Williamson Maurice: Aviation Security Legislation Bill — First Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Aviation Security Legislation Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8106] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I am happy to tell the House today that the National Opposition will indeed support this legislation to go through to the very fine Transport and Industrial Relations Committee— 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: Very well chaired and deputy chaired. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: —which is very well chaired and deputy chaired as one of the members points out. If I were not in my very cooperative mood towards the Government today I would stop right there and I would ask all the other National MPs to stop right there as well because frankly the Government desperately needs National members to talk today. If we look at the Order Paper we see that for the first time in my history in this place it is now down to a single sheet of A4—on which the first two items are first readings which will be out of the way today. We would be in grave danger of getting down to the Conservation (Protection of Trout as a Non-commercial Species) Amendment Bill if I were not in my cooperative mood and choosing to take my entire 5 minutes—as will other members of National’s team today—in speaking on this bill. 
It is not very easy to speak on a bill that you believe is sensible but I am going to pose some questions that I hope the Minister for Transport Safety Harry Duynhoven will actually think about. The first thing that always worries me with legislation like this is its time frame. If in fact Osama bin Laden is sitting around in the cave tonight and it says on his Internet service that New Zealand has introduced the first reading of this bill is that likely to get Osama and the boys saying: “Right that means we have no more than 4 months for our next attack because once the third reading is through it will be law and we can’t do it.”? That is how silly this legislative sort of approach to things can be. This bill will not be law for at least 4 months—probably more although I am not sure—and that means we have signalled to the terrorist community that in the meantime they will not be searched like this and that there will not be air marshals on planes when they come from other countries. I wonder why when the big terrorism attack occurred in 2001 it is 2007 when we are introducing legislation like this. But it would be churlish and flippant to suggest that the Minister has probably sat on his hands for 6 years and done nothing. 
So what are we doing here? Well according to the explanatory note we are providing “aviation security officers with the power … to search for or seize items … prohibited or restricted from being taken on board an aircraft;”. That seems pretty sensible to me—why would anyone oppose that why would we not do that why have we not been doing that all along anyway? I thought security officers did have the power to search for and seize items prohibited or restricted from being taken on to an aircraft. Certainly I have experienced long long queues at airports when going out of here internationally with people having all sorts of things taken off them like snippy scissors. One lady the other day had some tweezers taken off her because one side had a sharp edge on it. 
The bill will “enable the screening and searching” of airport workers—and there I think is a real hole in security. I have worked at an airport. I worked out there once when there was a big strike on and management were actually called out to the airport for 2 weeks to load bags check out the aeroplanes fuel them and so on. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: The only time he earned his money. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yeah yeah—of course all the trade unionists will say “Scab worker!” and that was probably true. But that is how I earned— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: No no—for once you earned your money. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes for once I earned my money. I can remember walking in and out of the engineering shops where we were and then going down to the conveyor belt and actually going up into the belly of the aeroplane and not a single person stopped us from the moment we arrived at work till the time we drove out the driveway and back to town. Of course this idea that the only people who can get explosives on to a plane and blow it up are passengers is silly. It is the silliest person who would try to get explosives on to a plane because they would kill themselves. If terrorists were going to target a plane the best way would be to try to get the explosives on to the plane when it was in the engineering shop and being serviced. They could get the explosive in there and have it activated to go off at let us say an elevation level so that it triggered at 3000 feet or something. So that is another sensible move. 
Moana Mackey 
: The member is talking about this a lot. Talk about something else. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I thank the member for the interjections. It is helping me fill my 5 minutes of filibustering to keep the Government away— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Ten. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: —10 minutes; oh this is even better—from having an Order Paper collapse altogether. 
The next item is to “provide a power for aviation security officers to search passengers’ outer garments …” and to undertake pat-down searches. Maybe the Minister will help us with the definition of “outer garments”; how many layers of garments can people have before they can finally start saying: “Hang on—those are my middle-layer or under-layer garments.”? 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Maurice’s imagination is running riot. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: The Minister says there is a definition of outer garments? That is excellent. I will look forward to having a look at that and then see whether I always comply in terms of the stuff I wear. 
