Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I think this is the first opportunity that I've had to congratulate you on your election as Deputy Speaker in this House. I look forward to working with you and I hope you're enjoying your new role.As a member of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee I didn't have a chance to be part of the process that has brought this piece of legislation to this House at this the third reading. The Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill was a piece of legislation that was overseen by the last committee. I would like to acknowledge Mark Mitchell who was the chairperson at that time and he remains a member of the committee. This bill was referred on 15 July 2016. It had 151 submissions and the committee heard from 23 submitters. This is also the Rt Hon Winston Peters' first bill in this Parliament so I'd like to acknowledge him.I found it quite interesting just reading the history of this piece of legislation. Essentially it's two of 16 international conventions related to terrorism and counter-terrorism. When I look at the history of the agenda around terrorism and counter-terrorism it actually goes back to 1934. These are parts of the 2006 UN global counter-terrorism strategy. So that's the context of this piece of legislation.We have a protocol that was updated in 2005 to the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. I'll just focus on that for a bit. I wanted to really understand the whole context of this law and so I looked at maritime law and it was very much about trade. It was about the governing of the relationships between private entities that operate vessels on the oceans. So initially it was really about commerce and it was quite interesting looking at particularly some of the US politicians who were I think they called them admiralty lawyers. They were involved in this sector because that was the industry that they came from. So it was about navigating. It was about salvaging. It was about shipping sailors but mostly it was about transportation of passengers and goods by sea.This whole area was initially founded on the International Maritime Committee which was founded in 1897. They had responsibility for the drafting of numerous international conventions including the Hague Rules. Then in 1958 that kind of morphed into the UN International Maritime Organization and their primary function was to prepare conventions such as the ones that we are debating tonight.They call it the Suppression of Unlawful Acts (SUA) Convention and my colleague Aupito William Sio isn't in the House but we're used to calling him Su'a and then we had to call him Aupito so for me this is the Su'a bill" and I hope he appreciates that. It's quite a term of endearment. The SUA Convention—so you have the protocol and then the convention and it was adopted in Rome on 10 March 1988. Then the protocol which is what we are in fact passing in the House tonight—the enactment of this bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the 2005 protocol. That protocol—it's full title is the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation.Now what does this all mean? Well what it actually means is the fact that ships will be designated a weapon of terrorism and it also criminalises the use of ships that transfer or discharge biological chemical or nuclear weapons. The other substances that are noted are discharges that have got oil in them liquefied gas radioactive material hazardous or noxious substances that can lead to death serious injury or damage.Then the second convention that we're looking at is the Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf. Now these ones I had to look up. These are about the prohibition and punishing of behaviour that threatens the safety of for example offshore fixed platforms including oil platforms. It's the same thing. It criminalises the use of fixed platforms to discharge those things that I've read out: biological chemical or nuclear weapons oil liquefied gas radioactive materials etc.What I found really interesting in the process of this bill going through the House is some of the amendments that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee made and I'd like to focus on two in particular. One is around protest activity. I think it's quite significant to focus on protest activity because the select committee I think did a great job in differentiating between Greenpeace for example who have a ship and they end up in situations where possibly there is a discharge of oil liquefied gas etc. etc. But what they said was that this bill is not intended to criminalise peaceful protest. I think that's really significant actually because there could have been an ability—if Greenpeace for example ended up engaging in a situation where for whatever reason oil was discharged they could have possibly been caught under the ambit of this legislation. So to avoid doubt the select committee through their deliberations were really clear that a peaceful act of protest or industrial action would not be by itself a sufficient basis for criminal liability under the Act.There's a relationship between protest activity which is contained in the select committee report and clarification of requirement for intent. So the select committee was also really clear that they didn't want to make an offence where as I've just outlined there may be a ship on a protest that—just say it collided with another ship and somebody was seriously injured or it caused damage. What they were saying was it had to be the intent of the action. Obviously when people are protesting in certain circumstances they're not doing it to crash or to cause damage. What they're actually doing is highlighting a particular political issue or a point.So from my perspective and that of the select committee it was really important for us to protect the integrity of those who use protest as a political discourse. For the select committee to actually distil from those submissions that particular point I think we should be really proud about because our democracy functions when people have the ability to have their say and the people who end up on vessels such as Greenpeace and go out into the middle of the ocean I've got to say I've got a lot of admiration for them because they are people who believe in what they're doing and they're incredibly passionate.So I think that this piece of legislation although the Opposition are kind of you know—I think there's huge merit in it and for us to prioritise it shouldn't be something that we dispel or criticise because this needs to happen. In doing this we will become I think the 41st country in the world to actually ratify these 2005 protocols and that's quite significant because let's remember what the context of this piece of legislation is. It is to ensure the international conventions related to terrorism and counter-terrorism which New Zealand now has ratified that are part of our global agenda. So that means we join—I haven't actually looked who the other 40 countries are. Maybe somebody else could look at that in a future call but it means we're one of the leaders I believe in the world across all the other nations in doing everything that we can in the protection and promotion of peace. Fundamentally conventions like this are actually about peace.So it's been my pleasure to speak in this the third reading of this piece of legislation and I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora."