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:18515. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 I tell Mr Ardern that I am into that; let us bring it on! I do not think the date can be very long away. I say to him that comment was probably not appropriate given that we are speaking in sweet harmony on the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) but it is nevertheless a sentiment I strongly share.  
When we look at this bill we see it does a number of things that are of central importance to New Zealanders. We all understand that sometimes our geographic isolation is a fundamental problem and at other times it is a huge advantage to us. We do have certain advantages in our isolation. We rely on the front-line officers of our Customs Service to secure our borders and they do a fantastic job. There is widespread recognition of that.  
I talked earlier about one of the many policy objectives related to this bill. Behind this bill is health policy. The need to move comprehensively against smoking is absolutely understood and there is huge positive evidence that the higher the price is the lower the consumption is. But as the evidence indicates as soon as one moves in that direction there is a serious danger of creating an incentive for organised crime. As I indicated in speeches during earlier stages of the bill cigarette smuggling is a massive problem internationally. I recall that in the United Kingdom it was estimated to be a larger source of criminal funding than narcotics believe it or not and there are massive issues of law and order enforcement in many countries around this issue. Of course ultimately the point about terrorism is not some academic point. We recall that the bombers of the World Trade Center had counterfeit cigarette excise stamps in their apartment when the federal authorities broke into them. 
There are big issues here. We have cleaned up our act here. I think we had a pretty reasonable regime but there were certain things that the Customs Service and our authorities wanted to move on and they persuaded the Government and then the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to move on them. We have expedited procedures that allow the chief executive of the Customs Service acting on behalf of a wide range of Government agencies to take very swift action. But of course since the powers that customs officers have are Draconian involving the seizure of people and property there have to be civil liberties checks in place. I think there is an excellent new regime for the forfeiture of goods. It is very simple and operates at zero cost—just the cost of a stamp to send the request for a review to the chief executive. I think we have a very nice example—and I just wish that we could see more examples of this type—of the simplification of procedure being introduced into legislation. I think this country would be a better place for it.  
There is wide-ranging support for this bill. It achieves a number of objectives and I think it will facilitate the work of our front-line staff. It has very strong support in this Parliament.