Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

This bill amends the Immigration Act 2009 to provide for the collection of the international visitor conservation and tourism levy, and to extend Immigration New Zealand’s authority to use automated decision making to include an electronic travel authority (ETA). The tourism sector is a vital part of New Zealand’s economy, and it is experiencing rapid growth. In the past few years, we’ve gone from just over three million international visitors coming to New Zealand to just under four million. Over the same period, those visitors have collectively increased their spending by $1.3 billion to a total of $16.2 billion. Tourism is consistently one of the top export earners for New Zealand. Tourism also creates inclusive growth by distributing economic opportunities and bringing social benefits across our regions, cities, and communities. It allows us to celebrate our unique Māori culture. International visitors buy our goods and services, which contributes to the success of other export sectors and grows our reputation internationally.

Recent visitor growth has increased the benefits of tourism, but it has also had an impact on New Zealand, including increased pressure on our infrastructure and roads, overcrowding at high-demand areas and attractions, and pressure on our natural environment—the very thing international visitors come to see. The recent speed and scale of international visitor growth—35 percent in the last five years—has, effectively, outstripped the capacity of our system to respond in some areas. This means that the economic growth, and other opportunities afforded by this growth, are not being fully realised, and the pressures created are not always adequately managed. Currently, some of those cost pressures are being managed by ratepayers and taxpayers, while others go unmet, particularly where there is limited scope to charge visitors for use or access.

This Government believes it is important that international visitors contribute directly to the infrastructure they use and the natural environment they enjoy whilst here in New Zealand. We are, therefore, introducing a targeted international visitor levy (IVL) that will contribute to substantive changes in the way our tourism system works. It is important that this bill be passed under urgency to enable the levy to be collected from July, and the ETA to come into effect from 1 October. These dates have been widely communicated for both the ETA and IVL. Delays would cause confusion for travellers, potentially having implications for carriers who are gearing up to support introduction. A delay would also reduce the total amount Government would collect in the first year of the levy.

The ETA is an important step in strengthening New Zealand’s border security in line with international best practice. It will provide Immigration New Zealand with more information, sooner, about 1.5 million visitors a year from 60 visa waiver countries. The ETA will enable Immigration New Zealand to refuse boarding to people who do not meet our character requirements, whether they are seeking to travel by air or by cruise vessel.

This bill will allow the Minister of Tourism to introduce a levy on international visitors, which will enhance the visitors’ experience and support local communities. The levy will be used to fund conservation, protecting and enhancing our beautiful landscapes and iconic species, one of the reasons people choose to come to New Zealand. The levy will also fund infrastructure projects, so visitors will be making a direct contribution to those costs, removing some of the burden of hosting visitors from local communities.

The bill also ring-fences the levy for tourism and conservation, consistent with feedback from public consultation. The bill sets out what the regulations used to charge the levy may do. This includes who is liable and who is exempt from paying the levy, the amounts or method of calculating the levy, and how the levy is to be collected. The bill will also amend the Immigration Act to require the Minister of Tourism to undertake appropriate consultation before making any regulations. That requirement does not apply to the first set of regulations made under the amendment Act, as the Government has already consulted widely on the introduction of the levy.

To ensure the levy remains fit for purpose, the bill amends the Act to require the department—in this case the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—to review the levy amount at intervals of no more than five years. Finally, the bill extends Immigration New Zealand’s authority to use automated decision-making to include an ETA, which is mandatory from 1 October. The benefits of automated decision-making include making better use of immigration officers’ time by triaging applications, and enabling faster responses for visitors to New Zealand.

In developing this bill, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of members who have contributed to and supported this bill’s development, especially the Minister of Tourism and the Minister of Conservation. This bill will provide an important funding mechanism for New Zealand’s tourism and conservation sectors. It will support more sustainable and managed growth in tourism, reducing potential negative impacts on New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.

Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you very much. I normally like to start by saying it gives me pleasure to speak on a bill, but this is very, very poor legislation. It should not be in this House going through urgency. It should not be being rushed. It should be going through a full parliamentary process and a full external committee stage so that those in the sector and the tourism industry have an ability to come before the Parliament—

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: They have, Todd—the consultation process.

—and talk about what’s happening in this bill, and so that they then get to look at it and see whether it will work. When the Minister over there says in a very deep voice that there’s been consultation, what they tell us is that he does not listen. That’s the problem with rushed legislation. When you have a Minister who thinks he knows what’s best for an industry, you never get the appropriate or the right outcome. That will be the challenge we have here. It’s very bad legislation, and I’m going to come to the challenges of the way it’s been drafted and the unprecedented responsibility it gives to the Minister of Tourism, through regulation, to set all aspects of tax law in so far as international visitors are concerned—a very bad precedent.

The Minister who introduced this—the Minister of Immigration—actually did a very good job in outlining the importance of tourism in New Zealand. I don’t know why it is an immigration bill that is enacting this tax upon international visitors to New Zealand, because it’s not about immigration; actually, it’s mixing the two. So one of the parts, of course, is the way they want to collect, but this isn’t actually about immigration; it’s about attacks on international visitors coming to New Zealand, and then very light in detail on how that money would be spent.

There’s no question that tourism is important to New Zealand. It’s our biggest export earner; $16.2 billion from international tourists is pumped into the New Zealand economy every year. That’s $44 million every day. Almost 400,000 people are employed in and around tourism—one in seven jobs in the country. International tourists pay $1.7 billion dollars in GST every year when they visit New Zealand and they spend money.

So here’s the problem that we have with this international tax that the Government is rushing through without proper scrutiny in the parliamentary process: it actually doesn’t do the things that the Minister introducing the bill said that it would. He’s recognised the importance of tourism. He’s recognised that throughout New Zealand there is a growing need for tourism infrastructure and support for the tourism industry. He’s recognised the case that’s been made by councils up and down the country that the growing burden can be too much for ratepayers alone to bear. That case has been made. It has been accepted.

But this won’t come anywhere near close to delivering the funding that they need or that this Government promised when they were in Opposition—nowhere near it. The reason for that is the suggestion that $80 million will be collected by this international tax. Well, what we also know from the advice given to the Minister is that $70 million less will be spent in the New Zealand economy as a result of this. Halve that amount that will be gathered; they say $40 million is to go to tourism and tourism-related infrastructure. That’s $70 million that the Minister’s officials have told him won’t be spent in the New Zealand economy. It won’t bother the Government at all, but that’s $70 million less that will be spent in small tourism businesses up and down New Zealand. They are paying the price of this Government’s promises and inability to deliver, and, actually, it’s not going to come anywhere near delivering what it is that they have been promising up and down the country.

