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 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.

The Hon Roger McClay—Todd McClay.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much.

💬 SPEAKER: There’s clearly a mental block occurring here.

He’ll be on the phone asking for some of the salary very soon.

💬 SPEAKER: I’m sure the member will be generous enough to give it to him.

This has been an appalling process. There was no reason at all for this bill to be rushed through urgency. Yesterday, we made the case that, actually, urgency should be used sparingly and when there is urgency—there is an emergency. There is absolutely none here.

The Minister of Tourism, who actually didn’t have the opportunity to answer any questions at committee stage yesterday because he’s not the mover of this bill—he’s not able to sit in the chair, because he’s not responsible for this bill, even though this is a tourism bill dressed up to be snuck through in the equivalent of the dark of night, around the detail, in the guise of immigration. Largely, what has happened is that this shows no commitment to the tourism sector. The tourism Minister has had 18 months to actually do something for the tourism sector. I give him his dues—he has announced projects around the country that have come from a funding mechanism, a commitment that was put in place by the National Government, not by his Government. So far he has delivered no extra money to tourism from the Government’s Budget.

The point of this is that the bill talks about a new funding mechanism, but there is no need for a new funding mechanism for tourism if it is as important to this Government of the country as the Minister has just said in his speech. The reason it’s not necessary is because the Government has inherited significantly large surpluses. They could be delivering funds to the tourism sector today. They could pick any amount of money. A great one would be the $200 million they’ve pulled out of the failed first year study free policy. They could have given that to tourism this year, and the tourism industry would have security of knowledge that the funding was available to do the things that they need.

There is no doubt that the case has been made for more infrastructure around tourism and that the burden upon many ratepaying bases is now too large. The reason for that is that the number of visitors to the country grew significantly over the last nine years because of a partnership between tourism and the Government. This Government, and this bill, does not build upon that partnership. It doesn’t do anything for tourism. The Minister will say the $40 million that he’s putting into tourism because of this new tax will fix the problems—it just won’t. His officials have said in the regulatory impact statement that, actually, it hardly comes close to scratching the surface. There has been no commitment from this Government when it comes to tourism, actually, other than rhetoric, and this bill, on top of the previous rhetoric, is just more.

I say to the Minister: in the regulation-setting ability it says he can go and consult with some people, but whomsoever he sees fit. Well, the problem with that is—and we’re already starting to see it only after 18 months—the people he would choose to consult with are the ones that are going to tell him what it is he wants to hear. That’s why this has been an appalling process. He has robbed New Zealanders in the tourism sector and elsewhere of the ability to come to this Parliament and to have their say. Yep, there was some consultation that went on, but not the same as the degree of scrutiny that takes place in a parliamentary committee. There was no need for this to be rushed through. It’s very bad legislation.

We’ve already seen yesterday, in committee stage, we put in some Supplementary Order Papers where they weren’t able to find the answers, actually. One of them was which department would be responsible for doing the review—up to every five years—of the amount that’s collected and also the mechanism. The answer was: “Well, don’t worry, because tourism’s in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and so is immigration.” But here’s the problem: under the last Government, there was no such thing as MBIE. Under the last Government, MBIE was created—that’s the point. At the start of the last Government, there was not MBIE—it was created. Ultimately, the problem we have here is members opposite, at that time, said that they would pull MBIE apart. Well, actually, the challenge you’ve got is maybe today MBIE sits there, but what will have to happen for that review to take place in the future if a future Government decides that tourism should sit somewhere else? Perhaps there is real commitment from this Government—tourism should sit separately and be its own department or its own ministry, as they’ve said they’re going to try to do around forestry but haven’t. You’ll have to come back and amend the legislation.

It is rushed through. It is bad legislation. It creates “Henry VIII” powers for a tourism Minister that does not have the backing or the confidence of the tourism sector. They will be back fixing this. It’s very bad legislation.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First of all, I’d like to thank my colleagues the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway and the Hon Eugenie Sage for the wonderful work and the collaboration that has gone on to get to the stage where we’re at. I think the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway spelt out the need for the conservation visitor tourism levy extremely thoroughly.

One of the points that the Opposition have totally missed—when the Hon Todd McClay gets up and says that we haven’t put any money into tourism, he forgets the Provincial Growth Fund, which has put tens if not hundreds of millions into tourism. They’re very quick to forget that.

