Power Simon: Civil Aviation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Power Simon: Civil Aviation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:615;Page:11200] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I recall that one of the first pieces of legislation I encountered in my time in Parliament was the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) which was all about the certification of medical officers for pilots. I see my colleague the Hon Harry Duynhoven in the House. I think he chaired that select committee—brave man that he was—back in those days. The only way to describe the passage of that legislation was a complete nightmare. I hope the passage of this bill is much smoother. It has far less difficult intricate requirements and definitions in it—something that caught the attention of the Transport and Industrial Relations committee over a very extended period. 
I am disappointed that I was unable to hear the contribution of my colleague the Hon Maurice Williamson a former Minister of Transport and somebody who knows a great deal about these issues. My mind unfortunately was on other matters. Could I begin my contribution by saying that from the way I read the bill there are essentially three elements to it. First the bill will enable Australian airlines to operate in New Zealand under Civil Aviation Safety Authority Australia certification and safety oversight. I suspect that is probably a victory for common sense and open markets as opposed to—perhaps I could venture to say—the closed shop of the Australian unions. Hopefully it will enable the type of safety work that previously could not be carried out in New Zealand to be carried out now by our very highly qualified individuals. Any legislation that essentially enables the opening of the skies can only be good in the long run for the consumer. We on the Opposition side of the House have a longstanding and proud history of supporting any legislation that moves in that direction. 
I see the other two branches to the bill involve making provision for dealing with unruly passengers and I would like to spend a bit of time on that as we move through this bill. The other of course is to make provision for civil liability for delay in a domestic service. I suspect that that particular legal right—I am looking at Harry Duynhoven now—has always existed and all this legislation is doing is reinforcing it. [ 
Interruption 
] That would be my reading of the legislation. I thank Harry Duynhoven for his contribution there. 
Let us go back if we can not to the issues around the mutual recognition that I know my colleague the Hon Maurice Williamson will have covered thoroughly but to those around unruly passenger offences. When members of the public board a flight for a sporting event—particularly to Australia—it is not uncommon from time to time for unruly behaviour to occur. I think that this bill deals particularly with people who recklessly or negligently act in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft or persons on an aircraft—and that is important because we do not want to take away from the ability of passengers to be able to enjoy the flight; we have the occupational safety and health legislation to do that for everything else in our lives. 
Section 65F in new Part 5A inserted by clause 24 is quite an important wee section because there will be some debate no doubt about whether—this is probably why the wording is “recklessly” as opposed to “intentionally”—passengers are able to form the necessary intent in their own minds to act in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft or a person on an aircraft. The reason that intentionally" has been taken out of the bill I would suggest and replaced with “recklessly or negligently” is so that there is no need for the organisation bringing the charge to have to prove intention on the part of the person looking to act in a way likely to endanger the aircraft or any person on the aircraft. Essentially we are saying here that an offence—call it a strict-liability offence—in the sense that should the authority deem a person to have acted recklessly or negligently in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft that person is caught. That is it—he or she is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years or a fine not exceeding $5000. 
When we move past whether a passenger is able to form that intention we can see that section 65I in new Part 5A deals directly with the issue of intoxication. It is worth spending just a fraction of time on this because it is an important issue. Interestingly I see it states: “Every person (except a person under medical care) commits an offence who (a) is intoxicated and boards an aircraft; or (b) becomes intoxicated on an aircraft.” 
Now it would be interesting to hear from a member of the Government as to who will judge that and on what basis will it be judged. When we go to section 65I(3) members can see that a person is intoxicated if that person is under the influence of an intoxicating liquor—as opposed to non-intoxicating liquor I suppose; I am not sure why “intoxicating liquor” is in there—or any other substance to such an extent as to “be incapable of properly looking after himself or herself.” 
That begs the question: if passengers are intoxicated but the authority deems them to be capable of looking after themselves how does the authority make a decision as to whether they are capable of looking after somebody else—for example children who may be travelling with them? No doubt the officials have thought this through but if such people are intoxicated enough to look only after themselves but not to look after children or anybody under their supervision or care are they caught by this provision? It seems to me that it is one thing to be intoxicated and be able to stumble through the flight but what if the passenger is boarding with others—a disabled cousin perhaps under his or her care or supervision? What happens under the bill then? I think that is something that should be given a bit more thought. 
Offensive behaviour and language are covered and I think that is important. Interestingly under section 65L in new Part 5A every person commits an offence who operates a portable electronic device on board an aircraft and is liable to a fine not exceeding $2500. I presume that somewhere a portable electronic device is defined to include a cellular telephone. Am I right about that? I am—the officials are nodding. Also we are not allowed to smoke on aeroplanes. That makes sense—we are not allowed to smoke anywhere else so why would we be able to smoke on aeroplanes? I am surprised that there is not a “prohibition of fun” clause in this bill as well! 
But let us just move on to the last part of the bill which deals with liability issues and limitations of actions. Nobody who travels frequently by aircraft whether domestically or internationally has not had an occasion when his or her plans have been disrupted because of mechanical failure allegedly or a flight not making it because of bad weather. We often hear of the airport aviation outfit— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Airways. 
SIMON POWER 
: That is right I thank Mr Duynhoven—which says they are down; it cannot tell whether or not an aircraft is in the air. It seems to me that we are looking at legislation that will provide a remedy in a clear and straightforward way to those people who have a claim for disruption against the airline. That seems to me to make perfect sense. 
So that was a bit of wander through the legislation. Nevertheless I think I have raised two or three issues that hopefully the House and the Government will take some notice of. The Government is not taking notice of much else at the moment so hopefully it will take notice of me on that point. As my colleague Maurice Williamson has indicated we will be continuing to support the passage of this legislation. 
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