Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill

The question is that Parts 1 and 2, Schedule 1, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part.

Just a couple of issues to begin with—or questions, I should say, to the Minister. The first is around a new digitised system, which is something I spoke about at a previous reading. So if the form is filled out online in advance—and I guess there’s also another sub-question there: is the actual person who’s travelling filling out the form, and what is the enforcement around that? But if a form is submitted and the declaration is true at that given time but then circumstances do change and the traveller is now travelling to New Zealand and suddenly they do have amendments that they wish to make, how will that be treated? So how will the enforcement, sort of, approach to that be? How much leeway can be given, or is it possible to make those changes? And how would that work, or would they just rely on a manual card at that point and have to volunteer to go down that route?

I’ll keep listing through a few questions. Obviously, the Minister’s taking a number at a time and will then respond, which is great. The second one—which has somewhat been described by my colleague who’s just taken his seat—in effect, is: is the Minister happy that this arrival card being filled out online is going to be done at the right time? The basic premise being there that—we’ve got the irony; again, discussed—it’s an arrival card which we’re filling out before we arrive. At the moment, I fill out the little blue piece of paper about an hour before I land. Strictly speaking, we could be doing this, Minister—well, it would be good for you to elucidate to the committee whether it’s 24 hours or 48 hours before. So it’s picking up on the previous question. We’re filling out an arrival card not at the moment of arrival but well before arrival, and does the bill—again, I do know the answers to this, I must admit, but it’s always good to have it on record in Hansard—is she confident that we’ll be capturing the right information? And to echo the previous person, the honourable member: how does change get effected if all of a sudden I find I am bringing stuff into the country that I was not necessarily anticipating?

The third question from myself relates to section 28B—in clause 4—which deal with offences. Does the Minister believe that $1,000 is the appropriate level, and—probably a question, through her, to her officials—does this align with other fines that we have? From vague memory—not that I’ve attempted to bring oranges, apples, and bananas into the country—I think we get hit with $400 or something. Do the fines align? And I’d prefer that we just hear that rather than I have to go and experiment and find myself paying a lot of money that I can’t justify to my wife.

Then we’re moving across to more general questions around memorandums of understanding. So we’ve talked about filling out the cards, and we’ve talked about whether or not the chief executive can—well, how much leeway she or he has to write questions. It’s also whether she feels that this law assures that the data is going to be sufficiently protected. We know there’s a number of memorandums of understanding between the likes of Customs and other departments—IRD being a good case in point. Is she confident that this bill will not impact on those memoranda and, secondly, that, yeah, it’s not going to impact on the use of those? And I think that’s where I’ll leave it for now, if I might.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the members for your questions. Firstly, the in terms of the question raised by Mr O’Connor around the chief executive rules, I am confident in those rules. They are secondary legislation, which means that they are subject to parliamentary scrutiny and can be disallowed, and they do allow for a more timely manner for things to be changed. For example, if we have a sudden product that is disallowed or becomes an illegal substance, he or she has the ability to make those changes necessary through a means that is quite scrutinised. It can be done in a more timely manner than should it be taken as legislation through the House.

People who change their information or want to bring more additional things into the country than they anticipated when they filled out their online form before leaving the country they are leaving from do have the ability to make changes when they arrive in the country, and as long as they do so, they will be fine. The $1,000 and $400 penalties align with other legislation, and so there is no issue there. And—can you remind me of the customs question that you had sorry?

Sorry, I’m not sure if it’s appropriate protocol if I jump back up?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Simon O’Connor.

It was more, is the Minister confident that this amendment bill is not going to affect the memorandum of understanding that Customs has with the likes of IRD and the Ministry of Social Development?

Thank you, Madam Chair. That is correct and I am confident in that. Customs, as the member knows, has memorandums of understanding that other agencies can obtain information from Customs. It’s not a free-for-all; Customs cannot widely just go and share information about people. It must be requested of Customs in order to be shared.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Just a brief question from me, if I may, following up on the line of discussion between the Minister and my colleague and friend Simon O’Connor. First, though, I begin by congratulating the Minister on her elevation to the ministry. She was already part of the executive, of course, being a Parliamentary Under-Secretary, but she’s been elevated to her new role and I congratulate her for that.

