Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Transport: I move, That the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I understand that Supplementary Order Paper 145, which makes technical amendments to the bill, has been lodged following consultation between officials and aviation, finance, and legal stakeholders. This bill’s amendments simplify or clarify the relationship between the Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment, the Protocol to the Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment, and domestic legislation. The rule-making provisions are also clarified. In the first reading debate, the Minister advised that accession to the Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol would bring economic benefits to our aviation industry. Clauses 12 to 14 of the bill come into force on a date to be appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council, and will implement the Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol when New Zealand’s accession comes into force. It is proposed that that date be 1 October 2010. The rest of the clauses come into force on 1 August 2010 and will implement changes to streamline the civil aviation rule-making process.

Turning to the provisions of the bill, clause 4 amends section 2, which relates to interpretation. The amendment reflects the new section 34A inserted by clause 8 and adds the Governor-General as someone who may make civil aviation rules. Clauses 5 to 11 amend the rule-making parts of the Act, including clarifying powers of the Minister to make ordinary rules, matters to take into account when making rules, and revoking of prescriptive procedural requirements. In addition, the Governor-General will be able to make ordinary rules.

We now come to the parts of the bill that when enacted will enable New Zealand to conform with the provisions of the Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol. Clause 12 inserts new Part 12, which implements the Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol. Members should note the principal proposed amendments in this part of the bill. The amendment gives the convention and the protocol legal status in New Zealand and ensures they will prevail over inconsistent New Zealand law. It also clarifies that law that is consistent with, but additional to, the convention and protocol still has effect. The amendment enables the Governor-General to issue copies of any declarations made by New Zealand. Contracting States are to exclude or modify provisions considered to be incompatible with their legal culture or tradition. The amendment also adds circumstances in which the removal of an aircraft from the New Zealand aircraft register can occur. Under the protocol, a creditor can require the deregistration and export of an aircraft in the event of a default.

Clause 13, via schedule 1, adds a new schedule 7, which sets out the text of the Cape Town Convention, and new schedule 8 sets out the text of the Aircraft Protocol. In Part 2 of the bill, clause 14, via schedule 2, sets out consequential amendments to other enactments. The key area here is the Personal Property Securities Act 1999. The security interests in aircraft objects, covered by the Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol, are one form of security interest in personal property. Therefore, there will be situations where both regimes will apply to the same security interest. To avoid the potential for conflict from the existence of two registries, the bill amends the Personal Property Securities Act so that it is clear that in relation to aircraft objects the Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol will have primacy. The effect of that will be that the parties to a transaction will determine for themselves whether they will use the international register, the Personal Property Securities Act, or both. Finally, clause 15 relates to transitional provisions for material incorporated into rules via reference.

In conclusion, it is necessary to pass this bill to enable the aviation industry to access the financial advantages of the Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol, and to streamline the aviation rule-making process so that our rules do not lag behind developments in the aviation sector. I commend this bill to the House.

I have decided to vote in favour of the second reading of this bill.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: You had to be woken up to do it.

Not at all, I say to Mr Mallard. In fact, I have been very impressed by the way the Government has deployed its most charismatic Ministers to the shepherding of this legislation through the House this afternoon. I realised that they are taking it very seriously. When even an old warhorse like Allan Peachey can find it within himself to muster a bit of praise for a political opponent, we know that maybe this is something that we can come together on. Maybe we can unite this lovely land around the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. So it has been quite an afternoon already.

The Hon Kate Wilkinson has set out her very clear views on this area. I noticed she touched on some of those issues in her maiden speech, so it must be quite a thing to come here today and speak more in favour of it. There are only two issues that I want to touch on in the second reading of the bill, but before I do I will pick up on a reference that was made in the first reading by the member for Tāmaki, Mr Allan Peachey.

Mr Peachey spent a lot of his contribution saying that if the bill results in fewer lawyers being involved, then he was in favour of it. That was the central premise of his contribution to the debate. I thought it was very unusual for the member of Parliament for Tāmaki in Auckland to be campaigning so openly against lawyers, given what a high proportion of the legal profession reside in his constituency.

