SpeechHIGH-POWER LASER POINTER OFFENCES AND PENALTIES BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 11 March.Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you Madam Speaker. First of all I'd just like to say to the member whose bill this is—the High-power Laser Pointer Offences and Penalties Bill—well done. I think Hamish Walker you might have had more than one bill released from the ballot so well done on that—that's probably the extent of the praise I'll give on this piece of legislation. But on members' day it's always good to acknowledge the work that's gone into a bill that has been pulled from the ballot. Not everybody gets a bill pulled from the ballot and some members in fact can be in the House for—Hon Meka Whaitiri: Years. Hon CLARE CURRAN: —years and not have a bill pulled from the ballot; in fact I think the Prime Minister might be one of those people actually. It is the luck of the draw so well done on that. I actually also want to start off my short contribution by acknowledging Darroch Ball from New Zealand First and his speech on this piece of legislation when it was last being discussed—otherwise known as Daniel Bell". I think the member Hamish Walker might have referred to him as "Daniel Bell" so I wanted to make sure that was in the Hansard again. Darroch Ball said that this bill doesn't address the right part of this issue and the bill demonstrates that the work hasn't been done on this particular issue. I want to get serious now because it is actually a really important issue and that is the use of lasers to create major distractions and potentially life-threatening and catastrophic effects and incidents of misuse which have been increasing exponentially since 2014. But when I say that the work hasn't been done I'm deadly serious. Since there was a bill introduced and passed in this House in 2014 which provided for penalties—and that was under the member's Government; the then National Government—the introduction of penalties for the misuse of high-powered laser pointers has failed to have any effect. Those instances have escalated dramatically and those penalties have not been applied at all I think in 2018-19 despite a record number of incidents. When I say that the work hasn't been done and that it's addressing the wrong part of the issue—which is reflecting what Darroch Ball said—that's the point. What this bill does which is double the maximum penalties for the possession and misuse of the high-powered lasers to six months' imprisonment or a fine of $4000 and it extends the offence to be in possession in a public place to being in any possession of a high-powered laser pointer without reasonable excuse—and I note that there's no definition of "reasonable"—is that unfortunately it is just putting forward a piece of legislation that just expands on the penalties and it doesn't address the enforcement the education and the monitoring of how these lasers are actually entering the country or address how they're getting into the possession of people. That is actually where the focus needs to be and that's the reason for the opposition to the bill. I think that's probably the key factor. I just wanted to make the point that I'm not just looking at New Zealand but I'm using the UK as an example for instance where the Civil Aviation Authority in 2018 I think reported more than 1200 incidents in which lasers were aimed at aircraft making their approach to British airports. We know that this is a really serious issue but one of the things that the UK Government did was to realise that these couldn't be purchased in the UK. They were being brought in from overseas so what are they doing? They're putting additional support into local authority port teams and border officials to identify and confiscate them and to tackle the sale of unsafe pointers including more stringent testing. I guess that that's the main point that I would be making tonight. It's that that's where the focus needs to be rather than just on a simplistic raising of the penalties."