Look, we’ve spoken about the benefits of tourism to New Zealand. We know that 216,000 New Zealanders are employed directly in tourism. We know that 170,000 New Zealanders are employed indirectly by tourism. We know that there’s been a 35 percent growth in tourism numbers over the last five years. We also know that our visitors from overseas spend some $16 billion in New Zealand when they’re here. We know that the numbers are going from 3.9 million now up to 5.1 million by 2025. But here’s the thing. We know how important tourism is to New Zealand, but the Opposition over there, what they want to do is strangle the golden goose. They want to grab it by the throat. They want to wring its neck. They want to pluck it. They want to gut it. They want to boil it and they want to serve tourism up to the New Zealand public on a cold plate of contempt, because that is what they are showing. That is what they are showing to the New Zealand tourism sector. Everything that they have said over the last few hours that we’ve been debating this, and last night, has meant that they don’t understand tourism. They don’t care about tourism. They don’t want to protect our natural capital in the conservation estate. All they want to do is have more and more people turn up. They want to market New Zealand as this paradise, but they don’t actually want to manage New Zealand as this paradise.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Strangle the golden goose.

They want to strangle the golden goose.

So here’s the point. Here is the big thing. If they hate this conservation and tourism levy so much, will the National Party, in their remaining speeches, stand up and promise the tourism sector that they will repeal this law? Will they repeal it? Will they say, “We don’t want the $450 million to protect our tourism and our conservation estate.”? I challenge them now to stand up, when they have their time, and promise the country that they are going to repeal this—promise. Promise also that the $25 million a year for four years—that has been set out; that was their idea—is going to continue. But that $25 million has to come from somewhere as well—it has to come from somewhere. We’re creating a long-term sustainable funding mechanism for tourism, for conservation, so that those sectors can plan well into the future. There are a number of areas in this country that are struggling under the weight of visitor numbers, but the Opposition don’t care. So with all the bluff and puffery that has gone on for the number of hours that we’ve been sitting here, I can guarantee that not one of them will stand up and promise to repeal this law.

We talk in tourism about the investment framework, which is the five A’s. We have the attractions that visitors need. They need things to do when they go somewhere—the attractions. We need awareness. We need visitors to know what the attractions are that are on offer. They need access. Visitors need to be able to get to where they want to go safely. We need the amenities. Visitors need accommodation, they need retail and hospitality, they need car-parks, they need ablution blocks, and they need good and safe water. We also need the attitudes of our communities. Our communities need to know that tourism is good for them. But all that is in jeopardy because of those people sitting over there. Let me say that the best place for them is to be sitting over there. God help the tourism industry. God help the conservation estate, if they ever get on this side and throttle and strangle and pluck and gut the golden goose.

New Zealanders expect visitors to this country to actually contribute to the costs of the infrastructure in protecting and enhancing our natural environment. That is what New Zealanders expect. That motley crew over there think that strangling the golden goose is actually going to do New Zealand good. It is not, and I am very proud of what this Government has done, very proud that we are ensuring that we protect the ongoing viability of tourism and of the conservation estate, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Over the last 24 hours or so, and the rest of this long weekend, there will be tens of thousands of people travelling to the beautiful Coromandel electorate—tourists, visitors from domestic places around the country, and, indeed, international visitors. They will be enjoying all that the wonderful Coromandel has to offer. There’s no doubt that some of the tourist infrastructure is under strain, because mine is a region that exemplifies some of the pressures that the Ministers and the Government, in this bill, seek to alleviate.

Throughout this debate we have not sought to argue against the concept—the broad thrust of what is trying to be achieved here. What we have argued about is the woeful, inadequate process. This has been a process of shocking proportion. Here we are, sitting under urgency on a Saturday morning of a long weekend, and the Government has had 18, nearly 19, probably 20, long months to bring this piece of legislation to the House. They’ve chosen to do it on the back of a botched Budget, under urgency, with no scrutiny of a select committee, with no opportunity for tourist operators in my electorate to make submissions, to offer their point of view, and to have their say. That’s an appalling process for a piece of legislation that actually could be so much better if the Government had attempted to do a little bit more work on it.

Some would say—and indeed some on this side of the House have said—that this is a knee-jerk taxation reaction from the Government. This Government does have a policy of tax, tax, and more tax. This is just another good example of that. But to describe it as a knee-jerk reaction would be to overstate the case, because “knee-jerk” implies something quick and fast and spontaneous. It’s more like an arthritic process, where a very slow-moving, aching bone has been finally moved into action.

We argued during the course of the first and second stages of this bill about process, and during the committee stage we had probably the best example of why this bill is so fraught. This is an immigration bill. This bill seeks to amend the principal Act—the Immigration Act. It’s not a tourism piece of legislation. A piece of legislation like this deserves to have its own principal piece of legislation, and if the Government was really keen on it, that’s what they would do. We had the ludicrous situation during committee stage where the Minister who was proposing, sponsoring, and moving this bill through the House was actually sitting in the Chamber. The Minister of Tourism was sitting in the chair and a point of order had to be taken because even the Government didn’t understand the basics of who was responsible for this piece of legislation.