💬 Allan Peachey: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I explain to the member that three of my four children are lawyers. The message was for them.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): Mr Peachey, that is interesting. I am sure there are other family details you would like to share with us, but this is not the place and that was not a point of order.

I am absolutely aware of the fact, and I know what those three children say about him! He wants to criticise them on the floor of the House, but they have a good old go about him as well. I am sure they will charge him extra when it comes to matters such as his last will and testament, which none of his colleagues would be in, I suspect, going on the terrible way he was been treated. After the 2005 election they all would have got something from the Peachey estate; now, I suspect, none of them will. He would have asked all three children for different iterations of that particular legal document.

Mr Peachey said he forgets some things, and I will not criticise him for that because that can happen. When he criticised the Opposition for not supporting Government tax reductions, I was immediately reminded that, as a new member of Parliament, he voted against a cut in the corporate tax rate in this country. When the Labour Government reduced it from 33c to 30c, he voted against it. He voted against the cut in taxes for savers. He voted against a cut in taxes for working families in our country. So I can understand his difficulty when he spoke in the first reading of this bill and raised those points, and I wanted the opportunity to rebut that. The great benefit of Hansard is that those things can be checked very, very quickly. Despite that, in this bipartisan way, we do want to focus on that for too long.

I come to the two points that I wanted to speak about in respect of the convention. The first is that the premise for this bill is quite simple, as other speakers have said. This is a high-risk industry. If we can reduce the risk, then that should reduce the costs—particularly, the financing costs—across the industry as a whole. Those costs are often enhanced even further because so many different local laws operate and they do not protect lenders in a way that is consistent, and that multiplies the risk factor and results in higher prices. We are in absolute support of the premise, and we are very grateful to those who have negotiated on behalf of New Zealand in order for us to accede to this convention.

The second point I want to make at the second reading is about the changes to the civil aviation law. Although we are all transfixed by the Cape Town Convention at the moment—

💬 Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: Absolutely transfixed!

I see that even the former Auckland polytech law lecturer Dr Mapp is transfixed on this point.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: No, he was an assistant lecturer.

An assistant lecturer? I thought he was a full lecturer in his own right. He was an assistant lecturer, and there is no shame in that, I say to Mr Mallard. I want to be accurate for the sake of the Hansard in that respect.

This may have been one of his areas of expertise. I recall once visiting Ōhākea air base, and Dr Mapp arrived by aeroplane, which was quite good. In fact, I think he flew himself down to Ōhākea on that occasion.

💬 Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that the member is having a little bit of fun in this instance, but I think he should at least try to make some reference to the facts. I was an associate professor at the University of Auckland.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): Well, Mr Mapp, that was not a point of order. But as member has made the point to Mr Hughes, I am sure Mr Hughes will feel very grateful that his knowledge on these matters has now been improved.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am sure that the member will be rushing off now to correct his Wikipedia entry, because I suspect that we are not all as familiar with his CV as he might have assumed.

I was in the middle of referring to the fact that he flew himself into an air base I was visiting on one occasion. I know he is a very distinguished pilot. When he is buying his next Learjet, he can use the Cape Town Convention. He was in Opposition in those days. That was before he became a Minister of the Crown and took to rushing to the scenes of accidents, flourishing his business card around, and making sure that all the emergency workers knew he had just driven by. Quite how he copes when he flies over accidents, I am not too sure. Maybe the copilot has to bungy out with Wayne Mapp’s business card and say: “Did you know that the Minister of Defence just flew by?”, because no one else would know.

I do not want to be distracted in any way from the important changes to the Civil Aviation Act 1990 that this bill takes into account. I see that we have been focusing on the convention, but the bill addresses other matters, and we should make reference to them in the second reading. There is a fair amount of legalese, I guess we would call it, with regard to the civil aviation rule-making in our current law.

