Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): Thank you very much—Hon Ruth Dyson: Good choice.STUART NASH: A very good choice—Hobson's choice I think. Look it is good to stand up and talk about this piece of legislation. I must admit though when they say that this is—where are we—refined and remediated legislation I look at a bill that is 380 pages and go: Shivers! Is this really simplified? If it is the other one must have been hell of a long."The other thing also is Jonathan Young the MP for New Plymouth said that a lot has occurred over the last 20 years—and I agree with him—but some things have not changed. Twenty years ago Bill English had been in this House for about 10 years already. He was already an experienced MP 20 years ago. Some things do not change. And I must admit looking over at the National benches at the moment I do not think I have ever seen Paula Bennett sitting in the back row. We know why she is doing it now. What did she promise you Mitch? Foreign affairs mate—foreign affairs? Ha ha! Jami-Lee Ross have you got finance—finance? Police? Oh police—oh OK. There is a lot of horse-trading going on here is there not? But anyway back to the bill. Ha ha!Hon Paula Bennett: No no you can talk about me.STUART NASH: Oh OK we will talk—ha ha! Not again. Anyway a lot has changed and there is no doubt about it. In a bill that is 20 years old and with the way that technology has moved like a number of members have spoken about it is important that a bill such as this is not prescriptive because if it is it goes out of date really really quickly. I mean who would have believed 10 years ago that we would be doing so much on our phones at the moment? In fact I remember the first time I got a text I got really annoyed and thought "Why don't these people just pick up the phone and call you?" and now texts are a great way of communicating when you do not want to speak to someone.But that aside technology is moving at such a rate that we cannot have a bill that absolutely says "These are the things that have to be done." if using a particular device. We have to have an enabling piece of legislation that takes into account not only the technology that exists today which we know will be slightly different from the technology that exists when this bill actually gains its Royal assent and commences which I think is April 2018—so in that period of time we know that technology will change. Facebook will update something. The new model of—well not Samsung. The new model of Apple will be out there. The new iPad will be doing things that it cannot do at the moment. So we have got to have legislation that keeps up with that.I am going to actually be a little bit of a devil's advocate with regard to something that my colleague Kris Faafoi talked about and the Greens and others—about digital devices. The bottom line is that this is how we store data these days. This is how we carry information. You know on your iPad or on your phone—on any technical device—there could be any manner of data that could be insidious illegal or used to perpetrate illegal acts. I believe that in this day and age we do need to have the ability to access that data if—and this is the rider on this—there is reasonable doubt or if there is a reasonable expectation to believe that that digital device is being used for illegal activity.There will be a whole lot of tests around this. We know that. When you walk through an airport at the moment they pull you aside randomly they run something down—apparently they are looking for bomb residue on your suit on your jeans—and they test it. That is random. What I do not think we would want to see is someone grabbing your mobile phone and doing a random password search and checking all your photos. But I do not think that is what we are talking about. I completely agree with Mr Faafoi when he said that the customs officers and the Customs Service—certainly in my interaction with them—are highly professional and do an absolutely brilliant job.Having said that we are requiring them to be much more professional as well. When you think that even last year alone $284 million worth of P came across our borders. That was twice as much as the year before and I suspect it will be about half as much as next year. So what we are facing these days is a level of criminality that is becoming so much more sophisticated in the way it does things. The only way we are going to keep up with these chaps is if we are one step ahead of them—or at least playing on a level playing field. So first and foremost the legislation must reflect that. Secondly the customs officers must have the ability to use the most up-to-date tools to get in and to extract information from people who they reasonably believe are engaged in some form of criminal activity.There are some other things that go on in this bill but the one thing that I come back to quite a bit is our global reputation. You know we do have a very good reputation. I do actually think—I am being serious on this—that one of the things that this Government has done very poorly is actually proactively managed our global brand—i.e. I think that some of the things this Government has done have devalued the value of our brand but that is a conversation for another day that I am happy to have with anyone if they would like me to.But what I am saying is that in the First World our allies and our friends and other customs services around the world as well expect our customs laws processes procedures and technologies to be of the absolute highest standard. If we are to be seen as a First World country that is dedicated to going really hard against the people who are bringing in drugs who are trading in electronic data and who are—heaven forbid—bringing in kiddie porn or anything like this then we need to be sure that we not only have the technology but that we are perceived to be First World and that the bad guys out there know that when they come across the border into New Zealand the odds of them being caught are not 10 percent like burglaries but about 99 percent. Let us face reality. People are always going to get through our borders with contraband illegal stuff or information that we just do not want in this country. However if we are really that good—and I believe we are and I believe that this legislation goes a long way to getting us there—then let us form an international reputation of having some of the strictest but fairest border controls in the world.I looked through the departmental disclosure statement and there are some points in here that will be hotly debated by the select committee—I have no doubt about that. For example under the title of "Privacy issues" there are a number of points that I know as a country we need to be sure are in place but not used to abuse the system. For example this bill according to the statement does create amend or remove the provision relating to the collection storage access to and the correction use or disclosure of personal information. This bill does contain provisions that could result in the compulsory acquisition of private property. This bill does create or amend decision-making power to make a determination about a person's rights obligations or interests that are protected at the moment by another law and this could have significant impact on those rights obligations and interests. It is acknowledged that this is what the bill will do.But I also note that the Privacy Commissioner has been consulted about these provisions certainly in the development of this piece of legislation. But the most important thing—and a number of other members alluded to this—is not just that we understand the Privacy Commissioner's report not that it is made available but that the Privacy Commissioner and the staff from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner are able to be quizzed just to understand their concerns. There is no doubt about it: every time the rights of an individual are compromised in some way shape or form there has to be a good reason why that is done. This bill does do that but looking at the legislation looking at where we were looking at where we want to be and looking at the future—let alone the present—this is a very important piece of legislation that I think is really going to add to our border security.I look forward to it passing through the House but I also look forward to a number of the concerns that members have with regard to this. Thank you very much.Bill read a first time. Bill referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee."