Comedian Te Radar has joined the fight to protect New Zealand's borders, in a new in-flight biosecurity video aimed at arriving international passengers.

Te Radar is the voice of the animated beagle character called ‘Officer Goodboy' in the video, which has been translated into seven different languages, including a dubbed-over Chinese version.

Te Radar - 'Goodboy” on border patrol. Photo: Youtube.

The Ministry for Primary Industries-produced video aims to get passengers to declare or dispose items that pose a biosecurity risk to New Zealand.

'It's very important to educate travellers from overseas on how important biosecurity is to New Zealand, and the importance of declaring risk items,” says Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy.

'The aims to grab people's attention and deliver a serious message at the same time, often at the end of a long, tiring flight.”

The video is part of a wider MPI marketing programme to encourage arriving passengers to declare or dispose risk items.

It includes new advertising aimed at getting Chinese people living in New Zealand to encourage friends and family to follow NZ biosecurity rules.

'We need passengers to understand what they need to do to keep New Zealand safe. That's why MPI works hard to promote border biosecurity messages,” says Nathan.

'The reality is New Zealand is never going to achieve its ambitious economic goals without protecting ourselves from unwanted pests and diseases. This is why biosecurity has been my number one priority since becoming Minister.

'In last year's Budget we allocated an extra $27 million to strengthen our biosecurity system. As a result MPI has employed 90 new front line biosecurity staff and introduced 24 new biosecurity detector dog teams.”

The Officer Goodboy inflight video is available to all international airlines arriving in New Zealand.