In the Committee of the whole House we will consider the clauses that seek to rectify the language to make sure that the rules are expressed in a way that is slightly easier to follow, and we will consider the clauses that set out which persons are able to determine, particularly, those ordinary rules. The legislation sets out what the Minister must take into account when that is happening and also what consultation requirements need to be followed. I think that is quite a good thing to do, as well. The less complex that laws like this can be, the better I think it is for, obviously, the industry players—those who have a very detailed technical knowledge—but also for those who have only a passing interest. From the average member of the public’s point of view, having legislation that is easier to understand gives more confidence in our civil aviation system.

So the first reading is down, the second reading is still going, and Labour members are still in support of the bill. We are walking in lock step with the National Government on this particular item, and we look forward to asking the Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce, some questions in the Committee of the whole House. We will expect those questions to be answered.

I serve notice of that to the Hon Kate Wilkinson now, too. I know that she has been reading through the bill quite a lot, so she will have the opportunity to answer our questions then. I am sure that when the third reading comes and people look to see what is happening in the House, she will know that if she wants those 43 Labour votes, there is a lot riding on her ability to answer these questions during the Committee of the whole House. Thank you.

In the second reading of this Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, I think we have strayed a little way off the track of what the bill is about, but I think that shows the context—that everybody is fairly much in agreement and that there is not a great deal of debate about it. It is something that needs to be done and needs to be done quickly, so that New Zealanders and the industry have the Cape Town Convention as a reality in the way that they do business in this area.

The nature of this bill has been pretty well exposed by members, as have some of the policy drivers behind it. We have also heard about some of the bill’s background, such as the naming of the type of aircraft involved and what advantages this legislation hold. Some of those advantages are basically so that the security interests can be registered. We can have security as an investor in those kinds of instruments, and we know that it will be internationally competitive. They will apply when one’s plane is travelling from country to country and when it is based in New Zealand.

I think that it is important when we look at this bill to note that we rely heavily on the aviation industry as a trading country and a tourism destination but also as a manufacturing exporter. In Hamilton we have some very big manufacturing exporters of aviation products, especially Pacific Aerospace Corporation, which manufactures a lot of planes that are sold around the world. I am sure that those in the New Zealand aviation industry will be very comforted to know that the Government is working hard for them by delivering rules and regulations that will assist them in their work, rather than having the rules and regulations that they have had in the past that have been detrimental to them carrying out their business. We look forward to this bill going through its further stages in the House, and we thank the other parties for their support so far.

It is great to take a call in the second reading of the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. As my colleague Darren Hughes said, we continue to support this bill. We are supporting it at its second reading. We will see how it goes in the Committee stage, but so far so good. One of the things that I forgot to do when I was talking earlier on about the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee was to send my best wishes to the Hon Tau Henare. We wish him a speedy recovery. He plays an important if somewhat belligerent role in the select committee—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Nothing to what he plays in the lobbies.

—no—and he also played a very key part in the examination of this treaty. I know that he asked some very insightful questions, and he will be deeply, deeply disappointed that he is unable to be here today to see this bill pass through its stages and go through to its third reading. But, as I said, we all wish him well.

As we have all outlined, this is not a controversial bill. We are supporting it. It amends domestic legislation so that New Zealand can be a party to an international convention on aircraft ownership. That will be beneficial for developing countries as well as our own country because of the high interest rates that airlines often have to pay. New Zealand, by the nature of our geography and isolation, has a long and proud aviation history. We have long been part of the international aviation community, so it is very sensible for us to be part of this convention.

I take the opportunity to congratulate Air New Zealand, our national airline, on its very high standards and on its many awards, including the prestigious Air Transport World Airline of the Year award for 2010, which is apparently widely regarded as being the Oscars of the airline industry. To the men and women, the workers and the management, of Air New Zealand, I offer my congratulations on that award. I think it is great. I am sure that all members in this Parliament support our national airline. I hope that we all support it by flying with Air New Zealand whenever we can.

It would also be remiss of me not to remind the House that a Labour Government had to rescue our national airline after the previous National Government wrecked it. I have been a bit concerned over the last couple of weeks that this Government is heading into a whole new era of privatisation of our precious assets. Its half-hearted support of rail speaks volumes about its commitment to the strategic transport assets that are owned by New Zealanders—and proudly owned by New Zealanders. After all, if the Government is prepared to flog off Kiwibank, who knows whether the national airline will be next?