The Minister of Tourism says he’s been through a consultation. Well, frankly, he just has not listened, not even to his officials, and that’s the problem with this legislation. If the Government truly was committed to supporting the tourism industry, in this Budget we would have seen more money going in there right now. Indeed, we would have seen more money going into the tourism budget last year when they delivered it. But there wasn’t more. There was a cut.

Now, I’m very proud of the record that we had over nine years of Government of creating a true partnership with the tourism industry in New Zealand; the funding commitment we made to work with them, the growth of both expenditure coming into the country from additional tourists, and also the commitment that we had. When we arrived in Government, under Labour there was only $18 million a year spent, and the tourism industry was disassociated with the Government. They were sick and tired of being told what to do. There was no partnership. Well, indeed, in our time in Government, very quickly, we increased annual spend and commitment to spend to tourism by 60 percent. So jump forward nine years. We had very important programmes that we launched that the tourism industry has benefited from. One of the more significant was a $100 million commitment that we made in the Tourism Infrastructure Fund, a fund that continues today and that the current Minister continues to make announcements over.

💬 Fletcher Tabuteau: It was a $45 million dollar fund over three years.

It was $100 million dollars over four years; $25 million a year—more than this Government has committed in these two Budgets. The point there is that, actually, when the Minister of Tourism makes announcements in a moment about Government spending in the tourism sector, it’s coming from the Tourism Investment Fund that remains there from the commitment we made three years ago when we were in Government. We committed funding in a partnership with the industry and put more money into tourism over nine years than any Government ever has before and has since, and what did this Minister deliver for them last year after all of those election promises? He delivered a $7 million cut to the tourism budget. When questioned in the committee he said two things: he said to my colleague in a very disparaging way that she shouldn’t be bothered about this and shouldn’t listen—and he still owes Jacqui Dean an apology—but he said, “Don’t worry. More tourists are going to come. It doesn’t really matter.”

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): We are straying a little bit away from the bill.

Well, Madam Assistant Speaker, I’m absolutely not. The reason that I’m not is that this comes to the promises the Government gave. In this bill, they’re saying they’re going to deliver money on top of the things that are already there, but they’ve actually cut, they haven’t delivered. I would ask the House whether they think there’s a single problem that this Government has seen that it doesn’t think that more tax or a new tax will solve. Every year, $1.6 billion is collected from international tourists—every year—and they could take some of that money and they could commit a significant amount of it and they could spend it in every part of New Zealand to lift the burden, that they’re saying ratepayers can’t meet, to make sure that, actually, tourism continues to be a growing part of the economy and that there continues to be social licence for it.

In fact, they don’t even need to take the $1.6 billion that’s already spent in tax alone that they get from international tourists. They could look at any other policy of theirs that is failing. The $3 billion that they’ve committed for students who will get the first year free—well, it’s a failure, and we know that because fewer students are studying, and they’ve taken $200 million out of it. That $200 million didn’t go to tourism. It didn’t go to Rotorua or Queenstown. It didn’t go anywhere near it. What this Government has delivered in the last two Budgets—its first two Budgets, after all of those promises to the tourism sector—is zip, nothing, and the suggestion of another tax that means that there could be $40 million that will go to tourism in New Zealand at a loss of $70 million from those tourism visitors themselves.

Now, the biggest problem that we have here—and we will continue this evening to traverse this and go into it in greater detail—is how bad this legislation is. All this legislation says is, through the Immigration Act, it gives the Minister of Tourism the ability to pass regulation to decide how much he wants to tax foreigners, which foreigners he wants to tax, and who he doesn’t want to tax, and it says he can consult whomever he wants to consult. He’s not going to consult the first time out, and the reason for that is he thinks he has already done this. If he’s not even listening to his own officials, how is it the tourism sector can have any confidence that he will listen to them and will deliver for them? That’s very, very bad legislation—very bad legislation and a bad precedent.

Any other Minister—any other Minister—and you might consider it. Any other Minister and you might consider it. But a Minister of Tourism in whom the sector, the industry, wrote to the Prime Minister earlier this year and said they had no confidence—at the very least, get somebody else to come and be an Associate Minister; and now they’re saying to replace him—tells you how little faith the industry has in him, how little he has consulted with them, and absolutely how little he has listened to them.

This is bad legislation. If the Government was committed to tourism, they would have committed hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars more in last Budget and this Budget. They promised it before the election; we haven’t seen it. We’ve only seen a cut. On behalf of tourism, this evening we will be making the case that the Government should be doing more right now. This is a bad piece of legislation, and the Minister should be ashamed.

That’s a pretty ordinary contribution from an ordinary member of Parliament, Todd McClay, and he probably exemplifies the reason that they’re in Opposition—totally irrelevant.

Just to respond to a couple of his points, first of all, he spoke about the Tourism Infrastructure Fund—$25 million every year for four years. That highlights the reason why we need to have a long-term, sustainable funding mechanism for tourism. We’ve used that $25 million very wisely. The trouble is that after four years, it ends. It’s not sustainable.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: You haven’t used it.

The member says we haven’t used it. Well, to be honest, one thing that previous Government did really well was they marketed out New Zealand as a destination extremely well. But that there is the problem: they didn’t do anything to manage the destination, and, instead, we’re now having to deal with all the problems that they left behind, because of their mismanagement of the tourism sector.

He says that we haven’t listened. Well, we had quite a comprehensive consultation process around the visitor levy. We spoke to local government, we spoke to businesses in the tourism sector, we spoke to communities, and we spoke to the regions. They have said that they want this levy, because they know that there was no guarantee under the previous Government that there would be sustainable and consistent funding mechanisms.

So we’re proud to stand here in support of the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill. I do want to acknowledge the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway and the Hon Eugenie Sage for the work and the collaboration that’s gone into the creation of this bill. It will generate $450 million over the next five years, and that money will be ring-fenced and it will be divided between tourism and conservation.

Tourism is one of our biggest economic sectors. It does employ directly 200,000 New Zealanders. It does indirectly employ close to 170,000 New Zealanders. It generates $39 billion in GDP every year. The sector has grown in strength. We’ve had, over the last five years, increasing visitor numbers. Numbers have increased by 35 percent over the last five years. Last year we had 3.8 million visitors to New Zealand, and that’s expected to grow to over 5 million visitors by 2025. So the sector is in good health, but we have to manage the sector better, and that’s what the previous Government failed to do. The growth has brought economic and employment growth but it has also created the challenges.

