Calder Cam: Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCalder Cam: Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18911. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr CAM CALDER (National):This is a very important point that my colleagues have actually aired at some length in the Chamber. It is quite true to say that I was somewhat saddened by the decision the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee made because as has been alluded to by my honourable colleague Mr Mike Sabin I wanted this legislation the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill to come into effect as soon as possible. I make no apologies for that. As we have heard this clause provides for all provisions in the bill to come into force on the day after the Act receives the Royal assent. That is what we thought. That is what I wanted to happen. But after we had considered it as a committee when does it come into force Mr Auchinvole?Chris Auchinvole: 28 days.Dr CAM CALDER: Twenty-eight days after receiving the Royal assent. So I asked this question of the committee members. I said: “What possible reason is there for delaying the implementation of such an important bill?”. We have heard some of the arguments. I have to pay credit to Carol Beaumont who is part of the committee and contributed to this debate. In fact we had a committee made up of members from all sides of the House and it was a collegial committee. The upshot of the combined wisdom was that for a number of reasons 28 days after receiving the Royal assent was preferable to the instant implementation that I was hoping for. The committee recommended that clause 2 be amended to provide that additional time after the Act received the Royal assent before the provisions of the bill came into force. We have heard that this is to give people time to understand about the law having changed. But I would submit to you—Mike Sabin: That’s right.Dr CAM CALDER: That is right. But I have a lingering bit of schadenfreude here because I just think—as you raised the very valid point yourself—what if an act occurs in the interim period between the Act receiving the Royal assent and coming into law? We hope that people will realise as word gets out about the passage of this bill and the commencement date being what it is that we have had some publicity from the Airline Pilots’ Association recently calling for a bill just like this in light of a recent incident that occurred just a few weeks ago. That 28 days is what we are left with. I just hope that that 28 days will not be a time where people take advantage of the fact that the bill has not come into law and they pick up their high-power laser pointer put it in their pocket and march off out into a public space. There is actually no reason for that. The commencement date of 28 days after the Act receiving the Royal assent means there is going to be a 4-week period where that could occur. I have just done my sums. It is an interesting situation. My valedictory speech is timetabled for 23 July at 4 o’clock.Phil Twyford: Can we book seats now?Dr CAM CALDER: You can secure your seat now Mr Twyford. I will look forward to seeing you there. The interesting thing is that this bill is likely to go for its third reading after I have given my valedictory speech. I might be in the position of not being able to deliver a third reading speech on my own bill but such is the way that Parliament works. Really it is a small price to pay for the chance to get this bill through the House whilst I am still a member of this House. It is a huge privilege to stand here—I must say it is a great privilege to stand here—and be able to speak in the House without getting dark looks from the whip saying to stop speaking. It is very rare that that actually happens. How many of us sitting here tonight can say that they have had that privilege?Tim Macindoe: What an aspersion against my good character.Dr CAM CALDER: You are a very fine whip it has to be said. It has to be said that you are a very fine whip and you are doing remarkably well for a man who has just come back from attending a high-level Westminster seminar in the United Kingdom representing our Parliament in the best possible way that you have done. The commencement is 28 days after receiving the Royal assent. If I give my speech on 23 July then it is likely to receive the Royal assent on 25 July because normally the bills go to the Governor-General to be signed and it is possible he might be in town and he could give the Royal assent on 25 July. So 28 days from that period—have we got any people in the House who are good at mental arithmetic? It is all right. I have done the sums. It is actually 22 August. So I wonder. I pose this question: do you think that it is likely that this date—28 days after the Royal assent which we are suggesting is a putative 22 August—when you google what happened on 22 August sometime in the future could come up as the day the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill passed? Could that be?It is very interesting to see what did happen on 22 August historically. Remember that 22 August is the putative commencement date for this bill. It is the putative possible commencement date when the Governor-General His Excellency Lieutenant General Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae signs the bill and effectively it gains Royal assent. I am posing the question to the Committee that in years to come could it be that when you google 22 August it comes up that that was the date that in the New Zealand Parliament the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill passed? What else has happened on that day?Tim Macindoe: My brother-in-law has a birthday.Dr CAM CALDER: Ah well that was not on Google. But the commencement date of 22 August has had a mixture of the sad and the joyful and a mixture of the memorable and the less memorable. But let me just outline some of the things that have happened on 22 August which we know is actually the likely date of the commencement of this bill.Carol Beaumont: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I call your attention to Standing Order 108 around relevancy and also note in Standing Order 108(2) tedious repetition being referred to and wonder whether this meets that clause.Tim Macindoe: Previous speakers have drawn attention to the fact that the commencement date of this bill is very significant because of the significant implications particularly for those who will be charged with enforcing it. Therefore for members opposite who frequently delight in filibustering on matters to criticise the member in charge of the bill for going into some detail for discussing the significance—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): All right that is enough. I do not need any more assistance thank you very much. There were two points that the member made. One was that we should be speaking about the commencement date and certainly Dr Cam Calder is doing that. With regard to repetition I think he is probably getting into the furry edges of actually doing that.Dr CAM CALDER: I cannot imagine I have ever been in the furry edges in this Chamber before. That has to be a first. I am going to move swiftly along from there because there is nothing furry about these edges which I am about to delineate for you. We are talking about 22 August. All these points are relevant—all these points are relevant—because 22 August is the likely putative commencement date of this bill. I ask the Committee what else happened on that date. Sadly the first thing that came to mind was—and this is not something that I am treating with anything other than the utmost seriousness—that there was a suicide bombing in western Iraq. That was 22 August 2013. When you think about what is happening now that is an extraordinarily sad indictment of the world situation. I was unaware of this I have to say. In 2012 on 22 August which is the putative commencement date of this bill Russia and Vanuatu became members of the World Trade Organization.Could it be that in a few months’ time or maybe longer after this bill is passed in 2014 on 22 August this bill being passed into law in New Zealand—because this is a worldwide problem; it is not peculiar only to New Zealand—could be of such significance that it would also come up in a Google search? If somebody wanted to look at significant dates and we have heard that it is Tim Macindoe’s brother-in-law’s birthday—