Going back to matters of civil aviation, I cannot resist the urge to talk about one of the ridiculous situations that has arisen in our own country because of interference by the Civil Aviation Authority. I am talking about the rest and meal breaks dispute between the air traffic controllers and the airports. They reached a sensible agreement about sole air traffic controllers; let us understand that there are only a small number of these. We are not talking about every airport in the country; there are only a small number of them. They have peaks and troughs so there are times when aircraft are coming in and there are times when they are not. The agreement they came to was that they could take their breaks when there was no air traffic. That would work out perfectly well and would fit in with the very flexible and sensible legislation. In fact, the current Minister of Labour called it in 2008 common-sense legislation when it was passed by the National Government. However, the Civil Aviation Authority said that this was nonsense and that we could not have a flexible agreement where workers who worked 9½-hour shifts with no breaks could have a break when the aircraft were not coming in. It said that they had to have their breaks all at the same time across the country—quite ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the Government used that dispute as an excuse to rush in some very poorly drafted legislation that will essentially allow employers to require workers to work for nothing during unpaid break time, including air traffic controllers and, I assume, pilots. I think that is called slavery; I am deeply concerned about that. What is more, the proposed legislation is so crazy that it will enable an employer to take away all breaks and compensate employees with a muffin, a cracker, or a glass of wine. It is quite ridiculous.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Or a muffin.

I said a muffin.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Muffin break.

That is right.

Returning to the bill, the airline industry is an important part of our economy. We have a fantastic national airline. We have good support from the Civil Aviation Authority even though it makes some mistakes from time to time and is desperately underfunded. There are real advantages to us signing up to this convention, and that is why Labour continues to support this bill at its second reading.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. It is a great honour to speak in the second reading debate of the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Today we are seeing why it is so important to have the Greens in Parliament. I have not heard a single member talk about the consequences of this bill on the environment or on our communities. We have talked about how this bill will make it cheaper for aircraft to finance aircraft and other heavy arms, but no one has talked about the impacts. The fact is that aircraft emissions have grown by 73 percent in the last 40 years. That is vitally important because climate change is the greatest threat facing the planet. [Interruption] I will let the honourable Minister Mapp repeat what he said; I do not know what he actually said.

💬 Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: It’s a relatively small percentage of the global total.

I would like to touch on that. It is around 3 percent, as the Minister will be aware. But the Minister will also be aware that there are significant debates globally about what the actual aircraft emissions are and what the global warming potential of those emissions are for the planet. The emissions are not just carbon dioxide but also nitrous oxide, which has a greenhouse potential nearly 300 times worse than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time frame. The Minister may also be aware of the radiative forcing effects from the contrails, which are condensation clouds at high levels, and the impacts of water vapour. It is estimated that sometimes those could be up to 10 percent of global emissions. I hear what the Minister is saying, but I think what we are hearing is—

The Minister is slapped down by the youngest member of the House—fantastic.

I thank my colleague Mr Hughes. But I will get back to the issue of climate change. Today we are discussing how this legislation will make it cheaper for aircraft when aircraft emissions continue to grow. It is a big issue because greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand and around the world are rising. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not just a problem for the polar bears any more; climate change is a problem facing the planet right now. Last year Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, published a report saying that 300,000 people die every year as a result of climate change, not in 10 years and not in 20 years. We are not just talking about the polar bears; we are talking about right now.

In 2007 Sir Nicholas Stern said in the Stern report that it is cheaper to take action now. It is expensive to tackle climate change, and we hear about that almost daily from Mr Boscawen. The cost of tackling climate change is in the order of 2 percent of global GDP, which is not an insignificant number. But when we look at the estimates of the costs of climate change in our lifetimes, we are looking at potentially 20 percent of global gross domestic product being affected by climate change. The time to act is now, and if we keep increasing our emissions from aircraft in New Zealand and around the world, I ask where else we will make needed cuts to stay within the safe climatic band, which is 350 parts per million.