My first Christmas as Minister of Tourism, I was inundated with the problems around responsible camping, and that is a legacy of the previous Government. That is the problem that they mismanaged. They couldn’t manage New Zealand as a destination, our communities were swamped, and we were in danger of losing our social contract with New Zealand, with New Zealanders, with communities, all because of the legacy of the poor previous Government.

So the combination of population growth and increasing visitor numbers meant that local infrastructure was struggling to keep up, and, further, the wealth tourism has brought has not been evenly felt across Aotearoa. We have pockets of high tourism numbers—Auckland, Rotorua, and Queenstown—but there was neglect in the regions, as we know, which is the hallmark of the previous Government.

But the Government, we’re committed to tackling these problems head-on. I just want to refer to a press release from Stuff. It says, “After years of dilly-dallying over a levy on international visitors, we now have one”. The previous Government, they knew that we needed to have an international visitor levy. They knew that we needed to have sustainable, long-term funding mechanisms, but they twiddled their thumbs, they gazed at their navels, and they did absolutely nothing to establish a sustainable funding mechanism.

We’re committed to tackling these problems head-on. Minister Sage and I, a couple of weeks ago, jointly announced the Aotearoa New Zealand Government Tourism Strategy, and the strategy signals an active and deliberate approach to tourism. The international visitor levy contributes to the strategy in a couple of ways. Firstly, as I’ve said, there’s a long-term and sustainable funding mechanism, and, secondly, we’re going to invest in ways that support the goal of the strategy, ultimately, that tourism enriches New Zealand. And that was one of the problems that the previous Government had, that tourism was actually in danger of dragging down those smaller communities who are overwhelmed with the numbers of tourists.

So the Government, we’re going to use the levy to address the infrastructure issues, we’re going to better manage our destinations, and we’re going to enhance and protect our natural environment. People come here to New Zealand to see our landscapes, and we have to protect those landscapes. They come here to meet our people and they come here to hear our stories. In particular, I want to say that, because New Zealand combines the landscapes, the people, and the stories really, really well, and I have to say that the whole Māori contribution to tourism is something that we need to grow and develop even further.

It’s my belief that tourism should add to the lives of New Zealanders, not take away, and we know that for many communities, under the previous Government, tourists and visitors were taken away from a number of communities. It was left up to local governments, it was left up to New Zealand’s ratepayers to actually have to stump up with the bills to fix that infrastructure that that previous Government was unwilling to support New Zealanders on.

I’m proud to stand here and support the bill. It’ll enable the Government to better support a sustainable tourism industry. Sustainability is essential in tourism and will help communities to create the type of destination they want to become and will protect our iconic species and our landscapes. Tourism has the ability to bring people together, to foster people-to-people connections, and to improve the lives of New Zealanders, as long as we can manage it properly. So therefore I commend this bill to the House.

Seven minutes—seven minutes was the commitment to this tourism sector that that mediocre Minister from a mediocre Government with a very mediocre, botched Budget wants to make to the tourism sector. It’s interesting that the Prime Minister should be listening to this debate, because she’s very soon going to be conducting a Cabinet reshuffle. If ever there was a need for a reshuffled Minister, it’s that very mediocre Minister.

Tonight, as we debate the first reading of the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill, there will be people who will be heading to my electorate, the very beautiful Coromandel. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! I’d like to actually hear the Hon Scott Simpson’s contribution, and it is bordering on heckling in here at the moment.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. As I was saying, tonight there will be—as we are debating in this Chamber under urgency some sloppy legislation, some lazy legislation—tens of thousands of people making their way to my electorate for a long weekend. Some of those visitors will be domestic visitors and some of them will be international visitors. They’ll all be coming to my electorate to spend time in one of the most beautiful and lovely parts of the country. When they get there, they’ll find a range of businesses and enterprises that are reliant on them coming and spending time and money in the beautiful Coromandel electorate. So tourism is important to people in my region, to businesses in my region, and this is a bill that puts some of the livelihoods of those people under threat. Because, whilst they are committed to tourism, and the jobs and the economic activity that tourism creates in regions like mine in the Coromandel, they also understand the fragile nature of it. They understand that they need infrastructure, they need support, and they need the kind of funding that this Government seems not willing to provide by a sensible mechanism.

So here we have tonight, under urgency, a debate not going to select committee, not having the full and proper scrutiny of a normal piece of legislation, an immigration regulatory piece of legislation slid under the guise of somehow helping tourism, when, in fact, what should be happening is a full and proper process, and a principled approach to this kind of proposal. One that enables the sector—small-business people in my electorate—to actually make submissions, be part of the process, and not just have the Minister come and say, “Well, we’ve done a few consultations. We’ve talked to a few of the leaders in the sector—the big players at the top end of town—and we’ve decided by decree that it’s going to be a $35 levy, that it’s going to be placed on all tourists visiting New Zealand”—except for Australians apparently, and also Pacific Forum nation members apparently are going to be exempt as well. Then, once it’s in place, the Minister is going to have the ability to change it at whim and without consultation further, or that’s the way it looks in terms of the bill.

So future fees are going to be set by the Minister, and what I want to know—and we’ll be traversing this as we go through the legislation—is with whom, how, and who decides what the process around this will be? This is a Government that doesn’t pay attention to process, and we’ve seen that in all its naked glory this week with the botched Budget. No attention to detail. No attention to process. No attention to form and rigour. It’s becoming a hallmark of this Government, as they enter the second and last phase of their term in office, that they want to try and do things quickly while they still can—while they still have a narrow and decreasing window of opportunity to adopt their ideological and philosophical approach—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): We are straying a little bit from the bill at hand. Come back, please.

Well, I want to bring this back to the bill, because this bill represents the basic philosophical approach of this Government and their policy direction, actually, to not only tourism, but to every aspect of their administration, which is simply threefold. They adopt only one of three options—in fact, sometimes it’s all three—to make things either compulsory, to ban them, or to tax them, and sometimes they do all three. But those are, essentially, their policy responses to everything. In this piece of legislation, we see that they want to tax more. Well, that’s a known and accepted view of this Government, that their solution to many things confronting us is just to tax people more. On this occasion, what they want to do is bring international tourists into that tax pool.

