Lees-Galloway Iain; Mallard TrevorThird ReadingHon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister of Immigration): I move That the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill amends the Immigration Act 2009 to provide for the collection of the international visitor conservation and tourism levy and to include the electronic travel authority in Immigration New Zealand's automated decision-making. Tourism provides New Zealand with greater prosperity employment and the opportunity to make face to face connections with people from other countries. Tourism has also seen a surge in recent years with visitor numbers expected to exceed 5 million in 2025. This surge of visitors has seen emerging pressures in tourist hot spots and puts strain on local infrastructure. It has become apparent that additional steps are needed to protect our biodiversity uphold our reputation as a world-class destination and address the way critical tourism infrastructure is funded.The levy is a step in the right direction to solve these issues. The bill acknowledges the impact tourism has on our environment and infrastructure and provides a means of collecting money directly from the visitors who use it. The bill also extends Immigration New Zealand's authority to use automated decision-making to include the electronic travel authority which will be mandatory from 1 October. This extension will enable fast and efficient decision-making for the 1.5 million people who visit New Zealand from 60 visa-waiver countries.The bill allows the Minister to introduce regulations for a levy on international visitors. Those regulations will set out who is liable who is exempt from paying the levy the amount or method of calculating the levy and how the levy is to be collected. To ensure that the levy remains relevant the bill requires the levy be reviewed at least once every five years. The bill also ring-fences the levy revenue for tourism and conservation. The Ministers of Tourism Finance and Conservation will shortly be seeking input from an advisory group on how best to spend that money to put our tourism sector on a more sustainable footing.Support for this bill is strong across the tourism industry conservation stakeholders local government and members of the public. The bill has been widely consulted on receiving 107 submissions 90 of which supported the levy. The sector itself has been very supportive. Tourism Industry Aotearoa surveyed its own members and found strong support from those businesses and some of the larger players have also published a report in favour of the levy.New Zealand as a whole has recognised the need for a stronger and dedicated investment in tourism and in conservation. This bill will introduce a key funding mechanism to ensure that New Zealand can sustainably manage and grow this country's tourism sector. It will ensure that both conservation and tourism initiatives are supported and it will ensure that taxpayers and ratepayers are not unfairly shouldered with some of the increased costs that come with increased tourism. I'm proud to commend this bill to the House.SPEAKER: The Hon Roger McClay—Todd McClay.