O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Madam Speaker. Like that previous speaker and perhaps the gentleman next to him Mr McKelvie many of us grew up on an understanding of the limits of New Zealand law and territory. I refer to of course Radio Hauraki New Zealand's first pirate radio ship. I see the Speaker nodding herself so—I would have thought you were too young Madam Speaker but obviously you were in that era yourself. We all understood that at a time when New Zealand music was changing and when perhaps banjo music was more popular in some parts of the country than others that The Beatles and other bands crept into New Zealand but the licences to play that music weren't available. So the ship—I understand the Tiri the first one and the Tiri the second one. Both of them I seem to remember ran aground on Great Barrier Island at some stage. They were actually able to operate outside New Zealand territorial waters. I say that just to give some context so that people—who have been around this House a little bit longer—will understand what this bill is about.We live in an era where organised crime is very well organised. Now that seems something of an obvious statement to make but sometimes I don't think we quite understand how well organised internationally these people are. So anything that is international immediately needs an international response and it means that we must give our authorities the ability to operate outside the traditional borders which they do. The spectre of people racing for the mythical 200-mile limit—economic limit or New Zealand's economic zone or just New Zealand territorial waters. Those opportunities are removed in this situation because organised crime—traditionally we'd like to think of them as drugs maybe robberies and cars various other things but their activities extend way beyond that. Wildlife—essentially anything that is illegal that you can make some money out of they will be into. That's why of course the wildlife aspect of this has been placed in it. It's extremely lucrative where you get rare species who can be exported or indeed imported. I see also even reference to the use of rare animal materials in various substances. I think the rhino horn might have been one of the ones that was brought up—again something that may be of interest to some members across the House.With that organised crime another very important aspect of this is that we now have increased—in the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 one that the previous speaker was actually part of passing here. It was something that was designed to update the search ability because as crime and criminals have advanced as their methods of being able to secrete or hide the various substances which they are involved in have evolved so it is important that the law and those that are enforcing those laws be able to so operate. So again this bill as I look through it certainly does ensure that those domestic search and surveillance powers that were granted to the New Zealand authorities are extended into that international zone.There are the usual protections you will have because again I note that it's not a fishing expedition as such whereby the authorities can go and pick a ship and say Well we think something might be going on there." The real protection like there is in all these pieces of legislation and particularly around the search and surveillance is that there must be a reasonable ground to suspect. Of course these are the types of things that later on if there is a court case—and there is obviously intended that there would be—those officers that used these powers would have to prove that they did have a reasonable ground to suspect that an offence had been or will be committed on board that vessel and again we can go back to the people-smuggling aspect of that in particular. There are different thresholds because we then go to what is a slightly higher threshold which is reasonable grounds to believe that there is evidence on board a ship of serious criminal offending. That may seem like semantics but through case law and precedent both of those phrases have been well extrapolated and again as I say through precedent they have been well defined. So it's not as though we're going to be—and I say to those who fear that somehow we'll be letting our authorities out there to stop any ship that's passing at any time of the day that that certainly won't be happening. This is again a very important piece of legislation. I think we've become aware that there's not many pieces of legislation that come before this House where there's not some sort of COVID aspect to it that is highlighted. One thing COVID has done is I think it's highlighted an understanding of how our world operates and supply chains and supply lines have become a very important part of that. As we lament the lack of shipbuilding around the world and lament the lack of container building over the years in recent times that is certainly impacting on us here at this end of the world. We do certainly understand that everything that we have here will most likely have had some sort of component which we have to bring into New Zealand and so it is with the criminal fraternity. Much of what they operate with and much of what they make their livings out of comes through those supply chains. Also with our increased surveillance powers often with the intelligence received it will be a matter of knowing something is going to be coming to New Zealand and knowing that it's on a certain ship with evidence that that merchandise is actually on those ships that are coming here and the closer they get to our coastline the more difficult often it can be to detect the offending. You can imagine the difference of having a ship 150 kilometres out where we have sufficient evidence and good cause to suspect that there is contraband on that ship or offences being committed—imagine how much easier it is to actually ensure that we isolate the crime scene if you like or even reduce the opportunities for them to drop the goods than if they are coming into Tauranga Harbour for example. There are many police operations and customs operations that have taken place where ships have been coming to particularly Tauranga Harbour as it seems to be becoming one of the main areas to import much of our goods because of infiltration of organised crime as I've spoken about before at various levels of the supply chain. Once those ships are in the harbour you can imagine the opportunities there are for goods to be dropped off where there is so much shipping and small boats. We've just heard this morning how many small boats there are operating in places like Tauranga Harbour since COVID again simply because those who would normally have spent their money overseas are now spending it on those small boats. So this is a very very good piece of legislation. It's surprising that we haven't had to deal with it before. Again it's a tribute to how well our law enforcement agencies are working that more and more they are aware and are working with foreign agencies and working with foreign police forces and customs and are getting the information so that we are better equipped to try and stop the flow of illicit substances coming into New Zealand and stop the flow of people-trafficking coming into New Zealand using the international networks that we have. So to be able to effectively police what is an increased information flow on these issues without the sorts of powers that are allowed and permitted by this bill would have in fact been really to hamstring the very authorities that we rely on very much to be keeping us all safe. So it gives me great pleasure to stand here and commend this bill to the House."