Now, I don’t have any fundamental objection to the State, through taxation, helping and assisting a sector of the economy that needs support and help from time to time. We know that in my electorate, for instance, there have been some very good facilities provided from the funding—not fully utilised, I might add, by this Government—that was put in place by the previous National administration. That’s a good way to do it. But there shouldn’t surely be a knee-jerk response to every situation of just tax—just impose a tax. That seems to be the cure-all for everything. After more than a year—after 18 months or so of this Government being in power—the only thing that they are tangibly doing in terms of the tourism sector is to impose a tax on the visitors who are coming to New Zealand.

Now, the information that we have in this bill indicates that, actually, tourist numbers will almost certainly be affected, and not in a good way. New Zealand is already an expensive destination for international travellers to come to, and this Government wants to make it more expensive. Remember, this piece of legislation is focusing on New Zealand’s single biggest export earner; $14.5 billion to the economy and employing more than 180,000 people. So this is a Government that wants to just apply a pretty sloppy process, but there’s no credible plan—no credible plan, no solid sense of direction or purpose or a focus on a plan. And that’s what’s missing. When I talk to small tourist operators in my electorate, that’s what they say. They’ve got no sense of direction about where this is going—a lazy Government that’s kicking to touch, and just really wanting to invent another tax.

So estimates for the Crown benefit from international visitors suggests that $3.2 billion of revenue and some $600 million in expenditure is potentially on the line. What we know is that people do respond to perverse tax measures, and they will make decisions about where they go and how they spend their discretionary recreational dollars. It may well be that they may decide not to come to New Zealand and head off to somewhere else.

One of the difficulties that we have with this piece of legislation is the regulatory nature of it. The process that involves, initially, the setting up of the process through the Minister of Immigration—who we know already has significant challenges—and then somehow sort of sliding that to one side to the current Minister of Tourism. I’m not sure that many people will have much confidence in that kind of leadership at the moment.

Now, this international visitor’s levy—well, it’s a tourist tax—is going to be set seemingly arbitrarily at $35 per head. Now, I want to know, as we go through this process, what rationale was applied to creating that level? We’ve heard from two Ministers that some kind of consultation took place. We’ve got no understanding of how wide that was, who was involved, what the process was, and it is difficult to accept that there was much consultation, for instance, with tourist operators in my neck of the woods. I’d like to know, did the Minister bring his travelling roadshow to the beautiful Coromandel, and did he talk to any of the tourist operators in my electorate?

What we know is that even though there has been record tourism numbers, the economy is slowing, and anecdotally we know that tourists are now looking more carefully about where they want to spend their money. So what we know from this bill is that there are some very serious questions. There are some big questions about process, there are some big questions about form, and there are some big questions about intent and direction. What we don’t know about this piece of legislation is what the impact will be on our tourism sector, and what it will mean for businesses in the Coromandel and electorates like mine around the countryside. It’s a bad piece of legislation, and it’s bad form.

I’m disappointed with the other side of the House this evening. It seems like a whole lot of politicisation and empty words that don’t mean nothing—they don’t mean nothing. Sorry for my grammar; I’m getting a bit excited. I quote Mr McClay. He spoke about the officials and, somehow, this anticipated decrease in tourism numbers. “I actually went out and spoke to tourist operators.” The Minister went out and spoke to the tourism industry and asked the industry: what do you think this will do to tourism in New Zealand? And guess what they said? “Actually, we don’t have any or little to no concern with this levy.” Actually, what they were more worried about—Minister Parker, you’ll be interested to hear this. Minister Parker, they were more worried about the exchange rate. And guess what’s happening to the New Zealand exchange rate now?

💬 Hon David Parker: From 80 to 65.

From 80 to 65—never has the New Zealand economy and the proposition of tourism in this country been better, or not for the longest time. All of our exports are going up, including tourism.

Now, there was made mention of the world trend of tourism slowing down. The world economy is slowing down, but guess what? Tourism in New Zealand will continue, and is projected to continue, to grow in this country. They took this levy into their calculations when they made that number.

💬 Hon Jacqui Dean: What? That didn’t make sense.

So this is a sensible piece of legislation. Let me put it into perspective for the member opposite. It was all guns and glory, the tourism industry, for the last nine years. It’s been great for New Zealand. World trend has been fantastic. But the members opposite did nothing in terms of infrastructure spend to cope with the huge pressures being put into our regions and the infrastructure in our economy—nothing. Well, actually, to be fair, Mr McClay mentioned the Tourism Infrastructure Fund, and that was about, maybe, 5½ toilet blocks a year around the entire country.

Mr McClay lambasted us for not spending on tourism in New Zealand. I have the proud job of being the under-secretary for the Provincial Growth Fund, or regional economic development, and Mr McClay must have forgotten that Rotorua has received approximately $20 million this year alone from the Provincial Growth Fund for the waterfront upgrade, the lakefront upgrade, and a commitment to enhance the attractiveness and the appeal of our Whakarewarewa Forest to mountain bikers, to New Zealanders, and to international visitors, and it is going to be incredible. I’m incredibly proud to be a part of that.

This is what this Government is doing. This is what I’m proud to stand in support of, and I will continue to do so, and I think we will be doing it for a long time hence. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for this opportunity to take a call on the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill, which should really be renamed as just the “Tourist Tax Bill”. I too rise in opposition, primarily because this is an extremely poorly drafted piece of legislation.

I note that Mr Tabuteau said that this was sensible legislation. Well, quite frankly, I agree with my colleagues on this side of the House that, in fact, it is lazy legislation. It is a piece of legislation that contains absolutely no detail. It will leave the detail to regulation, which is incredibly bad law. It will leave it to be captured by officials and leave it for them to come up with details as to how this is going to be managed, the scope of it, and where the distribution of these funds will go, and, certainly, on this side of the House, that is something that we will talk about further in the committee of the whole House stage. But “sensible”? Absolute hogwash. It is lazy. It is bad law.

The other thing is that we are now into the third bill of this botched Budget in urgency, and this is the third tax or cost to New Zealanders that this Government is bringing about as part of its botched, so-called Wellbeing Budget. We started, first of all, with an excise bill which increased fuel taxes to a whopping cost of $360 million being charged to Kiwis, and then followed with a social services bill which removed the obligation of mothers to name fathers—the “Deadbeat Dad Bill”—which will cost Kiwis upwards of $113 million. Now, we’re looking at bringing in a tourist tax at $35 per person.

