Prosser Richard: Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 28 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18434. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill. We are happy to support the bill and we congratulate the member the fine and some might say truly gentlemanly Dr Calder onbringing it to the House and on being fortunate enough to have it drawn out of the ballot.The world has changed a great deal in recent decades. The rapid march of technology and in particular the rapidly increasing availability and the equally rapidly diminishing cost of that technology means that even more and more advanced technological devices are very much a part of that changing environment. Thirty years ago—30 quite frighteningly short years ago I might say—I was a high school student as I know many similarly youthful members were also. Back then in the early 1980s not so very long ago advanced devices such as lasers were still very much the thing of science fiction here in New Zealand. They were not dime-a-dozen devices playing a part in people’s ordinary everyday lives.Today we have lasers employed in surgery and in dentistry when back then it was drills and scalpels. Not so very long ago at all the idea of laser eye surgery was nothing more than a cruel fantasy for people suffering from correctable vision problems. We use lasers for finding levels and for building where once we used spirit levels and string lines and plumb bobs. Lasers in industry guide everything from the blades in the sawmill to the container cranes at the seaport to the robots in the car factory. Lasers can tell the police how fast I am driving and they can ensure that the unfortunate bunny or other creature in the cross-hairs of my telescopic sight has no chance of escape.Lasers are part and parcel of modern-day life. Thirty years ago the concept of CDs and DVDs would not have been believed by most people let alone accepted as truth of the near future. Today every home in the country has one or two or more of the devices that play these now nearly obsolete formats and every one of them uses lasers to extract the information off the disc and convert it into images and sounds. Thirty years ago lasers were the stuff ofStar Wars. Today they are in everything from the reversing camera in a car to the cutters in the engraving industry to medical science to music shows to barcode readers to welders to range finders to printers to pointers and to God alone knows what else.Once upon a time—again not so very long ago—tattoos were for ever. Today they are easily and almost painlessly able to be removed by yet another application of the marvellous and versatile thing that is the laser. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation—that is what the word “laser” is an acronym for. It was developed in 1958 as one manifestation of the discovery of wave-particle duality the mechanism by which light can exist as a wave or as a particle but not both at the same time. From those humble beginnings just a little over a half century ago lasers have indeed grown and developed so that today what were once mere fantasies of the future have become the reality. The fiction that isStar Warsis being rolled out in real life even as we debate. The United States Navy will deploy its first naval laser weapon system aboard the United States Navy shipPonce this northern summer.It may surprise and disturb some people perhaps even some members to learn that lasers are already being used as weapons in New Zealand. Some people are using lasers as weapons of stupidity potentially as weapons of crime. Perhaps even here there is the possibility that they may come to be used as weapons of terrorism. Powerful laser pointers—not the ones in the same league that the US Navy intends to employ to shoot down missiles and drones and even incoming artillery shells but powerful enough—can light a match burst a balloon set fire to a piece of paper or blind a pilot or a driver from as far away as 10 kilometres. Those lasers are available for a couple hundred bucks over the internet. They are as small as a ballpoint pen and are powered by a couple of ordinary AAA batteries.It is these devices that Dr Calder’s bill seeks to remove from the hands of the irresponsible and the malicious and we support him wholeheartedly in that. TheTransport and Industrial Relations Committee agreed as do we that this bill be passed albeit with a couple of minor amendments. The committee proposed that the name of the bill be changed to emphasise that it is for only powerful laser pointers and not the very small low-powered ones which are used legitimately as actual laser pointers or for driving one’s cat to distraction. It is for the powerful ones that put out up to 3 watts in power and for which there is no legitimate justification for ownership. This is a sensible change in our estimation.The committee also recommended that the commencement date for the legislation be 28 days after the date on which the bill receives the Royal assent. The reasoning is that this will give the public reasonable notice of the law change. We do not agree with this. In New Zealand First’s view it would give the aforementioned irresponsible and malicious users of these devices a 28-day window in which to order up large on the internet and gain possession of a stock of these powerful lasers—but so be it. We register our disapproval but we accept the will of the majority of the House. We urge the House to reconsider this particular recommendation of the committee.The committee has recommended deleting the seizure provision in section 13B in clause 4 of the bill on the grounds that it is not necessary as seizure powers are available to the police under the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. That may be so but we would prefer the provision to remain or to at least be retained as a general provision incorporating a reference to the relevant section or sections of the aforementioned Act. In the interest of avoiding any possible doubt or ambiguity the retention of the provision would in our view have made for pretty cheap insurance.Lastly the committee recommends amending the definition of “laser” as it pertains to this bill by way of adopting the definition of “high-power laser pointers” in the Customs Import Prohibition (High-power Laser Pointers) Order 2013. This definition specifies devices with a power output that is greater than 1milliwatt and it ensures consistency with other legislation such as the Health (High-power Laser Pointers) Regulations 2013. It also quantifies the committee’s recommendation as to the change of the name of the bill. New Zealand First agrees with this final recommendation.In this time when the safety of air travel is foremost in our minds New Zealand First sees an added urgency for the adoption of measures such as this bill. The illicit use of powerful laser devices that can blind and disorient aircraft pilots not to mention drivers on the motorway holds the potential to cause great damage and to put the lives of literally hundreds of innocent people in genuine dire jeopardy. In closing I wish to reiterate that New Zealand First congratulates Dr Calder on bringing this fine bill to Parliament. We welcome it. We support it. I commend it to the House. Thank you.