Hughes Darren: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Darren: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12020. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 I have decided to vote in favour of the second reading of this bill. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: You had to be woken up to do it. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Not at all I say to Mr Mallard. In fact I have been very impressed by the way the Government has deployed its most charismatic Ministers to the shepherding of this legislation through the House this afternoon. I realised that they are taking it very seriously. When even an old warhorse like Allan Peachey can find it within himself to muster a bit of praise for a political opponent we know that maybe this is something that we can come together on. Maybe we can unite this lovely land around the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. So it has been quite an afternoon already. 
The Hon Kate Wilkinson has set out her very clear views on this area. I noticed she touched on some of those issues in her maiden speech so it must be quite a thing to come here today and speak more in favour of it. There are only two issues that I want to touch on in the second reading of the bill but before I do I will pick up on a reference that was made in the first reading by the member for Tamaki Mr Allan Peachey. 
Mr Peachey spent a lot of his contribution saying that if the bill results in fewer lawyers being involved then he was in favour of it. That was the central premise of his contribution to the debate. I thought it was very unusual for the member of Parliament for Tamaki in Auckland to be campaigning so openly against lawyers given what a high proportion of the legal profession reside in his constituency. 
Allan Peachey 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I explain to the member that three of my four children are lawyers. The message was for them. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Mr Peachey that is interesting. I am sure there are other family details you would like to share with us but this is not the place and that was not a point of order. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I am absolutely aware of the fact and I know what those three children say about him! He wants to criticise them on the floor of the House but they have a good old go about him as well. I am sure they will charge him extra when it comes to matters such as his last will and testament which none of his colleagues would be in I suspect going on the terrible way he was been treated. After the 2005 election they all would have got something from the Peachey estate; now I suspect none of them will. He would have asked all three children for different iterations of that particular legal document. 
Mr Peachey said he forgets some things and I will not criticise him for that because that can happen. When he criticised the Opposition for not supporting Government tax reductions I was immediately reminded that as a new member of Parliament he voted against a cut in the corporate tax rate in this country. When the Labour Government reduced it from 33c to 30c he voted against it. He voted against the cut in taxes for savers. He voted against a cut in taxes for working families in our country. So I can understand his difficulty when he spoke in the first reading of this bill and raised those points and I wanted the opportunity to rebut that. The great benefit of  
Hansard 
 is that those things can be checked very very quickly. Despite that in this bipartisan way we do want to focus on that for too long. 
I come to the two points that I wanted to speak about in respect of the convention. The first is that the premise for this bill is quite simple as other speakers have said. This is a high-risk industry. If we can reduce the risk then that should reduce the costs—particularly the financing costs—across the industry as a whole. Those costs are often enhanced even further because so many different local laws operate and they do not protect lenders in a way that is consistent and that multiplies the risk factor and results in higher prices. We are in absolute support of the premise and we are very grateful to those who have negotiated on behalf of New Zealand in order for us to accede to this convention. 
The second point I want to make at the second reading is about the changes to the civil aviation law. Although we are all transfixed by the Cape Town Convention at the moment— 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Absolutely transfixed! 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I see that even the former Auckland polytech law lecturer Dr Mapp is transfixed on this point. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No he was an assistant lecturer. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: An assistant lecturer? I thought he was a full lecturer in his own right. He was an assistant lecturer and there is no shame in that I say to Mr Mallard. I want to be accurate for the sake of the  
Hansard  
in that respect. 
This may have been one of his areas of expertise. I recall once visiting Ohakea air base and Dr Mapp arrived by aeroplane which was quite good. In fact I think he flew himself down to Ohakea on that occasion. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that the member is having a little bit of fun in this instance but I think he should at least try to make some reference to the facts. I was an associate professor at the University of Auckland. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Well Mr Mapp that was not a point of order. But as member has made the point to Mr Hughes I am sure Mr Hughes will feel very grateful that his knowledge on these matters has now been improved. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I am sure that the member will be rushing off now to correct his Wikipedia entry because I suspect that we are not all as familiar with his CV as he might have assumed. 
I was in the middle of referring to the fact that he flew himself into an air base I was visiting on one occasion. I know he is a very distinguished pilot. When he is buying his next Learjet he can use the Cape Town Convention. He was in Opposition in those days. That was before he became a Minister of the Crown and took to rushing to the scenes of accidents flourishing his business card around and making sure that all the emergency workers knew he had just driven by. Quite how he copes when he flies over accidents I am not too sure. Maybe the copilot has to bungy out with Wayne Mapp’s business card and say: “Did you know that the Minister of Defence just flew by?” because no one else would know. 
I do not want to be distracted in any way from the important changes to the Civil Aviation Act 1990 that this bill takes into account. I see that we have been focusing on the convention but the bill addresses other matters and we should make reference to them in the second reading. There is a fair amount of legalese I guess we would call it with regard to the civil aviation rule-making in our current law. 
In the Committee of the whole House we will consider the clauses that seek to rectify the language to make sure that the rules are expressed in a way that is slightly easier to follow and we will consider the clauses that set out which persons are able to determine particularly those ordinary rules. The legislation sets out what the Minister must take into account when that is happening and also what consultation requirements need to be followed. I think that is quite a good thing to do as well. The less complex that laws like this can be the better I think it is for obviously the industry players—those who have a very detailed technical knowledge—but also for those who have only a passing interest. From the average member of the public’s point of view having legislation that is easier to understand gives more confidence in our civil aviation system. 
So the first reading is down the second reading is still going and Labour members are still in support of the bill. We are walking in lock step with the National Government on this particular item and we look forward to asking the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce some questions in the Committee of the whole House. We will expect those questions to be answered. 
I serve notice of that to the Hon Kate Wilkinson now too. I know that she has been reading through the bill quite a lot so she will have the opportunity to answer our questions then. I am sure that when the third reading comes and people look to see what is happening in the House she will know that if she wants those 43 Labour votes there is a lot riding on her ability to answer these questions during the Committee of the whole House. Thank you.