Hudson Brett: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4577. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): I rise in support of the first reading of the Passports Amendment Bill (No 2). It is a great pleasure to be able to stand here and be giving the public what they have requested—a bill that will return a New Zealand passport to a validity period of 10 years and one that supports New Zealanders’ desire to be and history of being adventurous and global explorers. In doing so it is important to note that we will not be compromising the security or indeed the international reputation of our passport. It will contain the latest technology to protect passport holders from identity fraud. It will ensure that our passport holders can access as many countries tomorrow without a visa as they can today—a number that is around 170.It is important to reflect on the fact that the reputation of New Zealand’s passport is extraordinarily high. We are in fact the eighth most desirable passport in the world in terms of the number of countries we can access without an entry visa and that comes from a study done by global advisory firm Arton Capital. It may not surprise anyone in New Zealand to know that as eighth in the world we are ahead of Australia and in fact with the performance post the global financial crisis of this National-led Government it will not surprise any Australians that we are ahead of them now too. But we do indeed have a very strong reputation for the quality security and robustness of processes around our identity documents.But that reputation also is something of a magnet for criminals fraudsters people who realise that if they can get hold of a New Zealand passport—if they can counterfeit one if they can repurpose one—then they have an advantage of themselves or other people perhaps being able to access the borders of other countries that much more easily. I just have a quote here from a Massey University Centre for Defence and Security Studies lecturer Rhys Ball. He noted that “The Kiwi passport helps reduce an individual’s profile. It is looked upon as a non-threatening travel document originating in a country with a robust processing system.”But it is worth noting that although we are very strong and robust in our processes we are not immune from fraudulent activity. In the period from 2010 to 2014 over 11000 New Zealand passports were stolen and over 42000 were lost. In fact even in just one case in 2009 Roderick Robinson used Rex Smith’s passport to flee to Portugal in that year. So we must remain ever vigilant. When we look at that it is the reason why we moved to the state that we are currently in with a 5-year validity period.I just want to recap that a little because I think the history of where we have come from is important in understanding why we can now make a change without compromising security. So it was in the early 2000s—in 2002—when the Department of Internal Affairs advised the Minister of a rising number of attacks on New Zealand passports and a shift from crimes of opportunity to crimes of intent with sophisticated forgery and counterfeiting. There was also the new US legislation for homeland security that demanded machine-readable passports with biometric identifiers. Non-compliance with that would have seen us lose our visa-waiver status which would have required Kiwis travelling to the States to visit the US consulate in Auckland in person and to pay visa fees.On top of that in 2003 there was a review on border security particularly around counter-terrorism threats and measures. So a bill was introduced and given to the Government Administration Committee in 2004. After hearing submissions and deliberating it reported back that it recommended that passport validity be reduced to 5 years. It noted that the longer a passport has been in circulation the greater the chance that its security features will become outdated and easily altered or successfully duplicated. Its view was that security and international reputation outweighed the inconvenience of a shorter validity period.It is with great pleasure that our officials will tell us now—and that we in this Parliament are now debating it and saying that it is possible—that we can now take a position where we can react to changes in the world where we have a very very robust and secure passport and that we can in fact look to return to a much longer validity period of 10 years without compromising the security of our people’s identities or risking our international reputation. It is going to be a very very good debate in the select committee. I look forward to that and I commend this bill to the House.