Calder Cam: Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCalder Cam: Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18928. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr CAM CALDER (National):I will take a call. I have been asked questions by my colleagues about some of the thinking behind this. I want to commend the ex - police officer Mike Sabin who has shared the benefit of his experience in law enforcement and who understands how dangerous these devices are. As we know clause 4 is the meat of the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill. There were no submissions on any other clause. All the submissions that we got were on clause 4 which is not surprising. This is the meat of the bill. We have heard that when I drafted this bill I modelled it on section 13A of the Summary Offences Act which deals with the possession of knives. Section 13B in clause 4 is a new section. When clause 4 was initially drafted it inserted new section 13B which not only made it an offence for a person to have a hand-held laser in his or her possession without reasonable excuse but provided the police with the warrantless power to seize and detain that hand-held laser. In our debate in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee it was pointed out that it was not necessary to have that seizure provision and the committee came to the conclusion that we should omit that seizure provision in section 13B(2) in clause 4 because it is not necessary as seizure powers became available to the police under the Search and Surveillance Act in 2012.We had a number of submissions and I will put the eyes on a couple of them to give you a flavour. The Director of Public Health Dr Darren Hunt stated that the current definition of “hand-held laser” that I had originally drafted in the bill was too broad and would inadvertently capture many devices that actually posed minimal risk to public health or safety. So he made the point which was picked up by the committee and I think echoed by some other submitters that we should use the definition in the Health (High-power Laser Pointers) Regulations 2013 and the Customs Import Prohibition (High-power Laser Pointers) Order 2013 which we have touched upon previously in this debate. He felt—and the committee agreed—that adopting this definition would restrict the application of the bill to laser pointers with a power output greater than 1milliwatt. This of course reduces the broad scope of the bill but the feeling of that submitter the Director of Public Health was that the risk posed by small lasers of 1 milliwatt or less was extremely low. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists noted the same point—that generally the risks associated with using low-power lasers up to class 3 which is up to and including 1 milliwatt power output are very low. That was expert advice from the people whom we respected and we as a committee took that on board.In respect of new section 13B inserted by clause 4 we altered it from possession of “hand-held lasers” to “high-power laser pointers” to make it clear what the definition was and that what we were talking about was the same device as used in the health and customs input regulations. What we have in new section 13B(1) now is that “Every person is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months or a fine not exceeding $2000 who in any public place without reasonable excuse has any high-power laser pointer in his or her possession.” That was a significant change but a particularly meaty “beaty” big and bouncy change because it made the scope of this bill directly on high-power laser pointers which are the subject of those regulations and the order hitherto mentioned.As you may recall I have to acknowledge here the presence in the Chamber of the Hon Jo Goodhew whose hard work endeavour and assiduous attention to detail meant that those regulations and orders came through. It has been a pleasure working with the Minister and I think that together with the regulations and orders that she has brought through and when this bill hopefully gets through to its final reading and is enacted we will have a much safer country because the availability of these devices will be severely restricted.The hope that I had when I first drafted the bill was that bearing in mind the position a policeman such as Mike Sabin—who we have heard in the Committee today has been a police officer and Mark Mitchell who himself has been in the thin blue line. Well I thought that we should give the police the chance without a warrant to seize these things if they find a miscreant lurking with intent with one of these in their possession. We discussed this at the committee but as I think I briefly alluded to before we deleted that seizure position because from the time of drafting the bill the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 was brought into law so that actual provision was superfluous. What we did keep of course was that on conviction of any person of an offence under section 13B(1)—that is being in a public place without reasonable excuse—then that court may order that the high-power laser pointer be forfeited to the Crown.I will summarise briefly if I may. What we have then is a change as has been brought out by some of the previous speakers in the definition in subsections 4(a) 4(b) 4(c) 4(d) and 4(e) in section 13B as inserted by clause 4. The definition is: “In this section high-power laser pointer means a device that (a) in the Director-General of Health’s opinion is of the kind commonly known as a laser pointer; and (b) is battery operated; and (c) is designed or intended to be operated while held in the hand; and (d) produces a coherent beam”—that was the word that Mr Sabin was looking for before—“of optical radiation of low divergence; and (e) has a power output of greater than 1 milliwatt.” That is the definition of the high-power laser pointers. That is clear to all concerned. The police are happy with that. We debated it at some length at the select committee. Indeed as well as talking about the actual appropriate title and the commencement date we did spend a significant amount of time on clause 4 of the bill because we wanted to get it right. We wanted to make it simple to understand. We wanted to have coherence between the regulations and the order governing the importation and supply and I think the committee achieved that.I have to once again acknowledge the collegiality on the committee with members of all sides of the House agreeing that this was a worthy bill. It will make New Zealand a safer place. It is a good bill and I am very pleased that it has got to this stage. My only regret is it appears that unless things change I will not have a chance to speak on the third reading of this bill which I believe is timetabled for after I have given my valedictory speech. But I know that I have got some excellent colleagues who will carry this bill through hopefully on Wednesday 23 July. It would be wonderful to see that bill enacted and subsequently get Royal asset and become law 28 days after receiving Royal assent. Thank you.Clause 4 agreed to.Bill to be reported without amendment presently.