The bill makes it cheaper to own and operate an aircraft, which, I guess, we all agree with, and which is what we are talking about today. But we are not asking the important questions of whether we want to increase air travel in New Zealand or whether we want to make an essentially unsustainable sector continue to grow when we know the impacts of climate change. We know oil will not get any cheaper. In Louisiana over the last couple of months oil drillers have had to go further and deeper into more extreme environments, because the easy sources of oil have already been tapped. We are reaching what is described as peak oil, which is the end of cheap oil. The members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee heard about that in a letter from Dr Russel Norman, and I hope that the committee will make an inquiry into it. It is an important issue because in New Zealand, nearly 10 years ago, we sunk over $800 million into saving our national airline. It is an important issue, but, as the price of fuel continues to increase, we will see lessening usage internationally and lessening returns on our considerable investment.

Climate change is a major issue for the New Zealand brand. The Green Party talks about it a lot because this Parliament is seeing a stark contrast in vision at the moment. On one side, we can mine our treasured places, try to squeeze more dairy production—4 percent a year of continual growth—and keep investing in mad motorways, which do not make economic sense. On the other side, we can focus on our “clean, green” brand, making that a reality, and focusing on premium products. Those are the kinds of questions being asked considerably more and more by hundreds of thousands of tourists who are flying here every year. We have, potentially, 80,000 people coming to New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup next year. We will have maybe a billion people watching. But with the Rugby World Cup, New Zealand could become like China at the time of the Beijing Olympics, with questions being raised on human rights. New Zealand could become like South Africa at the time of the Football World Cup, with questions being raised on racism and housing issues. Will the Rugby World Cup highlight our hypocrisy on our green issues? Will it be around the fact that we are not facing up to the growth in our airline emissions, and that we are not facing up to any sector growth of emissions in New Zealand?

I wish that we were debating a bill that would see aircraft become more sustainable. I am not a doom and gloom merchant. There are options available for aircraft industries worldwide. I wish we were discussing the “Wellington Convention”. There is an option going around the world pushing for more stringent aircraft sustainability standards. I wish we were pushing for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from the aircraft and shipping industries, which, so far, are not counted under the Kyoto Protocol. I wish we were including those gases in our Kyoto register and in our emissions trading scheme. I know it will happen one day, but the sooner we face up to the fact that our considerable 3.4 million tonnes of emissions that come from our international aircraft sector is massive and will be counted one day, the better. We may as well start facing up to the truth.

So in summary I am disappointed that no one else in the House has raised these sustainability issues and has asked the core question. Sure, we want to make it cheaper for aircrafts to operate in New Zealand and globally, but do we want to support and keep subsidising the aircraft industry in New Zealand through our emissions trading scheme? It is being subsidised for its pollution when we know that we do not have a second planet. Kia ora.

I will go back to the issues around the civil aviation Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol that goes with that, and I will talk a bit more about that in the second reading debate on the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. The protocol, as I said, relates to aircraft that carry at least eight people, and helicopters that carry five or more. The treaty resulted from a diplomatic conference held in Cape Town in South Africa in 2001, as the name suggests. I thought people would be interested to know more about the conference. It was attended by 68 countries and 14 international organisations. Fifty-three countries have signed the resolution proposing the treaty. The convention portion of the treaty came into force on 1 April—gee, that is a bad date for conventions to come into force—2004 and has been signed by 28 countries. The protocol, which is the bit that specifically applies to aircraft and aircraft engines, took effect on 1 March 2006 when it was ratified by eight countries—Ethiopia, Ireland, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Pakistan, and the United States. In the US the treaty was approved by the Senate in 2003 and implemented by the full Congress in the Cape Town Treaty Implementation Act 2004.

The other dimension is the registry of mobile assets. It has been set up under this convention to establish the record of international property interests in the equipment covered by the treaty, which is located in Ireland. Mediation cases for leasing disputes are to be heard in the High Court of Ireland. That is just a bit of background.

