Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

I move, That the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 27 April 2023. This is a truncated select committee process to allow the bill to pass House stages in May and come into force on 21 June 2023. This allows for operational readiness before it comes into force.

This bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to provide for clearer arrival information obligations to help with customs-related border management matters. This includes things such as collection of revenue and detection of restricted or prohibited goods. The bill also aims to improve the collection of arrival information by introducing new offences to enforce the system.

The work Customs does at our borders is a critical part of managing Aotearoa New Zealand’s border system. Customs’ core functions are broad: they work to prevent and stop drugs, illegal weapons, and other prohibited goods from crossing our border. They also have an important role in collecting Crown revenue through the duty system. At the same time, it’s important that they provide a streamlined experience for travellers coming to Aotearoa. To provide the streamlined experience, Customs needs to use innovative and advanced technology to make travel more efficient. Customs makes a data-driven approach to focus on the people and goods that pose the greatest risk. This approach protects Aotearoa while enabling the smooth passage of legitimate travellers and trade.

This bill helps improve border management by providing for the digitising of the paper arrival card. A digital arrival card is part of work towards a safer and smarter border, using technology. We already have a smart and safe border by international comparisons, but it’s important we continue work to improve this. Other countries have moved to requiring digital arrival cards, such as Canada and Singapore.

The New Zealand Traveller Declaration system will be used to implement the digital arrival card. The New Zealand Traveller Declaration has been a vital tool in supporting the safe reopening of our borders. The benefits of digitising the paper arrival card include improved risk assessment from quicker assessment of information against risk factors. This will help cut down unnecessary referrals to border officers. In the future, where there is a digital arrival card in place, only some people will be referred to a customs officer if their digital arrival card identifies a potential risk or issue. This frees up the customs officers to concentrate on those where potential risk is identified, and to look out for persons who might display suspicious behaviour.

The accuracy of information will also improve. A digital arrival card removes handwritten answers. Customs officers will not have to decipher what people write down or ask additional questions because they can’t read the handwriting. The digital arrival card system has the ability to provide greater guidance around questions, such as additional prompts to help travellers answer questions accurately. Those travellers who voluntarily complete the digital arrival card prior to arrival will be able to experience a more streamlined process on arrival in Aotearoa. As Aotearoa returns to pre-COVID-19 volumes of visitors, it’s important our border processes are as efficient as possible. A digital arrival card could be implemented using existing Customs legislation. However, changes are being sought to improve the transparency of the law around arrival information collection. Changes will also improve the way the system works, and the enforcement of the system.

Specifically, this bill provides an implicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide the prescribed arrival information, which will be set out in chief executive rules. This will improve the transparency of the system because the public will be able to clearly see, in law, the requirements they need to follow when they travel to Aotearoa. Currently, multiple provisions must be read together for the arrival information requirements. The bill also improves the enforcement of the arrival information required by introducing two new offences. In practice, most people want to comply with customs requirements and complete the arrival information. It is expected the offence of failing to provide arrival information will apply to a small number of individuals. I plan to make these offences into infringement offences, to provide a low-cost way to encourage compliance.

Other changes include a regulation-making power to set the timing for when arrival information can be required. This futureproofs Customs’ use of arrival information to respond to emerging risks and future border processing changes. In future, Customs may require specific information to be provided offshore, and enforce on arrival in Aotearoa. A regulation-making power is also proposed in the bill to exempt categories of travellers from providing arrival information. Exemptions could be used where it is not practical or necessary to collect arrival information from a particular class of persons. For example, it is not practical to get arrival information from a person rescued at sea.

The approach in this bill aligns with the existing Customs and Excise Act—that is, the Act provides for high-level obligations. Secondary legislation, which are regulations and chief executive rules, provides for matters of detail. I appreciate that the digital system can be difficult for some people. We have some experience to draw from in the earlier use of the New Zealand Traveller Declaration for health purposes. During the development of the system, there will be user testing to ensure the system works for a range of people. When it is implemented, there will be a call centre to help people complete the arrival information requirements. Before the system goes live, it will need to meet Government web accessibility standards. If a person cannot complete arrival information in the digital arrival card, they can complete a paper arrival form.

This bill also proposes a power to collect information for the purpose of verifying compliance with traveller data entry requirements set out in other statutes. This allows for the Chief Executive of Customs to verify information on behalf of other agencies and use information collected for this purpose. Verification could be needed to manage emergency situations at the border—for example, if Customs need to enforce a vaccination requirement in another pandemic. The bill does not implement any COVID-19 requirements. Were these to be necessary, they will be set out in health legislation.

