Prosser Richard: Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19377. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First):It is always a pleasure to follow the erudite and enlightening Mr Simon O’Connor. I am very pleased to rise to take a final call on the third reading of the good Dr Calder’s most excellent member’s bill the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill. We are proud to support it and pleased to have the opportunity to support it. This is a fine bill and we in New Zealand First believe that it will make a quite splendid law.This is a short simple bill but it will have quite far-reaching effects. By removing powerful hand-held laser pointers from the hands of people who have no legitimate purpose for possessing them Dr Calder’s bill—his swansong his legacy for this august institution—will make New Zealand a safer place. Of this there is no question. As we debate even as we plan their demise here in this House of the people there are ne’er-do-wells out there who look to the skies with lasers in hand and malice aforethought. Dr Calder’s bill will make flying in New Zealand a safer undertaking. Removing powerful lasers from persons of nefarious intent will materially lessen the risk and incidence of such devices being used to interfere with airliners on approach to our airports with other aircraft and with police and rescue helicopters. Indeed it will make driving on our roads safer as well.We are fortunate here in New Zealand that we have not as yet suffered greatly in the way that some nations have as a result of the same kinds of idiots who think it funny to blind pilots by using their dangerous toys to dazzle and to distract drivers on the motorway. This has happened in other parts of the world and it would have been only a matter of time before this country came to suffer similarly. Fortuitously Dr Calder’s bill has come before this House and through its processes just in the nick of time.Via this new mechanism we the people can negate the potential for harm posed by such persons and their illicit use of these devices. We can remove the said devices from the possession of the aforementioned scoundrels and bang said scoundrels up at Her Majesty’s pleasure for a short sharp 3 months. May it be an unpleasant and uncomfortable 3 months for anyone so convicted.Tonight we have been treated to Dr Calder’s valedictory speech as he prepares to depart these halls for whatever adventure life has in store for him next and a fine speech it was too I might say—as fine a speech as this bill is a fine bill. Standing ramrod straight and fixing us with a gaze every bit as steely and direct as any laser beam Dr Calder has bid us farewell and left us with this his legacy. Well done I say Dr Calder. Well done and thank you—fair winds and flat seas.We have come to the end of this process of lawmaking. At the conclusion of this debate we shall vote this bill on to the statutes and into law. It will be a fine law. It is a necessary law and as I have said a law that has found us just in the nick of time. I do not intend to delay the passage of it unnecessarily. Over the course of this bill’s passing through the House we have learnt about the need for such a piece of legislation we have examined the science of lasers we have heard harrowing tales from overseas and from the skies above us and we have learnt about legitimate uses for lasers as well.I bought another one myself only last week. Strolling as I was with no particular intent as one does through one of the admittedly less well-trod corridors of one of the lower floors of my extensive armoury I discovered a certain sporting long gun that I had somehow omitted to fit with a laser sight. That omission I can tell the House has now been rectified. But that is a legitimate purpose and what we are dealing with here is improper use. This bill addresses that improper use. It is a fine bill from a fine member who will be genuinely missed. We support it and I commend it to the House. Thank you.