That Government over the other side there is all about price signalling, and within this urgency, when talking about the other bills, they were quick to point out that when you raise a tax such as the fuel tax, you change the behaviours of people, and they were quite keen to link the fuel tax with increased safety on our roads. Yet when we’re talking about a tourist tax, they don’t seem to accept the facts and figures that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials have given us, in that the fiscals don’t add up and that tourists will be discouraged from coming to our shores.

Not only will tourists be discouraged from coming to our shores but they will spend less in the communities that they visit. For me, as a regional MP and an electorate MP, many of my smaller communities that may abut the conservation estate or that are simply quite remote and that have forged a future with respect to tourism will not gain the benefit of that revenue at source, and I think that that is a travesty. I think that that is not investing in tourism, it’s not investing in the economy, it’s not investing in growth, and it’s certainly not creating jobs and wealth for ordinary Kiwis in rural or remoter areas. It simply doesn’t work.

I also echo the sentiment from this side that the tourism sector is of great benefit to New Zealand—$16.2 billion in GDP is generated from the tourism sector, and 180,000 jobs are directly involved in the tourism sector.

💬 Brett Hudson: Well, it was, before their tax.

Well, that’s right, Mr Hudson. What we’ll see is that with less tourists coming to our shores, with less visitors coming here, and with less revenue being spent at source, for the businesses on the ground, these businesses will be forced to lay people off, and, as I say, the revenue generation will be down, and when things start to bite, it’ll be this Government here that will have to turn around and answer the public—

💬 Brett Hudson: So it’ll be the provinces that hurt.

—and especially, Mr Hudson, the provinces.

This particular bill is actually amending the Immigration Act. The Immigration Act is about governing the movement of people and contributing to our security with the movement of those people—of who comes in and out of our country—and, all of a sudden, here we’re inserting a tourist tax. It’s a tax that’s already been mooted at $35 per person, and there are going to be, apparently, some exemptions to the rules with respect to taxing people who come in on a temporary visa. But, again, it’s already been signalled that Australians will be exempt from that tax. Now, how does that make sense? I really can’t fathom how that makes sense.

I mean, we’ve already seen in news reports and in media about how badly Kiwis are treated over in Australia, and yet this Government wants to make an exemption for the 40 percent of our visitors that come to these shores from Australia. Now, why would Australians be exempt from paying that $35 per person, and who else is going to be exempt? I mean, what sorts of categories is the Minister going to turn to for exemptions, and how is that going to be monitored and how is that going to be fair?

💬 Brett Hudson: That’s their plan—Chinese-sounding names. That’s the plan.

Well, exactly, Mr Hudson. Who knows what could come about from this Government with regards to exemptions, because with it being made by regulation at the whim of the Minister, there will be no checks and balances and no accountability with regard to that regulation and this tourist tax. It is very, very, quite frankly, frightening that this bill could create arbitrary rules through regulation at the whim of the Minister, and what will that do for our international reputation moving forward?

The other thing that I don’t like about this bill is that there’s no guidance as to how the funds are going to be distributed. We’ve heard that there is going to be a fifty-fifty split between conservation and tourism. Well, that may well be arguable, but how is the Minister going to make plans as to which investments are good ones and which investments have priority? We’ve already heard about the fiscals and heard that MBIE have estimated that this tax is going to generate $80 million worth of revenue. However, on the flip side, they believe it will discourage $70 million in revenue, with the discouragement of visitors to our shores and less spending. But then, when you’re left with those figures, how are they going to prioritise that money?

Allocating $40 million for tourism infrastructure is really nothing. What they could have done was to prioritise the surplus that we’d left them and use it responsibly, rather than on other foolhardy policies such as the fees-free policy, which has devastated the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT), by the way, for your information. Certainly, there was no consultation with SIT with respect to that policy.

Look, I disagree with what the other side have said, which was that National has never supported tourism. We saw it as definitely a growth industry and one that was deserving of support. That’s why we had our tourism infrastructure growth fund and that’s why we had our partnership fund, and, certainly, Invercargill—my region—was well-supported by that. From an ideology point of view, the growth fund certainly worked in my region, and there’s many examples. One in particular that comes to mind is Curioscape in the Catlins, which allowed a project to create an interpretation centre to be driven by a community trust. So it was the people in the community on the ground—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): We are straying from the bill somewhat. Please come back.

Well, it’s to compare and contrast about what sorts of alternatives are available. I’m addressing the fact that the Government said that we didn’t invest in tourism, and that is quite blatantly false. It’s false, because it was through that fund that we supported that project. It allowed a partnership between a trust and Government and tourism—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That’s still not part of the bill.

—that was quite successful.

This piece of legislation is bad. It’s bad all round, and we simply do not trust the Minister to make appropriate decisions as to how to spend this money. It will discourage visitors from our shores. It will discourage spending in the areas in which tourists do come. We live at the bottom of the world. We need to encourage visitors and encourage growth.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I am very pleased to support the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill. This is part of this Government’s joined-up thinking, in contrast to the ideology of the Opposition, which is prepared to promote growth but not in a coherent way and is not prepared to fund the costs of growth. So this bill is about ensuring that our tourism grows in a strategic way. As the Hon Kelvin Davis said, it’s about a much more active and deliberate involvement by this Government with the tourism industry that is set out in the New Zealand Aotearoa Tourism Strategy, which we launched recently. It’s about being active and about being coordinated so that sustainability is a core value of the industry, and we mitigate—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! I’d like to hear the member’s contribution, please.

—thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker—the industry’s impacts. Because we know that local infrastructure in tourism hotspots around Aotearoa is creaking. Who is bearing the costs of that? Local communities, ratepayers, and taxpayers. What this bill does is ensure that for a very small cost, $35, visitors who are paying thousands to come here and spend time here contribute to the costs of the facilities and the infrastructure that they enjoy and, as importantly, they contribute to the costs of protecting the natural areas and the landscapes that brings them here and that they come to see.

Fifty-two percent of international visitors who were surveyed earlier this year said that our landscapes and our scenery were what stimulated their interest in visiting Aotearoa New Zealand, and that was the top reason by a very large margin. At the moment they are not directly contributing to the costs of protecting those areas. So that is why this bill is so important and the levy that it establishes—through a very efficient administrative mechanism of the electronic travel authority at the border where it can be collected without long queues, without a big bureaucracy, collected very efficiently, and then ensured that it is split fifty-fifty between conservation and tourism.

