Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill

It is a pleasure to speak on this bill, the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Bill, especially in regard to clause 2, which is the commencement date of the bill. Clause 2 states that “This Act comes into force on the day that is 28 days after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” That clause was somethinpg that was also well debated within the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I remember we spent much time on that date because there were a number of alternative views on what that date should be, that is, being the number of days before the commencement date would come into force.

But just before I progress on to those, I want to acknowledge the fine work of Dr Cam Calder in bringing this bill before this House. I think the Hon Paula Bennett indicated the nature of the issue that can be involved in such situations, and it takes somebody with Dr Calder’s great desire to see results-based politics and also his capacity to undertake the level of research and dedication that is needed to bring a bill of this fortitude to the House. So well done, Dr Cam Calder, a very valuable member of the committee. All members of the committee will miss his presence, but it is a very, very important bill that he has done today and it is something that we commend him for bringing in front of this House.

But going back to the commencement date—[Interruption]—when we have the commencement, it says “28 days after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” I am sorry, Mr Chair. Did I not talk about Dr Calder long enough? Do you want me to go back to him? But no, the commencement date is 28 days. Some of you may ask, well, why is that so important. Well, that is the number of days in the month of February, which is important, but it also is the time that we looked at to be—

💬 Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: What’s that got to do with the bill?

Is that the New Zealand First member over there, the lone member of New Zealand First in this debate? It would be great to have a call from her, but it might be more difficult than she can manage at this stage of the afternoon, I think. Dr Calder actually wanted to bring it forward earlier. He wanted a commencement date immediately, and being such a fine and astute committee that we are, we look at prudence as something that we also value in our committee. So the question the committee members had to decide was whether we bring it forward and immediately, as the member who was bringing in the bill thought was the best option, or whether we look at having a little bit of prudence there just to see whether the 28 days would be appropriate. The committee members in their entirety—and Dr Calder was part of this—decided that, yes, the 28 days would be a good time period. It could have actually been a longer time period. It could have been 3 months and that would have been just too long for this bill to have achieved its purpose, but 28 days was a good balance. It was not something that was immediate, but it was something that gave some time for it to work through. The question you may ask is why you would want to give that time for it to work through, and that was something that we had advice from the officials on.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House is in Committee for consideration of the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill. It is resumed. Before the dinner break we were debating clause 2. David Bennett at that time had the call, and he has got just over 1½ minutes, should he wish to avail himself of the opportunity.

I think I will need more 1½ minutes, just as a warning to the Chair, because this is a very important section of the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill. It was part of—is this all right, Carol? Are you all right? It was something that was debated long and hard in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and that was around the commencement date. I will read it to give a summary to people who may have missed it just before the dinner suspension: “This Act comes into force on the day that is 28 days after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” As everyone can see, that is very clear. It is 28 days afterwards. That is the month of February, effectively, for those who look to do it on dates—

💬 Mike Sabin: Except in a leap year.

Except in a leap year. Yes, Mr Sabin from the north is very correct.

💬 Hon Todd McClay: My wife’s birthday—February.

And it is also the Hon Todd McClay’s wife’s birthday, and we would like to see that—

💬 Moana Mackey: Relevance.

The relevance is that 28 days is the period that the commencement comes in after it receives the Royal—

💬 Hon Todd McClay: The point being that if I miss her birthday, it is a summary offence.

Yes, and as Mr McClay says, if he misses her birthday, it is a summary offence. He would get more than a hand-held laser, I am sure.

💬 Hon Todd McClay: If it was my birthday I would get a Taser.

You would get a Taser.

But effectively what the select committee had to look at was that timing. As I mentioned earlier, the mover of this bill, Dr Cam Calder, who was bringing this bill forward, sought a date for it to come into force immediately on achieving the Royal assent. The choice of the select committee was whether we do it immediately or whether we do it on some other date that would be seen as prudent and reasonable. The select committee came to the decision that 28 days was the reasonable approach.

💬 Tim Macindoe: But why was that? Interesting.

Well, it is very interesting, actually, because we did receive advice that it should be longer than 28 days.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Oh, and why was that?

I will come to that. That might need another 5 minutes when I come to that bit. So the options were basically either longer than 28 days or the immediacy of it, and in the end we decided as a prudent select committee that we would settle on a month, and so 28 days was the time.