The verification provisions provide authority for the Chief Executive of Customs to use information held by another agency for verification purposes. The Minister of Customs would need to be consulted where it is proposed Customs verifies compliance with arrival information. The bill provides for any verification provisions in other statutes to be specified in the Customs and Excise Act.

I ask Parliament to support this bill. While this bill is small in terms of its size, it is important to help Customs successfully fulfil its important border management role. It will provide clearer arrival information obligations and improve the enforcement of the arrival information requirements. I am pleased to commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, how exciting is it to have a customs bill in this House? I have waited a very long time for this—as the shadow Minister of Customs I am absolutely delighted. But the nature of parliamentary time means that my speech will either be cut off at 6 past 5 or earlier, so we’ll have to make the most of it.

But can I commend the Minister for bringing this bill here. National will support it to select committee. Obviously, the collection of information is vital to the security of the Realm. And first and foremost, what customs—and the Minister knows it herself—what the customs team do already is fantastic, and I would suggest one of the top operating Government departments and ministries. So thanks to what they are doing there.

Because of the issue of time, I’ll truncate some of my thoughts. Look, first and foremost, collecting information is a good thing. We will want to see in select committee—and it’s picking up some of the Privacy Commissioner’s concerns in that at the moment, basically, the legislation says the chief executive, the comptroller can decide what information is or is not collected. On this side we’re probably interested in whether or not we have to define that clearly. As the Privacy Commissioner’s noted, we don’t want oversharing of information. As the Minister will know, there’s already an enormous amount of information collected. The advance passenger name record, the advanced passenger processing info—long and short, before you get on a plane, there’s an enormous amount of information about who you are which Customs can use. And I suppose where we’re a little bit concerned, Minister, is not so much about the bill, but it is around the New Zealand Traveller Declaration system and how that operated.

And again, in the interests of time—the fundamental concern is that it was a whole lot of information being asked of Kiwis, it seems to us. Well, we do know that very little of it was actually used. So it was in a massive processing—wait, sorry, actually I’m going to back up the horse and cart. There was a lot of work for people to submit information, but it basically went nowhere and it wasn’t used. And that’s something we just don’t want—on this side of the House—to see. If information is going to be collected, it has to be used in some way.

The Minister touched on usability. She’ll know that the traveller declaration—and I understand that the New Zealand Traveller Declaration is not what exactly is being proposed from June next year—was hard for people to use; particularly our older New Zealanders. So we will be very interested in the select committee process to understand what the Government has in mind to design a system that is quick, easy, intuitive to use, and obviously provides your department the information it requires, and then to understand how that’s going to be used—particularly if the chief executive or the comptroller is going to have that power.

We do understand why this is a truncated process. We know that the Government is wanting this to be active by the middle of next year. There is a question; it’s probably more just a statement of why it’s therefore taken this long to get this piece of legislation to the House. A little bit—I’m not sure if it’s Minister disappointment. It would be good to have had it earlier so we didn’t have to rush this through. But, fundamentally, it’s a good bill. Again, for those at home to understand, it’s helping us move—

💬 Shanan Halbert: He’s being so kind today.

—actually clearer. Yeah, I know, I’m in a really good mood today, so—take it, take it, while we can!

It is a good bill. It’s providing just that little bit more flexibility. The Minister rightly pointed out that the existing customs Act would allow us to make these changes anyway, but this does make things just a little bit clearer and, importantly, brings about that infringement system. Again, it will only be a small matter of debate, I think. Was it still $400 if you bring in a piece of fruit—which I don’t encourage people to do, but this is suggesting $1,000. So whether or not there’s an equity between those—is bringing fruit in a higher risk, and I would argue, yes, on a biosecurity level, than someone not quite filling a form out? Although I am aware it’s a maximum of $1,000.

But again, look, fundamentally, collecting information is a positive thing. But on this side of the House, we want to be absolutely clear on what that information is going to be used for. And, again, I turn back to that traveller declaration. Having used it a few times myself, it did feel just like a massive data collection. It didn’t always make a lot of sense. And once we found out through written questions and otherwise—and thanks to the people in Customs, who have to answer all my questions; it is gratefully received. We know that a lot of that just didn’t get used.

I know I’m somewhat repeating myself here, but fundamentally we want to have absolute assurances through the select committee process that all information being collected is for an absolute purpose, and that it’s going to tie in with the passenger name record, the advance passenger processing info, how that’s all going to interact, and, ultimately, that it will bring about the goal which the Minister has indicated, which is a much more efficient system at the border, because, actually, we still need to get that border fully open. We want people to be coming back in; we want them to have a very simple, near seamless experience. And the final point—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order!

