29110 (2025). Hon Jenny Salesa to the Minister of Customs

29110 (2025). Hon Jenny Salesa to the Minister of Customs: What percentage of total shipping containers were inspected using scanning technologies by New Zealand Customs Service each year for the past five years, broken down by port?

Hon Casey Costello: I am advised that the New Zealand Customs Service (Customs) screens and risk assesses 100 percent of goods imported into New Zealand using a layered and multi-faceted approach. This includes, but is not limited to, intelligence received from domestic and international partner agencies, scanning of all electronic entries, manual validation of high-risk shipments, x-rays, detector dogs, and physical inspections by Customs officers. Customs does not record data regarding the number of interactions with containers in the way the Member has requested, including the number of containers interacted with physically or by non-intrusive methods, or broken down by port. As such, this information cannot be provided without substantial collation. I do not consider this use of officials’ time to be in the public interest.