Walker HamishHAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): I just want to start by acknowledging the amazing work that the customs officials do across our country and offshore. There are a number offshore; I believe it's somewhere in the few-hundred mark—I'm sure the honourable member for Hamilton East—Hon Tim Macindoe: West.HAMISH WALKER: Sorry Hamilton West—the one-time customs Minister the Hon Tim Macindoe would know. I also want to acknowledge the excellent work by the previous Government and also the Hon Nicky Wagner. The first time you often come across a customs official is when you see the video just before you fly into one of our international airports which runs in conjunction with the Ministry for Primary Industries. Then you meet these lovely people on the border. They do an amazing job. They put themselves at risk every single day. For me the hardest part is sort of resisting the urge to pat those beautiful dogs—very cute dogs. Hon Tim Macindoe: You're allowed to do that.HAMISH WALKER: Is that right?Hon Tim Macindoe: You are allowed to.HAMISH WALKER: Thank you the previous Minister. I was just having a read of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee report. Unfortunately this is about the extent of the submissions which is a little bit disappointing—I believe there were three submissions. I do want to talk to those later on but this bill has some good objectives including providing the New Zealand Customs Service with an additional option to disrupt drug smuggling into New Zealand—basically giving them another tool in the tool kit. It also establishes clear rules clear laws over offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.The bill will amend the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to provide for a framework for how customs may stop board search and take necessary enforcement action in international water. It's important to note that these powers are consistent with customs' existing maritime powers in New Zealand but it's important to note that they are only limited to a number of situations. Those situations are when customs have reasonable cause to suspect that a drug smuggling offence has been is being or is likely to be committed and in the case of foreign ships the flag State has authorised actions in accordance with the drug-trafficking convention.This will enable customs to respond to suspected drug smuggling activities before ships enter into our waters or after they leave. We have been told that the powers proposed in this bill will not be exercised lightly; customs will consider these options available to them and determine the most effective response along with the other tools available to them. This will establish a clear set of guidelines over drug smuggling offences committed in international water.The bill also amends the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 to establish offences relating to drug smuggling outside New Zealand. This makes it an offence to be involved in the importation or exportation of controlled drugs or prohibited equipment or material such as precursor substances equipment or materials to be used in producing or manufacturing controlled drugs.This is a very important piece of legislation. I visited a police station in my electorate yesterday and they were telling me they were sharing with me some of the horrific stories of the damage drugs have done in our communities. After that I visited a lovely lady. Her granddaughter has been addicted to P since the age of 16 and now they're struggling—really struggling—as a family as to how to help her overcome this horrible horrible addiction. They also told me that drug dealers are becoming more savvy these days. In the good old days a drug dealer may have smuggled a few supermarket bags full of cannabis. Now it's a lot more sophisticated: it's just small bags of P which is obviously very hard to track and to capture—with the big supermarket bags of cannabis it's easy to see it's easy to smell—which is a concern.We know the attempts to smuggle drugs across the maritime border into New Zealand have been increasing in recent years. You only need to look at the recent attempts made to get into our shores. I just want to talk about two examples which just show how extreme and how far the lengths are that criminals will go to smuggle drugs into New Zealand. You'll recall back in June 2016 up on Ninety Mile Beach—it was a bit like a movie from Hollywood really; it played out something like a plot that you would see in one of those movies. In a joint operation with customs New Zealand Police and other Government departments they found 449 kilograms of methamphetamine in the back of a campervan on the beach and a further 52 kilograms buried at Ninety Mile Beach. Through the excellent work of customs and the police service two men admitted going in a boat more than 12 nautical miles off Ninety Mile Beach picking up the drugs from another boat and then returning back to the beach. Back on the beach the drugs were then handed to other members of the group. What's great to hear is that the two men were jailed for more than 20 years and I just want to commend and thank the New Zealand Police and the work of customs for catching these offenders.In another incident towards the start of last year I believe—February 2017—a New Zealand - flagged yacht was intercepted off the coast of Australia near Sydney with 1½ tonnes of cocaine worth $320 million on board. Searching the New Zealand and Australian law enforcement agencies websites it tells me that the yacht sailed over from Tauranga and met the mother ship in the southern Pacific Ocean where the men helped to transfer dozens of black bags on to their boat. I just want to acknowledge the previous National Ministers Nicky Wagner and Tim Macindoe. Tim listening to you earlier in the House quite clearly you're an expert in this area. You know how these drug dealers think and if I didn't know that you were a previous customs Minister I would have serious concerns.The Customs and Excise Bill was introduced by the previous National Government and passed at the beginning of the year which back then enabled customs to deal with the considerable growth in trade and travel. Every single day there's about 180000 items that cross the border—whether it's postage items whether it's people—which is a huge amount and a huge increase from some years earlier. It's actually amazing. I was in Australia recently and I was walking down the corridor and I actually started chatting to a customs official. He was telling me about the sensors they're about to put in place which will basically automatically detect if you're carrying drugs or not. I was a wee bit concerned that he did stop me for a yarn. On that note I just want to commend the recent rise through the ranks from Minister Faafoi. I heard very positive remarks from the parliamentary rugby game in Napier previously. Hopefully your new roles don't take you away from those duties. But I hear you did pull an injury so maybe a bit more training will help. In January this year customs launched its newest patrol vessel Hawk V. This vessel cost the previous Government $4.5 million and it was designed and built in New Zealand. It's significantly faster than its predecessor can handle rougher seas and contains state-of-the-art technology including thermal imaging systems to track vessels at night. And it's great to see that late last year in Tauranga and Paihia it led customs to seizing a total of 70 kilograms of cocaine resulting in five arrests. This bill will continue to enable customs to take more of a proactive approach as opposed to a reactive approach; one where hopefully it'll stop drugs getting into our communities and causing such significant harm. And one last final comment I was interested to see that if you think about people that are caught illegally fishing then they have to forfeit their fishing gear their fishing boat their fishing vessel—it's interesting to see that this bill will require people to forfeit their vessels. Obviously there's a large capital upfront cost to purchase a vessel to take your drugs across waters. So a bit like under the fishing rules where you have to forfeit your fishing equipment I think this is a very good initiative. I just want to once again commend this Government for taking on the previous Government's work and I commend this bill to the House.