Surprised By Change In Customs Regulations

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30957, 13 January 1966, Page 10

Surprised By Change In Customs Regulations

Christchurch people were among many New Zealanders who did not know of the change in customs regulations while they were holidaying in Australia at Christmas and New Year. Mr Carl Chandler, a Christchurch businessman, said yesterday that he had to pay £22 4s 6d duty on a transistor radio he bought for £A27 5s at a duty-free store at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport. He said others who returned to Christchurch on the same aircraft had paid similar amounts for transistor radios. Under the new customs regulations which went into force on January 1 transistor radios became liable for duty unless they had been owned and used 1 before arrival in New Zealand.

Such radios, if made outside the British Commonwealth, are dutiable at the rate of 130 per cent. Mr Chandler said he did [object to paying the customs demanded but was dissatisfied that he had been misled by the shop which had sold him the radio. He had asked before buying the radio if it would be subject to duty and had been told that it would not. He wanted to know why there was no co-operation between the New Zealand Customs and such duty-free establishments in Australia. The chief customs officer in Christchurch (Mr J. Raleigh) said that thousands of booklets giving details of the new customs regulations had been circulated in Australia months before they came into force.

He advised people to find out for themselves what tl.e regulations were before buying duty-free goods overseas. “Those who deal in such

| goods are there to effect a sale,” he said. Information relating to the new regulations could be obtained at all customs offices in New Zealand and at tourist offices in Australia.