Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I will have to look at the Order Paper because I was under the impression we were talking about the Customs and Excise Bill but it must have veered into immigration at some stage. I will address this bill because it is a very important bill and I will commend the Minister the Hon Meka Whaitiri for shepherding this bill into the House. I will also acknowledge the Hon Nicky Wagner and the Hon Tim Macindoe for their work. I think there's the predictable sledges about us passing the previous Government's legislation for which we will then push back and say Well they've had nine long years to get it up." So we'll just get that out of the road.But I would like to thank the officials. Look at the state of that bill—it's a weighty beast that takes a lot of getting through.Hon David Bennett: Have you read it?MARK PATTERSON: I have read it and I've got much to say about it unlike yourself Mr Bennett. I'd also like to thank the submitters particularly in the business community. We are talking about trade—$105 billion actually of two-way trade. This is a major part of our well-being as an economy so we need legislation that is fit for purpose.This bill replaces the 1996 Act which replaced the 1966 Act which replaced the 1913 Act. It is a bit of a dry bill. As I was wading my way through it one of the—actually the nugget of information we got out of this was brought to us by Rino Tirikatene when he said in the second reading I believe that the first customs operation was actually in 1839 in Waitangi. That shows you what an important part of our history this has been.Of course we now have compared to 1996 an explosion in tourism numbers—3.7 million tourists up from a million-odd probably back in 1996. That's 10000 a day if you boil it down. Probably at the peak of the season there will be two or three times that. We're looking at going to 4.9 million tourists by 2023 so it's important that we are able to manage these tourists. Of course there's about a couple of million New Zealand tourists that travel overseas—many of them reluctantly I think now they're unable to get to Kāpiti or Kaitāia Westport or Whakatāne. But the bill and customs itself to me is one of the three key pillars that underpin our economy along with biosecurity and food safety.The other side of this of course is keeping our society safe—insidious things like pornography. New Zealand First was pleased to support the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill last night by Simeon Brown but that was in terms of being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Customs needs to be the fence at the top that stops these substances getting in here and wreaking havoc in our community and peddling misery.This bill does not change the functions primarily of customs but it makes them more seamless and up to date and fit for purpose. Actually one of the interesting facts in the bill is that customs actually collects $13.3 billion of revenue in GST in the excise taxes and that so it is a very very important revenue gatherer for our economy. I think too the powers and obligations—I think it's been touched on a little bit before. It in some places extends some powers; in other places it restricts some. It gives some clarity and I think it's really important as legislators if we're going to give Government agents new powers we have to put a very firm lens over that—and heaven forbid we get called socialists for doing so by Mr Bennett—and the power of big Government.Clause 207(5) and the electronic devices—the two threshold test—there are those two thresholds. There's the reasonable suspicion—and that's for lower-level stuff where maybe someone's come in on a visitor visa that we may suspect is coming in to do work under the table. Perhaps it was about immigration after all Mr Bennett. But that will give us the ability to look at those devices—only localised; we can't go into the cloud or on to Facebook or social media. And of course then there's that stronger provision for those that we suspect of more serious offences. As the previous Labour speaker Ginny Andersen pointed out these new provisions have had the Privacy Commissioner's consent. That was New Zealand First's—that gave us some comfort that we could sign up to these with some surety. It also has clarified travellers' obligations: they must provide passwords and access to those devices. It is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the 1993 Privacy Act.Just another couple of clauses—182; it's the biometric information and it clarifies what that can be used for. It can only be used for identification purposes of the individual and to check against Parole Board or court rulings; it cannot go any further than that.Also another important clause is clause 245 which is the controlled deliveries. The 1978 Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act allows for drugs to be allowed to go through the border once they've been identified to go down the chain and collect the other perpetrators of crime and go down the supply chain a little bit. So this widens that out so that other illegal importations can be followed both domestically and internationally. This is a highly effective weapon for us in controlling illegal behaviour.Clauses 49 to 52: passenger name recognition stats which allows us to get advance warning of passengers coming forward and risk-assessing them. This is consistent with international aviation obligations and will be very helpful.There is another one I'd like to talk about: the Supplementary Order Paper about the contiguous zone which is 24 nautical miles. I wanted to raise that because I'd never heard of the contiguous zone so I wanted to show that I actually knew what it was. So it's 24 nautical miles—the territorial zone's only 12 nautical miles. So it allows us to go out there and extend customs powers to get out and cut off illegal activity or suspected legal activity before it reaches our shores. It takes away some ambiguity around those provisions it gives us some clarity and it also allows us to—in the event that we have asylum seekers for example customs are able to go out with the defence force and support our defence forces.Also the infringement clauses which are clauses 376 to 379 because it gives customs officials the power to—up to $1000 infringement clauses. So that is a pretty effective and efficient and up-to-date method of being able to enforce at a low level and have a deterrent. And the forfeiture and seizure provisions also are updated within that.So within all this this is a much needed bill. It does tidy up a very significant part of our economy. It has been a large effort to get this over the line but I think that it is a much improved piece of legislation so New Zealand First supports this long overdue update to our customs regulations. Thank you."