Oh, I was just about to compliment the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee chair—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The member is welcome to complete his speech after, because it’s obvious he’s passionate about Customs. However, this debate is interrupted. I’ll resume the Chair after dinner, at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The House is resumed. Members, when the Speaker left for the dinner break, the House was considering the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. Yep, Ibrahim Omer.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to take a call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill.

At the time of digitisation, at the time of globalisation, when the flow of people and goods through airports and the ports is quite common, we need to make sure that our system is updated and up to date. This bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to provide for clearer arrival information obligations to help with customs-related and border management matters.

The changes in this bill support the digitising of the paper arrival card. While the digital arrival card can be implemented using existing legislation, changes are necessary to improve the enforcement and the functionality of the system. In particular, the bill does the following: it provides an explicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide prescribed arrival information; it creates two new offences: one for failing to provide prescribed information, and one for providing arrival information that is erroneous material in particular. It also creates a new regulation power to set the time when the customs information must be provided and exempts people from needing to give information—that’s people rescued at sea, for example. It also provides a power for customs to collect certain information administered by other agencies to verify compliance.

Now, this is not to say that things will be perfect—of course, there will be people who will be worried about these changes, especially digitising the paper arrival card. To switch to a digital card may cause concern but the public clearly see the requirement of the bill.

I just got back from overseas a few weeks ago and on our arrival, everyone fills the paper in manually. But there are even countries who are poorer than us—Third World countries, where sometimes you see all their paperwork is digitised and up to date. So we need to be doing everything we can to make sure that our system is functional and up to date. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, thank you. National will be supporting this bill, but only so far as first reading, and we reserve the right to consider further our support once the select committee has looked at it. And there are a number of reasons for this. We’re in favour of making things easier, streamlining procedures, and digitisation. However, I wonder whether this is not a missed opportunity with this legislation, because, largely, what it does is give power to an official to make a lot of decisions that, actually, a Government should be making, and doesn’t really give the Government the oversight or control that I think it should have in as far as exactly what we’re asking arriving passengers or returning citizens to do. It creates offences but, in effect, doesn’t balance that out with the requirement for any request to arriving visitors to be reasonable or sensible.

Many countries of the world have gone much further than digitising the processes for when people arrive in their countries. They’ve got rid of the requirement to provide information, and I want to give the example of one in a moment. But, in essence, what this legislation is doing is saying we are still going to collect a lot of information from people when they arrive. There will be no assessment by the Government or anybody else as to the usefulness, reasonableness, or whether it should be and needs to be collected, but it gives us the ability in New Zealand to go and digitise that. And in some cases that may well make sense, but I did hear the Minister of Customs in her introductory comments saying she does recognise some people won’t be able to and might not want to, and they’ll still be able to fill out the paper system, and so it just doesn’t make any sense at all.

The missed opportunity here is to decide how much information needs to be collected and whether any needs to be collected at all. And I’m of the understanding that when the arrival form is filled out by a visitor to New Zealand or by a citizen returning to New Zealand, the vast majority of the information collected on that arrival form is not analysed—is not used at all. And so the Government has no use for that information, or if it does have a use, it just doesn’t get around to considering it, and therefore we’re asking people to fill out forms and provide information when there is no reason to.

You know, many years ago, anybody that visited the US knew just how arduous, how difficult it was. The forms were long, they were in triplicate, there were so many of them. In fact, the hoops to jump through to get into America were extremely excessive and challenging, and most people who visited there often would say, “Had a nice visit, but I had to fill out a lot of forms and I just don’t understand why.” Well, maybe our Government could take from the US not what they used to be like in asking people to fill out forms, online or otherwise, and try to provide information that’s not useful and is not used. But the US, earlier this year, made a decision—and I’m reading, from their website, the arrival/departure form in the US: “Foreign visitors to the U.S. arriving via air or sea no longer need to complete paper Customs and Border Protection [forms].” They don’t need to do it online either; the US is not collecting information.

So one of the things we will be asking in the committee is exactly what information is needed and why it is needed—why do we need to collect this information?—and if there isn’t a good reason, perhaps we should not be. I do note that one of the things the Minister said in the introduction to the bill is that it gives Customs the ability to find people who are bringing in prohibited goods or who are not paying the revenue that they should. That, I guess, is by way of somebody saying, “I’m bringing in a prohibited good.” But, generally, if somebody is smuggling something into the country or bringing something in wilfully or deciding to evade the payment of customs duties or taxation, they are not fooled by the form that says, “Please tell us that you’re doing this.” And so, actually, Customs do their job through enforcement, through knowing about risk before it arrives in the country. They exchange information with other countries, the world, with the US Customs Service, with the Chinese customs service, with most customs services in the US. They know enough about people before they arrive to decide whether or not they are likely to be a risk or not, without them, you know, filling out a form and, hopefully, they make a mistake and they catch them.

