O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Madam Speaker. Firstly let me congratulate the member on having this bill drawn. Many people can spend time in this House without ever having a bill drawn and I'm aware that it's the second time he's been so lucky. It's probably unfortunate that the bill he's had drawn is one that really again is something that this House could probably spend a lot of its time much better on. Oh that life could be so simple that we simply would solve a problem by doubling a sentence. Life just doesn't really work like that.Firstly I think it's probably quite important because those that were listening to that speech may have thought Well this is really really serious." In fact the comment was made "They're getting away with murder." Well I think that probably to say the least would be overstating things somewhat. But again the member is building a case for his bill so perhaps it is understandable.But perhaps for the sake of those who are listening tonight you would ask "Why don't we just ban these things if they're so bad? What are they here for? Why are they in the country anyway?". Well they do actually have quite a legitimate use. There's a range of things that these lasers high-powered lasers are actually bought for and are legitimate. Like so many of the things we have in our world in the hands of the sensible the law abiding the sober these things are actually perfectly benign tools. But of course once you start regulating once you start putting too many restrictions on them you'll be depriving many of those very same people I've discussed of the pleasure the need or the advantages of these things.For example one of the primary uses or one of the I suppose recreational uses is hunting. Now for those of us of my era who grew up with .303 rifles who trod the bush of the West Coast we even looked down our nose at those that actually had telescopic sights. A real bloke in my day was someone who could bring down a deer at a thousand yards on a dark night shot from the hip or that was how the subsequent tale in the local hostelry may have had it. I may be exaggerating things just a little but certainly you'll get the idea that in the world I grew up in real blokes didn't use such tools.However the world has moved on and you'll understand that there are those for whom time is a little more precious that when you do go hunting you get a hunting block you may not have the time that people did to spend weeks hunting down the best stag hunting down nice back steaks to take and to share on a—it wouldn't have been a barbecue because again in our day Madam Speaker—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don't include me in this.GREG O'CONNOR: —barbecues—"our" did I say? I wasn't looking at you at the time Madam Speaker; I was looking around the House perhaps further down the back I might get someone nearer to our time. But anyway barbecues were again somewhat of a latter—they were seen as something for people who today might be wearing lycra; in those days it would have been the very people who were in those hunting.As you'll know I like to contextualise—some of the best work that I do in this House. But I'm going back to hunting and the use of lasers for hunting just to remind you as to how we got to the point that we have right now. So these lasers now are attached to these magazines so that when the game—the whatever it is—that the person is recreationally in our bush for doing their bit I might say for ecology bearing in mind that we are a country that the more things we shoot in our bush that don't have feathers we are doing our bit for ecology. So people do use these weapons although in another time they may perhaps not have been quite as proudly talking about these things. But anyway coming back to the legitimate use of these—DEPUTY SPEAKER: That would be good—that would be good.GREG O'CONNOR: —very tools for which we are now spending our time in this House on members' night. So that is just pointing out that this is something that there is a legitimate use for. Next time anyone who is enjoying a piece of back steak from the backblocks of the Tararuas or the Paparoa on the West Coast they will know there's a very good likelihood that one of these very things has been used for that purpose.Moving on there are other uses too: for finding faults with fibre-optic cables. Anyone driving around Wellington at the moment will see that there is actually quite a large number of roadworks. The need to dig up under streets is minimised by the use of these lasers. So again what I'm talking about is the legitimate use. As I said if we're going to talk about why—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know that's very interesting but the bill isn't actually—GREG O'CONNOR: Well no no Madam Speaker—DEPUTY SPEAKER: —about the use of them for anything other than pointing in pilots' eyes. So could we come back to that.GREG O'CONNOR: Yes but again Madam Speaker it's important to understand that without defining—I know Madam Speaker you would have been a debater in your day—what it is we're actually using here I think is important.But I do take the time; it is perhaps time to move on to perhaps the other—DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill—to the bill before us.GREG O'CONNOR: —parts of the bill. Just again we are talking about the definition of this high-powered pointer. It's a device that in the director-general's opinion is the kind commonly known as that laser pointer. If one looks at clause 9 of the bill you will see that is in there.Also another part of the definition is that it is "battery operated". That's an important part—the "battery operated" part—and what does make this high-powered laser more sinister is that of course it makes it highly mobile which again is why it becomes the tool of the sort of criminals who will actually hang around those places.Again I think it's important to note that those who often talk about these lasers they think that it's got to hit the eye of the victim; it doesn't. If one of these lasers is actually shone into a cockpit the whole of the cockpit actually flares up. It doesn't have to be aimed; they actually can be quite damaging.So it is legitimate that we have the current existing legal regime around these lasers. But of course what this member's bill seeks to do quite simply is just double the penalties. In doing that we should discuss whether penalties are actually the legitimate tool to prevent crime. Any criminologist will tell you that actually the best crime-prevention tool is a belief that you will get caught. That's why when the police conduct—and you Madam Speaker as a previous police Minister will know the—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don't bring me into it.GREG O'CONNOR: —attention that goes on road policing: making people understand and believe that they'll be caught is as an effective tool.So anything that we do do if we're going to take this—and it is a serious issue I do acknowledge that this is and I would never belittle this on behalf of particularly airline pilots those who are victims. But we owe it to those people that are victims we owe it to airline pilots to be a little bit more serious about this than merely to say that we're going to actually double the penalty.What we do have to do is actually ensure that these people who have nothing better to do that actually go and use these high-powered lasers against aircraft against pilots actually believe they're going to get caught. That's actually where we could be focusing our areas ensuring that we get better powers to ensure that we can actually catch these people.So again I go back to this idea of merely thinking that by doubling a penalty all of a sudden we can leave this House tonight or when this bill does wend its way through the process and all of a sudden we've solved a problem. The problem there is that we will ignore some other tools that are absolutely essential for those who are potentially thinking of doing this extremely dangerous act. And in giving the protection to the pilots that pilots do need aviators do need and as we heard those who are in air traffic control do need we need to ensure that we don't just focus on doubling a penalty and that we actually look at what we can do to ensure that those offenders that do this will believe that they're going to get caught and that will be the safest thing that we can do. Thank you. In doing that I oppose this bill."