When we look at the bill itself, we see that the overwhelming portion of it is the convention and protocol, which are appended to it in the schedule. We have the full text of the civil aviation Cape Town Convention and the Aircraft Protocol I have just referred to appended to this bill.

There are a couple of things I would like to cover off. The first is the Civil Aviation Authority itself. It operates in an international system, hence the need for conventions like this. The Civil Aviation Authority, as it says in its annual report, is an international system and it works within frameworks set by the International Civil Aviation Organization. As a contracting State within the International Civil Aviation Organization, New Zealand has responsibility to comply with the standards set by that organisation. It has a number of effects. Interestingly, in relation to the points just made by the Green member, the other strategic objectives—it has a series of objectives for 2010, focused on enhancing global aviation safety and security—include minimising the adverse effects of aviation on the environment, in particular aircraft noise and aircraft engine emissions. I think there is an awareness of the problem. It is an issue for a country like New Zealand, where we are reliant on aviation. We are a country a long way from markets that we trade with, and, indeed, we are a country of destination for tourists from all around the world, so we are highly reliant on aviation to bring people to this country and to get our products to market.

Mr Bennett, the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, noted that there is another important role in that we export in the aviation area. I was interested to hear him talk about that matter, because my late father, Ron, worked at Hamilton Airport. He was a mechanic, but he went on to get his trade certificate in aircraft engineering. He worked there producing top-dressing aircraft, and they were world-leading aircraft. I thought it was interesting that Mr Bennett noted that as a small but important part of our manufacturing exports.

Talking of that select committee, I would like to join with my colleague Darien Fenton. She took the words right out of my mouth in that I too wish a speedy recovery to our fellow select committee member Mr Tau Henare, who is, as we all know, unwell at the moment. While I am talking about that fellow member, I note that he is in the interesting position of having his own member’s bill before the select committee. That bill is an interesting one. It is in relation to employment rights. We talked in the first reading about the fact that New Zealand is a country that takes international obligations very seriously. We think it is important to sign up to relevant conventions and to play a good role in the international community in regard to many areas. We have often been in a world-leading role, and certainly that is the case in terms of international labour standards. New Zealand played a founding role in the International Labour Organization. We have a proud history in that organisation, and in any given international labour conference, which is an annual process and is in fact going on at the moment, often New Zealand will have people who end up chairing committees or who are involved in drafting committees, and we are seen as a country that takes these matters seriously. So it is a bit of a shame that Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot For Strikes) Amendment Bill is one that I think will see us going in the reverse direction from what we would want to in terms of workers’ rights. Whether that will have the effect of our coming up against what would be seen as international best practice remains to be seen.

Getting back to the this bill, as I was saying before, the full text of the convention is appended to the schedule of this bill. Members will be pleased to know that I do not want to go through this bill, article by article—

💬 Hone Harawira: Oh.

Well, OK, because there is a desire for that, I will just tell members what the respective articles are. I will not read them out to members given they run to many, many pages. In due deference to my colleague from the Māori Party, let me say that—

💬 Paul Quinn: Just the flavour.

Yes. Article 1 is “Definitions”, and that goes to several pages, as members can imagine. Article 2, “The international interest”, provides for the constitution and effects of an international interest in certain categories of mobile equipment and associated rights. Article 3 is “Sphere of application”, article 4 is “Where debtor is situated”, article 5 is “Interpretation and applicable law”, article 6 is “Relationship between the Convention and the Protocol”, article 7 is “Formal requirements”, and article 8 is “Remedies of chargee”. As members can see, this goes through a range of articles, right through to article 39, 40, 54—perhaps I will not go through the rest of them for members in the House. Seriously, these are important matters that will streamline and standardise processes internationally and that hopefully will have an effect that means there is greater certainty for those who are financing aircraft. We are making sure that instead of a wide range of different domestic legislation applying, we will have standards. It will be simpler to use the registry located in Ireland to identify what the status of ownership or whatever of a particular aircraft is, and I am sure we are all pleased to know that any disputes will be dealt with in the court system in Ireland, which I am sure is a very robust one. I will leave my contribution to this second reading there, and I look forward to further comment in the third reading.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee