Mitchell ClaytonCLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in support of the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill. But before I do I seek the indulgence of the House to take a couple of moments to reflect on a very auspicious week—as this might be—and a very memorable week for some. This week we see the opportunity I guess for members of Parliament of this House to farewell our Chamber staff who have worked in this House—for some of them—for up to 20 years. I think this is a great opportunity and it is one of the only opportunities that I will have to thank these people who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure that everything goes to order—the people who are not seen on the TV screens back home but they are here every day bright and early making sure that the microphones work and making sure that everything is ready to go. Sadly—and then for some it is not so sad; I am sure there are a number of Chamber staff who are happy to take the redundancy but it is sad for others. If I could just take a moment to acknowledge these people here: we have got Bob Wards who has been working for 20 years here in the House. Bob Mann who has been here for 19 years Deborah for 14 years and Euan for 3 years. Maureen has been here for 9 years. We have got Pat who has been here for 15 years Sue for 7 years Thomas for 6 years and Philip for 9 years. Pauline has been here for 15 years and Trevor for 19 years. So too has Charles been here for 19 years. Maria has been here for 3 years—I was going to say 30 years then—Judy for 17 years and Ken for 6 years. That is a total combined time given to this House of 181 years of experience which we are going to be losing at the end of this week. If we could just take a moment to reflect on that and perhaps give applause certainly to say thank you very much on behalf of all members of Parliament in the House to a great job well done. We hope that there is a celebration or certainly an opportunity at the end of the week where we get to come around and see you one by one. So thank you all very much.Mr Deputy Speaker I appreciate that indulgence. I know there have been—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. Do not milk it.CLAYTON MITCHELL:—some people spoken to about getting off-subject today and I would like to go back to the bill. I am very pleased I had that opportunity to speak to—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh what do you mean back"? You have not been there yet. Come on.CLAYTON MITCHELL: No I mentioned the bill right at the start. I did actually say that I am speaking in support of the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill and I thought I would start with that and that that would give me a little bit of leeway. Clearly my leeway has run out.This is a bill that has been around for some time. In 2005 the Rome Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf was discussed and also the protocol to the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation that we have talked about. These protocols were signed in 2007 and of course they were implemented in 2010. Through all my research I cannot find anywhere that says why the hold-up has taken so long. There is nothing that suggests it should take till 2016 to ratify this bill and I too am in support of making sure that this goes through. I have to smile when I hear things and phrases such as "weapons of mass destruction" because of course we all remember George W Bush famously saying "We're gonna get those WMDs—those weapons of mass destruction." and waging war on the Middle East—a war in the Middle East that is still raging and probably getting worse not better as they had hoped it would.In saying that we can also acknowledge the fact that global terrorism is on the rise and if geopolitical parties and Governments successively around the world do not join forces and get together to work harmoniously to eradicate this sort of global terror then we have got some big problems in the future. It is not just Governments' responsibility; it also is the responsibility of the people. Back to the bill.The bill is about bringing in some new enforcement regimes. It is about empowerment. I think that last year on the 15 January—it might have been 14 January—we remember the headlines when our naval ships went down to try to board a fishing vessel that was illegally harvesting fish from the Southern Ocean. It was very perplexing to New Zealanders including New Zealand First why when a naval ship approached a vessel and asked it to stop it simply did not do so—it continued on its merry way. We did not fire a warning shot. We did not try to board the ship and of course we did not have the power to do so. We do not want that same thing happening when we talk about weapons of mass destruction when we talk about terrorist activities large bombs and other things that are going to cause death and mayhem to platforms which are largely considered to be oil rigs. The lives that that could certainly put at risk and also the large impact that that will have on our environment need to be factored in to this. We do support this bill's referral to the select committee. We are hoping to get this moved through rather rapidly to see it actually being fully implemented into the House and actually ratified into law. We certainly do not see the reason for it to dilly-dally and to be held back.The boarding regime is a very important aspect. If there is thought to be somebody who is harbouring illicit materials that may result in bombs or the like then the person in charge the enforcement officer should have the power to actually board that vessel. Of course the new powers also involve asking for those ships or vessels to stop and if they do not do so warning shots can actually be fired to say to them that we mean business. We do have an obligation to our country to our people and to the rest of the united nations of all countries to make sure that New Zealand plays its part in eradicating terror.There is one concerning point in this legislation. It is around the Order in Council. We have spoken about the Order in Council on a number of occasions and I fail to see what significance this Order in Council application has in this bill because of course "by Order in Council" means that the Minister can implement or do what they like without bringing things back to the House. I am sure that once this has been agreed on and gone through the third reading we could implement it as soon as it gets the stamp of approval. There are currently 798 "by Order in Councils" in legislation that is active in this country right now. When we give the power to a Minister to arbitrarily make a decision on behalf of other members of the House without bringing it back to a democratic process of discussion debate and a vote we take some sort of umbrage with that process. I would question why it needs to be in the bill and we would certainly like to thrash that out at select committee to see whether we cannot get a better understanding of why it actually needs to be there. We do support this as we go into select committee and look forward to seeing how it comes out at the other end. Thank you."