And so I wonder whether, in the Government’s desire to make this easier and to simplify it by going online, they are missing the opportunity to decide whether or not they are creating burden, bureaucracy, and, I suppose, more paperwork. And is this really helping Customs at all? I think we would be much better putting effort into customs services that identify risk without somebody telling on themselves and keeping our borders safe and citizens safe for those that visit here and those who return, and these are some of the things we will want to explore at the committee.

The other thing we have is a concern around the Privacy Commissioner saying a similar thing—that, actually, there is likely to be creep here and that people’s privacy may be impinged upon as a result of information being required to be presented that we might otherwise not have a right to or don’t need. And if somebody says, “I decide you don’t need this, you shouldn’t know it about me”, or the Government has no real need for the information and the person doesn’t provide it, they can be fined up to $1,000. That feels quite excessive, I think, and so we’ll want to work through all of that. But first and foremost, I would hope the committee will have an opportunity to exhaustively look at whether or not there still remains a requirement to collect information when people come to New Zealand, or whether we can be more like the US, who protect their border arduously, more than most countries of the world, and no longer say there is a requirement to provide information. They have found other ways to do it and at a much lower cost—less cost to them, the Government, and to those who visit.

So we are supporting this bill in its first reading and to select committee. We hope that we can work through some of these issues and land in a place where we can continue to support it. Digitisation is a good thing. It helps, it is efficient, it is streamlined. But the requirement to have to go online on your phone or your computer or whatever it is on the other side of the world and tick a few boxes to fill out a form before you climb on a plane in itself doesn’t relieve a burden from the visitor; it just makes it a bit easier for the Government or Customs, and we should be looking to make it easier for the visitor, much more welcoming for them to come to New Zealand, and get rid of as much bureaucracy as we can.

I think there is one final point to this. It is legislation to give Customs the ability to require information. They have that ability already, so I think all it’s doing is saying they have the ability to require it digitally. But then it says there will be a suite of rules or regulations put in place decided upon by the head of Customs as to what is required and when and how. And I think the Minister actually should be in front of this Parliament saying “This is the type of information we will collect”, not leaving it to an official. Look, officials will do their job judiciously. They will go to great, great lengths to make sure that they do their job and they collect all the information that they need. But it’s this Parliament that is accountable—the members of Parliament here who are accountable—to the public and the Government, not the officials. And so to merely say, “We want to pass a law with some urgency”—quickly, for next year, the Minister said—“so that we can require people to provide information to us that we may not use and may not need, and if they decide not to do so, they will be fined up to $1,000. But we’re not going to tell you what information it is we require, what we might want. In fact, we, the Government, say that’s not going to be our responsibility. We’re going to leave it to a civil servant.” I don’t think that is responsible or right.

And so the committee will have an opportunity to question Customs at length about how they believe this will work and why they just want regulation-setting powers, rather than codifying much of this as law in a bill or giving us the opportunity to have some guarantees that the poor old visitors in New Zealand or the returning citizen is not going to be encumbered with providing a lot of information that on the surface may seem reasonable but the Government is not currently using, may not use in the future, and that they may find harder to provide to Customs than we would otherwise like. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am very pleased to rise and take a call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. I’m very excited I am doing this, as, in a former life, I was Customs’ senior privacy adviser. So I’d like to begin my call by reassuring my colleague across the House—Todd McClay—that the information that is currently collected on the arrival card is in fact used and is needed by the Government. The interesting thing about the arrival card is that, while it’s collected by Customs, as the initial point of contact, the information contained on the arrival card, and requested, is actually done on behalf of Customs, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), Immigration New Zealand, and is used by Stats NZ in the calculation of GDP. It’s actually counted as tier one statistic information; so it is vital information. I just really want to get that on record and reassure you there.

In fact, the other reason I’m really excited to take a call on this bill is because while I worked at Customs, one of the projects I was lucky enough to be involved in was the collection of GST on small goods being bought overseas and brought into New Zealand. That helped to level the playing field for our local retailers. I can tell you again that Customs and the other border agencies really take their collection of information very, very seriously, and they make sure that they consult rigorously with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to ensure that they are compliant with principle 1 of the Privacy Act—that is, that they’re only collecting information that is connected to a lawful function of their agency.

