Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm very pleased to be able to resume my call which was interrupted when the Minister in the chair Ron Mark took the first of his two calls a short time ago. I do want to thank him for doing so—I mean I was upset to be knocked off my stride in mid-flight but I want to acknowledge the fact that the Minister did attempt to answer some questions and I think in a very helpful way. We are looking at clause 9 and as my colleague the member for Tāmaki has pointed out this is the substantial part of the bill. So I was concerned when the member for Christchurch Central attempted to move a closure motion a short time ago. There's a lot in this part of the bill that we do need to look at.If I could just resume—we're obviously looking at the provisions outlining the registration and permit required for brokering activity—in new clause 9A(1)(b) we read that it specifies that Section 9 does not apply to a person—who before the person carries out the brokering activity has taken reasonable steps to ensure that the dual-use goods will not be used for a prohibited use." Well others of my colleagues have asked for an explanation of what those reasonable steps are. I'd like to go beyond that and ask again in the international context how is international consistency being achieved in this regard? In particular how can New Zealanders be confident that what are deemed to be reasonable steps in New Zealand will apply equally in Guatemala Malaysia Malta Mali Malawi—wherever we might be looking at?Now I was very pleased to hear the Minister give an assurance that this bill is modelled on international best practice and in particular reflects similar measures being adopted in Australia and other countries. I know that will be comforting to those who are listening but the Minister in the chair made the point that some of these questions had been answered in select committee. I would just point out to him that this is the committee of the whole House. Members of the public who may be tuning in to this debate tonight didn't have the opportunity to sit in on the select committee and most members of this Parliament were not part of that select committee so this is our opportunity to have very detailed clause by clause analysis of the bill in the committee of the whole House and to ensure that a much wider audience gets to hear those answers.New clause 9A(2) goes on to indicate that "Section 9 does not apply to a person—(a) who carries out a brokering activity from a place outside New Zealand". I'd like to ask again what assurances can New Zealanders have that other New Zealanders—because obviously they're the ones who are being referred to when we look at legislation that we are passing—who may be of less than honest and possibly even of evil intent won't cultivate connections in countries and sadly this is a feature of international terrorism that are less committed to the rule of law and the suppression and prevention of terrorism and frankly our high standards of human rights in order to engage in inappropriate and/or criminal brokering? We do need to know and we do need to be able to assure the public that this particular bill will be able to answer those very serious concerns.In clause 10 which deals with the fact that it's an offence to carry out brokering activity without registration or a permit new subclause (1) indicates that "A person commits an offence if—(c) at the time that the person carries out the activity the person knows or ought to know that (except in some circumstances) a person must not carry out a brokering activity unless the person—(i) is registered as a broker; and (2) has a permit for the activity." I have to confess I had to read that particular subclause several times and I'm still confused by it. In particular I'd like to ask the Minister what is contemplated by the proviso "except in some circumstances"? What examples can the Minister give us of what those circumstances might be? I appreciate the fact that from a legal drafting point of view it can be fiendishly difficult to cover all possible eventualities but nevertheless this is such a significant question of international security that we have to ensure that we're not just legislating for the sake of saying "OK well we can tick the box. We've met our international obligations." We have to ensure that these provisions are watertight.So again we're still just talking about clause 9 and the following clause here. There's a lot still to be covered from Part 2. I appreciate the fact that I've raised a number of questions so perhaps if the Minister would be good enough to take a call to answer those and then we might be able to move further on in to Part 2 of this bill."