Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill

Labour is supporting this bill. This is the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill. Part 1 is mainly about the purpose, the interpretation, and the Act binding the Crown, so most of Part 1 is taken up with interpretation of different terms used throughout the bill. The aim of the bill is to enable the Crown to recover the costs of aviation security, biosecurity, and customs for traveller processing from the operators of new or re-established international airports and international airports that sometimes request that travellers be processed in a non-routine manner.

As I said, we support this bill, but this is yet another bill that has languished on the Order Paper. Interestingly—after the debate we had in the Committee stage of the last bill, the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill—this one was supposed to commence on 1 January 2011. So all this time, when we could have been having cost recovery, a 50-50 percent split between the Government and the providers, we have been wasting time on a whole range of other things, and the Government has let this bill slide. It was actually introduced on 9 September 2010 and had its first reading very soon after—the next week—so clearly the Minister in charge of the bill at the time thought it was very, very urgent. It was referred to the Primary Production Committee, and the committee reported back on 15 November 2010. Quite reasonably, it reported back believing that the bill was going to commence on 1 January.

I feel very sorry for those select committee members, who did their job diligently, considered eight submissions from groups and individuals, and heard three submissions. What is even sadder about this bill is looking at who was on the select committee at that time. It gives you a bit of a time warp. It is another time warp—it is another time warp. We have some good members who are still in this House, but there are others who are just a distant memory now. Sandra Goudie was on the select committee—Sandra Goudie. She was on the Primary Production Committee, which considered this bill, and she obviously did her job diligently, because it got reported back very quickly. The Hon Jim Anderton—

💬 John Hayes: Who?

The Hon Jim Anderton was on it as well.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Quite a good campaign manager.

Yes, he was quite a good campaign manager, actually. I am quite pleased that he has moved on and not worried about this bill. We also had Brendon Burns and Dr Ashraf Choudhary. He has gone too, but, thinking about the last bill we were debating, I know he was very concerned about the lack of ethnic representation at the time, as well. He did his job.

But it is interesting when you think that that is how long this bill has taken, and it was so important at the time. What is even more interesting is that this bill has a very long history. It goes back to 2004, when there was policy development for the funding of passenger clearance services. That was overseen by the Ministerial Committee on Funding of Border Security, under the chairmanship of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen, the then Minister of Finance. The ministerial committee developed a set of proposals on how passenger clearance services at international airports could be funded and implemented, and those proposals went out. They formed the basis of stakeholder consultation. There was a consensus reached among industry stakeholders that although there was no ideal option, the agreed position reflected the best solution in terms of the principles that stakeholders were most concerned about.

In 2005 the Government specifically considered the allocation of aviation security charges across airports. That was around about the time, or maybe a couple of years after, aviation security had been ramped up in New Zealand after the 9/11 situation in 2001. Some of us can remember the days when we did not have to go through security at domestic airports or regional airports. That had further consultation through another consultation process in 2006, which formed the foundation for a Cabinet paper and drafting instructions for a bill called the International Passenger Clearance Funding Bill.

Then we got to 2008. What happened then? Well, we know that 2008 was an election year, but there was some more consultation on the proposals around the change, and there was a lot more consultation. But, anyway, no bill emerged, and, of course, we had an election. So all of those years of work, of studying this issue, disappeared. We got to 2009 and a National-led Government, and it got the Customs Service to issue a consultation document to stakeholders for determining policy for restart international airports. So there was a whole new aspect added to that. That might be because we were starting to see regional airports operate as international airports. It really was not until 2010, as I have said, that there was a bill that came to this House and that was called the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill.

The interesting thing about all that is that Labour did all the work. We did it very carefully. We consulted with stakeholders in a changing industry, where there were new challenges, where there were new international airports being developed, where there were biosecurity challenges, and where there were other Customs Services costs and additional costs emerging or being added on to the Government. I do find it interesting that we are yet again debating a bill that has been around for nearly 4 years the day before we rise for Christmas. I cannot help but think that either the Minister for Primary Industries has so little influence in Cabinet that he could not get this up the Order Paper—

💬 John Hayes: Not true.

Maybe it is not true. You can tell us why. Either that or it was that dealing with biosecurity and aviation security issues were not a priority for this Government, cost recovery was not a priority for this Government, or, I do not know, it has just lost the plot. It is possible that the Government just lost the plot and it forgot about it. The Government has been around for so long that it forgot about this bill, and then it went: “Oh goodness, we had better get this out. We had better do something about it. We have got some issues around biosecurity.”

Or another theory I have is, of course, we have had all this restructuring, have we not, of the Ministry for Primary Industries, which is now something else. Oh no, it is called the Ministry for Primary Industries and it used to be called something else. There has been a massive restructuring going on, merging departments, shuffling agencies around, giving them new names, and rebranding them. That has been a massive distraction. MAF Biosecurity New Zealand has been through two restructures under this Government, and it is now part of the new Ministry for Primary Industries. We have had reports from the Auditor-General about the benefits of that merger and whether the investment in the biosecurity brand public awareness was being lost.