We argued about the lack of definition. We know that in this amendment bill there is a definition of “conservation” and it’s the definition that exists in the Conservation Act. But there is no definition of “tourism”. There is no defined, careful, thought-out process around how this bill is going to work. What’s more, there’s no thought-out, clear, obvious pathway for defining how the revenue—the $80 million that’s expected to be collected—is going to be allocated, where it’s going to go, what the definition of “tourism projects” is going to be, what the definition of “conservation projects” is going to be, who’s going to have access to this money, how it’s going to be allocated, and who by.

We don’t even know which Minister is going to be responsible. In the bill there is a definition that is as loose as a goose about Ministers. In fact, my colleagues on this side of the House spoke at length about that during the debate. So here we have a Minister who made, in his contribution, a waffly, sort of vague approach at trying to address some of the questions that we’ve raised on this side of the House. He said that there was a cold plate of contempt. Well, the cold plate of contempt is actually just to impose taxes. There’s nothing that says more about a cold plate of contempt than a Government that just wants to raise taxes at every possible opportunity, and this is just another example of another tax on the back of a botched Budget.

Now, this seems to be more than opposition for opposition’s sake. I say that because this is kind of upsetting. You go into any one of their electorates in the regions and you know that their tourism operators want this, need this. The industry supports what we’re trying to do here. The industry supports the fact that international tourists are going to pay a levy when they come into our beautiful country, to help keep it clean and green and to help unblock those infrastructure pressures.

Here’s the kicker—and this is why I know there’s a problem in the Opposition benches. One of the best Ministers of Tourism—this is the only credit I can give the guy. One of the best Ministers of Tourism this country has seen in recent history—and actually, to be fair, I best describe him as the one of the former Leaders of the Opposition there—Sir John Key, has come out publicly in support of this levy on international visitors to New Zealand. And on that, I say they are lost and confused, and we are doing a good thing here today. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in Opposition also to this tourist tax bill to take a short call. But, before I go on to my particular abhorrence with this bill, I say that we rise in support of the tourism industry and we rise in support of conservation. I categorically reject what the Minister of Tourism had to say about this National Party’s record and the fact that he believes that we would simply rape and pillage the conservation estate. That is absolutely nonsense and evidenced by our investment in the conservation estate.

Coming back to the bill, I think that with respect to the Conservation Act and this poor piece of legislation, there is a stark difference. When we look at Part 3B, for example, under the Conservation Act, it is quite prescriptive as to how we go about authorising commercial activities on the estate. In contrast, this bill holds absolutely no detail about how this tax is going to be administered or distributed, and it gives the Minister “Henry VIII” powers to arbitrarily decide that.

It is a very poor piece of legislation, and I believe that if this Government had gone out and properly consulted with the tourism industry and disclosed what was in the regulatory impact statement that meant the fiscals didn’t add up—with an estimated revenue of $80 million coming in and discouraging around about $70 million worth of our tourism attraction and spending to these shores—it would not be supported. Certainly, the uncertainty with how it is going to be distributed and what projects are going to be prioritised—this is just simply a bad, bad piece of legislation.

So while we are in support of the tourism industry and conservation—and a National Government has in the past and will in the future do everything it can to support that industry, because we understand that tourism helps grow the regions and helps grow New Zealand, and produces many jobs and opportunities for New Zealand—another tax is not going to encourage growth in a sustainable way. It is not going to provide further opportunities for New Zealanders. With that, I simply oppose this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am very proud to support the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill. None of the speakers on the Opposition benches have responded to the challenge of the Minister of Tourism, the Hon Kelvin Davis, that they will repeal this.

This bill is about delivering for New Zealanders. It is about the joined-up thinking in this Government, which has agencies working together to solve the challenges, to invest in tourism, to invest in conservation, to fill the gaps that that former National Government left us.

This bill is much needed because there are major challenges. There is a mismatch between the sources of revenue for conservation and for tourism infrastructure, which are largely funded by New Zealand taxpayers and ratepayers, and the increasing and large numbers of international visitors who benefit from these investments when they come to Aotearoa New Zealand. While the natural environment is the top factor in encouraging visitors to come here, there’s currently no targeted mechanism for enabling them to contribute to protecting the places they come to enjoy, to contribute to paying for the infrastructure that they use. So that’s what this levy does. It provides that mechanism. And, thirdly, there’s been significant growth in visitor numbers, and that’s putting pressure on communities, on our environment, and on the infrastructure that supports these visitors. So this levy is the mechanism that will enable us to meet that visitor demand and to ensure that tourism is sustainable.

