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7 days to go before Submissions close. Hope there are many submissions.

Looking forward to the correct fiqures

That is well put. Yes, but govt benefits as it gets taxes from staff that the shops hire, it gets jobs for MPI staff, who also pay tax. shipping companies/couriers etc, there is a whole raft of industries that benefit from small boutique importers, and lets face it nz Business is made up of small companies, about 70% or more. so at the end of the day all small business's will get shafted from high MPI fees.

it does in a about way. as the costs to run biosecurity in new zealand is not spread evenly. commercial operators get charged more which gets passed on to the end users. To offset some of the prices rises, they could charge Tourist for biosecurity and leave the current importing fees the same. Most small thinking importers/hobbyist don't care that prices are going up, but they don't see the big picture that prices increases stops the hobby from growing as it is becoming so expensive. Its a big chain reaction. higher prices means less fish are sold, means less importers will invest in facilities, means less dry goods are imported, means less shops hold stock, etc, etc.

That was mentioned as it can be used in a submission to show the point to MPI that the hobby can't grow and it is capped, so any prices increases will cause prices to rise to a point that it will stagnate the hobby further. Already fish prices are the highest in the world and any further price increases will make it ridiculously high. Prices in NZ are high due to the small market/quarantine period and the fees we have to pay to MPI. When doing these submissions you need look at the whole picture and future as many just look at tunnel vision and don't take into account the long term damage.

yes 100% agree. So why should we accept that as tax payers? Its all good and well trying to get commercial importers to pay, but the taxpayers end up paying for it anyway. it kills small Business.

You keep harping on that the figures are not the same, then show us ? Do you think I am making it up or have made a gross error in working out the likely expenditure based on $200 hr for checking fish. Yes tourist don't pay for fish quarantine , obviously ., but why don't they pay for the use of biosecurity then when there luggage gets checkedand screened by mpi? It all costs money, how is that user pays as you suggest it should be? This is why it would be a good point to make it in a submission. It was pointed out by mpi At the meetings that it is something that we could make a submission on as how was it fair that importers pay a higher share of biosecurity fees than tourist who pay nothing for the use of biosecurity at the borders. Interested to see your figures?

Don't Tourist use MPI/Biosecurity?? yes they do and it is 100% funded by tax payers. SO why should importers pay the ridiculous fee increases when Tourist pay nothing. taxpayers pay for 30% of biosecurity costs and importers 70% Some cost should be paid by Tourist , and if that was the case then importers would not have to pay the massive price increases. So they should get some fees from importers and some from Tourist, which means tax payers pay less as that is the aim of Biosecurity/MPI, But i think above discussion is going to confuse Hobbyist, too much information. Best to focus on vet costs and mileage , plus the end price will be too high for most hobbyist if prices go up.

yes, they can, :roll: they are special

importers in general pay 70% of biosecurity costs Tourist pay zero, its all paid by the taxpayer. So why do tourist pay nothing??? If MPI has a shortfall in revenue then they should get it from Tourist, not importers

Yes, for freshwater, but for marines it will be not be able to be spread by many fish. Most marine importers don't import many fish/corals. given 99% of marine importers are small the price increase to marine fish will be substantial.