In relation to the data sharing, I think it’s helpful that we’ve got on record the Minister’s intention, as aligned, I think, pretty well with the select committee report understanding about those data-sharing agreements not being compromised or affected in any kind of way. But my question is in relation to how long that data would need to be held, and it might be that you’re not able to answer the question now. I say that not to put you on the spot, but if I can just express a hope—and the Minister may wish to respond—that data isn’t held for this purpose any longer than is necessary, because, of course, the purpose of the exercise is to make it easier to collect data, easier to hold data, and easier to share data. There are good reasons for that, and it sounds to me as though members across the committee are on board with the idea that we want to make life easier for those agencies, particularly the New Zealand Customs Service. But the flipside, of course, is that the easier it is to hold and share information, the more easily it can be hacked or otherwise obtained by those who have no right to it and might have malicious intent either in the way they would use the data or by way of holding the New Zealand Government or the individuals to ransom.

So I seek the assurance, I suppose, if anything, that the Minister would agree that the data should not only be collected for the right purpose and shared for the right purpose but also held as long as necessary but for no longer. I think, you know, if we’re going to require by force of law that people provide information—as, to be fair, was already the case, I’m not saying that’s a new element of the law; it’s just we’re doing it in a different way—then I think we owe those citizens and visitors the responsibility to retain that only to the extent that we actually need for these purposes.

Thank you for the question. The information can only be held for as long as the lawful purpose remains, and the Act, however, only permits biometric information to be held for three years.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few more questions following on from the same line of questioning. It’s regarding Simon O’Connor’s query around $1,000 and whether that’s appropriate and will work as intended. If we recall, as a House, we discussed a member’s bill from the Hon Jacqui Dean not so long ago where the advice from officials was that historically, when the fines were increased, it didn’t actually dissuade people—that the impact of that was not so meaningful. So I just want some clarity here, because it kind of feels like we’ve gone from, in the case of the Hon Jacqui Dean’s bill, saying that that increase in fine wouldn’t result in better outcomes and we shouldn’t do it to suddenly, in this bill, saying that, actually, that’s the right thing to do. So it’s just a little bit of a contradiction.

In addition to that, it’s obviously not a bad thing with the digitisation that changes can be made in a more timely manner, in the words of the Minister—perfectly sensible—but I wonder if the Minister’s received any advice as to how often requirements or the questions on the form may actually change, like the rules around alcohol and other regulations, because we’re kind of moving from a very slow, prolonged process now to, suddenly, things can be done kind of on the fly—for perfectly legitimate reasons, I’m sure. But going from one mode of slowness to suddenly very agile—has there been any advice about how often we actually might get changes? That could be quite confusing for travellers.

My last question, just to help signal that. It’s to do with new Part 6 being inserted into Schedule 1. The Minister will know, long and short, those vessels—sorry, ships; I better get that right—that are under the control of our defence forces, and ships operated by the international cruise business are being pushed out to October, which is a different start date to everyone else. That’s my understanding—if we can quickly check that. It’s really asking, again—yeah that’s right. So the Act itself is coming into force on 21 June, which is one of the reasons why we’re moving at speed. But we’re pushing out until the end of October this legislation applying to His Majesty’s ships in the Royal New Zealand Navy and also those ships on international cruise business.

Once again, for the sake of the committee, I think I know—I do know—the answer, but I think it’s useful to have it on record. So if the Minister could explain why there is a little bit of delay in what her expectations are, particularly with international cruise ships or cruise business, how this is going to manifest, particularly for those who have not filled out that cards.

So that’s the second question. First, why delay by a couple of months, and, second, are we expecting, effectively, mobile computers, laptops, or machines to be at cruise terminals for those people who have not, for whatever reason, filled out their declarations while in transit?

Thank you. Last one, I promise! I just wondered about the concern—and thank you for your answer, Minister—around people who have changing circumstances; so they filled out their thing previously and now they’re, presumably, on the plane or at the airport. Is the Minister anticipating teething issues, in the sense that you come to the airport, you’ve got your goods to declare or no goods to declare—you know, are we suddenly going to have a third queue of people who are saying, “Well, now I do. I’ve changed my mind or changed my circumstances.”? Do we anticipate this to be, kind of, a bit of a rush of confusion? And will there be a sort of allowance, an introductory period, where enforcement might be on the more gentle side?

Thank you, Madam Chair. In response to that member’s questions, you’ll be aware that there have been trials that have been carried out and they’ve been very successful, so I don’t anticipate teething issues at this stage. There are more trials planned as well, though, to ensure that any teething issues that may crop up are ironed out.

As far as the cruise ships and what have you, the question from the Hon Simon O’Connor, he will be aware that there is just a bit more time needed to work with cruise ships and the Defence Force on the implementation of the arrival card at this stage.

Parts 1 and 2, the Schedule, and clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.