Williamson Maurice: Customs and Excise (Border Processing—Trade Single Window and Duties) Amendment Bill Biosecurity (Border Processing—Trade Single Window) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliamson Maurice: Customs and Excise (Border Processing—Trade Single Window and Duties) Amendment Bill Biosecurity (Border Processing—Trade Single Window) Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 19 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16811. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs):I move That the Customs and Excise (Border Processing—Trade Single Window and Duties) Amendment Bill and the Biosecurity (Border Processing—Trade Single Window) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Prior to the Committee of the whole House stage these amendments were progressed through the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill which was actually an omnibus bill. The bill had its first reading on 27 August last year.These bills amend the Customs and Excise Act 1996 and the Biosecurity Act of 1993. The two bills make important amendments to existing legislation to underpin the implementation of the Trade Single Window component of the new Joint Border Management System. The Trade Single Window ensures a smoother flow of legitimate trade and is consistent with Government priorities relating to the provision of more joined-up online services.More than 250000 transactions have been processed to date through the Trade Single Window. Traders are continuing to register and transaction volumes are increasing rapidly. The only feedback I get from all users of it is that it is a fantastic system and they would like to get the extra functionality online as quickly as they can.The bills contain three key categories of amendments in respect of the Trade Single Window: registering users of the Joint Border Management System providing information to and receiving information from the Trade Single Window and consequential changes to offences. The Customs and Excise (Border Processing—Trade Single Window and Duties) Amendment Bill also makes minor technical changes to the Customs and Excise Act of 1996 to provide clarity and to improve the effectiveness of the Act to meet Government policy goals for border management.I want to thank the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee which has proposed two amendments that have actually been incorporated into the legislation. The first makes consultation over any changes to the de minimis mandatory so that those who are representative of interests that are likely to be substantially affected by proposed changes to regulations governing the valuation method and value for an import consignment below which duty need not be collected will be consulted.The second amendment is to provide for the avoidance of doubt for the making of biosecurity levy orders that enable the levy to be paid at more than one rate and that can set the actual levy rate or rates. The amendment aligns the provisions in the Biosecurity Act 1993 on biosecurity levy orders with other provisions in that Act.I have cut my formal speech short tonight because I thought that after the Committee stage when Mr Shearer and Mr Goff raised a whole lot of issues about secrecy and privacy but have never ever given out—Hon Phil Goff: Time to give a reply to the questions.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Well see the problem is Mr Goff that I did not have my research done at that time because I remember signing out a whole lot of things. But you know you sit in the chair and you think that the worst thing you can do around this place is make a claim and then get it wrong. So we had Mr Shearer say: “We’ve never heard about this secret increase. We’ve never heard about the secret increase.” Well I want to canvass a few facts.Let us go through some parliamentary written questions first of all. These are interesting. The first one is from Damien O’Connor lodged on 19 June last year. I know that some Labour Party members do not talk to Damien O’Connor—in fact I know that most do not talk to him—but they should have. They should have because he would have been able to tell them that my answer to that written question No. 7575 said: “The capital budget agreed for the Joint Border Management System in 2010 was $75.9m. In March 2013 Cabinet approved expenditure increase of $8.9m from within existing Customs and MPI capex baselines. Cabinet also approved $4.9m fiscally neutral transfer …”. So there is the first disclosure of the extra money to a parliamentary question written by Damien O’Connor.But wait—wait—there is so much more. In fact I am sorry to do this to my colleagues. I have got pages of it. I have actually even got pages of parliamentary questions from Mr Shearer himself who asked the questions and then said—David Shearer: But why didn’t you know?Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Well I did not ask them sir. You asked them and did not remember what you had even asked. For example a written question from Mr Shearer to me on 28 January this year asked: “What is the current projected costs for the completion of the Joint Border Management System and what is the current estimated completion date …?” and in the answer to that question I explained that the budget had gone up to $89.67 million because of extra functionality and scope changes that had been put in. Just like for anybody building a house who along the way decides that they might want to add on another garage or double the size of the kitchen there is a budget increase. [Interruption] That is right. But Mr Shearer did not even know that he had got it. What he said in the Committee was embarrassing for him. He must be so embarrassed. He kept saying: “This is a sneaky little deal that we’ve only learnt about”—hang on I will give you his quote. I will give you his quote: “This is a sneaky little deal that we have only learnt about for the first time tonight.” That was last week when the legislation was in the Committee of the whole House and yet he had got parliamentary written questions with it all laid out.Oh but wait there is more—there is so much more. There is a thing called the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. I understand why people who are not on it may not have known what was disclosed to that committee—I understand that. But I am going to check with my colleague Mr Hayes. Are Phil Goff and David Shearer on that committee? Well there you go—they are.So let us go through the select committee report—let us go through the select committee report. Here we go. First of all what went before that committee the New Zealand—Hon Phil Goff: You’re trying too hard Maurice.David Shearer: Maurice is trying so hard. You’re over-egging it.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Look at how embarrassed they are now. They have been caught with their pants down. They are making out that they never got told all this secret information—“We never got told it.” It turns out that not only have they had it in parliamentary written questions but it has been canvassed at the select committee hearing on estimates. I can give you the date for that—the hearing was on 14 November. I presume the members read their minutes or if they were there listened. The question was: “What IT projects if any were completed or are under way?” etc. and the answer that was given was the Joint Border Management System tranche one with an initial estimate of $75.9 million but now a completion total cost of $89.7 million. There is the increase again. It was given to the members at that select committee hearing on 14 November last year. They came into the House last week and said: “This sneaky Minister—he’s never told us about the increase.” That is what they said. I have got their Hansard—I have got Hansard. It says: “sneaky Minister who never told us”. That shows us how much work those—you know the old guys up in the balcony on The Muppet Show? You know the two grumpy old guys upstairs on The Muppet Show—that is them.Tim Macindoe: Phil and David.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Grumpy old—what are they called?Tim Macindoe: Phil and David.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Phil and David—yeah. Phil and David—the grumpy muppets up in the balcony grumpy as hell and making up stories.John Hayes: They hate each other.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Do they? See I just do not know who hates each other any more over there. It is so hard to work out.There is even more. The select committee report that was made available on 6 December says in it—this is in the report on page 2; I will give it to you—“The Joint Border Management System has been developed since 2010 and has received considerable funding: $75.9 million in Budget 2010 with an additional $13.8 million in 2013.” That is the sneaky bit about it! We put it in the select committee report. We put it in answers to written questions to those members. We actually put it in the estimates stuff. We even had the Customs Service go before the committee and explain it all and Labour members had the cheek the absolute gall to come into this House—Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: “Dumb and Dumber.”Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Yeah “Dumb and Dumber” are their names. Now I have found that out. They had the gall.If I had another half hour I would love to go through a whole lot more.Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Just one more.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: OK let us do one more. Let us do one more because there are so many more. Here we go—David Shearer.Hon Phil Goff: Hey try answering some of the questions that you’ve avoided.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: OK we will try. A written question lodged on 28 January from David Shearer about the decommissioning of CusMod asked whether CusMod was supposed to have been commissioned. The answer was no the decommissioning was only ever planned to be done once the full operation of the Joint Border Management System was up and running. But again Labour members said: “Oh it’s all up and running. CusMod is still running isn’t it?”. Yeah. Would you like me to have done a Novopay and switch it all off and then have nothing? Is that what you would like? But again in the short period of 10 minutes—when I can spend my time ripping them to shreds because it is so enjoyable—they sat in this House and David Shearer got up with all of the anger he could muster and said: “This is outrageous. We have got a Minister who has deceived this House. He hasn’t disclosed these numbers. We have never seen them until tonight.” That is what he said. That is what he said and guess what? Not a skerrick of it not a jot of it not an iota of it was even close to the truth. That is an outrage.