Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3)

The debate on this part includes the Minister’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 241.

I have to say that that last vote was absolutely astonishing. Here we have very good legislation—and Part 2 is very good—and two parties are railing against common-sense and excellent legislation, without explanation. The only conclusion one can draw in the case of ACT, perhaps, is that it does not want there to be any limit on the amount of tobacco that can be grown for personal consumption, because that in some way rails against freedom. I say to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Rick Barker, that there is no other logical explanation, and I am sure he is as confused as I am.

Part 2 amends three or four pieces of legislation. The first is the Protected Objects Act 1975, the second is the Misuse of Drugs (Prohibition of Cannabis Utensils and Methamphetamine Utensils) Notice, and the third is the United Nations (Iraq) Reconstruction Regulations. There are also some transitional provisions set out on clause 18A—the reason being that if one thinks about the life cycle of a tobacco plant, one cannot arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and say these regulations are being brought in and will apply from today, when people may have moved under the old regulations. The regulations will apply to the growing of tobacco from 30 June 2009.

People may find some astonishment in the fact that the United Nations (Iraq) Reconstruction Regulations of 2003 needed to be amended. I certainly did, so I got a copy of the relevant statute, just to get a handle on what was being discussed here. These regulations were designed to enable the Government to control the activities of our soldiers and our troops in Iraq, and other officials that may be there. This legislation has been put in place particularly to protect Iraq’s cultural property and to make sure that if elements of Iraq’s heritage are pirated and brought back to New Zealand, if people were to get involved in the trading of petroleum or gas products, or if people were caught looting Iraqi Government assets, then these matters could be dealt with under New Zealand law.

Because of that, and because, under this legislation, we are giving the Customs Service the opportunity to follow a more pragmatic regime in respect of the forfeiture and seizure of items under the Act, we are having to modify the United Nations Iraq Reconstruction Regulations in two ways. Regulation 12(1) makes it clear that the Customs Service is authorised by this change to act using its own common sense in regard to all goods that are prohibited in New Zealand. Also, the bill amends regulation 12(2) to take into account something that may have been imported into New Zealand and then re-exported, and to authorise the Customs Service to become involved in the transaction and to operate. So it is quite important to realise that when we change one piece of law here it can have unintended consequences in other pieces of law. I think that our officials have done a very good job in trawling through quite obscure legislation to make these transitional arrangements work in historic legislation passed in this House.

The second part of the legislation applies to modifying section 10 of the Protected Objects Act of 1975—legislation that has been modified on many occasions. This part of the bill relates to the return of unlawfully exported protected foreign items. We are changing this legislation so that the Customs Service management can intercede and make some common-sense decisions about how issues should be addressed if, for example, we were to find that some Buddhist or Islamic treasures had been found in Iraq and brought back to New Zealand.

With those few words, I will just say that we on this side of the Chamber are fully supportive of Part 2 of the bill and will vote accordingly.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 241 in the name of the Hon Nanaia Mahuta to be agreed to.