Salesa Jenny; O'Connor SimonASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Good evening everyone. We're still discussing the Maritime Powers Bill. The next call is a National Party call.SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you. That slowness was not because I wasn't sure which party I was part of. I'm just getting the protocols right. There's now going to be questions about that. Hey look the National Party at this point is actually happy to support this Maritime Powers Bill but it does come also with some serious reservations; so I'll try to quickly outline that.Look the overall intention of this bill is very very positive. Ultimately and particularly for people at home what it's trying to do is extend New Zealand's legal jurisdiction into international waters—not to usurp what is a longstanding run of conventions around the law of the sea but to ensure that when necessary New Zealand domestic laws will apply to events which happen on the high seas or the international waters. So obviously in New Zealand waters any criminal or other action which occurs falls under our jurisdiction. But at the moment for argument's sake the New Zealand Police on international waters—they could strictly seize somebody. They could strictly go out and—well not strictly; they could in theory go and do their activities. But actually those activities would have very little to no—in fact they'd have no standing in New Zealand law.So the overall intention of this bill is very very positive. It will make things a lot clearer. I know that we've had various changes to maritime laws through other bits of legislation. To pull this together into one will be particularly helpful. As I've mentioned it's going to apply to the likes of police. It's also meant to apply to customs members of our armed forces conservation rangers—so that's the Department of Conservation—and also those who are endangered species officers. I might just come back to that briefly.Look two observations. This has a lot to do with various elements of criminal law. The Minister in the opening speech obviously touched on the notion of drugs direct criminal offences against other humans but one thing he did touch on was around human trafficking. I would encourage the Government—they can't directly do it through this bill but it is to address the human trafficking side of things. Members of the Government may be aware of the report—granted from another country from the US State Department—that came out late last week actually dropping New Zealand's human trafficking status from tier 1 to tier 2. It's the first time it's happened and a little bit shameful first and foremost on New Zealand. So acknowledging the Minister who spoke earlier around this bill attempting to assist with human trafficking—or to stop it to be clear—that's excellent. We certainly have a lot of work to do. Dropping from tier 1 to tier 2 in the eyes of the United States and others is embarrassing to say the least.Look the caveat from the National Party is ultimately the extent of these powers in the maritime space. Giving powers to warranted people such as the police those who serve in Her Majesty's armed forces—we're all well and good with that. Customs officials as well—that's understandable. We are less supportive of giving effectively warranted powers arresting powers to endangered species officers and to conservation officers. We at this point feel that that's quite a stretch—and that's no disrespect to those particular people—but actually it's giving them enormous powers which they don't currently have. I mean to put it in really simplistic terms most of us will understand—hopefully not through practical experience—being arrested by a police officer. I think fewer of us would be particularly thrilled to be arrested by an endangered species officer or a conservation officer. It's just not the way it's done. We'd be a little bit surprised. So the National Party without trying to be too flippant is just a bit concerned about the scope of these powers.So we are happy if you will to support it to select committee. It'll be a fine select committee I think—he says humbly. It'll be a fine select committee. I'm particularly confident in the chair of that committee. I'm not sure if I've strictly brought the Speaker into the debate but you never know. But no quite seriously the committee will do a good job and I think it's going to be actually quite a thorough job needed particularly to understand the scope of the powers and who they apply to. So with that caveat the National Party is happy to support this at first reading.