Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Economic Development): I rise to speak in favour of this bill progressing at the second stage. Can I thank the members of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee who have provided the report to the House. The Deputy Prime Minister the Rt Hon Winston Peters has well described the effect of this proposed regulatory regime for the brokering of weapons and military equipment by New Zealanders. It's unusual for legislation to regulate offshore activity and this is one of those rare instances where New Zealand seeks to regulate the behaviour of New Zealanders when they're out of the country rather than having those New Zealanders just being effectively subject to the legislative code of overseas countries. This bill applies to New Zealanders when they're at home and when they or their entities are operating offshore and it requires New Zealand citizens New Zealand ordinary residents and New Zealand entities wishing to engage in brokering to register with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade and obtain a permit for their brokering activity. As other speakers have probably already said the secretary can only grant permits if he or she is satisfied that the activity is consistent with New Zealand's international obligations and additionally it doesn't prejudice the security defence or international relations of New Zealand. It's a piece of legislation that is necessary to bring us into line with the multilateral trade agreement the Arms Trade Treaty—which New Zealand ratified in 2014—to regulate the international trade in conventional arms. As the select committee report notes this flows from that international agreement. This is one of those many pieces of legislation which enjoy broad support in the House. It's seen by me as being almost—well I was going to call it a housekeeping bill but it's not really. It goes further than seeing to a tidy-up of existing legislation but takes the New Zealand regulatory regime further and imposes obligations on those who want to broker weapons in either New Zealand or overseas jurisdictions. A weapon or related item" is a good that's specified in a "strategic goods list" which is defined in the bill as being on a list which is provided for under the Customs and Excise Act and "brokering activity" is defined as people would ordinarily understand it to be. It's effectively being an intermediary for the arrangement facilitation or negotiation of a transaction that involves the international transfer of weapons or related items—as I've already described—from a place outside New Zealand to another place outside New Zealand. This is a sensible piece of legislation. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee were provided with advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They're a very capable ministry and very careful in the advice they proffer to the select committee. There is a change recommended by the select committee in respect of offences committed outside New Zealand. There's a deletion proposed to clause 33(1)(a)(iii) of the bill "so that the bill will not apply to a person who has been found in New Zealand and has not been extradited." The select committee say that they didn't think that this provision was fit for purpose within the context of the bill because "It would have treated an offence as one attracting universal jurisdiction." whereas "The offence in clause 10 relates to carrying out brokering activity without the requisite registration or permit in New Zealand rather than prohibiting engaging in brokering activity per se." So it notes that the committee understands that "foreign nationals with no physical presence in or link to New Zealand would not be registered under New Zealand's brokering regime." Therefore they recommend deletion of clause 33(1)(a)(iii) of the bill. There's a record-keeping obligation that's imposed. Obviously in order to police these things you have to require those people who are involved in this activity to keep records and the committee recommends extending the obligation to keep records from five years to seven years which seems a sensible recommendation. That said I will just simply recount that the application of this legislation in practice will be through the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The secretary will probably delegate that function to others within the organisation at times. The bill has been around for a little while. It was introduced on 27 June 2017. The committee reported back to the House on 29 March and has recommended unanimously with the support of all parties in Parliament who sit on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee which includes members from the Greens as well as the Labour Party New Zealand First and National. Accordingly I've got great confidence that this legislation that's proposed for second reading should be passed. Hon Scott Simpson: Only three minutes to go. Hon DAVID PARKER: No I don't feel the need to waste the time of the House filibustering in the way that the National Party used to do so I'll sit down now."