Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Kumbaya Madam Chair; kumbaya Minister Martin; kumbaya Mr Macindoe. It's a real privilege to take a call on this very important piece of legislation the Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Controls Bill. I want to speak to a couple of items in Part 1 particularly clauses 3 and 4 where the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee has responded to a couple of very well-reasoned submissions. But before leaping into that I did just want to reflect on the member for Tāmaki I think it was who spoke of Barry Coates a former member of the House who participated in the earlier debates on this bill. As I was doing a bit of preparation for this debate I read Mr Coates' first reading speech on this bill and he made the very good point in that speech that what we're talking about here tonight isn't actually academic for New Zealand. He pointed to a case in which a person who had a business based on Queen Street I think it was ended up through an entity that he was involved in possibly wittingly possibly unwittingly brokering arms trade between North Korea and Iran I think it was.So the bill that we're debating is actually a really really important one because we as New Zealanders not only in this Parliament believe that we should be adhering to treaties of this kind—like the Arms Trade Treaty which we are signed up to—as a matter of being a good international citizen. I think that most people in this country want to ensure at an ethical level that we aren't in any way whatsoever involving ourselves in some of those awful conflicts around the world that cause mayhem that cause death that cause destruction and that ruin many people's lives. We should be minimising our involvement in those sorts of conflicts as much as possible and this bill is a small piece in the wall there.Just on that point as well I think the question that the member for Tāmaki raised then—this relates to Part 1—was Why doesn't the bill specifically address the question of mercenaries?" And I think actually if we look in Part 1 clause 3 we just go straight to the purpose of the bill which is really clear: "(a) regulate the brokering of weapons and related items; and (b) support New Zealand's commitments under the Arms Trade Treaty." So the purpose is actually really specifically defined—it is really specifically defined—around preventing brokering. Of course brokering is not about weapons coming in or out of New Zealand; it's about people in New Zealand or connected to New Zealand facilitating the transfer of weapons between people in other parts of the world and quite simply that is what the bill focuses on. It doesn't focus on who the people are who might be using them which might be where you would get a question around mercenaries; it focuses simply on the question of brokering. So it's a fairly simple and elegant bill there and it goes to the purpose of the Arms Trade Treaty as well.I might note that the Arms Trade Treaty started off after agitation by people in the peace movement and civil society way back in the 1980s—people like the Dalai Lama but I also noticed José Ramos-Horta who of course will be familiar to many people in New Zealand as being one of the people involved in the East Timorese independence movement. Of course he and the people of East Timor were facing violent militias at the time of the independence movement in the 1990s who were potentially being supplied by arms brokers around the world—so very relevant there.The two bits of the legislation that I wanted to focus on that have been amended by the committee relate to a couple of very good submissions that we received. The first one was from the New Zealand Law Society and what they noted having considered the earlier version of the bill. What's really important about Part 1 and a couple of other speakers have touched on this is it goes to the jurisdictional issues. This bill is really interesting in that respect and I think my colleague Deborah Russell mentioned this: that it doesn't apply just to people in New Zealand doing things in New Zealand; it can apply to people who are ordinarily resident in New Zealand but are overseas engaging in brokering activities or it could involve New Zealanders or entities connected with New Zealand who are overseas. So the jurisdictional stuff is really important to get right. What the Law Society say in their submission at 3.4 of their submission is this "The jurisdictional scope of the legislation is appropriate but could be refined in three ways: [1] The territorial scope of the Bill should be defined upfront in Part 1 of the legislation so that the reach of all of its provisions (including the registration requirements) is made clear;"—and I'll touch on that in a moment the detail of that—"[2] It may not be appropriate to extend the Act to persons who are not New Zealanders who are not ordinarily resident here and who have not conducted any brokering activities here;". As far as I could read from the bill the select committee has decided in its wisdom to proceed with that but nevertheless! And [3] the Law Society says that "The exemption for employees should be tightened to prevent abuse." and I think we'll get on to that in Part 2 of the debate which is where the select committee has made some changes in that area.So let's go