The other project I was lucky enough to work on at the New Zealand Customs Service was, in fact, the digital arrival card trial. In fact, I wrote the privacy impact assessment for the digital arrival card trial. So I’m incredibly excited to see it coming full circle and we’re now making moves to implement that permanently at the border. That will actually make the experience for travellers, be they returning New Zealanders or visitors to New Zealand, much simpler. It means that with the digital arrival card and the utilisation of the e-gates, or the smart gates, at the border, a traveller can disembark, go through the egates, and not have to talk to a customs officer and, potentially, even get right through MPI without having to have contact or stop and talk to border officers. So it will, in fact, make a traveller’s process through the border and into New Zealand much more seamless and much more efficient, and will result in a lot less queuing at the border. So I absolutely applaud the Minister for bringing this bill to the House.

The other interesting thing to note is that currently, with the paper-based arrival cards, airlines are having to set aside huge amounts of space on aeroplanes, and it’s costing them a lot in emissions to carry around the paper-based arrival cards. So not only will this improve traveller experience but it is also going to result in space savings and emissions savings for our airlines. So I wholeheartedly support the Minister’s desire to move us to a digital border, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens, and we will be supporting this Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. Just a brief description of the bill, for families that have just tuned in: this bill is intended to make changes alongside the move to digitalise arrival cards that are not currently provided for in the legislation. This follows on from the changes made during the COVID-19 border measures, and so as families and whānau were coming home there needed to be different types of information, even more detailed information that needed to be given that couldn’t be done by paper. So what I see this doing is picking up from the lessons learnt in terms of the way that things were processed at the border during COVID. But I did note what the Minister said in her opening statement, that, of course, this is separate from COVID legislation and that will be dealt with appropriately within health legislation. But it’s important for us to pick up and learn from the last two years, because who knows what tomorrow is going to bring.

I think once we get this to select committee, we will start to look at different regimes around the world, and I would say about the US one—and I remember going through there during September 11th, and the Americans unilaterally got rid of transit, and they haven’t got it back yet. So they have a completely different system. They’ve got a lot more people moving through their borders. They’ve got a different profile in terms of, you know, agriculture and biosecurity and all that kind of stuff as well. So what I would say to the select committee is to not necessarily go straight to the US but if you’re going to do comparatives, look for countries which have a similar profile to us.

This legislation involves establishing an explicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide prescribed arrival information in arrival cards, which are currently done in hard-copy form. It’s creating two new offences: “one for failing to provide prescribed arrival information and one for providing arrival information that is erroneous in a material particular”—i.e., significantly erroneous information. The fine incurred would be a maximum of $1,000. I was digging into the RIS, into the regulatory impact statement, and it said that the agency’s preferred option was for $400. So there’s $600 that just got pulled out of the air somewhere. So I would encourage the select committee to dig into where that $600 came from. Would it actually do what we want it to do? You know, would pinging someone harder—$600 harder—do what we want it to do? Why not $500? Why not $700? Why that particular number? I think that’s really important work for the select committee to get into, and also trying to get a bit more around the rationale about why you would do that and whether it would actually deter the sorts of behaviour that we’re trying to stop as well.

The legislation also makes the power to make regulations: to set the time by which arrival information must be provided to the New Zealand Customs Service, and also to exempt persons from the requirement to complete arrival information where it is not practical or necessary—for example, people rescued at sea.

The proposed legislation also will give “a power for Customs to collect certain information about persons arriving in New Zealand to verify compliance with traveller requirements set out in [regulation] administered by other agencies.”—but only where this is provided for or authorised in other legislation. There are currently no examples for this, but the regulatory impact statement speaks to the potential need for this in a possible future pandemic, for example.

As the previous speaker, Steph Lewis, got up and spoke, I was just reflecting on her member’s bill that we managed to get through the House a couple of weeks ago—a couple of months ago? One of the concerns that we had was around language and accessibility. When people come into the country, not everybody has devious and mischievous means and we’re out there to catch them. Some people just need to understand that these are the conditions you must adhere to when you come into the country. One of the things that we talked about was language accessibility of people coming in from different countries, making sure that that is available for them in their language, and to make sure that it’s also accessible as well for people that are visually impaired or hearing impaired as well—to make sure that that gets picked up as well.

Finally, probably something that I’ve heard from both sides and that I think is really important is around making sure that we don’t overshare information. I would expect the select committee to really get into the detail about that around privacy protections and making sure that you’re getting the right information but then also having a really important rationale about why you’re getting that information, and taking on board the comments made by the Privacy Commissioner. I’ve got faith that the select committee will be very, very vigorous in that regard, in terms of acknowledging that a lot of information is collected anyway when you come into the country, so the stuff that is being gathered—to make sure that it’s in line with the concerns that the Privacy Commissioner has brought up. But, also, I’m sure members from around the House will also raise some concerns about that as well, and that is good and important. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of ACT to give this bill support in the first reading, to select committee. We commit to as much as that. Certainly, we’ve got some questions around unintended consequences and things for the select committee to look at.

