Prosser Richard: Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 2) Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 2) Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3927. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First):I am disappointed. I am disappointed because at the outset of this process I really wanted to be able to support this legislation arising from the Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill. I really did. I genuinely did. We have got to the end of it and I cannot.My colleague Mr Browning put his finger on the reason and put it quite succinctly as to why. It comes down to whether or not this is actually additional money. It turns out that it is not. If it was if we were talking another $100 million of extra money on top of what we currently spend on border protection we would be all in favour of it. I asked several times through the course of the stages of this debate for a straight-out confirmation or otherwise from the Ministers involved as to whether or not this was additional funding. I did not get a yes. We got some fudging and some smoke and some mirrors and a lot of indication that actually all we are doing is shifting the funding stream from one place to another.On the face of it yes it is about fairness. We agree that it is all about fairness. It is fair that those who pose the risk should pay for the risk. We do not actually have an issue with incoming passengers paying a biosecurity levy if that was what it was or a tax—call it what you want. And do you know what? I do not believe that “Joe Public” the international traveller would care all that much about paying $16 to come here either. I do not think they would notice frankly on top of several thousand money units from wherever you are coming from in the world to buy a ticket to come to New Zealand which is as far away from anywhere as you can get; another 16 bucks is neither here nor there. It is embedded in the ticket and they will not notice. That itself is not the issue. The issue is whether that $16 which was going to conglomerate and become 100 million bucks is going to be extra money for biosecurity or not.We have heard that Kiwifruit Vine Health Horticulture New Zealand the dairy companies—all these companies are fully in favour of it. And I do not blame them. I do not blame them. I think they are supporting this because they believe they are getting another $100 million of extra funding and actually they are not. Actually all they are getting is some travellers paying what they used to pay out of tax. That in itself may be enough of an enticement for them to support this. They might think “Well OK here’s 100 million bucks or whatever it is that the country spends on biosecurity coming out of the travellers’ pockets not out of my pocket as a primary sector business person.” That might be enough to make them happy but actually I think they are excited about this because they think “Wow! All of a sudden we are going to get the extra funding for biosecurity that we have needed and wanted for a long time.” And I think they are going to be sorely disappointed when they find out that actually it is the same amount of money; it is just coming from a different source.I could be wrong. I will say this now. If we arrive at this point in the cycle next year when we have the Budget and we look at the figures as they have been allocated and as they have been spent and we look at the spend on biosecurity and we look at this levy and the money that has come in from it since then or the year after—however long it takes however long it takes to get there—and we discover that here is the amount of money that we were spending and here is the amount of money that we have spent and all of a sudden there is this massive increase I will eat a big slice of humble pie. But I do not think I am going to be eating that slice of humble pie because I do not think we are going to find—David Bennett: You might as well have the whole pie!RICHARD PROSSER: Oh here we go—Mr Bennett. It must be getting late. It is approaching the witching hour and the bats are out in the belfry.I am not going to be eating that slice of humble pie because that extra money is not going to be spent. The Minister talked about New Zealand First getting in behind the regions. Well we are in behind the regions and part of us being in behind the regions is me standing here explaining to the regions that actually this thing that you are being sold as a big increase as a big massive new pot of money is not that at all. All it is is that it is being taken from here instead of being taken from there. It is the same amount of money. We are not going to get the 100 percent inspection of all passengers all luggage all mail and all freight. We are not going to get the inspection—Hon Nicky Wagner: Dogs sniffing away.RICHARD PROSSER: Oh we are getting some more sniffer dogs but we lost a whole bunch of sniffer dogs in just the last couple of years so perhaps we are getting back up to where we were when we had just an insufficient number of sniffer dogs instead of a massively insufficient number of sniffer dogs.We are not going to get all our shipping containers inspected. Arguably you could say that the number of shipping containers and freight coming into the country provides a far greater biosecurity risk than passengers coming in on cruise ships and aeroplanes. But as it stands about one in four shipping containers gets inspected and after this levy is imposed about one in four shipping containers will get inspected. So those risks will carry on coming in. They will carry on coming in.There is the issue of urgency which has meant that we have not been able to delve into this matter as closely as we have needed to. There will be a process of consultation from here on in and we will design this levy and that will be all well and good. But actually it should have happened beforehand. We have been through that. That is another aside. The outgoing levy—again this comes back to the issue as to whether this is new money or whether it is just a different source.When the Minister of Customs says that it is going to support customs activities for people leaving the country well that is fine but she also talks about cost recovery. So there is some money that has been coming out of general taxation to run the Customs Service so that you can walk out through the border and get your passport stamped or have the machine read it and now you are going to be paying $6 for that. That dosh that was being spent by the Government on that is not coming from that any more; it is going to come from the levy but actually nothing changes. There is no additional funding going into it.Stuart Smith: Would you say that again.RICHARD PROSSER: There is no additional funding going into it.Stuart Smith: No the whole thing.RICHARD PROSSER: The whole thing from the start? You will be able to watch it later on on In The House Mr Smith.I am going to wrap up by saying that I am genuinely disappointed because as I say we went into this process really with the hope that we were going to be able to support this legislation really hoping that we were going to discover that we are getting an extra $100 million for biosecurity—Callooh! Callay! It is Christmas. But actually we are not getting an extra $100 million for biosecurity. All we are doing is changing where it is coming from from one place to another place. Biosecurity is going to be the same. We are not going to get extra boots on the ground. We are not going to get the 100 percent inspection that we need. We are still going to be at risk. The incursions are still going to be coming in. We are still going to be faced with things like fruit fly. Foot-and-mouth ain’t going to go away.Ron Mark: Border Patrol.RICHARD PROSSER: Yes as Mr Mark says you just need to watch Border Patrol and see where the risks are.This legislation is not the silver bullet. I would go so far as to say that it is disingenuous. If the Minister had come out if any of the Ministers had come out and said: “Yes we absolutely guarantee that this is $100 million of extra money not just money coming from one place instead of another place.” we would have been able to support it. But it is not. It is smoke and mirrors. We cannot support this legislation.