Tirikatene Rino: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3880. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga):I am pleased to be speaking in the first reading of the Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill. Let me state at the outset that Labour is opposing this bill so be prepared for a long night ahead. We are opposing this bill because border processing is adequately funded from the Crown and there is no need to be imposing a travel tax on the good folks of New Zealand.Let us look at this. This is a travel tax that is going to be levied on every traveller every passenger families going on their trips and our important tourists whom we rely on coming into our country. It is a tax that will be put on everybody. For the privilege of leaving our shores folks will be paying an extra $22 for the round trip. The same applies to international visitors whom we want to welcome into our country. An extra tax is going to be put on them. This is one more tax that is being put on Kiwis and it is another broken promise—another broken promise from this Government.We have seen time and time again in this Budget the broken promises in terms of the imposition of taxes and this is yet another one. The Government is taxing Kiwis ordinary Kiwis who want to go on their trip overseas. It is taxing them when they go to see their loved ones. It is a broken promise. We may want to argue around the terminology. It is very clear—you might want to call it a border clearance levy but it is still a tax. It is a tax and even John Key cannot explain the difference. When John Key was asked he said: “Oh google it.” He did not even want to front up. But I tell you what—we did not need to google it. We just went to the Oxford Dictionary. And what does the Oxford Dictionary say? The definition of “levy” is a tax raised by levying. So whether it is a levy or a tax—“potayto” “potahto”; “tomayto” “tomahto”—they are all the same. They are all the same. Soccer football—they are both the same. This is yet another broken promise from this Government. The imposition of a tax is a broken promise.Let us spare a thought for the people in the New Zealand tourism industry because they are the ones who have been let down by this Government with this measure. They have had a casual Minister of Tourism who has just flip-flopped along trying to say: “Yes this is what I’m going to do for our wonderful tourism industry.” And what has he done here? He blindsided it. He blindsided the tourism industry. It had no idea this was coming. The Prime Minister was talking to the industry just a few days ago and it was completely blindsided by this.The irony is that the Prime Minister the casual Minister of Tourism has been advocating for and working with the industry to try to encourage major markets for our international visitors to bring down or eliminate their travel taxes. Yet now he is going against the work that has been going on in the New Zealand tourism industry in Australia and in the UK. He has done a complete about-face and he did not even have the courtesy to give a heads-up to the New Zealand tourism industry.Let us not forget that the tourism industry is the second-largest generator of foreign exchange earnings for our country—in excess of $10.4 billion. It brings in a lot and it knows that when the Prime Minister was asked about this he said that it will not make a blind bit of difference—not a blind bit of difference. How does he know that? Because just a few years ago he was trying to advocate on behalf of our industry to try to make sure that we can have a freer passage to bring down those travel tax costs for our visitors. So there you go—a flip-flopping casual Prime Minister. You know there is a Twitter handle going now. The Prime Minister flip-flops so much he has been called “Jandal John”—more flip-flops than Number One Shoes. That is what John Key is: “Jandal John”. If you look up that hashtag you can see all the flip-flops that this Prime Minister has done and there are plenty of them in this Budget. The tourism industry has been let down. The tourism industry has been incredibly let down.I want to move on and look at what this tax is going to be paying for. Of course we do want increased border protection bolstering our biosecurity systems. Everyone wants that. We like to see the little beagles at our airports and increased X-ray machinery. We like that.Hon Member: Who should pay for them?RINO TIRIKATENE: They are already paid for by the Crown. Crown funding has paid for that. And now the Government is passing that on to everyday Kiwis and everyone who wants to go on a flight overseas. If we look behind that what else will the tax be paying for? I want to mention four letters that you rarely hear about these days out of the Ministry for Primary Industries and the New Zealand Customs Service—JBMS the Joint Border Management System. Remember that? That was the great merging of the IT platforms between the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Customs Service.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: What does it stand for?RINO TIRIKATENE: Joint Border Management System—the JBMS. What we have seen is a failure of the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Customs Service to deliver on that system. It is 3 years too late and $30 million over budget and we still probably will not have it by the end of this year which is the due date. It has been put off it has been delayed it has been costly and it has been shrouded in secrecy. That is right. This Government has been trying to put a veil of secrecy over it because there is a major dispute. There is a major dispute going on with IBM the contractor. The Government has had crisis talks after crisis talks trying to work with IBM. A hundred million dollars has been tipped into this project and we still have not seen the delivery of a first tranche or anything. Risk and intelligence—what has been delivered under the Joint Border Management System for risk and intelligence? Nothing. Risk and intelligence are totally lacking.So what will this levy be paying for? What will people be paying this tax for? We need to know what the true cost will be because what we do not want to see is that this levy is just subsidising the Budget blowout of the Joint Border Management System. That is what this tax will be doing—subsidising the cost blowouts. We know that it is not just a cost recovery. It is not a simple cost recovery exercise because there is very broad discretion given to the Minister. Sure there is consultation that has to take place but at the end of the day it is at the very broad discretion of the Minister to set these levies.Once the taxes have been set there will be no end to what the greed of a Government and a Minister will show in terms of collecting revenue. It is a cash cow. Picking from travellers is an easy cash cow. Rest assured the Government will be using this to subsidise the big black hole—the $30 million black hole—we already have at the moment with the Joint Border Management System. That is the real scandal of this Government—that the people of New Zealand have invested $100 million into that system.Sure we have got a trade single window and people can import cargoes in terms of the freight industry but what about the core of that system? The core of that system was to modernise and have sophisticated new tools of risk and intelligence. What happens in that regard? What does the Ministry for Primary Industries and MAF Biosecurity New Zealand pull out of the Joint Border Management System? You never hear about it. It has been taken off the agenda because it is a disaster. It is an absolute disaster and this is just a cynical attempt by this Government to raise revenue to try to fill the huge black hole that has been created by that failed system. We are not going to be getting out of it. It is going to be getting worse and worse.This is a poor piece of legislation. It is another tax. We oppose it and we will oppose it all the way to midnight. Thank you.