New zealand customs fine - advice

Grumpy_chap

noitsnotme said:

jimi_man said:

To be fair to the OP, the mother is apparently forgetful and was unaware they were there. 

From my point of view we used to travel to our boat in Greece - flights were on a Sunday and supermarkets weren’t open on Sunday afternoons so if one wanted dinner on the Sunday and breakfast on the Monday then we’d need to take various items (often including garlic, onions, and various other meat and diary stuff (prior to Brexit). So I understand why some people do carry stuff in their cases with them. It was certainly very common amongst the self catering fraternity. 

I think it’s more a question of why were onions packed in hand luggage in the first place.

If the mother wasn’t aware they were there, was it the husband who put them there?

Unless there is something like dementia involved, but even then I’m not sure that’s a legitimate excuse as surely the mentally capable partner should check what has been packed.

When boarding the flights to NZ, won't the Mother have been asked the normal sequence of security questions:

• Did you pack this yourself?
• Do you have any prohibited items packed?
• Has anyone interfered with the bags since you packed it?
• Are you carrying anything for anyone else?

Was the Mother aware of the onions when answering these questions?  
Did the Mother lie when answering these questions?

Did the onions get added to the hand luggage after answering the questions but before arriving in NZ?
I remain perplexed as to how / why anyone would carry two onions as hand luggage?  Or even take two onions all the way to NZ - AIUI, onions are freely available in NZ food stores.

Skiddaw1

Well.... I fell foul of an internal (Gatwick to Glasgow) flight for carrying a jar of home-made rowan jelly in my hand luggage. It was a present for a Scottish friend who we were travelling to meet up with for a birthday hill walk. I had no idea it counted as liquid and had to be in hold luggage. I was gutted when they confiscated it (I suggested they have it on toast during their lunch break but they were very po-faced about it). I'd have probably been daft enough to do the same if travelling to Oz. I think we should give the OP's mum a break.

NoodleDoodleMan

eskbanker said:

NoodleDoodleMan said:

martindow said:

sheramber said:

items you can bring into Australia

https://www.abf.gov.au/entering-and-leaving-australia/can-you-bring-it-in/list-of-items

Biscuits, bread, cakes, pastries, Christmas cake, and Christmas pudding (excluding cheesecakes)Press Enter to hide more details.	Food and drinkPress Enter to hide more details.	BRING ITPress Enter to hide more details.
These products are allowed into Australia if: they are for personal consumption they are fully cooked, shelf stable (do not require refrigeration) and contain no meat any fillings or toppings are cooked with the cake.

For New Zealnd food items must be declared. They will be inspected to decide if allowable.

This would be a problem for a Christmas or wedding cake, I would think, as marzipan and icing are definitely not 'cooked with the cake'.

Wandering off topic a bit - so what else is new on MSE ?

I stayed a few days with ex Pat friends in northern Maine many years ago - it was his birthday coming up so his wife and I went into town to get ingredients to make a cake.

I was tasked to get Marzipan - when I asked for it in a local grocery store the girl behind the counter looked at me with the classic "lights are on in the house, but nobody home" look. She called other staff and got a similar "what the heck is that ?" response. You would have thought I'd just landed from another planet !!!

I tried rephrasing the question, as they do in courtroom damas - and asked for Almond Paste....couldn't think of any other way to put it !!!

Even more of a puzzled look from the staff.

I then explained that it was an icing used in cake decoration back in "the old country" - another waste of time !!!

Can't now recall what topping we ended up using - but a traditional British cake it was not.

Talk about cultural differences !!!

As you say, it's veering ever further off-topic, but I can't really see anything particularly remarkable about going to a foreign country and finding that they don't necessarily stock all the same foodstuffs that are readily found in the UK?  Not saying it's an exclusively British phenomenon to have expectations like that though....

Indeed - it's taken the "cousins" many years to discover IPA style beer !!!

jimi_man

Grumpy_chap said:

noitsnotme said:

jimi_man said:

To be fair to the OP, the mother is apparently forgetful and was unaware they were there. 

From my point of view we used to travel to our boat in Greece - flights were on a Sunday and supermarkets weren’t open on Sunday afternoons so if one wanted dinner on the Sunday and breakfast on the Monday then we’d need to take various items (often including garlic, onions, and various other meat and diary stuff (prior to Brexit). So I understand why some people do carry stuff in their cases with them. It was certainly very common amongst the self catering fraternity. 

I think it’s more a question of why were onions packed in hand luggage in the first place.

If the mother wasn’t aware they were there, was it the husband who put them there?

Unless there is something like dementia involved, but even then I’m not sure that’s a legitimate excuse as surely the mentally capable partner should check what has been packed.

When boarding the flights to NZ, won't the Mother have been asked the normal sequence of security questions:

• Did you pack this yourself?
• Do you have any prohibited items packed?
• Has anyone interfered with the bags since you packed it?
• Are you carrying anything for anyone else?

Was the Mother aware of the onions when answering these questions?  
Did the Mother lie when answering these questions?

Did the onions get added to the hand luggage after answering the questions but before arriving in NZ?
I remain perplexed as to how / why anyone would carry two onions as hand luggage?  Or even take two onions all the way to NZ - AIUI, onions are freely available in NZ food stores.

Those questions refer to hold luggage not hand luggage. And the ‘prohibited items’ refers to a list which is usually pictured on a card and involves stuff like petrol, explosives etc etc. Onions are not in that list. So firstly they don’t apply to hand luggage (on the basis that you could avoid check in and just go straight through to the gate so the questions wouldn’t be asked) and secondly even if they did apply she hasn’t lied (from what the OP says) since onions aren’t a prohibited item to be carried on a plane. 

But according to the OP the mother wasn’t aware of them anyway (she’d forgotten). 

The OP has stated that the onions were packed on leaving the last place they stayed at so no, they weren’t added to the hand luggage afterwards. As stated those questions are irrelevant to the onions and hand luggage. 

Just because you’ve never carried onions doesn’t mean others haven’t. Lots of people carry lots of things for different reasons. The OP has explained why the onions were in the bag and yes, everyone knows that onions are available in NZ. I don’t think that’s the point!

The point is that they did take onions in and got fined. And that’s that. Forgetting isn’t a defence and they are liable for the fine. The only question is whether they pay the fine or whether they don’t and thus don’t go back to NZ. 

Abbafan1972

2 onions in their hand luggage. 😀 

needed a good laugh. These posts just get better and better. 

lon_85

Hi everyone appreciate all your comments  - my parents have decided to just pay the fine as they were not sure if they may go back in the future or not and they didn't want this looming over their heads. Expensive lesson learnt!

Pollycat

So how much fine did they have to pay?

jimi_man

lon_85 said:

Hi everyone appreciate all your comments  - my parents have decided to just pay the fine as they were not sure if they may go back in the future or not and they didn't want this looming over their heads. Expensive lesson learnt!

Thanks for the closure. All sorted now and as you say, they won’t make that mistake again. 

Kim_13

If asked the question in future, they should just answer 'not to my knowledge.' If officials then wish to search the luggage to check that there are no prohibited items, then so be it. In that case, they won't have given an answer that might turn out to be incorrect. 

lon_85

Pollycat said:

So how much fine did they have to pay?

400 NZD was the total fine