Locke Keith: Maritime Security Bill — Second Reading 
Locke Keith: Maritime Security Bill — Second Reading 
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KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be supporting this bill but with qualifications. Of course we do not complain about a more systematic approach to wharf and ship security. That is very clearly useful. But I think that is not so much to catch terrorists. There are not a large number of terrorists zooming through New Zealand ports in spite of the overblown news reports on the weekend that Mr al-Zawahiri had visited New Zealand. In that respect it seemed to be a reporter interviewing his typewriter. The next day he said al-Qaeda had suitcase nuclear bombs and he knew all about that too. We get more misinformation about terrorists coming through New Zealand than truth in these matters. 
The main threat to us that comes through our ports is the biosecurity threat—all the bugs beetles and spiders that will affect our society and our economy. That is the real problem and tightening up security in that respect is good. I do not think there will be a lot of terrorists and gunrunners so in general we support that. It is part of a lot of legislation that to some degree goes a little bit further than it should because of pressure from the United States saying that we have to do this that and the other thing otherwise it will not let ships from New Zealand into its ports. That is a bit of the background to it. 
I am glad that the select committee submission process has succeeded in producing several amendments and the Minister has indicated acceptance of those amendments in his speech. I know that the unions involved on the waterfront the National Union of Railway Workers and the Maritime Union put in a very good submission. They were worried about their people getting unnecessarily affected by this legislation and I believe that the amendments go towards reassuring them. The one the Minister mentioned—that it should not be some employer’s representative searching workers as they go on to the wharf—could lead to a very difficult industrial situation on the wharf if it happened. Amending the bill to make sure that any searching has to be done by an official employee of the Government or the police is clearly a step forward. 
The other amendment the Minister mentioned about putting in a definition of suspicious act—that a suspicious act does not include the lawful exercise of any right to demonstrate protest or strike—only goes part-way to meeting the union’s concerns and the Green Party will be moving an amendment at the Committee stage to take it further down the track. The question of whether a strike is lawful is really for determination in industrial law and in the courts not in terms of this definition. 
Often there is dispute between the waterfront workers and the employers as to what is lawful and what is not. Anyone who knows the history of industrial relations on the waterfront knows that so it is not necessary to put the word “lawful” in to achieve the purpose of not including workers in the performance of their duties or workers who are protesting at what is going on on the wharf or involved in some sort of industrial dispute to make it clear that we do not want them treated as terrorists or whatever under this legislation and subject to the provision of the law in this way. I think there is room. I have not seen the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper yet but he might deal with this question anyhow. I am just taking from what he said in his introductory speech that we might be able to work this issue through to a full resolution at the Committee stage. 
It is also good that there has been a little change in the bill to meet another of the union objections which is that if there were a real security crisis they would have to keep on working with the bullets flying around them. That is now amended. A proposed amendment is that if there were a high-level security incident—called a security level 3—then the workers would be able to absent themselves and not have to face flak from the bombs or whatever. That is a step forward as well. 
The Minister also mentioned the problem of coordinating with foreign flagships who to tell about what and who is in charge etc. I think one of the advantages of this bill may be that it helps deal with what are often rogue operators operating under flags of convenience. We all know that the unions particularly the seafarers here have been very worried about these flags-of-convenience ships—very dodgy ships in terms of their safety and the rates they pay their workers. It is a cheap labour system and they often take shortcuts with anything in sight. 
Also of course they would take shortcuts with security measures. If there were people doing dodgy things with drugs or guns or anything else it is probable that the ships involved in that would be these flags-of-convenience ships. Hopefully some of the security measures in the certificates in this bill will help deal with those flags-of-convenience ships. These measures are being introduced in other countries as well and hopefully they will move these ships out of the equation altogether so that there are much more legitimate shipowner situations rather than those dodgy flags-of-convenience carriers. 
Related to the measures in this bill and with the problems with flags of convenience in mind we could try to use more local operators for domestic transport. The Green Party has been supporting the unions in terms of getting cabotage where local freight is carried by local carriers. I think that would be a security advantage as well as an advantage for the New Zealand economy—local people doing things locally would protect the viability of the shipping industry in New Zealand and the jobs of the workers concerned. 
Another thing that has come up in public discussions on this bill is whether these measures will affect the ordinary rights of people to go down to their local wharves chuck a line off the end and catch a snapper or whatever. That is not something that perhaps applies so much to the big metropolitan ports but I noticed in the  
Timaru Herald  
of 11 March the headline: “New port security not likely to affect public”. In Timaru where people do fish off the wharf people were worried that with the introduction of this legislation somehow the wharf would all be closed off and its recreational element eliminated. But there was an assurance from Prime Port chief executive Jeremy Boyes that although its plan was not available to the public current levels of access including at the No. 1 extension wharf remained the same. So as we go through this process hopefully it will take into account the interests of the public in having the waterfront as something people can enjoy with not too much of it closed off for security reasons. 
It is the same in Wellington and other metropolitan areas and one just needs to walk across the road from Parliament to the wharf. Wellington City is developing the wharf precinct in many ways to the good and we do not want access to the wharf to be unnecessarily curtailed. I do not think it is being suggested in that case but it is something to bear in mind as we go along with these security measures. 
So with those few comments the Green Party will be supporting this bill and trying to tidy up some of those details at the Committee stage.