In Budget 2018, we delivered the biggest increase in conservation funding to the Department of Conservation (DOC) in 16 years. In Budget 2019, with this legislation, we will also be delivering an extra $181 million over four years to the Department of Conservation. That is critically needed because we have a crisis in terms of threatened species and because the department has been investing significantly in visitor facilities. In Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park—which hit a million visitors for the first time this year—since 2010, DOC has spent $16.5 million in visitor facilities there, improving the track up the Hooker Valley so that people get a stunning view of the glacial lake and of Aoraki / Mount Cook. Those costs are being borne by taxpayers. This bill and this levy will mean that visitors can contribute to that infrastructure.

I was intrigued by the opposition of Sarah Dowie, because, of course, it was Eric Roy in 2012 that introduced through a member’s bill a $5 fee to go to Stewart Island / Rakiura that has meant that Stewart Island has benefited from over $700,000 from that fee. So, similarly here, our landscapes and our precious species will benefit from the revenue that international visitors provide. It’s them investing in nature, them investing in the facilities that they come to enjoy.

The Green Party is really proud to support this bill because it implements a policy commitment that we launched and campaigned on in 2017. It is about ensuring that we spread the load, that everybody contributes to sustaining nature and ensuring a quality visitor experience, which ensures that tourism is sustainable—joined-up thinking where everyone contributes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Fletcher Tabuteau this evening and Minister Davis both have told us about this extensive consultation that went on. So I imagined some sort of nationwide roadshow where Mr Davis got out of his electorate, got out of his Crown car, and pitched this tax, this tourist tax, and apparently was welcomed with open arms and everyone was pleased with it. But we have our doubts about that. I’ll tell you what’s probably more likely. It’s a tourist sector that is deeply unhappy with the Minister—deeply unhappy because of his lack of performance, and the fact that he’s done absolutely nothing in 18 months. He’s been asleep at the wheel, and done nothing for tourism. In fact, he cut it last year by $7 million dollars, I apologise. So unhappy are they with him for being asleep at the wheel for 18 months, and for all of these cuts, and for giving nothing to tourism, they write a letter to the Prime Minister. They write a letter—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Settle, members.

—saying “Please”—begging the Prime Minister—“can we have an associate?”, because they’re so deeply unhappy with his performance. What does that say about his performance? Well, I guess we’ll have to read between the lines. So yes, maybe they said, “Perhaps we’d like this tax.”, but it’s probably more likely, if they did say that, that they said it because they knew they weren’t going to get anything else from this inept Minister. Even Iain Lees-Galloway couldn’t even manage barely five minutes in the first reading of his bill, and he’s advancing for the first time in history, as far as I can tell, an immigration bill that is going to be charging a tax for tourism and conservation and not for immigration. There’s actually a lot to say, and he barely got to five minutes. Maybe he didn’t read his notes—that’s entirely possible.

This Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill, as Sarah Dowie so—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Eloquently.

Eloquently; that’s a good word. She did say it quite eloquently. She eloquently called it the tourist tax. We are here tonight to introduce another tax—in fact, the second tax in three pieces of legislation. What a surprise! What a surprise, from the Government of no new taxes. Earlier today, we had the petrol tax on hard-working Kiwis, pushing up the cost of living so that more of these Budget day models will move to Australia, across the Ditch, and now the tourist tax. We always said that Kiwis cannot trust this Government on tax, so now I suppose nobody can trust this Government on tax. As Scott Simpson said, there isn’t a problem that this Government can’t solve with a tax.

Basically, a quick rundown of what this bill does: to introduce this new tourist tax, it collects a tax when visitors apply for visitor visas, and those people who come from visitor waiver countries will pay it through the electronic travel authority. Now, I want to make this first point very, very clearly. On this side of the House, we understand that a lot more investment is required in tourism and conservation infrastructure. That’s not the question, and we’ve understood this for some time. It’s important to say at this point that it’s worth noting National’s spend in tourism over the last nine years—and it’s relevant to this bill, Mr Speaker. We funded the Tourism Infrastructure Fund with $100 million over four years. These guys couldn’t even spend all of it. We funded the Tourism Growth Partnership with $26 million, the Great Walks with $96 million, and the national cycleway.

Labour have failed in tourism. We have this new tax, as I mentioned earlier, because unlike the previous National Government, frankly, this Government, when it comes to tourism, have been asleep at the wheel. Kelvin Davis has been miserable in his portfolio. In their term so far, they haven’t put a single cent into tourism. They’ve shaved money off and they haven’t spent what is available, for all their grand promises, and Clayton Mitchell will remember. He will remember New Zealand First’s grand promises of giving the regions back their GST, spent by the tourists. Not happening—crickets; nothing at all.

Remember Labour’s great promises to fund tourism? Well, in 18 months, they’ve done absolutely nothing, and so now Mr Davis has to put in place a tax to make it look like he’s actually doing something. The reality is they collect $1.7 billion every year from tourists in GST. They collected it last year, they’ll collect it this year, and they will collect it next year, and rather than responsibly directing some of this massive tax take into tourism, the Government are frittering it away, as they always do, on wasteful spending on failed fees-free policies, KiwiBuild—which they don’t like to talk about any more—and the Provincial Growth Fund.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Now, this is the second warning—the last warning—for the member.

So although they already get billions in tax from international visitors, what do we get? We get this bill—a tourist tax grabbing more money from international visitors so that Kelvin Davis can look like he’s doing something.

There are many problems with the bill that I will traverse, but the most important problem with this bill—

💬 SPEAKER: Good.

—is quite simply math, and it’s not Mr Davis’ strong subject, quite clearly. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) have said in the regulatory impact statement (RIS) that $70 million less will be spent in the economy because around about 200,000 tourists will pick to go somewhere else, and while Kelvin Davis says that $450 million will be taken in tax over the next four years, well, that’s $280 million in lost revenue. So, basically, that’s $70 million in lost revenue to gain $80 million in tax, and don’t be fooled, because the knock-on effect of this tax will be that tourism businesses will take a huge hit—$70 million less in their pockets, in their businesses, every day by international visitors. That’s what MBIE’s officials say in the RIS. That’s what they’re telling us.

