Eckhoff Gerrard: Border Security Bill — In Committee 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Border Security Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13286] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 I just want to take a relatively short call on this particular part to re-emphasise the point that has been made I guess that Part 1 is totally unprincipled. We have sat here listening to the Associate Minister of Agriculture Damien O’Connor actually accuse this side of the Committee of trying to promote some sort of subsidy for the export industry or the farmers. Mr Damien O’Connor seems to believe that cost recovery is a legitimate cost imposed on the exporting industry. 
Well let us think about that for a moment. Do we get for example—and I ask this in a rhetorical sense—cost recovery in that sense from a climber stranded on the south face of Mount Cook with helicopter services rushing to his or her aid and climbing parties going up at huge expense to the taxpayer? All of us I think would agree that emergency services are some sort of public good—that we rely on the Government to provide through our tax those sorts of services so that a climber who is known to be in trouble gets some assistance. What about an ambulance service? Is there cost recovery from somebody who is run over by a bus out in the main street? Do we tell the ambulance driver that he or she must check and get some form of cost recovery from the person crushed under the bus? No that does not happen. It is a public-good service. Let us think about search and rescue out on the ocean. We had that appalling tragedy off Moeraki just recently where a number of fishermen drowned at sea. Of course there is an enormous cost to search and rescue. I am not sure what the figure is but it would run into the multimillions. But nobody challenges the concept and insists on cost recovery. Nobody has said that people must pay before those services are allowed to go out and help people in those circumstances. It is just not true. Does anybody in this country say that conservation in its purest sense should be based on cost recovery? Well in some aspects I would say it should be but in other aspects I would say that everybody benefits from say the kiwi recovery programme. Everybody benefits it is a public good and we are not trying to exclude anybody and those points are made all the time. 
Yet we get the Associate Minister of Agriculture hurling insults across this floor saying that the farming community is asking for subsidies. What they are asking for is principle. I ask the Associate Minister to tell us the principle behind this measure. I think Mr Ardern made the point that if one is going to—well how can I put it—reduce the cost what principle is that based on? One imposes either the full cost or none at all. That is the argument that industry throughout New Zealand has made. If the increased costs were genuine we would be perfectly happy to pay them. Well nobody is really happy about paying increased costs but if they are justified they would be accepted—but they are not. This whole concept of cost recovery from exporters for anti-terrorism measures has been challenged left right and centre by the export industry. I think members of the Green Party are the only people who are seeking to justify it besides the Government. Every exporter knows that there is no principle behind it. 
I spoke with an exporter of fish to France. It is a high-quality high-value product. The costs of doing business in New Zealand—and add this cost to them—mean that instead of his exporting a high-quality high-value product those fish will be turned into fish fingers. That is the unintended consequence of this bill. Is that not appalling? 
I finally want to make this point. Where is John Tamihere on this bill? Why is he not speaking on this bill? He is the Minister for Small Business. He is here to represent surely small business.