Of course, between 2008 and 2012 the Government cut 91 biosecurity officer positions, and the number of dogs on active sniffer duty at Auckland Airport dropped from 20 to 13 over the same period. Yet, as we know, the number of international visitors to New Zealand has increased, and the Government keeps boasting about that. Some of them have been coming in—a lot of them have been going out, actually, over the last few years since this Government. But the Budget in 2009 cut $3.5 million from biosecurity over 4 years, and then in 2010 it cut another $9.5 million over 4 years.

So to get back and address the purpose of the bill, my point is that although the aim is laudable and the Labour Party supports the bill, we believe that the Government has not put its mind to achieving the purpose of this bill. It needs to get on with it because the issues of biosecurity, customs, and aviation security come at a huge cost to the Crown. Any new international airport should have to realise part of those costs. We know that Rotorua and Invercargill have established international airports in the last couple of years. Is Hamilton an international airport?

💬 Sue Moroney: It was.

It was—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Once was, in name.

It once was an international airport—in name. Palmie is an international airport. Well, we have got a lot of international airports per capita compared with the rest of the world, and that means that we have to have very, very good systems in place, but they come, as I said, at a cost to the Crown. The purpose of the bill is laudable. Let us get on with it.

It is my pleasure to take a call on the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill, and to build on the comments that my colleague Darien Fenton has been making. As my colleague set out, the purpose of the bill and the aim of the bill is to enable the Crown to recover the costs of aviation security, biosecurity, and customs for traveller processing from the operators of new or re-established international airports or international airports that sometimes request travellers to be processed in a non-routine manner.

What sounds like a very technical and very dry piece of legislation is indeed very important to our economy. In fact, our tourism industry and our ability to bring goods safely across the border and to protect our own agricultural industry are crucial to our survival economically. This piece of legislation is an important part of the puzzle that puts that together.

As we were wondering with the last piece of legislation, we are somewhat perplexed as to why this bill has sat on the Order Paper for so long and why it has not come back before this House before the second day before we rise for the Christmas break in 2013. The history of this legislation, which my colleague alluded to, and it is worth returning to, is that this is a piece of legislation that had its genesis in 2004, when the idea started to be kicked around by Dr Michael Cullen as the then Minister of Finance about how it was we were going to deal with these issues of how we recover the costs at newly established international airports in relation to aviation security, biosecurity, and customs, and how we process travellers, especially in a non-routine manner. Some work was done on that and, as my colleague referred to, we got to the election in 2008 and much of that work was abandoned. So circles were reinvented, and we came up with a new regime.

That piece of legislation then worked through the process and was sent through to the Primary Production Committee. As my colleague has alluded to, a very august select committee it was too, with some very fine members on it, including my colleague Damien O’Connor, who heard submissions on this bill when it first came before the committee in 2010. The committee listened to the submitters. I believe there were eight submissions that came before the committee about how this legislation needed to be dealt with. The committee listened and it went back and it did its work, as a good, hard-working select committee would do. It went back and it made the changes that were necessary to make this a good piece of legislation.

But was this bill rushed back to the House? Was it something that was brought back by a Minister keen to get on with the job of making sure that we had the way in which we dealt with our borders securely sewn up? No, unfortunately, that was not the case. Like many other pieces of legislation, this bill has been allowed to languish on the Order Paper by a Government that seems to let a lot of things languish on the Order Paper and not come before the House in a timely manner.

Labour will be supporting this legislation because we actually think it is important. We are pleased to see it. We think it is not before time. We would have liked to see it earlier, and I am sure my colleague Damien O’Connor, who worked so hard on this piece of legislation, would have liked to see it come back earlier to the House. We do support this bill because biosecurity and customs services come at a huge cost to the Crown, and any new international airport should have to realise part of those costs.

As my colleague Darien Fenton has alluded to, we do have a very high number of international airports per capita in New Zealand. We already have a reasonably large network of airports where international travel can be carried out to and from. New ones necessitate the replication, by their very nature, of biosecurity and customs services, and additional costs fall on the Crown. For a number of years this Parliament and the select committees within this Parliament have been trying to sort out fair ways that these costs can be shared between the various parties that will benefit from the establishment of international airports. As I said earlier, we did propose a similar cost recovery scheme in 2004. However, after consultation and discussion with many of the territorial local authorities, with regional councils, and with businesses, we chose to reduce the cost recovery period for providing customs and biosecurity services to a new international airport to just 1 year. We were concerned. We were very concerned indeed that a longer time period—

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to—[Interruption] Order! You can be first up next year. The time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill with amendment, and progress on the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill.

Report adopted.

Sitting suspended from 9.55 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)