Borrows Chester: Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Borrows Chester: Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:14041] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill—which is handy because it is the one we are debating at the moment. I look forward to this bill coming before the erudite and efficient Justice and Electoral Committee. I think it will be the 20th piece of legislation we will have had before our committee in this term and we are only too pleased to help out the Minister of Customs in respect of this legislation. 
The bill gathers together a number of relatively small amendments to allow for changes and trends in importation and for other issues that have arisen in relatively recent times but that are not catered for within the current legislation. The amendments will clarify licensing and excise liability requirements for biofuels and biofuel blends. They will allow the use of reasonable force within certain Customs Service - controlled areas in order to compel unauthorised persons to leave. They will enable the Customs Service to prevent goods from entering New Zealand that have been designed manufactured or adapted to facilitate a crime of dishonesty—for example card skimmers. The amendments will create an offence of injuring or killing a Customs Service dog. They will enable goods that must be imported in multiple shipments to be managed as if they were a single shipment. The amendments will allow for the making of regulations to define the point at which an export entry is deemed to have been made and will define when a postal article has been produced or delivered to a customs officer. They will also provide the specific method for calculating the value of temporarily imported goods at the time of exportation. 
The bill paves the way for the future of border management in New Zealand and it will ensure that the Government’s $70 million investment in new systems will deliver a real change for border management. The new joint border management system will bring Customs Service and MAF Biosecurity New Zealand processes together under the same system to provide improved security and productivity at New Zealand borders. 
Budget 2010 also provides $5.9 million to the Customs Service over the next 2 years to fight the illicit drugs trade through enhanced tracking and surveillance. Tools of this kind are vital in order to clamp down on criminal gangs and the methamphetamine trade. The Customs Service is already doing well as the House knows but this legislation will continue to help to give the service the conditions it needs to keep busting drug importers. The year 2008 was already a record year for intercepting the precursors to P and 2009 surpassed 2008 by over 66 percent. The amount of precursors the Customs Service intercepted last year was enough to manufacture at least 246 kilograms of methamphetamine thus saving an estimated $138.6 million of potential harm to our community. 
I am pleased that this bill will receive support from across the House. I commend the bill to the House.