Anyone making a Submission, might want to cover the below summary. Travel Current we get charged based on distance from MPI office, So for example currently the charge is $88 per return trip. So for a shipment it is $166 plus gst a month, as you have two visits for marine fish. Under proposed fee it will be time/mileage, as they class the vets are professional vets. So new monthly fee will be $186/hr plus. 77c per km. So travel for example could be 3hr x $186, ( based on 25km x 4, return trip) $558 plus $77 so monthly fee is $635plus gst. Increase over 350% Fish checking fee so say currently is 8 hours a month. so 8 x $88, /hr = $704 plus gst, proposed will be 105% increase. so $1443 per month. so total cost for example will be $1443 $635 total $2078 a month just for MPI. All this for no added value/service. Fees will vary depending on QT size and location. This does not include any shipments outside normal hours. Issue is fish are checked by vets, so mpi has to pay higher wages. many years ago fish checked by standard border staff, why the need for vets?? not many other country use vets. Issue also is that the hobby will never grow as we can't import more fish due to restricted list, we can't add more fish to the allowable list, if we could get approval from erma, biosecurity can take 5 years to add fish to allowable list, so basically the hobby is trapped, it cant grow and is bogged down with compliance and long 3/4 week QT. other issue to look at. why 3 week qt and 4 week qt?? no other country has this long. Why do vets need to check fish? big expense. Compliance has caused time it takes to check fish by vets, this is due to biosecurity requirements, needs to be looked at taking costs into account. Its a monopoly we cant't go anywhere else. I believe tax payers should pay for some of it, as the requirements are set by biosecurity. whilst it costs, some money is recovered anyway by GST, creating jobs for bio security staff who pay tax. Tourist don't pay any Biosecurity fees currently, so some cost should be passed on so that tax payers are not funding Tourist by 100%. Industry is in recession, how will these extreme price increases help Annual Quarantine permit fee is to increase by 100% from $144 to $288. i believe this is ridiculous, as it takes very little time to renew a permit, plus this adds more administration for bio security staff/MPI , so if they are to increase the permit fee then it could be done every two years , so this will reduce administration and costs.

Unsure, but likely like most fish sites not much happening on them. society has lost motivation to do anything. its a dead horse.

I doubt it, its only a web forum like facebook.

Like what? can you be more specific??

Oh ok, put that in your submission.

If thats the case then you can see that Vets fees have increased by 105% and travel cost has increased by 350% depending on location. annual permit fees have increased by 100%. annual audit fees have increased by 100% it all adds up as it has to be added to the fish price. plus importers will needs to also increase there out going costs as power prices always go up, air fares go up, rents go up etc, so the MPI fees is not very helpful. Whilst airfares /power goes up, at least you get a service, what value of service to we get with MPI?? nothing, as it adds no value, i would say 30% of monthly expenses is a lot to pay for checking fish.

That is baseless, you tend to forget that many importers have closed, so any new importers are just taking the place of the ones that have closed. the net gain in importers in ZERO. Less shops are selling marines and many shops have closed.

so what figures do you have? that you can share

Because marine fish are not imported in large numbers so you cant spread the cost. the retail cost is increasing by 10/15%. cost to importers in increasing by over 100%. So for example you import 100 marine fish, and the cost is $2000. Import 2000 freshwater fish and the cost is $2000. so the freshwater end cost is less as more fish are imported.

what small percentage in price rises? its 10/15% on fresh water and over 30% for marine fish. Doubling of a Business expense is not small. The smaller the importer the bigger the price rise, plus the hobby is in recession and will be for a long time, so big importers will be importing less. so less imports means bigger price increase as you have less fish to spread the cost. MPI costs are around 30% of importers cost, that is a lot for any business. we pay 30% of something that adds no value.

Its done by spread sheet,. If you have to many deaths they have to get sign off from wellington, Vets can't make any decisions. They come any look at fish on release, but unsure what they look at. you could have white spot and they would not have a clue.

Inspections are done by vet at QT facility on arrival and on release, Inspections are done by vets, and have for about 7 years, used to be done by border staff before that. All live animals are checked by vets for health sign off, But they can't do health sign off for fish as they are not qualified and its hard to tell if a fish is carrying a diseases or not.

. Really? Fact is everyone is a small pawn in the hobby. But if everyone did something it would make a difference. We have too many free loaders, most commercial importers /shops don't get paid for making submissions , they are also volunteers and do it for the hobby. 30 submissions is better than the two/three that is made most of the time.

No, but depends what it is about, Most of the front line staff at mpi/biosecurity are not very experienced, so if you disagree with something you can talk to someone in biosecurity in wellington which does not cost,. but they want to charge for it under new proposal. Also i found out that all the Biosecurity fees are paid mostly by importers, 70%, 30% is only paid by tax payers currently. Also no personal tourist that comes in the country pays for any of the bio security fees. its all paid by the tax payers. The question is why?? i think tourist should pay for it, why should we taxpayers pay for tourist.