💬 Dr Cam Calder: Far too long.

As Dr Calder says, far too long, and I can understand his desire to see this piece of work enforced as soon as possible, because who would know when the next incident could occur? If it occurs within those 28 days, are we actually putting people’s lives at risk?

💬 Scott Simpson: How can you be sure?

We cannot be sure. That was the debate that concerned the select committee for much of its time. It was a very serious issue, because we take a risk that in those 28 days there may be an incident, and that is the nature of it. Mr Macindoe, the very good member from Hamilton West, has just returned from overseas and come back to New Zealand. Good to see you here, Tim.

💬 Tim Macindoe: It will be man love soon.

Yes. When we considered that period of time, the question was why not go immediately and why have a period of time. It was to give a sense of understanding and education to the community around this change in legislation. There would be some people who do have hand-held lasers, and they may not be aware that suddenly they had come under the rules. For education purposes, for those legitimate people in the community who may hold these products—

💬 Tim Macindoe: I am sure most people are legitimate.

—who hold these products, I said, Tim—and who were in a state that they may have been engaging with them, they would need to know that there was a period of time in which they would then become aware that the laser itself was the issue. So the reason is to give a period of time for education so that people are well aware of the circumstances of the bill. It was felt that if there was an immediate commencement, there would be the potential that there would be some people who did not receive that notification. We did not want to put anybody at risk, but at the same time we had to balance that. If we left it for 3 months, that was a long period of time where there could have been another incident within that period. That was the difficult balance that—

💬 Scott Simpson: The wisdom of Solomon.

And it was the wisdom of Solomon and that is because we have such a fine select committee there. I am surrounded by good committee members in front of me here, who spent hours poring over these finer details, and took a very considered approach, in the end, to this bill.

If we go back to clause 2, that is why we settled on 28 days. It is a date that would achieve the purpose of being relatively quick after the passing of this bill so that it is not a period of time that is too long. But it is also a period of time that enables people to be notified and made aware of the consequences of this very fine piece of legislation. In essence, that is the dilemma that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee found itself in, and the decision was made to stick with 28 days. We find that is a very good balance and will achieve the purposes for all concerned. Thank you.

It appears I have blown the Opposition away.

💬 David Bennett: You’ve lasered them out.

Lasered them out, indeed. I just want to pick up where my good Transport and Industrial Relations Committee chairman, David Bennett, has left off on this clause 2, the commencement date, because there was a fair degree of conjecture and I am hoping that the member Dr Cam Calder will actually take a call and advise as to why he was willing to concede that a date of 28 days after the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill received the Royal assent was satisfactory.

Suffice it to say that there are a number of challenges in terms of this bill becoming an Act and going live as legislation because these devices are actually quite commonly held in the possession of people around the country. In fact, there needs to be some degree of education and some degree of notification for those people that the possession of the high-power hand-held laser pointers would constitute an offence. It is quite right that we do not want to catch people on the hop. I think it also prevents stockpiling. Dr Calder may want to comment on that, but the last thing we want is people, of course, stockpiling if they are given too much lead-in time. So it is all about getting the balance. Imagine someone having an enormous stockpile of hand-held high-power laser pointers that could be weapons of mass destruction in that context.

I am quite confident that the member Dr Calder will be elucidating for the public as to the live commencement date of this bill, once enacted, being 28 days after the Royal assent, because it is incumbent on him as a responsible member of Parliament to inform the public that this legislative change has occurred and that the malicious behaviour of individuals who seem to find some sort of entertainment in this use of these high-power laser pointers has come to an end. I think that gives Dr Calder fair time to inform people. Of course, the police did allude to the fact that they would need some time from an enforcement point of view to actually see where this thing lands, because although it is not a punitive bill—and I am sure Dr Calder will inform us all when he takes his next call on this—it is very much about prevention rather than taking a punitive approach.

But the point is that the enforcement agency, the police, obviously have a role in that and there were some quite considered comments given by the police through the select committee submission process. So that is why when we wrestled with this point in the select committee, and we did wrestle with this point—I think it was this point, as well as whether or not the title should include “high power”. Those were the two points that caused the select committee some contention. But in terms of the commencement date, I know that Dr Calder wanted to see this go live as soon as humanly possible. I know he was concerned that there was a likelihood that people would stockpile these things and there could be some sort of travesty in the fact that people would take liberties that they should not take. But I think we have landed in the right space with this. The 28 days simply provides ample opportunity, firstly, for the police to be fully informed of this law change.

