Bennett David: Aviation Crimes Amendment Bill Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Bennett David: Aviation Crimes Amendment Bill Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Volume:642;Page:11959] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 That was the Hon Mark Gosche who by the sounds of it has never flown outside of New Zealand but I am sure that he would have taken that opportunity as a younger fellow both when he was in this Parliament and before he came to this House. 
There is one community group he forgot about. That group is made up of those people who do want to carry chainsaws on planes. In Hamilton we have a local identity who is known to carry a chainsaw at the rugby. Possum is standing for council. For all of those people who are from regions that do not have the joy and privilege of holding the Ranfurly Shield for more than a week I can tell them that they will see Possum at the local stadium. He will have a chainsaw on a cherry picker and he will boot it up throughout the game when the Waikato team scores—as we regularly do—then at the end he will throw out lollies to the kids. He is a local identity who probably would have been allowed to take a chainsaw on to a plane because it is part of his identity and his make-up. 
This legislation is pretty uncontroversial. Most of the parties in this House saw the need for it. It was based on an international consideration that we had to deliver something in this area. I think the Green Party is probably the only party that has seriously gone out against the legislation and made arguments against it but those arguments simply do not stack up. The reality is that we live in an environment where we have to pull our weight. We have an international airline that relies on us having an environment that gives it the opportunity to provide the services it needs to provide in order to be an international airline. As part of being the world citizens that New Zealanders intend to be we have to be part of the community and we have to have legislation and rules that fulfil the nature of what the community dictates in this circumstance. 
There is another part of the aviation area that is of relevance to New Zealanders as well. Mark Gosche touched on it when he talked about trips to Australia. This legislation will become more and more relevant because more and more New Zealanders are leaving New Zealand and our people leave by plane. They are leaving this country because of the rules and regulations that Government members dictate to people. This legislation will have a very practical impact on the thousands of New Zealanders who leave this country each year and do not return—the New Zealanders who go to Australia to make the most of the opportunities there when they should be making the most of their opportunities in New Zealand. That is a direct result of this Government’s policies and it needs to take responsibility for making a whole generation of New Zealanders leave. This legislation is also part of the Government’s attempt to do that because it enables our airlines to compete on a worldwide stage to take our people away to send them overseas to environments where they can prosper when they should be prospering here and making New Zealand stronger. 
In essence this is uncontroversial but needed legislation in an international context. I think that the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee worked together well to build legislation that covered most of the issues. There was some debate on certain issues to make sure that we had them formulated in a way that covered the potential considerations in regard to ethnic minorities. There is also the need to give the Government of the day the ability to make the calls. The reality is that New Zealand is a free peace-loving independent country and we probably will not have to engage inflight security officers at any stage but Cabinet still needs the ability to do that at some point in time if it is necessary. 
So this legislation is a bit of an insurance policy. We probably will not need to use it but it gives us the ability to have a set of rules that are compatible with our international trading partners and the world community as a whole. In essence basically all parties are supporting this legislation because they see the need for some kind of legislation in this area. The main issues have been pretty well dealt with by the select committee. National looks forward to the bill being passed and to seeing its implementation.