Duynhoven Harry: Aviation Security Legislation Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Duynhoven Harry: Aviation Security Legislation Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2007. Volume:642;Page:11748. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 I will be very brief. I thank the Committee for the strong support for the measures in this legislation and I especially thank the officials for doing a significant job in putting this together. Having actually watched events as they unfolded on September 11 2001 I think this is a very appropriate day to consider this. I happened to be working late that night and watched it all unfold live on CNN. I was amazed. So it is an appropriate day to be considering this legislation. It is purely by coincidence that we are debating this now because work has gone on slightly more quickly than we had imagined it might have. 
I want to speak very briefly about Keith Locke’s amendments and I understand and respect the genuineness with which Keith has put forward his amendments. But I have to say to members that I think those amendments would be impracticable. Foreign inflight security officers will be there at the discretion of their airlines following a request to us. Cabinet will have to approve such requests. And Mr Locke has said previously that foreign inflight security officers will be allowed on New Zealand aircraft. That will certainly never be the case. 
Keith Locke 
: I haven’t said that. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I am sorry I tell Mr Locke but he has actually said it previously—but not tonight. 
Yet I assure the member that inflight security officers are in the bill for the purposes of future-proofing the bill in case Cabinet should ever have to make that most difficult decision. They will not be there as a matter of course and if we cannot allow armed inflight security officers then that raises problems for air services agreements internationally with other countries and with New Zealand’s obligations to consider any request those countries may make under annex 17 of the International Civil Aviation Organization agreement. Therefore I am afraid that although Mr Locke’s ideas no doubt are motivated by goodwill it would simply be impracticable to put them into place. 
I turn also to the gentleman in blue who is among the officials sitting in the Chamber with us. I would have to ask him what we could expect his folk to do if he were in the position of having a threat in an aircraft but did not have the ability for the New Zealand Police armed offenders squad members—who may be brought into this service—to respond in a way that was equal to the threat they might be exposed to. 
All I can say is that this bill has been thought through very thoroughly and that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has considered it very thoroughly. I commend it to the Committee as is—without amendment other than those on the two Supplementary Order Papers dealing with matters that have arisen earlier. Thank you. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Keith Locke to clause 17 be agreed to: 
to omit subsection (1) of section 77D.