Groser Tim: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Groser Tim: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18519. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 I still have not quite got used to the idea of getting up in rapid succession and making essentially the same points. It is an added problem of course when one does it under urgency as there is not even the grace of time to separate the points. Nevertheless it is part of our duty and I will discharge it but in a very brief and expeditious way. The key point is that the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) is first-class legislation and a first-class example of cooperation among political parties at the select committee process. Frankly that is a rare jewel and we should celebrate it. We should celebrate it because if we could adopt the same common-sense and practical approach across other areas of policy I am sure we would still find room for the political contest to proceed but I think the country would be better for it.  
We have something that involves Draconian powers of the State. They have to be exercised by customs officers on behalf of I think 15 agencies. They perform vital functions in keeping our society as safe as they can. But equally there have to be very strong controls over the appeal process over the rights of citizens to challenge the forfeiture of goods and so on and so forth. But the point that particularly impressed me about the common-sense approach to lawmaking relates to the personal exemption issue of home-grown tobacco. It is such an important point for lawmakers to bear in mind that our front-line police and our front-line officials in other areas of enforcement will always be very thinly stretched. We know that. We know how much better it is if they focus on the real problem rather than frankly wasting their time with minor or technical infringements.  
There was a huge debate on the 15 kilogram limit. My recollection was that the difference of view between Labour and National was actually not so much over the limit as such but simply over whether it should be enshrined in legislation or left open to the officials to change the regulations. As members know National has a view that that is generally the wrong approach. We like Parliament to set clear laws and stick to them and if they have to be changed they should come back through the parliamentary process. I do not believe that there was a fundamental difference between the two parties on the underlying philosophy of setting the limit relatively high—at 15 kilograms which is the same as Canada—precisely to ensure that the thin blue line is actually focused on the real problem. The real problem here because of the literally millions of dollars that one can make from selling illegal cigarettes on which excise tax has not been paid is the link to organised crime and in other countries—I am unaware of this being an issue in New Zealand—the link to terrorism.  
So there are big issues behind this legislation. It is a nice simple law and there are nice procedures for the chief executive to move expeditiously without needing to consult a dozen different departments and somebody like me who has been in the system knows how much this consultation costs. Everyone says yes to consultation without thinking about the costs of consultation. When one often needs officials to act on their hunches on their instincts and sometimes of course on intelligence that will never be all that accurate—it is never all that clear I am sure to some of our people on the front line just how solid the intelligence is that they are operating on—one has to give them wide powers to move brutally and quickly to deal with the problem. Yes there will be mistakes. We have a procedure in place giving responsibility to the chief executive of the Customs Service and no doubt he or she will use delegated powers to handle that responsibility in a sensible and pragmatic way to look at the overall facts when there are mistakes or the public thinks it has been badly treated. It is good legislation and the House should be very pleased to see it pass into law.