So it’s a reduction in spend of $70 million to collect $40 million that Minister Davis is going to put back into tourism. It is nothing—it’s a drop in the bucket—for all of that lost revenue. By the time we take out the administration costs, we’re essentially raiding money from tourism businesses and tourism operators to turn around so that Mr Davis can hand it back to those who he decides are worthy, and I’ll go into that in more depth shortly. By the way, $40 million doesn’t even come close to what the tourism sector actually needs, because in the tourism sector, they do want more money, but overall, they don’t want this bad legislation, because a tourism Minister gets to pick his pet projects.

That brings me to my second problem that I have with this bill. It’s bad legislation. It’s a dog of a bill—it’s a flea-ridden, mangy dog of a bill—from an incapable and inept Minister, who has hurriedly put through this bill. It’s an ill-conceived bill that will not achieve the aims that he wants it to.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: Read it with more passion!

Don’t be fooled—I have got lots of passion. Let’s hear you get up and give your passion. This legislation isn’t legislation to collect tax. It’s legislation to give a whole lot of regulations to an incapable Minister that the sector has no confidence in. It’s got no checks and balances, it’s got no scrutiny, and it’s putting huge power in the Minister and his officials.

The legislation describes what the Minister can and can’t do by regulation. Basically, it’s a “do whatever you want” clause. The Minister gets to decide the following, and there’s a whole list: who pays the tax, who’s exempt from the tax, how much the tax will be, how the tax is calculated, if different amounts should be paid by different people, how the tax will be collected, and, finally, how the money is spent.

I read new section 399B(1) in clause 7 of the bill—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Oh, great!

—I know; I read the bill—and I have to say that I felt a little bit relieved when it said that the Minister, before making regulations, “must consult any persons and organisations that [he] considers appropriate.”, and I thought, “Thank goodness—phew!” But then, unfortunately, I looked at the next bit—new section 399B(2)—which says that consultation is not required when setting the regulations for the first time.

So in making what is, effectively, tax legislation, this Minister can do whatever he likes. If it was a more competent Minister, if it was someone like—oh, actually, if it was just a more competent Minister, I’d be feeling a little bit more comfortable, but this is a Minister who has a woeful track record. Like I said earlier, even the industry had to write to his boss because they want an associate because they’re not happy. It’s very embarrassing.

Here we are, putting all of our trust into Minister Davis to decide how much tax will be paid, who pays it, and how it will be spent, with no checks, with no balances, and with no consultation, and it’s highly unusual for tax legislation not to be put in primary legislation. This is as loose as a goose.

I’ve got quite a bit more to say, but I will put that aside for my speech in the second reading of this bill—

💬 Hon Member: I’m looking forward to it.

—which I’m sure everyone is looking forward to, which I will read with great passion, and I will stick to the bill, of course, Mr Speaker. Thank you.

Before I call Kiritapu Allan, there are two things I want to say. First of all—right at the end—the member won’t read her speech in the second reading. The second point is that I have noted that members have been taking photos in here. They’ve been doing it often this week and other than during maiden speeches. [Interruption] Mr Greg O’Connor, I’m talking to you. Members are not to take photos from within the Chamber while the House is sitting.

Well, after that riveting contribution from Erica Stanford, somebody who I thought was a conservationist, I’m just so perturbed by that anti-sentiment for our environment. I’m so pleased to endorse this absolutely incredible legislation by the extremely competent, extremely smart, and incredible duo of a team, Minister Kelvin Davis and Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. With that said, I absolutely commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call, Mr Speaker, and I believe that I’ll be one of the last speakers to address the House in the first reading of this bill, where there’s been so much impassioned debate exchanged this evening. The bill, the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill—it’s been suggested that it ought to be rebranded as the “Tourist Tax Bill”, but what I would share with the Government members in the House across from where I’m standing is that we have the brand of the tiaki promise. Mr Speaker, as you and the members in the House well know, this is a commitment of care to New Zealand. Well, I put it to the House this evening that this bill could be rebranded the “Tiaki Promise Tax Bill”.

So, as we know, this bill amends the Immigration Act. We’ve heard debate in the House this evening that this is a tax levy or a tax that’s taking its toll on the tourist, our international visitor to this country. In the discussions that I’ve had with some of the tourist operators, some are of mixed views around whether the levy is going to be of any direct benefit to them, as to how the distribution of this levy would come about and back into the pockets and the pukus of our people in the community. The community that I come from, Wanganui, is an isolated tourist region and our operators struggle there. It’s unknown, and there’s definitely no certainty indicated in the bill, as to how there will be the distribution of this levy back to our tourist operators.

So in the short time that I do have to address the House—undoubtedly this levy is another tax that is imposed by the most transparent Government that has indicated and stated quite clearly, right from the taking of its term and right throughout the tenure of its office, that it is the most transparent and accountable Government. Well, regrettably, that transparency and accountability in terms of the administration of this tax levy is not stated in this bill, and that will be debated further at another stage of the reading.

The key message that has been heard is, really: how is this going to benefit the New Zealand economy? It’s known that there’s a $16.2 billion contribution from tourism, which is our biggest exporter. It’s also known that there’s no denying the pressures that will be put on our visitor infrastructure with the growth and the expansion of the tourist industry, and also the pressure that’s going to be put on the economy in terms of the uncertainty. It’s been heard in this House this evening that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, with their analysis, has indicated quite clearly that with the calculations that have been done there is an uncertainty about the returns that would come, and the question around whether or not such a tax levy imposition is going to keep international visitors from our borders. It’s also known, in terms of the calculations, that the $35 levy undoubtedly could bring in a $70 million injection but also, undoubtedly, the potential of reduced numbers coming into the country.

So, as I said, this is a brief call that’s been taken. This Government has, in terms of branding our tourism industry with the tiaki promise—undoubtedly that is a promise about caring for our people and our spaces and our visitors, but this is a Government that is caring to tax in spaces and places that are unnecessary. It is only a matter of time as to telling the toll this will take on our tourism industry. I do not commend and support this bill but it will go through to a second reading, as is well known. We will continue to debate the fact that there is very little merit in this being brought into our tourist economy and industry. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a brief call on this bill by a hard-working Government who are still here on Friday night, passing legislation. There’s no other way to say it: New Zealand is a very popular place. But the challenge is, with the huge number of tourists coming to New Zealand, that has put huge pressure on infrastructure, and this Government is dealing with this issue through this bill. I commend it to the House.

Jacqui Dean.

Mr Speaker? Thank you.

💬 SPEAKER: I have called the member, yes. Jacqui Dean.

So, by name, sorry?

