Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Anyone who saw the documentary Patrick Gower: On P will know that much of the methamphetamine in New Zealand comes across our coastal borders. I actually remember one of the cases that was referred to in that documentary at Ninety Mile Beach where the boats got grounded and I think people went aboard and offered cash to the locals and the locals got suspicious and there were 448 kilograms of P found in the back of the campervan worth a street value of about $500 million. It was such a botched attempt to import methamphetamine that it's almost funny—a comedy of errors if you like—although it's not funny because of the terrible impacts that are so serious around our methamphetamine problem in New Zealand and in fact one of those convicted in that documentary spoke about the fact that he was part of an international drug importation ring. He was very careful in how he spoke and he did say that he hadn't had a hit on him. I bring this up because for me the powers in this Act will help to counter that terrible problem of methamphetamine coming in through the coastal borders. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and customs are doing excellent work in New Zealand with Pacific Island nations to stop that happening. In fact we had an Estimates hearing just in the last couple of weeks with the customs Minister Meka Whaitiri who talked about the collaboration with Fiji and other nations to stop methamphetamine coming across the coastal borders. But there are still limits to what can happen and that's because the powers that we have in New Zealand to be able to make the search and seizure and so on don't align (a) with the criminal law and secondly with our rights and obligations at international law and these were two things that we prioritised in our election manifesto; so we need to get on with it.There is often an international dimension to crime which is limited to what is within our own jurisdiction. We're limited in terms of maritime security threat we're limited in terms of criminal offending and New Zealand is in some cases unable to act or disrupt criminal activity before it reaches our shores. I'm well aware of this because a couple of years ago I did a documentary called I Am Innocent which involved a drug mule who was taking drugs to Argentina. We did some interviews with some legal experts who made the very clear point that it's easier to catch the mules who are the so-called bottom feeders than it is to get the kingpins and it's an issue that is happening globally in terms of the international nature of crime the technologies that are rapidly changing. So goods and funds are going across borders between countries sometimes virtually or digitally and it's really hard for the law to catch up.This doesn't just apply to drugs; it applies to other offences. We've heard about human trafficking and I'm really proud actually that the Labour Government in 2019 gave a Budget boost to prevent human trafficking. I've worked in countries like Cambodia Myanmar and Vietnam where human trafficking is quite visible and we need to get ahead of this before it becomes a problem here. In fact there's already some evidence to suggest it's a problem in the Solomon Islands and in Fiji. So I'm glad it's on our radar.As the Minister said in his opening remarks we have a good problem. We have a large coastline—15000 kilometres of beautiful beaches. We have another good problem in that we have one of the world's largest exclusive economic zones but we also have a growing marine economy. We've got a domestic market that's increasingly reliant on marine connectivity and supply chains—we've certainly seen that during COVID—and we've got the increased importance of shipping for importing and exporting and of course our natural interests in the Pacific and Southern Oceans. So in relation to this changing world we do need changing laws. They align with what was set out in the 2018 Strategic Defence Policy Statement which said—and I quote—Maritime security is fundamental to [New Zealand's] national security." and that is around climate change transnational crime resource competition and the geopolitics of that and of course irregular migration which has been alluded to this evening.So I'm really pleased that we are bringing this into the House. Our maritime laws need updating. We need to protect our coastline. We need to align with international law and with human rights. This brings us a strategic approach and I'm personally invested in the prevention of methamphetamine and human trafficking. I commend this bill to the House."