Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to come back and speak to this bill in front of us which is the work of the House at this point in time. It is a pleasure to speak to the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill of 2016. I would like to briefly traverse the legislation that brings us here today—the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988 the Maritime Crimes Act 1999 the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 2005 and of course what we are looking at the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill 2016. In 1985 as was commented on the Achille Lauro was hijacked off Egypt and wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer was thrown overboard. In response to that the Rome convention formed the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation and the Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf. This was ratified by New Zealand through the Maritime Crimes Act 1999. The Maritime and Aviation Crimes Bill went straight to its second reading which is kind of interesting because it turns out that the day it came to the House the House was sitting under urgency. The then Standing Order 273 said there would be no first reading and so it went straight to its second reading. At that second reading the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade at the time Don McKinnon made these points on the Maritime and Aviation Crimes Bill 1999. He said first of all that this bill was very important because it talked about including the unlawful use of force or the threat of force to seize control of a ship. He talked about extending New Zealand's jurisdiction over these new offences beyond the traditional limit of our territorial lands. He also talked about the possible extradition of terrorists to those countries that are a party to the convention. That was in 1999. In 2009 the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee undertook a treaty examination for the two protocols—the 2005 Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Fixed Platforms and the 2005 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. These were collectively known as the 2005 SUA protocols.The select committee had one submission. An important change here was that the Rome convention talked about shipping as being a target. The 2005 suppression of unlawful acts (SUA) protocols talked about maritime vehicles and ships etc. as actually being vehicles for causing terrorism. That was quite a change. That it is why it is important for us to ratify and amend our Maritime Act to take this into account. Particularly three new offences were created under the 2005 SUA protocols. These were (1) maritime terrorism (2) illicit trafficking by ships of weapons of mass destruction and (3) transportation of fugitives by ships. The 2009 select committee examination was very thorough and the national interest analysis that accompanied that said that there were only benefits to New Zealand in being a part of this treaty. With that I think that the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill wisely enables the 2005 SUA protocols and is a very important tool in our fight against terrorism. I commend it to the House.