Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you sir. I'd like to start by acknowledging the citizen-ship" pun by my colleague Jamie Strange thereby proving he is not an empty vessel. In relation to the Maritime Powers Extension Bill the first thing that I might note is that it is indeed an extension of the existing maritime powers and previous speakers—the Minister himself and other colleagues—have noted the ways in which those powers have been extended. A couple of ways broadly speaking—the first is out there in the field or on the water whereby the powers are increased to intercept or interdict ships that are or might be carrying out such operations and second to deal with such instances appropriately on New Zealand shores.I'll return to that if time allows. But I'll note briefly in passing as others have already done that while it is a Government bill it's also supported on this side of the House. So again I acknowledge the work of Ministers various who have been involved to date and also those others in Government who are concerned with agencies that do the necessary work to carry this out. Others have already mentioned the fact that others other than customs itself are involved in the work that is needed. Minister Faafoi also did make mention of the fact that interoperability also exists on the international plane such that we are by definition and by the nature of the bill anticipating working closely with other countries and their respective customs and navies and so forth to be able to meet its aims.The commentary of the bill as reported back from the House refers to amendments that have been marked up of course in that version of the bill and I'll touch on those again briefly if time allows. To provide context to that it's necessary to understand that this is a legislative instrument that gives effect to an international instrument such that New Zealand has already signed up to a couple of international treaties—if you'll excuse the tautology at this time of the parliamentary week—that we live in a global world and therefore must abide by. I don't intend to go on any further on the subjects of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the illicit traffic in narcotics drugs and psychotropic substances—to the relief of all I'm sure.Talking about the mechanics of how the bill actually operates I mentioned earlier the fact that it is an extension of powers. The powers already do exist to some extent but do need to be broadened such that at sea our people operating in those waters are able to be able to interdict ships that are in a particular environment beyond the exclusive economic zone of New Zealand. That is defined in the bill but referring to the definition in another Act already so that much is straightforward. I think it's worth noting in particular that "high seas" is defined to mean all parts of the sea not included in the following: "(a) the internal waters territorial sea or exclusive economic zone of New Zealand or another State;"—which is an important point in itself—"or (b) the archipelagic waters of an archipelagic State". One might think of for example a near neighbour of Indonesia.I was grappling with understanding how all the different zones and statuses of various ships might affect how this law will be intended to operate and I would like to take this particular opportunity to acknowledge the work of the officials in advising me and telling members of the committee and understanding exactly how that all fits together.Because I am a bear of little brain I felt it necessary to make a diagram that set out how it all operates. The particular forum that we have now does not allow for me to show that but I'll step through as clearly as I can if I may how I see and now understand the different statuses of vessels work.The first thing to note is that this law applies to ships and they in turn can be broken down into three categories: those which are registered to New Zealand—so far so good and pretty straightforward. The next category is foreign ships and then third are what we might call Stateless vessels which are as the name suggests not registered or associated with either New Zealand or any other nation. Returning to the category of foreign ships that in turn can be broken down into registered and unregistered vessels and that distinction is a key one in understanding how the bill will operate once it passes into law as seems inevitable particularly in relation to the definition of what a flag State and registered or unregistered ship might be.Having established I think reasonably clearly how the bill will operate—by colleagues before me I should say as well as those brief remarks that I've added. I think and I hope to fill a bit of a gap there. I will note as a couple of others have done that there were a few submissions as is normal. I'd like to acknowledge those who took the time and trouble to make submissions. The report that I have in front of me reminds me that two out of the three submissions were in support so the Meatloaf threshold has been met—"Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" of course. One of those that was in support made the point that funding will be required to ensure that customs and the New Zealand Defence Force have the resources to exercise these powers effectively. I don't doubt that that's the case—whether that's already the case I presume and expect that would be the situation but no doubt the Government would be able to continue to ensure that is the case so that the important work that's already being done and the further work that will now be able to be done will indeed be easily carried out.The one submitter—the 33 percent of the submissions that was opposed to the bill—was merely making the point that customs should in this person's view focus more on the more dangerous as this person saw them drugs. There was a concern that the result of this bill would be to focus on "low-risk" drugs. It's not a view that I necessarily share myself but for the sake of completeness in this the second reading I think it fair to all concerned to report back some of the feedback that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee had received in considering the bill.Perhaps it's worth in my final couple of minutes just taking a moment to acknowledge the context of needing such legislation which is summarised for us well by the Customs Service as really mentioning the fact that illicit drugs—and they mention methamphetamine particularly by way of example—do cause substantial harms to individual New Zealanders their family and whānau and the wider community. They point that out really to then go on and say that it's critical to ensure that the law enforcement agencies that we expect and indeed require to take care of such problems on our behalf actually have the full suite of options so that they're not only equipped in the physical hardware sense of the phrase but also equipped in the legal sense of the word to be able to deal with these things on our behalf. So it is that we want them to not only have the ability to physically apprehend but also the legal powers to be able to do so lawfully. Then once such vessels and their masters and so forth are brought back to New Zealand they can face justice in New Zealand courts as we would expect to be the natural consequence of such activity or alleged activity. Customs also noted in providing some background for us the risk of organised criminal groups evading border controls. My colleague Simon O'Connor has already given some helpful advice to those who might be contemplating doing so at least for the next few days with the bill due to pass into law we expect and hope and come into force as early as 1 October. I will just note that while normally a short turn-around between the passage of legislation and its effect is somewhat to be frowned upon if it means that people need time to arrange their affairs in order to be able to comply with it we're talking about the enforcement of that which is already illegal and I don't feel as though we should necessarily give criminals any more occasion to arrange their affairs to evade capture from law enforcement agencies. So with that I wish all those involved all the best in its passage through the House."