Allan KiritapuKIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It's a delight to rise as the final speaker on behalf of the Government to speak in support of the Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Controls Bill in its third reading. Before I commence my remarks proper I want to acknowledge—Ka huri au ki tō tātou reo rangatira o tēnei whenua. E tika ana kia mihi atu ki a koutou ngā iwi o Te Pirirākau i waenganui i te Whare nei. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou. [Allow me to use our revered language of this country. It is only proper that I welcome you the Pirirākau people into this House. Warm greetings to you all.] I just want to acknowledge those people that have travelled from far and wide from Tauranga Moana and came to this House this morning. Oddly it could be said in some ways it's related to the substance of this bill. Right now this bill—that we are all in full support of as a House—is about the controls in an international environment. It's the regulation and the controls that relate to weapons and arms in an international environment. I reflect that at the commencement of today we had a significant wero or a challenge laid down by the peoples of Tauranga Moana to us and I reflected just the other day that it wasn't so long ago in a less than global world as it was back then that many of the origins within our own country were predicated on war and so it was interesting to have that reminder as a commencement to my day today. So I acknowledge the people of Tauranga Moana that are with us.Too I want to acknowledge my poor friends here to my left who are getting a bit of a hammering—our dear friends in our coalition New Zealand First. But I want to acknowledge the work of the Rt Hon Winston Peters and his leadership in terms of bringing this bill into the House to complete its cycle. It was started under the previous Government—the Hon Gerry Brownlee. Whilst my friends to my right miss him on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee I can say I'm absolutely delighted to have gained him on the Regulations Review Committee. He's been a very welcome addition to our team; I'm sorry that he has been a loss to yours.But look the work was started—sometimes in this role it's actually nice to not have to bicker and go toe to toe with the Opposition and this is one of those occasions that we can do so. In bringing this legislation into the House we join alongside our other Five Eyes parties: the United States the UK now us and Australia already have—in terms of introducing domestic legislation that seeks to regulate the way in which arms are transferred across the world. It's been well picked up but I think it is interesting to reflect on the fact that there are some particular nuances in this bill that do indeed set it aside. My colleague the Hon David Parker when he made his remarks in respect to this bill picked up on the fact that it's not very often that we introduce legislation that seeks to follow New Zealand citizens where they go around the world and this bill does in fact do that. It regulates the way in which a New Zealand citizen can conduct themselves whether they are within our territory or in external territories. My colleague from the Green Party Miss Ghahraman earlier mentioned that it was only in recent times about 2014 or so that little old New Zealand which isn't a big player one would think in terms of international weapons trade and so forth found ourselves—a little company registered up there in Queen Street in Auckland found itself being implicated in an arms trading operation and it was only a few years ago.So albeit we're probably a little player when it comes to these matters at an international level in comparison to some other countries we nevertheless do have and have had a role that I think has in some ways been a bit of a blemish on our international name so this bill here pulls us in line. It gives effect to the agreements that we made when we signed the Arms Trade Treaty. It pulls us in line with other contemporary nations internationally and I guess gives it effect domestically. Whilst it wasn't actually needed—we didn't need to introduce legislation to give effect to the Arms Trade Treaty; we have indeed ratified it—this does enable our Government to exercise separate and distinct measures and regulations when it comes to weapons being brokered. Like my colleagues across the aisle I don't need to lament and talk about all the nuances because I think that has been by and large said across the House. This is one of the rare occasions—but I do hope that there are more—when we can find agreement from both sides of the aisle in respect of matters that are of fundamental importance to New Zealand and our international brand and the way that we conduct our affairs on the world stage. So with that it's a delight to commend this bill to the House. Bill read a third time.