Beaumont Carol: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Beaumont Carol: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12025. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I will go back to the issues around the civil aviation Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol that goes with that and I will talk a bit more about that in the second reading debate on the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. The protocol as I said relates to aircraft that carry at least eight people and helicopters that carry five or more. The treaty resulted from a diplomatic conference held in Cape Town in South Africa in 2001 as the name suggests. I thought people would be interested to know more about the conference. It was attended by 68 countries and 14 international organisations. Fifty-three countries have signed the resolution proposing the treaty. The convention portion of the treaty came into force on 1 April—gee that is a bad date for conventions to come into force—2004 and has been signed by 28 countries. The protocol which is the bit that specifically applies to aircraft and aircraft engines took effect on 1 March 2006 when it was ratified by eight countries—Ethiopia Ireland Malaysia Nigeria Oman Panama Pakistan and the United States. In the US the treaty was approved by the Senate in 2003 and implemented by the full Congress in the Cape Town Treaty Implementation Act 2004. 
The other dimension is the registry of mobile assets. It has been set up under this convention to establish the record of international property interests in the equipment covered by the treaty which is located in Ireland. Mediation cases for leasing disputes are to be heard in the High Court of Ireland. That is just a bit of background. 
When we look at the bill itself we see that the overwhelming portion of it is the convention and protocol which are appended to it in the schedule. We have the full text of the civil aviation Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol I have just referred to appended to this bill.  
There are a couple of things I would like to cover off. The first is the Civil Aviation Authority itself. It operates in an international system hence the need for conventions like this. The Civil Aviation Authority as it says in its annual report is an international system and it works within frameworks set by the International Civil Aviation Organization. As a contracting State within the International Civil Aviation Organization New Zealand has responsibility to comply with the standards set by that organisation. It has a number of effects. Interestingly in relation to the points just made by the Green member the other strategic objectives—it has a series of objectives for 2010 focused on enhancing global aviation safety and security—include minimising the adverse effects of aviation on the environment in particular aircraft noise and aircraft engine emissions. I think there is an awareness of the problem. It is an issue for a country like New Zealand where we are reliant on aviation. We are a country a long way from markets that we trade with and indeed we are a country of destination for tourists from all around the world so we are highly reliant on aviation to bring people to this country and to get our products to market.  
Mr Bennett the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee noted that there is another important role in that we export in the aviation area. I was interested to hear him talk about that matter because my late father Ron worked at Hamilton Airport. He was a mechanic but he went on to get his trade certificate in aircraft engineering. He worked there producing top-dressing aircraft and they were world-leading aircraft. I thought it was interesting that Mr Bennett noted that as a small but important part of our manufacturing exports.  
Talking of that select committee I would like to join with my colleague Darien Fenton. She took the words right out of my mouth in that I too wish a speedy recovery to our fellow select committee member Mr Tau Henare who is as we all know unwell at the moment. While I am talking about that fellow member I note that he is in the interesting position of having his own member’s bill before the select committee. That bill is an interesting one. It is in relation to employment rights. We talked in the first reading about the fact that New Zealand is a country that takes international obligations very seriously. We think it is important to sign up to relevant conventions and to play a good role in the international community in regard to many areas. We have often been in a world-leading role and certainly that is the case in terms of international labour standards. New Zealand played a founding role in the International Labour Organization. We have a proud history in that organisation and in any given international labour conference which is an annual process and is in fact going on at the moment often New Zealand will have people who end up chairing committees or who are involved in drafting committees and we are seen as a country that takes these matters seriously. So it is a bit of a shame that Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot For Strikes) Amendment Bill is one that I think will see us going in the reverse direction from what we would want to in terms of workers’ rights. Whether that will have the effect of our coming up against what would be seen as international best practice remains to be seen.  
Getting back to the this bill as I was saying before the full text of the convention is appended to the schedule of this bill. Members will be pleased to know that I do not want to go through this bill article by article— 
Hone Harawira 
: Oh. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: Well OK because there is a desire for that I will just tell members what the respective articles are. I will not read them out to members given they run to many many pages. In due deference to my colleague from the Maori Party let me say that— 
Paul Quinn 
: Just the flavour. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: Yes. Article 1 is “Definitions” and that goes to several pages as members can imagine. Article 2 “The international interest” provides for the constitution and effects of an international interest in certain categories of mobile equipment and associated rights. Article 3 is “Sphere of application” article 4 is “Where debtor is situated” article 5 is “Interpretation and applicable law” article 6 is “Relationship between the Convention and the Protocol” article 7 is “Formal requirements” and article 8 is “Remedies of chargee”. As members can see this goes through a range of articles right through to article 39 40 54—perhaps I will not go through the rest of them for members in the House. Seriously these are important matters that will streamline and standardise processes internationally and that hopefully will have an effect that means there is greater certainty for those who are financing aircraft. We are making sure that instead of a wide range of different domestic legislation applying we will have standards. It will be simpler to use the registry located in Ireland to identify what the status of ownership or whatever of a particular aircraft is and I am sure we are all pleased to know that any disputes will be dealt with in the court system in Ireland which I am sure is a very robust one. I will leave my contribution to this second reading there and I look forward to further comment in the third reading. 
Bill read a second time.