O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I acknowledge the Acting Minister of Customs who has just taken his chair Kris Faafoi obviously in taking over the role but importantly acknowledge the former Minister Meka Whaitiri too who had shepherded this to the House so far.I'm very pleased to speak on this Maritime Powers Extension Bill in its second reading debate. In many ways we'll be echoing—as is the nature of this House—what the Minister has said. By and large there is concord there is agreement across the parties for the necessity of this bill and I'll touch on some of that.I wear two hats. I only mention that because I'll recuse myself from one of them. They are obviously the chair of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee but I'm also the National Party spokesperson for customs—but it's not my role to put that hat on while addressing the topic today other than to say we're very supportive of the intentions of the bill. That's been part of the reason why not only as a committee but this side of the House was happy to expedite the bill as quickly as possible through the select committee process and I'll talk to that in a moment too. So the committee did thoroughly consider the bill but as I was saying we did move relatively swiftly and that was for several reasons. One was we had three submissions in total and I'd like to put on the record my thanks to those three submitters—organisations and individuals—for their time. That of course reduces if you will the workload of the committee in terms of consideration. The second is that as we have noted there was great cooperation and agreement on the committee around not only the need for this bill but actually how it was drafted. The committee worked very quickly to bring it back to the House. It's no surprise that one of the reasons is that we want this set of powers to be made available to our customs people as quickly as possible. The third reason I think we were able to expedite the process quickly—again without cutting any corners—was our excellent advisers. Can I acknowledge those from the Customs Service and from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) for their work and advice. It was very much appreciated not only the clarity of their thinking but in fact the good humour at times that was illustrated and I think probably their patience—perhaps only with the chair but maybe with the entire committee—as various questions were asked. But my thanks on my behalf and that of the committee goes to them and not to forget the Parliamentary Counsel Office as well for obviously the drafting of the bill. It has only seen as the commentary indicates very minor changes. Look the bill is relatively simple. I've spoken in the first reading around what the whole purpose is. Fundamentally it's about New Zealand's good citizenry—how to be a good citizen in the world. We have signed up to several agreements. One is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS as it's often referred to. As a signatory of that we cooperate to stop the illicit smuggling of drugs. I won't get into the different types of drugs obviously but you know it's pretty connotative what we're suggesting there. We've also signed up to a convention that's known as the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. So it's very much like UNCLOS in a way because it's directed at stopping the illicit movement of drugs around the world. So we've signed up for that but like so many international treaties that we sign or engage with we need domestic legislation to make those active in New Zealand and it's been a little bit of a gap in our customs framework to date that we have not been able it has been felt to fully execute those treaties. So to put it very simply until this bill passes—and this is not an encouragement to those considering smuggling drugs in New Zealand. I'm wondering whether I'm perjuring the good nature of the House—Gareth Hughes: They're all watching Parliament TV. SIMON O'CONNOR: Yeah I've caught myself in a trap Mr Hughes. Oh well. But basically at the moment there's some ambiguity over whether or not we'd be able to prosecute people who are internationally smuggling drugs. So I'm not talking about people bringing drugs into New Zealand. Our customs people do a remarkable job in that space along with stopping other inappropriate publications and so forth. But if at the moment—Tim van de Molen: I suspect the drug dealers aren't watching Parliament TV. SIMON O'CONNOR: That's a good point. One of my colleagues has pointed out that he doesn't think that the drug smugglers are watching television or I hope they're not—maybe a smuggled television who knows?Hon Andrew Little: You'd be surprised. SIMON O'CONNOR: And the justice Minister says—we'll have to have a talk after this. Hon Andrew Little: Especially when they know you're talking Simon. SIMON O'CONNOR: That's right that's right. They must be very interested in Greek and Latin as well I suspect. Hon Andrew Little: That's what they're waiting for. SIMON O'CONNOR: Look fundamentally—fundamentally—Jamie Strange: The commonality. SIMON O'CONNOR: Now he's thrown me—there we go. Fundamentally at the moment—Hon Members: Ha ha!SIMON O'CONNOR: This is almost one of the first times in seven years on one of the simplest—yeah anyway. At the moment if we interdict or stop a ship on the high seas which we are empowered to do there is some question over whether or not we'd be able to bring a prosecution within the New Zealand environment. So I think it's a really important element for the House to understand that we do have the powers to do that at the moment. Under UNCLOS and other agreements we can stop ships which we are suspicious of both those flagged to other sovereign nations and those which are not flagged. There are protocols in place to do that but there is again ambiguity that if we have stopped a vessel off let's say Fiji and it is found to contain a large number of drugs we'd obviously interdict that ship take the crew into custody and do all the requirements that you would imagine with foreign affairs and our other partners. But there's again a question whether without this law we'd be able to actually make the necessary prosecutions. So this is what the bill seeks to tighten up. New Zealand is well advanced in its customs work and engaging with customs—and I thank the customs people for the opportunity to have come and visited their sites to get a slightly deeper understanding of what they do. Their work there is very thorough. They're doing an excellent job but as is probably no surprise New Zealand continues to come under pressure particularly as more and more people look to bring drugs in. It's a lucrative market in New Zealand. It's not obviously a large one but people for whatever reason are quite prepared to pay a high amount of money—I'm not sure if that's a pun—Hon Members: Oh!SIMON O'CONNOR: —yeah I'm very sorry; it's a Thursday evening—that obviously helps generate the trade. We know that a lot of it is coming through the Pacific. It's coming through the Pacific Islands so fundamentally that's the area that we need more work in and I'm pleased to see that customs is focusing on that. It was mentioned by the Minister—and quite importantly—that that work by customs is not done alone. They cooperate very closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and as I have noted they are one of our advisers on this bill. Obviously customs is not going to operate in international waters or in the protected areas of other countries such as the Cook Islands without engaging with that nation. They work very closely with the Ministry for Primary Industries as well—they have a hand to play—and importantly too with our Ministry of Defence. I just look to the Minister of Defence in the House to acknowledge through him the great work that defence does in supporting customs. Obviously customs itself does not have vessels to send to the Pacific. They tap effectively defence and cooperate very closely together—along with I believe our allies such as Australia—to do these missions to interdict the various vessels. I think that's important because not only is that a service to New Zealand but it's a service to—well the wider realms within New Zealand or wider countries within the Realm but also to our partners in the Pacific. I mentioned Australia—we've obviously got the likes of Fiji and Tonga Samoa the Cook Islands to name but a few. So we have a very large area to police and I think now when this bill obviously moves through second reading and through into its third after the committee of the whole House it will just strengthen even further the good work that is being done there.So I'm very pleased that we had the opportunity on the select committee to consider this bill. As I've been keen to stress we were thorough in our work. We didn't want to cut any corners but we also wanted to move this through as a process as quickly as possible and that was aided by some excellent—albeit three—submissions advisers who gave us very clear thoughts and advice as you might expect. The work too of the committee—I found myself as chair that the questions were useful and insightful. I think it did help members bring their ideas together and ultimately we've been able to report back the bill very simply really—I could almost name the changes; I won't but I count them on one hand.But I do want just want to finish in some ways where I should've started and that's acknowledging the men and women who do work for our Customs Service and those who work through defence and the Ministry for Primary Industries and MFAT who continue to keep our borders safe. It's a service that is greatly appreciated and hopefully this is just one more well bit in the arsenal to help.