So this is a small bill but with, potentially, a big punch, and it does give a lot of power to the secondary legislation, particularly the chief executive’s rules, so a little bit of clarity there is to just how far and wide this is going to go. Privacy is obviously a widely valued good, and the collection of data, when enforced, has to be treated seriously. In particular, some might say there’s something objectionable about a New Zealander who’s trying to return home being faced with quite a considerable fine if they simply forget to fill out a form, and I do have question about that.

But first, we all understand the need for modernisation, the digitisation of services, hence we’re going to support this at first reading. But is there actually a problem to be solved here specifically? The Minister herself stated in her first speech that our border is already smart and safe, and this bill does seem very hypothetical at this stage.

The New Zealand traveller declaration has been discussed as being possibly a bit of a template, something that we can work off or look to. That travel declaration, rest in peace, was a bit of a nuisance for travellers. I did it myself, crashed every printer I tried to print it out with. Then when I came back from Samoa with the recent delegation the Inland Revenue thought I was still in Samoa until recently. So I was getting threatening letters about my student loan. So something’s going wrong with the digitisation. For any others who were on that trip with me, they might want to check that as well with the IRD.

So, I do wonder about the built-in redundancy. How does that work? The Minister stated that there will still be a paper version that’s available, which is fine, which is good. But that begs a question about enforceability of this regime, so that if someone hasn’t done the digital form and they’re technically liable for a fine, but then they can just opt to do the paper version instead, so how does that, kind of, interact with each other? I just have to ask, will travellers be able to amend, if they’ve done it digitally, their declaration at the last minute for whatever reason? This can happen. Perhaps someone has a change of heart or a change of realisation about something that they may have ticked “no” but actually it really should be a “yes”. So can they amend that or does it just have to be what it was two or three days—who knows how long? I mean, the bill doesn’t actually say the timing, but how many days in advance is it that they just have to maintain that? If your grandmother sneaks some vegetables into your luggage before you travel to New Zealand, what do you do in that situation?

So, certainly we have some questions and concerns, but we’re happy to support it. We would also like the select committee to just have a think about the cybersecurity risks associated with this. This is a lot of data, official data, that’s being plugged into the system and with all the travellers coming to New Zealand, what happens if there is some sort of geopolitical issue, if a foreign Government hacks the system and sits there mining data from our citizens and people visiting New Zealand? What happens in that situation? How do we respond?

So I think, broadly, we’re reasonably happy with this. There’ll certainly be some concerns around data and the collection of data, as there should be. But we’ll leave that for the select committee for the time being. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Kia ora koutou, Madam Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to take a brief call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill, which supports the implementation of a digital arrival card. I don’t have a happy history with paper-based arrival and departure cards. There’s a simple reason, and if you know anything about Sri Lankan surnames, you may be able to guess it. My full name is actually Vanushi Sitanjali Rajanayagam Walters, and I spent many years in my 20s attempting to work out how to fit that on the limited characters by resorting to two characters per box and other fun techniques.

All jokes aside, this is a change that will have a significant impact in terms of streamlining our arrivals process in New Zealand, but, to be fair, the existing legislation actually already permits a digital arrival card to be developed. What this legislation will do will smooth-line that to allow changes to the time when information can be provided. It also provides for offences to enforce the system, although those offences are very much qualified, and no doubt the select committee will do some work looking at the scope around those provisions.

But there is, of course, another concern that I hope the select committee will look to, which is the issue of accessibility. My colleague Todd McClay from across the way—there you go, I’ve got a “Hairy Maclary” in there for you, as well—spoke about why there was need for paper-based systems to exist at the same time as online systems. The simple reason is reasonable accommodation. So we’re just ensuring that anyone who’s not able to access the online space can still have that option of a paper-based system.

Lastly, I understand that the Privacy Commissioner has made some comments about what should be in primary versus secondary legislation in this regard. I have a special interest in this point as a member of the well-known Regulations Review Committee, and I would just say that there are arguments that the detail that the Privacy Commissioner was speaking to shouldn’t be in primary legislation but it should be in secondary. I also note that the Minister of Customs is required to present a copy of the chief executive’s rules to the House, and the House can disallow the rules, and, of course, under Standing Order 327 of the Standing Orders—which I’m sure everyone is very familiar with—individuals in the public space can always raise a complaint about any secondary legislation with the wonderful and diligent folk around the Regulations Review Committee table.

