Lees-Galloway Iain: Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13309. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): It is a pleasure to rise and speak to the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill in the name of Dr Cam Calder. I want to put on the record to start with that Labour will support this bill going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. There are several reservations that we have with this legislation that we think would need to be tidied up at the select committee but we do congratulate the member on pursuing a worthy subject. There have been as I think the member probably pointed out in his speech over 100 incidents of laser strikes against aircraft in the last year. There have been a handful of convictions related to that and I think it is important to acknowledge that this bill does not make it an offence to perform one of these laser strikes against an aircraft; that is already an offence. Recently a young man was sentenced to 4½ months’ home detention having been caught and convicted of carrying out a laser strike against a landing aircraft.What this bill seeks to do—and as I said it is a worthy cause—is to reduce the likelihood that people will be able to have lasers and use them in an inappropriate way such as a laser strike against an aircraft or indeed as the member raised a strike against a land motor vehicle such as a truck. I think the member used the example of a fuel tanker. That would probably be the most disastrous possible outcome. But indeed I know that a number of airline pilots have said that really it is only a matter of time before somebody tries this against a moving vehicle and the consequences of that could indeed be quite disastrous.What this bill does is make it an offence liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months or a fine not exceeding $2000 for anybody who in a public place without reasonable excuse—which is an interesting phrase that I am sure is open to interpretation—has any handheld laser in his or her possession. We think that this bill is probably a bit too broad. This is going a little bit too far into the realms of a nanny State for the National members to support a bill that would ban the possession of all lasers in a public place without some reasonable excuse.In fact it actually goes much further than the Government itself has indicated that it is comfortable with with the regulations that it recently brought in as announced by the Associate Minister of Health Jo Goodhew that can be made under the health and customs legislation to regulate the importation and possession of lasers. What the Government did and what the Minister announced was exactly what the airline pilots have been calling for which is tighter regulations on the most powerful lasers. In fact the controls that the Government has introduced will be applied to handheld laser pointers with a power output greater than 1milliwatt—I assume it is probably not a megawatt—in line with the approach taken in Australia and with recommendations from the World Health Organization. The new restrictions will not cover lower-powered laser pointers used as presentation aids or those used with survey equipment or at rifle sites. That to me seems to be the sensible balance that needs to be achieved. Without a change that better reflects the Government’s approach to those regulations in this legislation Labour would find it difficult to support this bill past the select committee process but I believe that the member would be open to some debate and conversation around how we can better target this legislation at the lasers that actually cause harm and not inflict unnecessary regulation on people who have these lower-powered lasers for perfectly legitimate reasons.There are very few occasions to have the higher-powered lasers in a public place. I know that some astronomers use them and certainly astronomy teachers use them to actually point out constellations in the sky for young children who are learning about the night sky and I am sure there would be other reasons related to survey equipment etc. where it would be reasonable to have the higher-powered lasers. Many peoplewould carry around a little pen laser pointer that is not capable of creating the havoc that the member in charge of this bill is concerned about. As is always the case with this kind of regulation it is about getting the balance right. We want to reduce the harm we want to reduce the likelihood that people will be able to carry out these laser strikes but we do not want to unnecessarily burden people who have the lower-powered lasers for perfectly legitimate reasons.It is a bit of a surprise that a National member would support such a Draconian approach but we will get that sorted out at the select committee. I can see some of the National gentlemen who are on the committee and who are looking forward to fixing that bill up I am quite sure.It is a bit unfortunate I think that the Government has been so slow to respond to this issue. It was not until May this year that Jo Goodhew announced the regulations that will come into effect. They have not yet come into effect and it is anticipated that those regulations will come into effect towards the end of this year. The Government has left it to a member’s bill and it has left it to a backbencher with all due respect to Cam Calder to promote this legislation. It has left it at the mercy of the ballot and left it at the mercy of the members’ orders and we know that it takes an awfully long time for a member’s bill to rise to the top of the Order Paper and get its first reading debate.I would have thought that this Government would take the safety of airline pilots of passengers on aircraft and indeed of road users much more seriously and would have promoted this type of legislation much sooner than it has. There has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of these laser strikes from only a handful in 2006 to over 100 in the last year. The evidence was clear that this was a growing problem. The airline pilots came and spoke to us in the Opposition and I know that they spoke to Government members. They did not do a big kind of public rah-rah campaign. They came and spoke to us very reasonably and asked the Government to promote legislation that would increase their safety and yet the Government sat on its hands. It sat on its hands until May this year before announcing regulations—regulations that have not yet come into force—and the supporting legislation that Cam Calder is promoting has come to the House only because a backbench MP decided to put this bill in the ballot. He was lucky enough to have it come out—very lucky to have it come out—and it has finally made it to the House tonight in September. I think that that tells you a little something about this National Government’s approach to safety particularly transport safety.Debate interrupted.