In all seriousness, these things will take down an aircraft, they will blind a driver, and they have been used for those two purposes. I suspect that the police will be quite happy to go out and find someone to make an example of, if they choose to disobey what will be a very sound piece of preventive legislation. But no doubt there will be some who will choose to challenge it. I think the police need that little bit of time to get themselves across that.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Relevancy.

Sorry, you want me to talk about the—

💬 Carol Beaumont: Commencement date.

I am talking about the commencement date. The member is very, very helpful—

💬 Hon Member: They are not listening.

They are not listening. The reason I am saying the commencement date—28 days after the Royal assent—is the importance of the police having the opportunity to get themselves across this legislation in due course. OK? Is it not funny when the boot is on the other foot? Is it not hilarious when the boot is on the other foot? But that 28 days is about balance. If there is one thing I will say about Dr Cam Calder, it is that he is a man who sees the perspectives from all angles.

This is a very important point that my colleagues have actually aired, at some length, in the Chamber. It is quite true to say that I was somewhat saddened by the decision the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee made because, as has been alluded to by my honourable colleague Mr Mike Sabin, I wanted this legislation, the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill, to come into effect as soon as possible. I make no apologies for that. As we have heard, this clause provides for all provisions in the bill to come into force on the day after the Act receives the Royal assent. That is what we thought. That is what I wanted to happen. But after we had considered it as a committee, when does it come into force, Mr Auchinvole?

💬 Chris Auchinvole: 28 days.

Twenty-eight days after receiving the Royal assent. So I asked this question of the committee members. I said: “What possible reason is there for delaying the implementation of such an important bill?”. We have heard some of the arguments. I have to pay credit to Carol Beaumont, who is part of the committee and contributed to this debate. In fact, we had a committee made up of members from all sides of the House, and it was a collegial committee. The upshot of the combined wisdom was that, for a number of reasons, 28 days after receiving the Royal assent was preferable to the instant implementation that I was hoping for. The committee recommended that clause 2 be amended to provide that additional time after the Act received the Royal assent before the provisions of the bill came into force. We have heard that this is to give people time to understand about the law having changed. But I would submit to you—

💬 Mike Sabin: That’s right.

That is right. But I have a lingering bit of schadenfreude here, because I just think—as you raised the very valid point yourself—what if an act occurs in the interim period between the Act receiving the Royal assent and coming into law? We hope that people will realise, as word gets out about the passage of this bill, and the commencement date being what it is, that we have had some publicity from the Airline Pilots’ Association recently, calling for a bill just like this in light of a recent incident that occurred just a few weeks ago. That 28 days is what we are left with. I just hope that that 28 days will not be a time where people take advantage of the fact that the bill has not come into law and they pick up their high-power laser pointer, put it in their pocket, and march off out into a public space. There is actually no reason for that. The commencement date of 28 days after the Act receiving the Royal assent means there is going to be a 4-week period where that could occur. I have just done my sums. It is an interesting situation. My valedictory speech is timetabled for 23 July at 4 o’clock.

💬 Phil Twyford: Can we book seats now?

You can secure your seat now, Mr Twyford. I will look forward to seeing you there. The interesting thing is that this bill is likely to go for its third reading after I have given my valedictory speech. I might be in the position of not being able to deliver a third reading speech on my own bill, but such is the way that Parliament works. Really, it is a small price to pay for the chance to get this bill through the House whilst I am still a member of this House. It is a huge privilege to stand here—I must say, it is a great privilege to stand here—and be able to speak in the House without getting dark looks from the whip, saying to stop speaking. It is very rare that that actually happens. How many of us sitting here tonight can say that they have had that privilege?

💬 Tim Macindoe: What an aspersion against my good character.