back to No. 1 which is where the Law Society recommended some changes to—not really disagreeing with the intent of the bill but saying we really really need to be specific and clear about the territorial scope of the bill. The select committee has responded to that by making amendments to clause 3A(1) which I don't think you could make all that much clearer notwithstanding some of the questions that have arisen in this debate. It's very clear in clause 3A(1): "This Act applies to any brokering activity that is carried out—(a) in any place (including any brokering activity that is carried out wholly or partially outside New Zealand)"—so we're going for belts and braces and I think this was noted and I think it was the Law Society's submission as well that some of the activity here could be quite fractional. So you have a person potentially in New Zealand who is engaging in some part of a transaction; you have a person in country B who's engaging another part; and a person in country C; and one of the risks if you don't have the belts and braces approach to this kind of thing is that each individual activity doesn't amount to brokering; you've got to sort of make the chain. So by having that really clear language in clause 3A(1) it seems to me that we achieved that effect.We then go on to note that it may be a person "(i) … in New Zealand; or (ii) who is a New Zealand citizen or ordinarily resident in New Zealand; or (iii) that is an entity incorporated or registered under the law of New Zealand;"—so individuals can't skirt around this by putting these activities into a company or some other kind of organisation. And I think very importantly at clause 3A(1)(b) the activity could also be "wholly or partially on board a ship or an aircraft" which sounds a little bit like it could be out of a James Bond episode or something. But once again we're going for belts and braces there. So it seems to me that the select committee has actually really picked up on that quite important point about this being very very specific about the jurisdictional scope and has really got the language right in clause 3A(1) of the bill.The second submission I just wanted to speak to where a consequential change has been made was the letter that was written to the committee by the Regulations Review Committee. I did have to note one thing though; and of course we always look to the Regulations Review Committee as being the committee that needs to be a paragon of exactitude and preciseness in terms of our parliamentary proceedings. In one of their paragraphs there was quite an amusing typo actually. It says "Clause 9(1) of the bill imposes requirements on a person to be a registered broke". I suspect it's supposed to be a "broker" because a registered broke could be a euphemism for an undischarged bankrupt and I suspect that's not who we are getting at. I am pretty sure that in the days in which the Hon Ruth Dyson chaired the Regulations Review Committee we wouldn't have had sloppy spelling mistakes like that one slipping into these letters.But anyway the point that the Regulations Review Committee makes is this one. I'll get straight to the recommendation that they make and then how it's been followed up by the committee. They recommend that the committee "consider amending clause 4(2) of the bill to require the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade to publish a notice on a website administered by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade and as the notice will affect items on the strategic goods list ensure that the notice are published together with the strategic goods list." I do think this is really really important and it links into some of the other submissions and some of the issues that I think we'll also get to in Part 2 where there were some concerns that were threaded through the I think nine submissions that were received: that we have to be a little bit careful in this area; that people who might be caught out by what is quite a serious piece of legislation which would certainly have serious reputational impacts and potentially has serious financial impacts—we have to make sure that the people who might be caught out by it know they have to register know what the rules are and that that's very clear to people. So using a simple piece of technology like ensuring that it's on the website is I think an extremely important way of ensuring that.I think it's encouraging that we're making progress on this bill. It goes to something that is I think not only about New Zealand's international reputation; it's actually an ethical issue about the kind of country that we want to be—the kinds of activities that we deem to be appropriate and ethical or not—and saying that we're not actually going to stand for people engaging in activity that could be to the detriment of people in other parts of the world. It seems to me having had a good look at the submissions and having had a good look at the bar 2 version of the bill that we have before us that the select committee has engaged really constructively and really sensibly around some of the good submissions that have been made.On that note I think in line with other members—certainly on this side of the Chamber but it looks like more broadly—I certainly commend the bill to the committee as it's been reported back. Kumbaya—peace out."