Tirikatene Rino: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3918. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga):I would just like to add further comments in addition to Mr Davis’ because the amendments to the Biosecurity Act grant a very wide and broad discretion to the Minister to set the levy—the rate and the conditions around that levy. It is a very very broad discretion and there is no legislative guidance around considerations that he must take into account. At the end of the day the Minister can effectively set whatever he wants in terms of the rate. There is no control on that discretion and that is why it is really dangerous to impose a tax through legislation under urgency in these situations.As an example I would just like to seek the Minister’s clarification around. As part of his discretion it says here in clause 5(4) of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 2) that the Minister “must consult persons who the Minister believes are representative of interests likely to be affected substantially by” the levy order. That is completely up to the Minister—who he “believes” has interests that are substantially affected. I am just wondering whether the Minister could advise which groups would be substantially affected because in my mind a major group that will be substantially affected will be inbound visitors—tourists. How is the Minister to consult with them? Is he going to stand at the airport in the arrivals lounge and have a survey or have a chat have a kōrero? Because they will be substantially affected by this.It is very unclear but it is a very very broad discretion that is granted to the Minister. This is a tax. It is not good practice for this Parliament to be granting broad power to a Minister to be able to impose these rates and these conditions really as he sees fit. I would like to ask the Minister how he intends to consult these substantially affected groups. Who are these substantially affected groups? How does he intend to do that? I know that Government members have already talked about advising on the rates and the levies because it is true that the actual end number is unknown. We do not know the cost that will be imposed on travellers. There has been talk about $16 $22 $32 but you must also add to that other departure taxes that are also payable by travellers. There are a range of costs that are all factored in a range of taxes that need to be considered. That is why there is just such a broad discretion given to the Minister that it is really beyond the scope.I am also really unsure about some of the drafting in these bills and the consequences of some of the provisions. Because if I look at the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2) there is the provision here that—you have got two methods by which the Crown can currently recover the processing costs. There is the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Act and that legislation I believe allows the Crown to collect from the airport companies the cost to the Crown of setting up biosecurity customs and other services including the services that are envisaged by this bill. So the Crown can collect the cost there from the airport companies. It is also talking about collecting the same costs from travellers. I know that the Government is wanting to do an exclusion say that airports that are currently under the former Act will be excluded from this piece of legislation. But it will lead to confusion.The easiest way I can think about it is this. Hypothetically a person departs from Christchurch International Airport. Christchurch International Airport pays the Crown the costs of recovering and doing the biosecurity screening under the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Act and it is subject to that Act. So what does that mean? Does that mean that every traveller who is leaving from Christchurch will not pay the travel tax? If that is the case how will you administer that? How will you be able to administer all the differential rates that will apply for the two different regimes that will be at play? In one case you will have an airport company paying to the Crown the costs to process and in this present case you will have the traveller paying the Crown the cost for them to be processed. So there are real practical issues that I see arising out of the application of this legislation and they are why this legislation should be referred to a select committee and it should be subject to greater scrutiny from all the relevant parties that will be interacting with this legislation.As we have heard the Minister has not consulted with the tourism industry or the airline industry. Of course you are going to have the primary industries sector clapping its hands at this legislation. Who would not? This is really good for biosecurity and we all want strong robust biosecurity systems—absolutely. Of course the primary industries sector would say that but it misses the point in terms of there being no regulatory impact statement. There are real practical issues here that I see that could pose some real difficulties in the application of this law. I would just like to ask the Minister how he intends to deal with all of these matters.Could I ask this: what are the chances of bringing this legislation to some sort of select committee so that some proper scrutiny and amendments could be made? Because what I do not want to see is the passage of this legislation and then as has occurred with some Crown minerals legislation just recently passed—here we were at Parliament and the Government was back 3 weeks later saying: “Oh we need to make some amendments to it.” That is a very real possibility just on my cursory glance at the legislation as it stands at the moment. That is a plea that I would make to the Minister. Let us refer this legislation to some sort of select committee review process so we can really look closely at it. Otherwise once it is passed into law what will we have to do again? We will have to come back in a few weeks’ time and put through some more legislation to try to fix it up. That is a waste of Parliament’s time and it is not good lawmaking.