You are a very fine whip, it has to be said. It has to be said that you are a very fine whip, and you are doing remarkably well for a man who has just come back from attending a high-level Westminster seminar in the United Kingdom, representing our Parliament in the best possible way that you have done. The commencement is 28 days after receiving the Royal assent. If I give my speech on 23 July, then it is likely to receive the Royal assent on 25 July, because normally the bills go to the Governor-General to be signed, and it is possible he might be in town and he could give the Royal assent on 25 July. So 28 days from that period—have we got any people in the House who are good at mental arithmetic? It is all right. I have done the sums. It is actually 22 August. So I wonder. I pose this question: do you think that it is likely that this date—28 days after the Royal assent, which we are suggesting is a putative 22 August—when you google what happened on 22 August sometime in the future, could come up as the day the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill passed? Could that be?

It is very interesting to see what did happen on 22 August historically. Remember that 22 August is the putative commencement date for this bill. It is the putative, possible commencement date when the Governor-General, His Excellency Lieutenant General Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae, signs the bill and effectively it gains Royal assent. I am posing the question to the Committee that in years to come could it be that when you google 22 August it comes up that that was the date that in the New Zealand Parliament the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill passed? What else has happened on that day?

💬 Tim Macindoe: My brother-in-law has a birthday.

Ah, well that was not on Google. But the commencement date of 22 August has had a mixture of the sad and the joyful, and a mixture of the memorable and the less memorable. But let me just outline some of the things that have happened on 22 August, which we know is actually the likely date of the commencement of this bill.

💬 Carol Beaumont: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I call your attention to Standing Order 108 around relevancy, and also note in Standing Order 108(2) tedious repetition being referred to, and wonder whether this meets that clause.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Previous speakers have drawn attention to the fact that the commencement date of this bill is very significant because of the significant implications, particularly for those who will be charged with enforcing it. Therefore, for members opposite, who frequently delight in filibustering on matters, to criticise the member in charge of the bill for going into some detail for discussing the significance—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): All right, that is enough. I do not need any more assistance, thank you very much. There were two points that the member made. One was that we should be speaking about the commencement date, and, certainly, Dr Cam Calder is doing that. With regard to repetition, I think he is probably getting into the furry edges of actually doing that.

I cannot imagine I have ever been in the furry edges in this Chamber before. That has to be a first. I am going to move swiftly along from there because there is nothing furry about these edges, which I am about to delineate for you. We are talking about 22 August. All these points are relevant—all these points are relevant—because 22 August is the likely putative commencement date of this bill. I ask the Committee what else happened on that date. Sadly, the first thing that came to mind was—and this is not something that I am treating with anything other than the utmost seriousness—that there was a suicide bombing in western Iraq. That was 22 August 2013. When you think about what is happening now, that is an extraordinarily sad indictment of the world situation. I was unaware of this, I have to say. In 2012, on 22 August, which is the putative commencement date of this bill, Russia and Vanuatu became members of the World Trade Organization.

Could it be that in a few months’ time, or maybe longer, after this bill is passed, in 2014, on 22 August, this bill being passed into law in New Zealand—because this is a worldwide problem; it is not peculiar only to New Zealand—could be of such significance that it would also come up in a Google search? If somebody wanted to look at significant dates, and we have heard that it is Tim Macindoe’s brother-in-law’s birthday—

I move, That the question be now put.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to stand and speak. I hope that some of the things that I say about the commencement date of this Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill will go some way to consoling the author of this bill, Dr Cam Calder, a known sensitive person.

💬 Tim Macindoe: He is.

Oh, indeed. He is extremely proud of having his own bill in the House, and he is shattered by the callous comments from the other side that he was being repetitious and boring—oh, how dreadful!

💬 Hon Member: And furry!

Well—adding to it. And those comments came from a lady whom we have always considered to be quite polite.

When we look at this bill, we have heard about how we did not wish to have conjecture over when it took effect because it is quite significant. We heard from my colleague on my right, Mike Sabin, with his police background, talking about people stockpiling these sorts of things. This is what happens. On a serious note, because this is a very serious business, I cannot remember last week, but—[Interruption] Let me rephrase that: I cannot remember in which part of last week I heard the news item that a farmer had had to endure a large number of sheep being shot on his property.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: That was North Otago.

North Otago. And how many sheep were shot on the first night?

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: About 110.

About 110. Then he moved his flock of sheep into a safer paddock, and the next night they shot another 80. The point about this is that it is vital that we have this bill commence fairly quickly because there are very odd people around. Well, think of it, none of the sheep were eaten and none of them were taken away; they were just shot. Some people are nuts. If you give weaponry of any sort to people, they are going to use it.

