Ardern Shane: Border Security Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Border Security Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:13742] 
Government officials were set to work and told to go ahead and draft a bill which they did. They did a lot of work on it and it went to a very good select committee. The Government Administration Committee’s staff looked through the bill and by and large they came back with some sensible recommendations. The select committee agreed with those recommendations and then at the eleventh hour or the eleventh and a half hour the Minister the Hon Rick Barker decided there was an opportunity to introduce a couple of new clauses clauses 7B and 8C that would charge the industry—that is importers exporters and the shipping companies in between—$20 million in tax. 
If we go back to where I started with the 9/11 event of 2001 we have to ask this question: was this whole initiative started as a result of a security breach or a potential security breach? Was it designed to try to fix any problems that may occur at our borders in relation to security? The answer is yes of course it was. The second question is this: has the State normally funded security? The answer is yes the State normally has funded security. The third question is this: what makes this situation different from anything else historically? I am sure the Minister in the chair the Hon Taito Phillip Field will take a call to answer those questions. I am sure he knows about this. 
Opposition Member 
: You’d never know he was the Minister. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Well there it is. He is in the chair and I am sure he is the Minister. The Minister will answer those questions and the answer is that there is no difference between these security measures and all the other security measures. So the simple conclusion that the National Opposition has come to is that this is no more than a greedy back-door tax like a lot of the other greedy back-door taxes that this Government has tried to introduce. 
In fact on counting them up I think we are now up to about 23 new taxes despite the fact that in 1999 Labour stated on its pledge card that there would be no new taxes. Then at the next election in 2002 it reinserted that statement in another pledge card and stated there would be no new taxes. Yet today here is new tax No. 23 under the guise of the Border Security Bill. So I know the Minister will take a call to explain to us why this move is unique and whether there is a another jurisdiction in the world that has introduced such heavy costs on the industry—the exporters and importers—as a result of 9/11. I am sure the Minister will know that because he will have the list right in front of him when he answers that question. But there is no explanation that we can find anywhere in the Western World as to why as a result of this security measure one should introduce what is now a $16 million tax. 
The fact that the Government backed down and reduced the amount from $20 million to $16 million is in itself an admission that Government members got it wrong. That is in itself an admission that they should have read a bit more closely the Treasury recommendations in which Treasury stated that there were no known extra costs with regard to industry access or other costs that the cost was purely a security cost and that the Government would be setting a precedent by introducing it. 
Maybe the Minister in the chair will take a call. Maybe he will not; there is no evidence that he will. But I suggest to him— 
Hon David Carter 
: Why doesn’t he move? Is the Minister still alive? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: The Minister is still moving over there. So he may take a call and enlighten us as to why the Government felt the need to put a $16 million tax on the industry—on exporters and the like. The Treasury guidelines clearly stated that the Government had to define what the cost was.