The Opposition has claimed there is no clarity around what’s going to happen to the money. This money is in the Estimates document. It will be scrutinised by Parliament. It will be scrutinised by a select committee. The National Party hasn’t been listening. There will be an investment plan which is developed, which is signed off by myself, the Minister of Tourism the Hon Kelvin Davis, and the Minister of Finance. There will be an advisory panel which contributes to the priorities in that investment plan.

In the conservation space, my first priority is investing in biodiversity—doing more in predator control, doing more in terms of our threatened species to protect them. That’s what visitors come to see and experience. Doing more to support initiatives like the ambitious one in the Mackenzie Basin to do predator control over 300,000 hectares to enable species like kakī to flourish. The other priority is investing in the facilities that visitors use, things like the toilet blocks, the camping areas, the picnic grounds. The increase in visitors has put significant pressure there—

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: The tracks.

—the tracks, the huts, thank you. We’ve seen major growth in sites like Punakaiki and Milford Sound / Piopiotahi. The Government is responding there with significant grants from the Provincial Growth Fund, but the Department of Conservation (DOC), just over the last four years, has spent more than $42 million more in capital expenditure to improve visitor assets, whether it’s roading to access glaciers, toilets, car parks, campsites. Just last summer, DOC spent an extra $3.6 million to maintain the facilities on conservation land, cleaning toilets, dealing with toilet waste, track maintenance—those are pressures from increasing visitor numbers. This is why this bill and the levy that it establishes is a very good solution, because it will enable those international visitors to contribute to the costs of those facilities and to protecting nature. It’s their contribution to our nature and our facilities. It will help maintain the social licence that tourism depends on in New Zealand. It’s about a sustainable and a bright future for tourism, and I really congratulate the Hon Lees-Galloway as Minister of Immigration and the Hon Kelvin Davis as Minister of Tourism for ensuring that we’ve got joined-up thinking in this Government to deliver the things that New Zealanders care about. I commend the bill to the House.

No amount of spin will hide the fact that this Government simply has an insatiable appetite for tax. We saw that with the first bill after the Budget, which was to whack New Zealand with another $280 million of fuel tax, and we see it also with this bill.

There is absolutely no debate that we need to invest in conservation and that we need to invest in tourism facilities. Here’s the real question: what is the correct way to fund that, and is this a fair and efficient tax?

💬 Hon David Parker: Yep.

If you go to Tax 101—and I’ll be keen to have this debate with Mr Parker—there’s three rules that should apply for a tax: is it fair, is it certain, and is it an efficient tax?

Well, let’s firstly test the issue of fairness. Is it fair that New Zealand’s biggest tourism market, all those Australians, do not pay a bean? How can members opposite justify that if a person comes from China, they will pay this new tax, but one from Australia does not? It is unfair, and it’s particularly contradictory in a week in which the Minister of Immigration is saying that he wants to have a fairer immigration policy that treats everybody from different parts of New Zealand more equally. But it’s equally unfair in this respect: for the tourist that comes into New Zealand for a very short period, a single day—and there are those that come in for a conference for a very short period—they pay exactly the same levy as someone that may spend six months here and walk the entire length of New Zealand. That is not fair. Let’s think of a tragedy like the beautiful young woman from Britain who was killed. Her family comes out for the funeral; they are going to be hit with that tax. Is that fair? Actually, the fact that someone comes through the airport from any country other than Australia is very disproportionate to any demand that they may put on the tourism sector.

What’s a far fairer way of funding? It’s actually GST. GST means that every time that tourist stays for a night in a hotel, gets in a rental car, rents a campervan, travels down the road, and uses a bus or a domestic airfare, there is no question that the GST in their expenditure in New Zealand is far closer and more related to the amount of pressure that they put on our tourism facilities than whether they have come through the airport.

Then we ask the question of efficiency. We know that with GST, GST costs less than 0.1 percent to collect. It’s a very efficient tax. Does this new tax pass the efficiency test? It’s expected that it’s going to cost 15 percent—15 percent of the cost is going to be in bureaucracy, in the collection of it. That means that every year, something in the order of $11 million to $12 million is going to be spent in simply collecting that up. That is inefficient. That makes it not a good tax.