I am looking forward—although I’m not a member of the select committee that this is going to—to reviewing some of those submissions in this regard, and perhaps just a final invitation for those who have been excited to hear about the Regulations Review Committee for the first time this evening: perhaps they might like to find us on Facebook and keep in touch with our fascinating work. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

Penny Simmonds—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As my colleagues before me have said, National supports this bill to select committee, the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill, which amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to provide for clearer arrival information obligations to help with customs-related border management matters.

So we know that technologies are changing and advancing. And, of course, we want to be in a position to take up the opportunities that that technology brings, to make things more streamlined, to make the experience better for people coming in, and to make our borders more secure.

I would like to acknowledge, just as we are speaking about this bill, the tremendous work that New Zealand’s customs staff do. Coming from the agricultural sector, I know just how incredibly important their work is.

Often when I’m coming through customs, they’ll be apologetic for stopping us and asking us to take off our shoes and wash them and things. I’m always at pains to say, “Don’t apologise for it. We want you to do this. We want you to be particular. We want you to have a really robust service at our borders.” So can I just acknowledge all those New Zealand customs staff, who I know get a bit of abuse from time to time but they are doing wonderful work for our country.

The uptake of technology—as I’ve spoken about—is really important, but it’s also important to make sure that we get that balance between being at the forefront of the use of technology but also making sure that what happens is seamless, that we’re still providing a friendly experience for those coming through, that our security is being maintained. So we have got a number of things that we’re flagging that we will want to see satisfied at the select committee stage.

Now, Customs is looking to replace a paper arrival card. This is just a sign of the times with technology, but it’s already been touched on by a couple of speakers, that there will be people who are uncomfortable or don’t feel capable using an online service for this. In fact, we don’t know yet how that will be presented to them. Will it be days in advance? Will it be using phones? Will it be using kiosks on entry? So we have to be sure that the elderly grandparents coming into the country—having not travelled a lot, and not familiar with systems and processes, and are not particularly comfortable with online services—still feel that they get a good service when they enter our country.

We also need to be very aware of those with disabilities that may find it more difficult using an online service. So I think we need to be very careful.

I heard the Minister say in her opening words that there will still be the option of being able to do the paper form, but just how difficult is that going to be in practice? Are you going to have to ring and wait for someone to come down to give you the paper form? So I guess working through the actual operational implementation of this is going to be really important.

That matter of amending your form—I was thinking often of when you fill out the form and you suddenly remember the chocolates that you packed for aunty or something that you didn’t initially declare. So that ability to be able to amend what you’ve done, if you input it at the other airport before you left, can you still make changes so that you’re not misleading or putting false information in?

So there are a number of things that we do want to see just how they would be worked through—how they would be implemented—because it may not be a particularly easy system for a number of people.

It’s an absolute priority that we get that balance right of keeping our borders secure, particularly in the agricultural sector, because we absolutely rely on that and we must have those borders kept secure, but it’s also that balance of being welcoming and friendly to people coming into our country and being an efficient service and making it more reliable for our staff dealing with it.

So thank you, Madam Speaker. We support the bill to select committee stage.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I stand to take this call, which would usually by taken by Te Paati Māori, but, once again, they’ve chosen not to speak on an important piece of legislation in this House for whatever reason.

I must say, that’s a pretty good speech by Penny Simmonds. It covered a lot of the issues, I must say, and that we do need to have a secure system, but we also need to move into the 21st century in respect of how we deal with this information. We do, in fact, know that electronic information can be dealt with more effectively and, actually, more securely. Obviously, we need to have a good examination of this, and I’m sure the select committee will do that.

Other than that, to be perfectly honest, I think Ms Simmonds, for once, said it all. So I will commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. I wanted to just pick up on some comments that my colleague Teanau Tuiono, from the Green Party, made earlier around the importance of people being able to understand what was being asked of them when they arrived at the airport, and that if we are going to be introducing two new offences, which this bill does—one for if a person provides some false information or if they omit some information—it needs to be provided to people in a way they can understand.

I just wanted to note how useful my Plain Language Act will be in ensuring that Customs are followed—the principles of having plain language within the documentation and the information that they’re providing to people arriving in New Zealand. So I want to reassure him that the House has recently passed legislation that will require the Government to ensure the information is presented in a way such that those who are arriving in New Zealand understand their obligations in terms of the declarations that they complete.

This is an excellent bill. I look forward to observing the select committee in terms of the submissions that come through. It’s great to have the support from across the House for this bill. It will make a real difference and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I would like to concur with Dr Duncan Webb and say that Penny Simmonds did do an excellent speech just now on what is a very simple bill. So it’s surprising what happens in Parliament on a Tuesday night

So what I would say from the perspective of National and, you know, a lot of it’s been said before, but, really, we support this to first reading. It sounds simple. It sounds like a really commendable thing to do: digitising paper arrival cards—notwithstanding the comments that people have made about those who are perhaps not as digitised as others.