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry?

By name.

💬 SPEAKER: Jacqui Dean.

Yeah. Care to do it correctly, Mr Speaker?

💬 SPEAKER: I beg the member’s pardon. The Hon Jacqui Dean.

The Speaker is a stickler, so—

💬 SPEAKER: I am a stickler—

—thank you. Thank you.

💬 SPEAKER: —and I know the member is pretty much perfect too.

And the Speaker is about to find out just how perfect this person is. So thank you, Mr Speaker. I do sincerely hope that that 16 seconds’ worth of perfection won’t eat into my time, and I am quite sure that the Speaker will indulge, perhaps, a further 16 seconds at the end of my contribution on the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time this evening looking at this bill. It’s a brief piece of legislation and, in a sense, while it’s not a good thing for the Government to be rushing this bill through the House with unseemly haste, perhaps a reason why the Government are doing this lies in the bill itself and in the crafting of the bill, which, when it gets read, really is quite a poor do. There are a couple of comments I would like to make about that.

There are two parts in this bill. Part 1, obviously, amends the Immigration Act. If I turn to Part 1, clause 5, and the definition of “Minister”, I suspect that the definition of “Minister” contained in the bill might have made sense to the officials who were drafting this last Tuesday evening, but it certainly doesn’t make for very clear legislation at all. If I could just mention in passing, the lack of clarity even in this small matter of ministerial responsibility contained in clause 5 surely would be a reason why a more robust process for the consideration of this bill should have been undertaken.

So “Clause 5 amends the principal Act’s definition of Minister to help enable responsibility for different provisions of the Act to be given to different Ministers.” Well, I’ve never read anything like that in any piece of legislation in my time in Parliament. It is as loose as a goose. “It also inserts definitions of conservation and international visitor conservation and tourism levy.” But here’s the bit that is most concerning: “Clause 5 amends the principal Act’s definition of Minister to help enable responsibility for different provisions of the Act”—which provisions? I’ll go on to the Act itself, because we are just in the explanatory note so far. But “different provisions of the Act to be given to different Ministers.”—naturally, the House will assume that those provisions will be very clearly set out in the body of the bill, because, as I say, we’re just talking to the explanatory note at the moment. Furthermore, there are a couple of questions that I will ask, and I am signalling now that I will want to ask, whichever Minister is in the chair.

There is another problem. The bill signals that there will be “different provisions of the Act to be given to different Ministers.” So does that mean, Mr Speaker—a stickler for precision—that when the House comes to the committee of the whole House stage, because there are different provisions of the bill being raised by members, those questions should then be answered by different Ministers? I raise this point very seriously, because this bill does assign responsibilities to different Ministers, and in the committee of the whole House stage, it is Parliament’s opportunity to clarify just what those responsibilities might mean in terms of a tourism levy under the Immigration Act. Some clarity on that would be appreciated, because this side of the House will exercise its right and duty to be able to question Ministers in the committee of the whole House. Some guidance on that would be appreciated at any time.

Moving on to clause 7—the mechanics of this bill. Of course, people may apply for a temporary class visa for travel to New Zealand or rely on a waiver of the requirement to hold a temporary class visa for travel to New Zealand. Then we move on: “The levy’s purpose is, broadly”—it says—“to fund conservation and tourism-related infrastructure and initiatives.” We have so many questions for the House about what that exactly means, given that it is in the primary legislation. Again, will three or four hours of committee of the whole House stage enable the members of the Opposition to tease out just what that means in statute in New Zealand?

I go on: “The regulations may specify who must pay the levy”—and a little is known about that—“and how it is to be collected, and may provide for exemptions from the levy. The Minister may also grant exemptions on a case-by-case basis.” What does that mean? Does that mean that there could be a class exemption, as for the exemption for Australian and Pacific Island travellers? Is it a class exemption, or is it an individual exemption for an individual traveller? I have read the bill. I’ve only had a few hours to do that, but that would be one of those critical things in a bill such as this that should be explained, by way, preferably, of a full consultation and a select committee process. So I will be asking the Minister—Ministers—at committee of the whole House stage to explain to the House what is meant by clause 7 in this bill.

A further question I have—and I’m flagging these because I will be requesting answers, and I don’t know who I will be asking those questions of. Which Minister will it be? Will it be the Minister of Tourism? It doesn’t specify which Minister. Will it be the Minister for Housing and Urban Development? It doesn’t specify. It just says “the Minister”. Well, how loose is that? Or will it be the Minister of Immigration? Will the Minister of Immigration be considering class exemptions, or will the Minister of Immigration be considering individual exemptions? Then the next question that follows from that is, given that we understand that the tourism tax is going to be $35 per person, I will need an explanation of how it can be that a Minister of the Crown and their officials are going to spend a number of hours considering exemptions, all for a $35 fee. If it is the case that this is an individual exemption on a case-by-case basis, then one has got to question whether or not this is good legislation to start with.

I’m going to move on to the regulatory impact statement, because, again, that raises a number of questions to me. So section B, “Summary Impacts: Benefits and costs”, leads on from my previous comments. The question arises: “Who are the main expected beneficiaries and what is the nature of the expected benefit?” Then the advice comes back: “No specific decisions have been made on where [the tourist tax] revenue will be spent.” Furthermore, the advice is “direct beneficiaries are likely to include central government agencies such as the Department of Conservation”—but maybe others, because the advice says, “such as”, so there might be others—“and local government agencies responsible for most”—for most—“public tourism infrastructure”. “Most”? What does that mean? Wouldn’t a select committee process be most helpful in the consideration of this bill?

I have many other points to make on this tourist tax piece of legislation. The final point I do want to make is that the Government—and somewhere in the papers, I have read that this tourist tax is not intended to solve the whole problem of funding for tourism but to just address a part of it. My contention is: why rush this through under urgency ahead of the local government funding and financing investigation of the Productivity Commission? I want answers to that.

In times past, I hitchhiked on four continents around this world. As I stood, sometimes for hours, waiting for my next ride, I swore I would never drive past another genuine hitchhiker again; and so I don’t. As I drive around New Zealand, I pick up hitchhikers and chat with them, and invariably they say two things. First, they can’t believe how little they actually pay for in New Zealand; and, secondly, they also lament the lack of facilities in New Zealand. So here we have an excellent bill—the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill—which will solve both those issues, one that all those members opposite will know is absolutely common sense, and there’s no way they will repeal it. Thank you.