Davis Kelvin: Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill — First Reading 
Davis Kelvin: Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:14095] 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 The Labour Party supports the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill. It recognises the cost of providing customs and biosecurity services to new international airports and that those costs are significant. The Government is replicating services already present in international airports and the cost of replicating them in new smaller airports is significant. So the Government is basically saying that it wants to recoup its costs in relation to smaller international airports. 
Labour supports this bill. We recognise that we must invest in services that protect our country from invasive species and foreign pests at new international airports. It does place an added burden on our investment in biosecurity and customs services and therefore new international airports should realise some of those costs. The activities carried out in international airports basically revolve around processing travellers and visitors. Some of the activities carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry under the Biosecurity Act are to ascertain whether goods in possession or control of the traveller may be cleared for entry into New Zealand under section 26 of that Act. 
Some of the goods we are talking about are animals and animal products such as live animals pets birds and meat products whether fresh or cooked; dairy products including cheese milk milk powder and eggs; fish honey feathers and all those sorts of things. It is really important that biosecurity staff are in place to check that these things are not entering the country because they jeopardise our primary products and our agriculture and horticulture industries. We cannot afford to have that happen. 
Another set of activities carried out at international airports by the Aviation Security Service under the Civil Aviation Act is screening travellers and travellers’ baggage and ensuring the safety and security of the civil aviation system. Basically that means checking that people are not taking weapons and other illicit objects on to planes and also ensuring the safety of flights. Of course those of us who travel appreciate the fact that we need to have a safe air system. 
The last set of activities carried out at international airports by customs under the Customs and Excise Act 1996 is determining a traveller’s eligibility to enter or leave New Zealand establishing whether goods in the traveller’s possession need to be charged for duty and determining whether a traveller has prohibited goods or exports or otherwise. Some of the restricted items that customs checks for are weapons firearms flick knives objectionable articles and images illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia and also endangered species of flora and fauna. 
We need to recognise the costs that will be imposed on the Government from replicating those sorts of services in new international airports which will be smaller. The Government is saying I think quite rightly so that there should be some recouping of those costs. If we take Rotorua International Airport as an example we see that it has only a couple of flights a week. However it has to replicate the staff and services that are provided in an international airport the size of Auckland’s airport. Auckland International Airport is the second-busiest airport in Australasia so what is happening there every minute of every day would occur for only a couple of hours per week in Rotorua. Replication of the environment and the services would incur significant costs and it is only fair that the costs are recouped. 
As I have said Labour supports the bill. We recognise that replicating those services comes at a huge cost to the Crown and that any international airport should have to realise part of those costs. We have a high number of international airports per capita—we have seven. Auckland is New Zealand’s busiest airport and the second-busiest in Australasia. There are international airports in Wellington Christchurch Dunedin Rotorua and Hamilton and there is one other that I cannot recall. There is a huge cost in making sure that when travellers come into New Zealand everybody is screened. 
By 2016 there will be 3 million international visitors a year coming into New Zealand. Of course most of them leave so that is 6 million movements through customs and through international airports. That is a lot of people. There will also be 2.5 million New Zealanders leaving the country—we would like to think that they all come back too—so that is another 5 million movements. That is 11 million movements of people throughout our international airports. The majority of them will go through Auckland Wellington or Christchurch but some will go through Rotorua and Hamilton. We need to have our biosecurity our customs and our aviation security people in those small airports and that is a cost that the Government would like to recoup. 
It is suggested that the period of time in which the Government will recoup those losses will be 3 years. We believe that the bill goes too far in proposing a 3-year cost recovery. The Labour Government in 2004 with similar legislation proposed a 1-year cost recovery period. We are thinking that we should split the difference between a 3-year cost recovery period and a 1-year cost recovery period and maybe make it 2 years. However that is something that can be discussed at the Primary Production Committee and nutted out to decide exactly what will be the best time period for the cost recovery. 
I also agree with what our colleague from the Green Party Sue Kedgley said about biosecurity staff numbers. We have a big emphasis on biosecurity and making sure that we have the staff there to protect our primary products: agriculture and horticulture. However in the last year the Government has cut 54 staff from MAF Biosecurity New Zealand. Those cost cuts must be reversed. It is essential that we have the staff and the services to protect our economy because agriculture and horticulture are important to our nation. These are front-line positions that have been taken. They are vital for protecting us from foreign pests. 
We need only to look at today’s  
New Zealand Herald  
to see an instance of a pest getting into New Zealand. OK it was not at an airport. The pest was a boa constrictor that came across in a container I think in a consignment of palm trees from Guatemala of all places. A boa constrictor is fairly easy to see in a container but we are talking about the smaller pests and organisms that may arrive in people’s luggage or baggage or on the bottoms of rugby boots. I recall when I went to a rugby tour in Australia that we had to produce our rugby boots and they had to be cleaned and sprayed. It was the first time that they had ever been cleaned or sprayed in about 5 years of playing rugby. But the boa constrictor incident is a case in point of where we have to be really careful about protecting our borders from these unwanted pests. That boa constrictor was found by biosecurity staff so the cuts to that department must be reversed. With that I reiterate that Labour supports this bill’s referral to the Primary Production Committee. Kia ora.