Rurawhe Adrian: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRurawhe Adrian: Passports Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4573. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): It is a pleasure to rise to speak to the first reading of the Passports Amendment Bill (No 2). I would describe the New Zealand passport as a taonga actually. When we are travelling overseas the New Zealand passport allows us to visit 170 other countries without a visa. The New Zealand passport has a very high standard and is recognised around the world as having a very high standard of quality attached to it. So the New Zealand passport is valued by every single New Zealander I believe who has one. New Zealanders do not like 5-year passports. Despite the fact that in 2005 there was a real need to have such a passport New Zealanders have never liked it and have actively sought a longer period of validity. Increasing it to 10 years was Labour Party policy last year. We had a campaign to raise the validity of a passport to 10 years from 5 years. More than 15000 people signed a petition to that effect and we made that our policy. So it is really good to see that this bill has finally made it to the House to increase the validity of New Zealand passports from 5 years to 10 years. That is certainly something that the Labour Party supports. It was in fact our policy and it is good to see that the Government has finally caught up.In talking about this amendment bill I want to also touch on a number of other things particularly an issue that will be important to New Zealanders and that is the cost of making applications. Over the past 5 years due to timing issues I have actually had to renew my passport three times in that period. One of the things that New Zealanders will be thinking about—and I refer to “Regulatory impact statement: Passport validity period” and its executive summary’s point No. 6. It reads: “The decision on whether to remain with a cost-recovery model or provide Crown revenue to limit fee rises is in our view a decision involving political trade-offs that should be made by Cabinet.” Never a truer word was written. The actual cost of processing a passport apparently is around $400. It has been recorded that in order to I guess make this more palatable for New Zealanders to accept the Minister has said that it would be set at around $180. We know that leading into this period the cost of processing the passports in the last few years has been subsidised from an accumulated fund which is now exhausted. I understand that there would need to be additional funds to subsidise the processing of passports moving forward over the next 5 years and beyond.I also want to make a point that in transitioning from a 5-year passport to a 10-year passport in around 2020 there would be possibly or most probably a surplus of staff. Logic tells me that me that if you are extending the validity of passports to 10 years then there will be fewer passports to be renewed over a period of time—a transitional period of up to 5 years out. That is certainly on this side of the House an issue that we would take particular interest in and we look forward to the select committee process so that we can examine fully these kinds of issues.As the Minister of Internal Affairs pointed out there are a number of technical changes in this bill. I am particularly interested in the online issue. I am sure we will have good and robust debate and discussions in the select committee over that issue. I am going to try to compare what I think—because I am not absolutely certain that there is a need to remove that option. I am told that technology advances in the power of the computer double every year so we might want to look more closely. As a comparison I will say this: as I understand it last year the select committee in its examination of the passport issue came to the conclusion that having biometric data within passports was more likely to have reduced the falsifying or counterfeiting of passports than the 5-year validity period. I would also suggest that maybe technology as it advances could be available to address those concerns about having online renewal of passports. I think that the online applications for new passports might be a separate issue but I do look forward to having a discussion in the select committee stage around those particular clauses.The Minister in charge of this when it becomes an Act will have the ability also to record or to note warnings on files travel documents and passports. I think we need to carefully examine that as well to make sure. We are seeing other similar legislation go through the House and I think that it would be important for us to ensure that that is used appropriately and that New Zealanders always have the ability to get home. We have discussed other bills and Acts in this House that traverse that issue and I think that within the Government Administration Committee it is one of the areas also that I would be paying particular interest to.I go back to my original comments about the 5-year validity period increasing to 10 years. I certainly do wonder why it has taken so long. I am pleased that it has finally arrived here but I am bound to say that it is another example of the Government being out of touch with New Zealand families because they have been talking about this issue for quite some time. For the Government to only nowbe dealing with this particular issue—at this stage of the Government’s 7 years on the benches opposite—I think that maybe this is political poll policy reacting to what New Zealanders want albeit very slowly and albeit with some real doubts about some of the things in this bill. The Labour Party will be supporting this bill’s referral to a select committee. Thank you very much. Kia ora.