Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): This bill is supported by the National Party. As the previous speaker Ingrid Leary said the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee was pretty much in unison when it came to the questions that were raised by the bill but also in accepting and promoting the intent of it.The committee of course very ably chaired by the Hon Jenny Salesa a member who has quite clearly got an interest in New Zealand's maritime jurisdiction because of her heritage and commitment to the Pacific. But it is a committee that generally tries to work as cooperatively as possible. Look the idea that New Zealand should have a law that enables us to extend our laws extra-territorially into the Pacific is something that on hindsight and in consideration of the process we've been through seems so very obvious. The previous two speakers and the Minister herself have mentioned a number of things that were of concern to us and I don't necessarily want to go through all of those again. We had an exhaustive committee stage for the bill here in the House over the past couple of weeks and the Minister answered certainly all the questions that I had asked. And while there'll be a couple of things we might disagree on the general principles of the bill are very sound.The bit that we are most concerned about and I'll state it again is the extension of arrest powers to rangers Department of Conversation (DOC) officers and various other people who are not necessarily sworn law enforcement officers in New Zealand. Now it was pointed out that there are—within the Acts that those various rangers and DOC officers will be familiar with there is New Zealand law that could well be being breached on the territorial sea the extra-territorial sea the open sea. And it's therefore important to have someone there who is able to exercise a degree of knowledge I guess of the crime that's being committed. It is worth noting that those authorities stop the moment the person gets back on to the terra firma here in New Zealand and then it is taken over by police quite obviously.The other bit that was a little bit confusing for a start was the idea that if our enforcement agencies were in pursuit of perhaps a vessel that was engaged in any range of activity that would be a breach of New Zealand law before it could be boarded or stopped then the permission of the flagged State or the State whose flag was being flown on that ship would need to be granted. I think the answer to that is that it indicates simply the extent to which there is international cooperation to ensure that there is a high degree of sound policing directed at illegal activities on the sea. Some of that would be straight piracy drug movements people movements endangered species movements. When I said piracy I mean also all range of illicit goods that could be involved in that sort of activity as well as of course the drug trade.So the select committee did look at every aspect that looked to be a little bit different around this bill and came to the conclusion that it was good legislation for New Zealand to have. It lines up with other countries it enables that international cooperation and for New Zealand to do its bit on what is one of the biggest territorial seas—and therefore surrounded by extra-territorial sea—of any country in the world. As I said at the start we support this bill.