O'Connor Damien: Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
O'Connor Damien: Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:14045] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 When I was reading through the Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill—unlike the previous speaker Simon Bridges who clearly has not—and looking at the notes I thought that anyone who wanted to refer to the detail would probably be as excited as someone sitting down and watching paint dry. For the most part the changes brought in by this bill are quite technical. Most people would see them as logical and sensible. Indeed that is why the Labour Opposition will be supporting the bill. 
But the bill does do a couple of other little things. Well maybe the Government thinks they are little things but they are actually quite significant. It brings in a new tax. This is from the party that said it would cut taxes. From 1 July the New Zealand Customs Service began applying an import transaction fee of $24.75 to a range of personal imports. I can remember when I came back from Australia at the end of the 1970s or it might have been at the start of the 1980s and I brought a few presents for my family. I remember being absolutely terrified because I did not know the exact value of them and I did not know whether I would have to pay a fee at customs when I came into the country. I think this bill might reintroduce such a tax. If people sit down and read through this bill they will see that generally the import transaction fee will apply to goods valued at over $400 but at times packages valued at less than $400 will attract a fee. Has the Government been up front about this? No it has not. This is a new tax. People who go to Australia for a holiday and buy something worth around $400 might end up paying an import transaction fee when they come back into the country. I thought we had finished with all of that bureaucracy but no the National Government seems intent on reintroducing it. I trust the Justice and Electoral Committee to address that. I ask Mr Bridges whether he picked up on that fact. 
Simon Bridges 
: Oh yeah. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: I ask Mr Bridges whether he has told the good people of Tauranga that when all of the blue-rinse brigade up there take their little trips to Australia in winter they will be paying this fee when they come back. We will leave that for the select committee. 
As my learned colleagues have said the Customs Service has a very very important role in New Zealand. We are an island nation; everyone who comes here comes here by sea or plane. Very few come by any other means; there are no submarines there is no swimming— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Some row. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: The odd person yes and we have to acknowledge the odd person who kayaks. We acknowledge that huge task. 
The first Kiwi people meet when they arrive in New Zealand is often a customs person. They could have come on Air New Zealand in which case their contact with New Zealand would have started when they hopped on the plane—not after going through customs in Los Angeles we hope. Their experience should be a positive one when they hop on an Air New Zealand plane or arrive at one of our airports. It is really important that our customs staff are well resourced competent and friendly because they are the face of this country. They are the first point of contact. For the most part they do an exceptional job. So the alignment of information between agencies is sensible. In fact most people would ask why we have not been doing it before now. The complex web of legislation we have has been hindered by privacy provisions and all the rest of it. This bill addresses those issues and that is great. So Labour will support it. 
But a number of issues will have to be addressed such as the import transaction fee which is clearly laid out in the bill. National members have refused to acknowledge it but— 
Paul Quinn 
: What clause? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Oh Mr Quinn has not read the bill either. Perhaps Mr Quinn should pick up the bill go through it and read it. I ask whether he will be on the select committee. No but Mr Bridges will be. 
I tell the House that the most significant part of this bill is a little reference to the removal of customs and excise on people who generate and produce their own biofuel. The Government may laugh at that. It has overlooked it. It made brief mention of it; the Minister of Customs did mention it once. It is the only visionary part of this whole piece of legislation. Labour supports it because anything that incentivises people to make more efficient use of energy or to generate their own biofuels is very smart not just for them and for New Zealand but for the whole planet. I commend the Government for picking up the idea—no doubt it was laid down by the previous Labour Government—that we should remove the customs and excise on that. With emerging technologies there are a number of opportunities in this area for particularly farmers and people in rural areas to produce biofuels. 
Take for example the complex and difficult issue of housing dairy cows. In Europe many cows and other animals are housed right through the winter; they have long cold winters. In New Zealand this practice is emerging and I believe that over time those farmers will capture much of the methane and effluent produced and will start producing their own biofuel. If they had to pay excise on that which is the current situation then that would clearly be a disincentive. This bill addresses that issue and that is great. I commend the Government for one little bit of vision. Mr Quinn has his eyes open just enough to see that opportunity. 
I must raise another issue here. The previous speaker acknowledged the $74 million committed to the joint border management system and that seems great. I would just warn the Government that there has been a record through INCIS through Land 
online 
 and no doubt through this new process of excessive but necessary expenditure on complex technology projects. There are indications that this total project will cost $200 million. The question I have of a Government that says it has no money for anything—other than tax cuts of course for its wealthy mates and a bit of money to splash around here and there—is whether it will commit the necessary funding to follow through on and complete this project because if the $74 million is spent and the project ends up being half-pregnant then we will end up with some merging and sharing of information but not the completion of a project that would lead to efficiency at the border. It is logical that Biosecurity New Zealand the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Customs Service share information about people or goods coming in and out of the country because we need the highest level of scrutiny and border control. This country is dependent upon biological systems. We need to make sure that the people and goods coming in and out do not bring threats by way of biological agents or unwanted pests and organisms. 
The Government cut 54 front-line staff from Biosecurity New Zealand 2 years ago—54—and pretends that it has maintained a high level of biosecurity at our border. Well the Minister knows that is not true. We will find out—because I will ask the Minister—how many incursions have occurred this year with regard to biosecurity. People will be amazed. Those incursions occur on a regular basis because we do not spend enough on biosecurity to guarantee border protection. If through this bill we have better alignment of the information shared between agencies then that is great. But if we do not have a commitment from the Government to front-line services—the National Government cut $2 million and 54 jobs from Biosecurity New Zealand—and if it is to continue with its laissez-faire approach towards biosecurity then we will have a major incursion. 
This bill commits to better information-sharing but it is dependent upon expenditure by the Government of $200 million. If the Government is cutting back in other areas I am not convinced that it will have the good sense to commit the rest of the money to that project to make this work. This is generally good legislation but it has some issues to do with the potential for small-minded charges at the border—hassling people. It has issues to do with whether the Government will commit the funding to follow through with this project. Can we can trust the National Government in any way to show true commitment to protecting our country from biosecurity risks?