Power Simon: Civil Aviation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Power Simon: Civil Aviation Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11358] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I will concentrate my contribution on this part on unruly passenger offences and leave the other parts to my colleagues Dr Wayne Mapp and Brian Connell to reflect their expertise in those particular areas if for no other reason. I shall concentrate on unruly passenger offences because the ACT MP Deborah Coddington finished her contribution by referring to passengers sort of banding together in some type of posse-like manner to destroy anybody on an aircraft— 
Stephen Franks 
: Smoking in the toilets. 
SIMON POWER 
: The member is quite right. We will have to give away all fun under this Government. That will be the next thing. The unruly passenger offences are worth having a look at because during the second reading I raised a couple of concerns I had about the way in which those clauses would be interpreted. I wonder whether the Minister would be kind enough as he has indicated to me that he would be to run through for me a couple of examples on how those particular sections would deal with those examples. 
We can see that every person commits an offence who fails to comply with any commands given to him or her directly by a pilot in command or indirectly by a pilot in command through a crew member. Are we now saying that a new rule of agency exists between a crew member purporting to carry out the instructions of a pilot in command or are we to believe that that particular individual—that is the crew member—is to identify to the passenger at the point that the instruction is given that he or she is acting on behalf of or indirectly by a pilot in command? In other words how is a passenger to know when he or she is told by a crew member to follow a certain command that that crew member is indeed acting with the authority of the pilot in command in giving that instruction? That is the first question I would like the Minister to address. 
Secondly I am very interested in the issue of any person committing an offence on an aircraft who behaves in a threatening offensive insulting or disorderly manner and uses threatening offensive or insulting words. I presume that the party who makes the initial decision as to whether that behaviour is threatening offensive insulting or disorderly or whether the words used by the individual are threatening or offensive is the pilot in command or in a more complicated fashion a crew member acting on behalf of the pilot in command. 
My second question for the Minister is who makes the decision as to whether the behaviour is insulting offensive or disorderly or whether the language is threatening offensive or insulting. Members can see where the difficulty lies. For example a passenger is trying to go to the toilet on the plane he or she is bumped by the cart it hits his or her knee and a word escapes from his or her mouth that otherwise would not in the normal course of events and under this legislation one presumes that that crew member could then say that he or she was acting under the authority of the pilot in command and would charge that individual for the use of threatening language. 
We need to be very clear about how those offences come about and clear about the means of carrying out the identification and prosecution of the offence. My colleague Wayne Mapp associate professor of international law is whispering in my ear that that will have to be tested in court. We would like to hear from the Minister how that process would work. 
The other thing I raised during the second reading that I am worried about is the event where a person may for example be intoxicated.