MPI reverses $430 honey penalty

A woman fined $430 for a jar of honey she had declared has had her biosecurity infringement notice formally withdrawn and the money refunded.

Gamage Kariyawasam was served the infringement notice by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in February for failing to declare a jar of honey she brought with her when returning to New Zealand from Sri Lanka, despite clearly declaring it on her arrival card. She was fined $400 on the spot and received a further $30 court fine from the Justice Ministry for not paying on time.

Kariyawasam paid the fine so as not to risk further penalties, but continued fighting to have the decision reversed.

She received a letter from Biosecurity New Zealand, part of MPI, on October 14 advising that the infringement notice had been withdrawn and that she wasn’t required to pay the infringement fee. She said $430 had been credited to her account last week.

The letter acknowledged that she had correctly completed her arrival card and presented it as required but failed to verbally declare the honey because of a stressful medical event taking place with a family member at the time.

The letter also formally warned that failing to declare goods to an MPI inspector when questioned was an offence.

‘‘The reason I fought for this matter was I strongly believed that I didn’t bring the bee honey bottle illegally and to prevent the same thing happening to another passenger entering the country.

‘‘It was unreasonable to issue an infringement notice when it was declared on the arrival card. A warning would have been sufficient given that the goods were declared,’’ she said. Biosecurity New Zealand told

in August that the list of goods on the arrival card was not exhaustive, but provided a starting point for officers to interact with passengers in order to make a risk assessment.

Honey from overseas posed a serious risk to New Zealand’s apiculture industry because it could contain diseases that had the potential to devastate the bee population, it said.

Fines of up to $100,000 or five years in jail could be applied when people deliberately tried to smuggle risk goods into the country.

Kariyawasam said she appreciated MPI reconsidering the matter.

‘‘A warning would have been sufficient given that the goods were declared.’’ Gamage Kariyawasam