Tirikatene RinoRINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker; e tū tautoko ana ahau i tēnei pire Te Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill. [Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker; I rise in support of this bill the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill.]It is a pleasure to speak in the first reading of this bill. We in the Labour Party are speaking in support of this bill. This is one of those bills that I guess is on subject matter that the House hoped would never eventuate or come into reality. This is about anti-terrorism or combating terrorism particularly on the sea and on platforms—which I would assume would be things like oil rigs and the like. We are doing our bit as good global citizens to support this legislation which is all about New Zealand ratifying its obligations as a signatory to the conventions and then the protocols to the conventions that form the basis of this bill—it has been well traversed by previous speakers.I do endorse this bill but I do hope that certain definitions contained within this bill do not really seep out into the lexicon of the general public. There are some really quite scary terms within this bill if we look at these new definitions that I understand are contained within the protocols—terms like a BCN weapon" which means a biological weapon a chemical weapon or a nuclear weapon. We do not really want to be hearing those sorts of terms freely spoken out there but that is the reality of what this bill seeks to address. Goodness knows in this day and age we are seeing daily almost acts of terrorism happening around the globe so we do need to be vigilant as a country and the enactment of this legislation does just that.I would like to just highlight one specific clause and that is new section 3A which will be inserted into the Maritime Crimes Act which says that "This Act does not apply to any act that occurs in a situation of armed conflict …". So if armed conflict were to break out basically we can just park this up and none of it will apply. I think that is the danger that we are facing daily as we look around the world and see what is happening out there. In the South China Sea we are seeing the deployment of naval fleets that are being moved all around the world. If we look over to the Mediterranean Sea: massive aircraft carriers from the US from European countries from Russia—and from all over the world. There is a lot of tension I guess out there in the maritime space. There are a lot of naval exercises taking place. So thank goodness that everything is calm and people are acting with restraint out there at the moment but certainly we do not want any conflict to arise. If it did this piece of legislation would not really apply at all. Goodness knows how those pieces of hardware will deal with terrorists on the high seas. But this does implement our international obligations.I actually think that the bill does not really go far enough because we are dealing with—in this legislation—a very high bar of terrorist activity. We are talking about biological weapons nuclear weapons and all of the related components that might make up those weapons of mass destruction. I actually think that the legislation should be applied to all forms of weapons that are involved in terrorism around the world. If we do look at what is going in the Middle East in Syria and in the conflict zones around the world—to be honest I do get confused with all of the different parties and moderates and terrorists and goodness knows all the other parties involved—at the end of the day they require supply lines. They require supply lines to meet demand to actually get involved in their war-terrorist activities. So I believe this bill could go further and actually focus not just on those extreme weapons but also on all forms of weapons that are used in terrorist activities. But apart from those few remarks I do support this bill and I commend it at this first reading."