Dyson Ruth: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4585. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It is just as well that you called me Mr Deputy Speaker because I was the only person taking the call. That is a big relief to me. It is a real pleasure to participate in this debate on the Passports Amendment Bill (No 2). I want first of all to commend the Minister responsible for the bill the Hon Peter Dunne and thank him for responding to the recommendation of our Government Administration Committee which considered a petition on this very issue. It was a really interesting consideration of a petition: learning about the background to the move from the previous 10 year to 5-year passports what other countries internationally had done and of course how technology has moved on. It was a mature debate at our committee and I know that the current membership will welcome this bill to be considered by new members of the select committee.I want to recommend a more mature approach to the consideration of policy issues particularly to the sole member from the ACT Party David Seymour. I think he has got a contribution to make to this House. I probably will not ever agree with him—I hope not; it is unlikely—but I still thinkthat in a democracy in a valuable democracy such as this Parliament we should have different views heard. But I think it would be a good thing for him to consider contributing to a debate from a less ideological and less entrenched position. We all agree on this bill. It would be good to say that things have moved on we have changed our minds instead of trying to throw grenades at a Government that changed the law probably around the year he was born. It was not that long ago; he is a young man. But I would recommend that.David Seymour: Hey look. You don’t talk about my age; I won’t talk about yours.Hon RUTH DYSON: And if the member does not want to take my advice on his contribution in a better form let me just say two words to him about this issue: David Garrett. I would not go there if I were you. I bet that party wished it had never ever gone near that person. But the issues of identification the issues of fraud the issues of misrepresentation the potential threat to our security—all bring David Garrett to mind actually—were the very reason that at the time officials recommended and the Government that I was proud to be part of accepted the proposal that we move from 10 year to 5-year passports.Since that time my colleagues the Hon Trevor Mallard—a fine chair of the Committee on occasions—and the Hon Phil Goff have both campaigned really hard within our party and outside it actually for the return of a 10-year passport. They were both heavily involved in the discussion at the time when we moved from 10 years to 5 years and understood the increased threat and risk and our lack of confidence in the security of our systems at the time. They said things had moved on. They persuaded Labour of that. It was our policy at the last election to return to 10-year passports. They argued it strongly when the petition came to our select committee. I think it was a member of Mr Seymour’s party actually who brought that—you would know all the members of your own party by name I presume—Kyle Lockwood and he was very adequately supported by Jordan Williams from the taxpayers’ something-or-other union. He is certainly an ACT member. But they actually did a very good presentation on this issue to our committee.So through all those pre-discussions as I say we have learnt a lot about the changes—David Seymour: Actually misleading the House.Hon RUTH DYSON: About what? I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am not sure who said it but a young man made a comment that I take offence at and I require him to withdraw and apologise.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the man could self-identify.David Seymour: I believe that the member is referring to me. I have been asked to withdraw and apologise. I will not. The member said that a person is a member—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Be seated. The point is that the member the Hon Ruth Dyson has taken offence at something the member has said. I did not hear it myself. If she has taken offence the member should withdraw and apologise. Actually I will just ask the Hon Ruth Dyson as to what it was that she took offence at.Hon RUTH DYSON: With respect that would be repeating something that I say is unparliamentary. I am happy to come and tell you but I do not think it is helpful for the order of the House to do that. But I give you my assurance that it was something that I genuinely take offence at and I am a fairly robust debater.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. In that case the member will stand withdraw and apologise without comment.David Seymour: I withdraw and apologise.Hon RUTH DYSON: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. So back to the—David Seymour: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member has been stating that certain individuals are a member of a political party I happen to lead and that is untrue.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is a matter of debate and we will carry on.Hon RUTH DYSON: Thank you for the clarification on what was not a point of order. I want to absolutely apologise to Jordan Williams for saying that he was a member of the ACT Party. I can understand why Mr Williams would be offended at that. I thought he was; I apologise. I will never make that sort of assertion again.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Maybe we should come back to the bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: OK. It has been a bit of a tradition in the House over the last few months to end the week on a bill on which there is agreement and I am pretty sure that there is unanimous agreement on this bill. I think it is a very good way for us to end the week’s session.I want to make a couple of comments on the specifics of the bill. It is interesting that technology does not seem to allow us to replace photos of children. So children are still going to have 5-year passports because their looks change more frequently than adults’. I would have thought that there may be enhanced technology to enable a photo to be updated as a child ages rather than the entire passport having to be renewed. There has been considerable debate about the cost of the passport. Originally we were told that it was going from 5 to 10 years and the cost would double. There was a bit of a shocked reaction to that. It certainly does not take double the administration or double the paperwork—literal paperwork in a passport—to extend it from 5 to 10 years so I think the Minister should be commended for his intervention then and it seems to have got back to a more reasonable rate.There are some other specific areas in the bill that I think will warrant quite close attention from the select committee. We want to get this right. We want to make sure that the original reasons that we changed from 10 years to 5 years and that was as I say our lack of confidence in the robustness of our system so that we could have confidence that it was not being used for fraud and that it was not being used as a way of having people enter our country when we did not want them to or that they were able to change identity or misuse passports in any fraudulent way—so those issues I think we will want to re-examine at the select committee and we have had a good advance on that through our petition deliberation.Then there are other “let’s look to the future while we have this opportunity” chances that this legislation will provide us with. For example do we have to continue to do so much of the work on paper? Can we do more online? What is the current situation in regard to the security? I have been very impressed with the way the Department of Internal Affairs has updated access to online renewal of passports. Is that going to still be maintained under the 10-year issue and will it give us the integrity without having individual verification?So just in conclusion I think this is a great note on which to end the week with Parliament agreeing that this is a good bill worthy of progress. The select committee that I am privileged to chair will welcome it. I hope that we give it the level of scrutiny that it deserves and I look forward to its further progress through the House.