shane: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13992] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I rise tonight on behalf of the National Party in support of the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) going to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee.  
As the Minister of Education has just stated the bill does three things. Each one of those needs to be thoroughly investigated in the select committee and I am sure that the National members on the committee will do just that. The issues raised in the bill for further discussion are the enhancement of the statutory appeal and review rights in relation to forfeiture and seizure regulations and legislation the provision of greater flexibility for the Customs Service to deal with ad hoc arrivals and departures and the remedying of legislative inconsistencies relating to the illegal manufacture of tobacco and other products. On the basis of that it seems to me that it would be sensible for this bill to be given a thorough investigation in the select committee.  
The issues that need to be properly looked at are the reasons why the Law Commission recommended the changes to the forfeiture and seizure regime. Based on what the Minister said I understand that the current way people can appeal—the multi-appeal system as it were or the two-pronged appeal system—could be costly. It could also cause problems for those who subsequently find that the reasons the Customs Service had for taking that product or material—whatever it was that was forfeited or seized—were no longer relevant. The process that people go through is expensive and can sometimes cause unnecessary and damaging delays. 
Probably the best anecdote I have heard so far is the case of some night-vision goggles seized from the Taranaki Rescue Helicopter Trust. The Customs Service was notified that these goggles which had been bought in good faith from US military surplus might have been acquired in an illegal way or even stolen. While the US investigation was going on the Customs Service was obliged to take those goggles back and there was a potential loss to the trust of $34000. Over time it was discovered that they had not been stolen and the trust found itself in a lengthy process to have the equipment returned to it. That is probably as good an example as I have come across of a situation where the chief executive of the Customs Service should have had the ability to look at where the Customs and Excise Act applied and where the Customs Service was involved and say: “Look obviously this has now been resolved. We can now tick this off and that material or equipment can be returned.”  
The second area of concern is ad hoc arrivals and departures. Under the proposed legislation the chief executive will have the ability to decide whether a place not deemed to be a customs place such as a provincial airport can be a customs place for the purpose of diverting a medium-sized aircraft coming from an international destination. What needs to be thoroughly investigated in the select committee is whether those airports will be able to cope with things like the biosecurity concerns of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. We could be exposing ourselves to quite a high risk there. Under the bill the chief executive will have to consult the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry on biosecurity. Given that this will be an ad hoc decision—and probably an eleventh hour decision because the plane may have been waiting for fog to clear or whatever the reason may be that the international airport that is a certified customs-place is unavailable—what happens if there are not enough staff on the ground to look at what the airplane is carrying whether it be passengers luggage cargo or whatever else? That issue needs to be thoroughly looked at in the select committee.  
The third point is the tighter control of exemptions around the harvesting and domestic cultivation of tobacco and the potential risks not only to health but also for black market—clandestine call it what you will—underground activity with the Customs Service not having the ability to charge a fair tax which has all sorts of ramifications in terms of developing a market. It also has a negative impact on health in that those who are supposedly cultivating this tobacco for their own domestic use may be selling it and there is no possibility of the State recovering any costs that may flow from that in terms of health care.  
In summary National is in support of the proposal but—to use the words of my senior colleague Murray McCully who is a former Minister of Customs—we need to give the tyres a thoroughly good kicking in the select committee to find out exactly what is hidden in the detail of some of this stuff particularly in terms of the Law Commission’s recommendations and some of the official advice that has been received over the years and whether the ability of the Minister to intervene in some cases is still the best approach. The select committee is the right place to look at those issues and for that reason the select committee will give this bill a thoroughly good going-over.