Customs procedures
Sir, — I find the reply (June 29) by the Collector of Customs, Mr Kearns, to your correspondent, Joanna Burnett, completely unacceptable. I challenge Mr Kearns to show that the benefit to the country obtained by randomly reading travellers’ personal mail is of such value as to warrant this gross invasion of privacy. I find it equally hard to accept that the legislators who drafted the Customs Act envisaged it being used in
this way. I also doubt whether it is applied fairly. Do customs officials read Mr Muldoon’s papers each time he lands? I bet not. And I bet that it is a general rule that those with power and influence do not suffer such indignities. — Yours, etc. ALAN WILKINSON, Leader, New Zealand Values Party. June 29, 1983.
Sir, — As an expatriate New Zealander who has returned to his homeland on many occasions over the last 14 years I can only thank the customs people for the way in which they treat incoming passengers. May I suggest that Joanna Burnett visit such countries as Saudi Arabia and Iran. Customs authorities in those countries are at all times very much harsher than could ever be possible in this country. I thank the New Zealand Customs for I have always found them tops. — Yours, etc.,
STEWART A. COPPEN. June 29, 1983.
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Press, 1 July 1983, Page 12
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221Customs procedures Press, 1 July 1983, Page 12
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