The bill will “provide a power for aviation security officers to seize potential weapons;”. Again I would have thought that that was just straight common sense; I thought we already had that. “Potential weapons” is interesting. What did the 2001 terrorists use in New York? They used what Americans call box cutters and I think we just call them—come on what do we call them—Stanley knives or something. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: No no. Stanley knives are much bigger. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Are they? So a box cutter is not even as big as a Stanley knife. 
Then we get into the whole debacle about what is really a potential weapon. Just about anything can be used. I do not know for sure but a story I was told was that the people on board the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania—the fourth plane that did not crash into buildings—used jugs with boiling water. Because the terrorists had taken weapons off people and had them all seated so they could not do anything people boiled some water in the galley and then threw the boiling water at the terrorists to disarm them. So where is the limit for what is a potentially dangerous weapon? Now a jug in a galley or a kitchen can be dangerous. Even a glass of boiling water—if people asked the hostess whether they could make their own tea and just asked for boiling water—could be a potential weapon on a plane and used to overpower someone and take the plane over. So setting definitions and boundaries as to what is potentially a dangerous weapon becomes very difficult. 
The next proposals are very interesting. They are to enable foreign inflight security officers to enter and depart New Zealand and to enable New Zealanders to deploy inflight security officers should the Government decide to do so. I think it will be a very long time before New Zealand has to invoke its own security officers on aeroplanes that are New Zealand domiciled such as Air New Zealand flights going out of here. But I accept that we are flying into some potentially dangerous zones and some airlines are coming out of them. The difficulty in New Zealand is that we do not have an American airline flying into New Zealand—because Air New Zealand to its great credit was able to see off all the competitors. I think we have seen off five major competitors in the past. United Airlines tried and could not do it Pan American World Airways tried and could not do it Continental Airlines tried and could not do it—there is one other. I ask members to help me with this. There were five. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: American Airlines. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: American Airlines was along the way. They all had a crack and could not do it. 
Hon Member 
: BA. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes and British Airways from the other side. We do fly to the United States. 
One of the things we always have to worry about in terms of the security issue is what will happen if airlines really toughen up. El Al has always been tough; the Israeli airline has made it impossible for terrorists to hit at it. What the terrorists can then do is shift their target to a softer touch. I am pleased that New Zealand is at least enabling this legislation which will allow air marshals. I would like to know from the Minister whether he thinks air marshals have come in and out of New Zealand already on some foreign carriers. There probably have been some. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: How would you know? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: A great question. How would we know? Air marshals could be on any flights coming in and out of the country and we would simply not know. I guess the whole point of having an air marshal on a plane is that we should not know. Passengers should not know. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: You have a big badge! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes a marshal would have a big badge on the front saying “I am the marshal.”! I do not think that would work because the terrorists would probably deal to that person first. 
This is sensible legislation. With any legislation one always wonders whether it will have the desired impact. We have not made ourselves a target. To New Zealand’s credit our behaviour on the world scene has been a reasonably exemplary performance and we have not attracted radical terrorists who say they are going to get us. In fact to be fair to Osama bin Laden in the cave tonight he is probably first asking the question: “Where is this New Zealand you are talking about?” rather than wanting to get his bombs and come down here before the passing of the legislation. 
Finally the legislation proposes to formalise the process “for checking the background of people who work in areas critical to aviation security”. That is probably where the biggest hit of this legislation will be. We need to do thorough and proper background and character checks on those people. That is a much better process. Good people will ensure that even if the systems do not pick up things people will still be safe. If good people are not employed even with the best checking then people will still be able to sneak stuff in hide stuff under their overalls or bring stuff in on the back of a tractor. If anyone has ever done a shift out at an airport at night they will have seen the machinery the loaders and the volumes of big containers moving on and off the runway. 
I am happy to say that not only will the National Party support this legislation but all our speakers will take the necessary time to keep the Government’s Order Paper looking OK.