Remember, this bill does not stop people owning these things; it stops them having possession in a public place without reasonable purpose. For those who think you cannot use lasers for that sort of thing, I think there was an advertisement that might have been in the Sunday Star-Times last weekend, where a company was advertising helicopter drones that fired pepper spray and used blinding lasers to blind demonstrators at meetings.

💬 Mike Sabin: Surely not.

Yes, surely not. But, I mean, we say let us do it seriously, and this is a very serious thing. The 28 days, though, will achieve the purpose, and it was carefully discussed by the committee.

The immediate commencement could easily cause confusion. You have got these things. You are allowed to have them, you can own them, but you cannot have possession of them in a public place without due reason. That is the whole purpose of the bill. So by giving 28 days, it is enough for the education to hit the papers, to move around, and for people who own these things to become familiar with what they should and should not be doing with them, where they can take them and where they cannot take them. [Interruption] Do you have another point, Mr Sabin?

💬 Mike Sabin: That’s the crux of the commencement date.

It is the crux of the commencement date.

This is a behaviour-changing bill, and that is why it needs education for it. [Interruption] I hear chuckles—chuckles—from the other side of the Chamber. I have seen an All Black ready to take a goal kick who was lasered, to put him off. This happens—this happens—and it happens, fancy that, in sport. I remember when we introduced this bill, with all due respect to the serious-minded members on the other side, that there was a certain “Oh, come on. They’re only toys for cats to play with.” and that sort of thing. It ain’t. These lasers can be extremely dangerous articles—back to the furry edges again!

I call Simon O’Connor.

💬 Hon Member: Oh, this will be good.

I am very pleased. It is a good choice. I am biased, though, of course. I am very pleased to talk to clause 2, the commencement clause of the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill. It is a little bit similar, in fact, to the first clause in so far as some simple elements got quite complicated, as we heard in clause 1. Of course, that was around the change of semantics in terminology; in the commencement clause it is obviously a debate around timing. Should we bring this about immediately? Should the Royal assent be granted quickly and efficiently, or should it be held out for 28 days? As you can imagine, with anything to do with dates, there is a whole continuum of debate there. There was some thought of whether we should go out to 6 months. There was some thought that we should even look to 8 days and so forth. They have been too facetious.

I did notice earlier when the member in the chair, Dr Cam Calder, the sponsor of the bill, was noting the calendars, he did lack clarity on whether it was a Julian calendar or a Gregorian calendar. I am very disappointed—very disappointed. But, seriously, this was an area that we debated quite a bit, because on one side immediate commencement recognises the fact that this is an important bill and that there is a serious consequence here.

I was talking to some friends last week on a different topic, around what we would say is high risk but low frequency. There is a degree of that here, but when you are talking about an airliner, or even if it is just the Eagle unit helicopter—I have friends in the police, particularly in Auckland, who are noting the dangers even to the police helicopters—surely, the argument goes, we should put this into immediate effect.

We as the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee debated that at length. The corollary to that, and where we ultimately ended up, though, was that we needed time to embed the launch of the bill to seek Royal assent, as is proper in this constitutional arrangement. What we thought was that 28 days allowed two things. First and foremost, it gave an opportunity to our constabulary, to the New Zealand Police, to put its structures in motion in order to allow the police a full and proper consideration of what is required to get the paperwork sorted and to read through the various legal consequences, because, as other speakers I am sure have noted, this bill itself relies on other legislation. We heard Mike Sabin earlier talking about the possession of knives and so forth, so there are those elements that have to be considered.

The second side, though, was the fairness of the law. I am no lawyer, which may be a good thing for the country, but one of the elements is that people have to understand the laws themselves—what I suppose we would look on in philosophy as natural justice—giving people the opportunity to understand what this law means and what it means for them. At the heart of this are hand-held lasers, items that people are quite familiar with, from those who use them for quite normal and adequate means, be they a lecturer at a university or so forth, or in an engineering firm, to those with more nefarious intent. Whether or not, Dr Calder, those people are fluffy, hirsute, or otherwise is a point for another debate, but we need people to fully understand—I am sorry, I just had to get “hirsute” in tonight.