But I think sometimes we’ve just got to watch when we get a bill that sounds simple that we are looking for any particular fish-hooks. I think one of the fish-hooks in this is that sometimes when you digitise something, it doesn’t quite settle down as easily as it could. Without wanting to dive into the absolute detail, at select committee, I imagine people would want to have a bit of an understanding that it’s fit for purpose, it’s ready to go.

I do remember debating in select committee, the bill by Steph Lewis, the Biosecurity (Information for Incoming Passengers) Amendment Bill. A lot of submitters came in, and they talked about moving away from paper and, actually, you know, not having too much paper because in this day and age, we’re always trying to preserve the amount of carbon miles and the weight we put on aircraft and those sorts of things. So I do commend the general direction of the bill.

I think one of the things that we’re most concerned about on this side of the House is what information will need to be collected? And if it is collected, what is it collected for? Will it be recorded? Will it be monitored? Will it be used? Because we don’t want this to turn into something that’s highly bureaucratic. It only should capture what it needs to capture.

I want to endorse what Penny Simmonds said about agriculture, because one of the things at the moment—and we talk about fast tracking through the borders, but, right now, we’ve got to be very careful at the borders in New Zealand because we know that we had a scare of foot-and-mouth in Australia recently and some of the stuff that comes through customs, if it isn’t declared properly—whether it be electronically or on paper—will cause mass destruction to this country in terms of what foot-and-mouth would do to us. It would be a renegotiation of all the trade deals, it would be absolutely devastating, and it would be way worse than the Mycoplasma bovis outbreaks that we’ve had and the one that we’re currently still having.

So we note and we’re a little bit worried about the fact that the chief executive of Customs can decide what information is collected because it’s not clearly laid out. We’re great believers that we do need to make sure we have the right information, but let’s not go overboard. I would also make a comment—as James McDowall did before—about some of the aspects of travelling that we’ve had in the last few months.

I was able to go to Europe on the Speaker’s trip at the end of May and at the start of June. It was one of the first trips that went out of the country. I remember that traveller declaration system. It was absolutely awful. We had people at the airport pulling their hair out. One of the things that I would point to that seemed absolutely stupid was that we had a paper-based version of when our booster was. So it would ask you when your booster was, and then it would ask you when your first COVID vaccine was and your second COVID vaccine was. None of that was printed on the paper-based form. The only reason I remembered it is because we had our first COVID vaccination on my husband’s birthday—sadly for him—and we had the other one three weeks later. So I knew exactly which dates to put down. But there were people at the airport going, “If my booster is recorded on the paper-based document, and if I put my booster in there, the system should know, if it knows me, when I had my first and second COVID vaccine.” There are things like that that actually really make passengers get uptight at airports. We don’t want any more repeat occurrences of that.

The other thing is that the Privacy Commissioner does also, along with the National Party, have some concerns regarding the risk of over-collecting information.

So I’m not going to say a lot more on this bill because it’s a very short piece of legislation and much of it’s all been said. It seems sensible: digitising seems to be a good answer to what we’re trying to do at Customs, but making sure it’s efficient and effective and it captures those things and only those things that it needs to capture to keep us safe, to keep us disease-free—particularly in the agriculture sector. So we look forward to this bill going through select committee so our members can hear the submissions and then decide where we go to next. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to be speaking to the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill this evening. Essentially, what this debate has discussed is a digital arrival card, coming through Customs.

Can I just acknowledge the work of the Hon Meka Whaitiri. I was here in the House prior to dinner, listening to her opening speech—and, equally, the energetic contribution from Simon O’Connor, who was pleased to have a speech for his shadow portfolio in customs come before the House, for him to have a good debate over. So it was a wonderful start to this particular debate.

Essentially, this bill does a few things. It provides an explicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide prescribed arrival information. It includes two new offences: one for failing to provide prescribed arrival information, and one for providing arrival information that is erroneous in a material particular. And it creates new regulation-making power to set the time by which arrival information must be provided to the New Zealand Customs Service.

I guess what we’re discussing tonight is the timely arrival of a digital platform for Customs. There are some challenges as we transition from paper, or manual, through to digitalisation. We now are in that generation. It’s important to start to make these types of moves, but support people along the way to make that transition. So, without further ado, thank you for accepting my contribution in the House tonight. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill be considered by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: I present a legislative statement—

No.

Instruction to Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee