Calder Cam: Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCalder Cam: Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13747. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr CAM CALDER (National): Well it is a huge pleasure and I must say that I do appreciate the speeches from around the House in support of this bill the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill. One of the privileges of being an MP is to craft a member’s bill and this is not the first one I have crafted. I have brought one together on low-ball share offers and another one on changing the right-hand rule. They were presented to the various Ministers concerned and in fact were rolled into the regulations or the legislation of the Government.Iain Lees-Galloway: Why wasn’t this one?Dr CAM CALDER: Taking up the point that Sue Moroney and Iain Lees-Galloway my colleagues across the House have made of course the Government is working on this and it has done work in the area of importation and sale. Regulations around those areas have been promoted and will likely come into force as was pointed out by one of the earlier speakers later on this year.I was working in Manurewa—Sue Moroney: “Manu-ray-wa”.Dr CAM CALDER: I have my office in the vibrant and diverse community of Manurewa. There are 140000 flights—Iain Lees-Galloway: “Manu-ray-wa”.Dr CAM CALDER: —each year that over-fly Manurewa. My colleague William Sio across the Chamber there would have the same experience in “Mon-gere” of 140000 flights across that urban area. So this bill has relevance not only for those who fly in aircraft but also those who are residents of communities around airports and the approaches to airports.This is a simple bill but one that could potentially impact on all members in this House as was pointed out by David Clendon. I thank the Greens for their support in referring this bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It could impact on all members of this House and indeed on all New Zealanders who travel by air. As was pointed out by I think Sue Moroney and others—by Mr Richard Prosser also speaking in favour of the bill and possibly by my colleague Chris Auchinvole who gave a very learned dissertation on this bill—over 100 cases each year—H V Ross Robertson: What do you mean “possibly”? He’s going to support you.Dr CAM CALDER: Mr Robertson would agree with this. Mr Robertson is from Manukau East also over-flown by 140000 flights each year. The residents of the electorate that you currently represent are going to be safer when this bill is passed.What does this bill do? Can I just address a point made about the size of the laser device. I will not go down the line of what you do with your laser with your cat Mr Lees-Galloway—and maybe we can look at that in the select committee—but what is the relevance of the size or power of the laser? I think the learned exposition of Mike Sabin a police officer who has been faced by potentially lethal weapons in the form of small knives had actually a very valid point and that Mr Clendon is why I did not restrict the power of these lasers. As Mr Prosser pointed out his very small device hanging on the end of a key ring—I understood you to say in the House a few minutes ago that you could illuminate a road sign at 2 kilometres. That is a very small supposedly underpowered safe device.The point I would make and the reason why we have not restricted the size or the power of these devices is simply this: in the hands of miscreants and malcontents these devices can cause problems whatever their power. I have the proof here in thesedocuments. As we have said the Airline Pilots’ Association is very much in favour of this bill. It has sent me a huge amount of information including on the various ratings of lasers.Even class 2 lasers—I should say that class 1 lasers of course are unlikely to cause problems because they are the sorts of lasers that you see in CD players or possibly laser printers. I do not imagine someone going along with a CD player pointing it at someone is going to cause a problem in the street so there is no problem with those. Class 2 lasers however which are those with a power of less than 1milliwatt—and what I presume Mr Prosser had on his key ring—can in the wrong hands and with prolonged exposure cause problems. My feeling was that just as with knives where no size is determined the same should apply with lasers.I thank all those around the House for their support of this bill. It is a very serious problem that this House needs to address. We will address it. I look forward to further discussion in the select committee but in the meantime I thank members of the House for their support.Bill read a first time.Billreferred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.