Then, the third thing about taxation we should test is whether it is certain—do people know how much they have to pay? Well, here’s my problem, and this was so clearly exposed in the committee stage: this bill says that it should fund infrastructure. Well, what the heck is the definition of infrastructure? Should tourists have to pay for hospitals? Well, they’re part of infrastructure. There is the occasion when a tourist may need to get to a hospital. Can they impose this levy for roads? Well, they’ve already whacked them with a petrol tax. There is nothing in this bill that stops the Government being able to use this tourism tax to fund roads. The definition of infrastructure in this bill is so loose that it is the exact opposite of certainty.

So I go again and say, actually, that the tourism sector is the only foreign exchange - earning sector that pays GST. If you’re in the meat sector, if you’re in the dairy sector, or if you’re in any of those, you do not pay, and that was substantially debated. The fairer way to pay for those facilities is through GST.

My very last point is that I want to quote Ronald Reagan, because, man, it describes everything about this Government. He said that the Government’s view of the economy can be summed up in a few short phrases: if it’s successful, tax it; if it continues to succeed, tax it some more; if it keeps moving, then regulate it; and when it fails, subsidise it. The tourism sector has been an incredible success story by the previous Government, led by John Key. The only thing this Government knows how to do with success is to tax it. It will be an extra imposition on the tourism industry. The very sector that is providing so many of hundreds of thousands of jobs and foreign exchange earnings and that is making the New Zealand economy successful is simply being hit with another crude, horrible tax from this Government.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In response to that speech, I did not hear the Hon Nick Smith say that he would repeal this legislation.

It’s a pleasure to rise and speak to the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill—a bill that takes care of the infrastructure and takes care of the conservation reserves. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will keep this brief. I sum this bill up with the following questions around: does it have integrity, does it pose a risk, and what is the compromise? In terms of the integrity, there’s a real concern around the lack of due process, and we’ve heard that repeatedly in the House. So I leave it with the Government and the members there: does this bill stand the test of integrity?

The risk that is being posed to the tourism industry, as we’ve heard about the compromise with the numbers of our tourists, is whether that flow will continue. Coming back also to the risk associated with the bill, the purpose of the Immigration Act makes no mention whatsoever of tourism. The purpose of the Immigration Act is to manage immigration. There is no amendment within this amendment bill that addresses the purpose of tourism. The risk to this bill is that it does not stand the test of integrity.

Finally, the compromise—the compromise in the promises that this Government has made in terms of the sustenance and the sustainability of our tourism industry here in Aotearoa New Zealand. The tiaki promise to care has been compromised. Its integrity, the risk posed, and the compromise to our New Zealand tourism industry is most definitely compromised by the lack of substance and the flaws that are within this bill. The National Party continues to maintain its opposition to this bill and the risk that it poses to our tourism market.

I just wish to add my support to this bill and to our Government. Can I acknowledge the Ministers, Minister Iain Lees-Galloway for immigration, Minister Kelvin Davis, the Minister of Tourism, and Minister Eugenie Sage for their fantastic work with this bill. This bill is all about making those on a visitor experience pay for their way in terms of the use of our infrastructure and assets—$450 million collected over five years will take the pressure off Kiwis.

So this is a fantastic piece of legislation. It’s going to do wonderful things for my electorate, right across the magnificent taonga that we have in Te Wai Pounamu. I wholeheartedly support it, and I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and good morning. I just want to make a couple of final points, I think. All the points from the National Party have been made very well. I just want to add one last, perhaps, plea to the Government. The only reference in any of the debates—there is no reference in the bill—and the only reference in the whole passage of this bill to the Minister of Local Government has been made by members on this side of the House, and yet half the money raised from this tourist tax will be potentially allocated to local authorities to disburse. So the question I have for the Minister, and he might want to take it away and think about it over the weekend—unlikely—and the question I would dearly love to have answered is: why, then, rush this through?

The Productivity Commission is not far away from releasing its report into local government funding and financing. Surely, given the fact that local government is going to be in receipt of a moderate amount of money for expenditure on tourism infrastructure—unspecified and undefined—it would make good sense in a policy setting to have a look at that and regard the two—[A member’s cellphone rings] That was—yes.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, Stuart Nash is shouting.

Yeah—scones and cream, I think—tea. Surely it would be a better process for this Government to look at those two things together, and then come up with a decent piece of legislation.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in the third reading of this bill. Down South, we’ve got a lot of iconic destinations. We’ve got Queenstown, we’ve got the Catlins, and we’ve got Milford Sound, but we’ve also got thousands and thousands of visitors a year, and so what this bill will do is it will assist those communities that are really struggling to keep up with the basic infrastructure that those international visitors need. What it means is that those visitors will contribute their fair share to the infrastructure they use, but it also means that we can invest in our conservation estate and in protecting our unique biodiversity. So it’s with pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.