O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. As I begin I just want to acknowledge all those who have kindly turned out in the gallery from the National Party today to hear this speech. It's a bit of a surprise to me but I'm thrilled. Thank you very much everyone!Hon Member: The good and the great!SIMON O'CONNOR: The good and the great. No in all seriousness I will assure the House that in taking this call I will end at the right time to enable Dan Bidois to make his maiden speech and I am very much looking forward to that as we have welcoming him to the House.This is a good piece of legislation and I am very pleased to stand—as the Minister Meka Whaitiri already knows I acknowledge that the National Party will be supporting this bill in its first reading and all things accepted through the House. Look as the chair of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and also the National Party spokesperson for customs I'm very aware of the import—all puns intended—of this bill and the powers that customs need.Minister thank you for the work that you have taken here also acknowledging our former Ministers Tim Macindoe and Nicky Wagner—they have worked hard in this portfolio and you continue to do so.At the moment it's ambiguous whether or not the New Zealand Customs Service has authority and jurisdiction to intercept and interdict vessels in international waters. It's very clear that customs can board and seize vessels inside New Zealand's territorial waters arguably even into our exclusive economic zone but beyond that it is not clear. I think fundamentally what this bill is seeking to do is to stop any particular legal challenge that might come if New Zealand was to try and enforce what we believe to be our current laws around this. So this tidies things up. It makes things very specific that New Zealand will have the rights to board to search and where needed to hold ships that are bringing contraband into our country.Really importantly it once again aligns New Zealand with our international obligations. It's no surprise to anyone who sits on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that we have a numerous number of treaties. We've been looking at a number of them of late but these ones are particularly around the law of the sea—what's often known as UNCLOS the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. We have signed up to that and the long and the short of that is that New Zealand as a responsible international player seeks to ensure that drug trafficking is minimised in the world. So I suppose put in a different way it's not really simple for us to just await the drugs to arrive at our border and to try and interdict them there. We have a responsibility and rightly so to work with our international partners in international waters—and importantly too. In fact there are customs officials working in overseas countries who look right from the source of supply. And really importantly and I think most in the House would already know or understand this a lot of the drugs while they are coming out of Asia are actually coming from North America as well. Canada I believe is a relatively popular spot. So we are working with those countries as well.Look the scourge of drugs—and this is not going to be a long anti-drug element—is a major problem. But really importantly it's the precursors which are coming into New Zealand which are of particular concern at the moment. A couple of weeks ago I had the good pleasure of being able to take the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee members to visit the New Zealand Customs Service particularly in their Auckland base and it was good to talk to the officials and leading officers there about the work that they are undertaking. One of the most notable elements is around precursors which are being brought in for drug manufacture particularly for MDMA or what we would know as ecstasy—sorry I don't want to presume that members here would know what's that's about; I don't want them to perjure themselves in the House privileged or otherwise. But working on these precursors is relatively important and if I might I will acknowledge those officials who now have a successful prosecution for that diamanté horse's head—a major drug-smuggling there. So important work is ongoing. Customs though needs greater powers and I think from the National Party's side—the Opposition side—we are keen to support this. One thing we will be looking at very carefully is how these powers can be used. It probably goes without saying that we as a Parliament will not just want to give unfettered powers to the Customs Service regardless of the good work they do but unfettered powers for them to interdict ships in international waters is a substantial power that they will be given. We will look closely at the regulations in this bill. We'll also want to be very clear of how that is reported back both to the Parliament but also to the Minister to understand when it's used. I suppose the fundamental element when great powers are given is that we also expect quite a high level of responsibility as well in that regard. Importantly this bill doesn't sit alone. It is working on a range of legislation that has been passed of late and particularly by the former National Government. We had worked quite hard as a Government to increase the powers and influence of customs to make sure they protect the borders. I should probably add within that—and quite importantly—something which came through when the select committee was visiting the Auckland Airport side of things which is that our customs is not simply working on stopping drugs coming into the country. You're also looking at elements such as objectionable materials and I suspect too when it comes to some of the international waters elements it could be around people-trafficking as well. So I suppose the encouragement remains that we support the Customs Service in their work. They are keeping us safe through their efforts and when they come to us—in this case in a request for a change of legislation to help their work—we say yes but we do it with caution as I've been saying. Bills like this provide enormous power to a Government agency so in the select committee we'll be very interested to hear from obviously customs themselves to understand exactly what they're after but I for one and certainly as the chair of the committee will be very interested to see what safeguards are in place to ensure that those powers are carefully used. In particular it'll be interesting Minister as to how they'll report back either to the Minister or to the Parliament around how those are used. So fundamentally we have a good bill here. As I say it's something which needs clearing up. There's been too much ambiguity to date and I for one don't want to see the Customs Service exercising their current powers and then finding that challenged in the court and some drug-smuggler is let off on a technicality. I think it's also fundamentally important that we respect the United Nations. If we're going to sign up to these treaties then we need to make sure that we put them into our domestic law as quickly as possible. But look as a politician and certainly as a National Party member I do believe in trying to keep my word. I think I say to the whips I have managed to maintain—in fact the clocks are broken—about the eight or nine minutes required but I also promised that we wouldn't keep talking. We wouldn't keep talking to—even despite what the Speaker might be indicating to me I won't keep chewing into Dan's—[Interruption] They want me to keep going for two—[Interruption] Oh good Lord! Oh all right. All right. Well this is a good insight for people watching at home into how this Parliament works. Returning to the bill in this last one minute and 40 seconds look UNCLOS—there's always a problem with using acronyms. Look it's the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Now I'm sure that has just brought an amazing insight into a number of people in this House but the other one we haven't talked about is another—Hon Gerry Brownlee: How many members? SIMON O'CONNOR: Well actually there's not enough members at UNCLOS but the other one is the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. Obviously narcotics are well understood to us—not I'm sure by practical experiences—but the psychotropic side of things is more those which are going to have an effect on your mental state. So the likes of ice—or meth as we know it—falls into that. The upcoming scourge that's coming—not fortunately to New Zealand at the moment but it's harassing America—is the use of fentanyl. That would strike itself more as a narcotic but that's our response to the United Nations Convention Against the Illegal Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. So again I suppose the fundamental element is that this bill in the name of Minister Whaitiri is an opportunity for us to align ourselves appropriately to our UN resolutions and to make sure—SPEAKER: Order! SIMON O'CONNOR: —that this speech concludes in good order and time. SPEAKER: Thank you. The member will have a few seconds next time the bill comes up.Debate interrupted.