The key, though, is what the appropriate timing is. I think what we have tried to note is the balance between those two points of tension. Do we get this bill under way immediately to show it is a serious piece of legislation, or do we give enough time so that consideration can be undertaken by the constabulary, by the police, and so that people can understand what this law means to them? It is particularly for citizens who are used to carrying around a hand-held or a high-power laser, so that they can fully appreciate what is required.

I think that after a bit of debate in the select committee—and I note that the chair, David Bennett, a fine chair, is here with me in the Chamber, and a number of my colleagues—we came to the belief, which we have now articulated in clause 2, the commencement clause, that this Act comes into force on the day that is 28 days after the date on which it receives Royal assent. We thought that was a good spot so that we can take this bill—once it is completed in the House in a timely and appropriate manner, which is quite germane to this clause in itself—and we can send it to the Governor-General. He can sign it on behalf of the Queen of New Zealand. We can get it into the statute book, but then we have 28 days for consideration so that Kiwis can make—

💬 David Bennett: In 28 days?

Well, actually a lot of things can happen in 28 days. I believe you can even bite a player, which seems to be in vogue at the moment. Fortunately, this is not part of it. Again, this was an area, like clause 1, which took up a bit of time in the select committee as we considered the various options. I am hearing from my colleagues in the Chamber, but I would be open to more discussion, but I think that we came to a point that we felt was appropriate, balancing those respective rights—

I do appreciate the sensitivity that fellow members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee are displaying when we are talking about the commencement date. This Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill is a very serious bill. There has been a bit of banter about it over the course of it because I think a lot of people mistakenly think when they think of laser pointers, even if they think of high-powered laser pointers, that they are actually toys, and of course they are not. That is why the commencement date for when this bill comes into effect is so important. Members of the committee sensed my pain when I was unsuccessful in getting an immediate enactment of this bill, so that once it is passed and has got Royal assent, it then comes into force.

I picked up on the points raised by a number of speakers. These speakers have raised points that are very, very pertinent, and it was canvassed at some length by the committee. It has been said that we could have gone out to 6 months. That would have been ridiculous as the commencement date. Why would you go out to 6 months? I cannot think of any reason why. However, I think it was one of the timespans that was canvassed by the committee. I thought I had it won. I thought I had it won initially on the committee with saying “immediately”. Nothing succeeds like success; let us get it done, in, down, out—we have got it. But it was not to be.

I have to pay credit when talking about the commencement date to the artful hand of this maestro of committee chairmanship. I refer, of course, to David Bennett. David Bennett is known for many things, he is esteemed for many things, and he has a reputation for many things, but nothing is more illustrious than his highly burnished reputation as a very successful and capable committee chair. It was his calm handling of what could have been a fraught situation—it could have been a slightly angst-ridden situation, despite the inherent collegiality of this committee when we were discussing this very pertinent point of the commencement date. But as it transpired, through the calmness, the demeanour, the ability to build bridges that he displayed within the committee when we were discussing the commencement date—

💬 Mike Sabin: He built bridges and got over them.

Well, there you go—a very pertinent point from the member from the far north, who is doing an outstanding job in the far north, not only with his perceptive speeches in the Committee on this very important bill but also as the calm presence on the committee who just grounds the chairman and makes sure that things happen in a timely manner, with consultation.

So we got to this stage that I was uncomfortable about. I have to say that I was uncomfortable, but for the greater good I was convinced. I mean, I am learning. I am almost away from this place, but you learn every day in this House and you realise that politics is the art of the possible, is it not? It is the art of the possible. The commencement date is possible only because we came to an agreement, because there was openmindedness on both sides. We had a very collegial Opposition. There was a lot of debate—6 months; as I say, I was going for “immediately”. And yet the voices in the committee gradually moved around so that 28 days was the length of time that the committee agreed to—I do have to take responsibility; I was part of that committee—unanimously. This has been the great thing about this bill. It has been unanimous not only in the committee but across the House. So I think that if you ask anyone in this Chamber, they will support the 28-day period, because that is what came about from the select committee for the commencement date.

I have to say I am very grateful, as the member who first put up this bill, and did not even think about the commencement date at that early stage, because I had to get it through the caucus, and then we had to get it drawn from the ballot, and—

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am not wishing in any way to doubt what has been expressed by the Opposition whip, but it was my understanding that Mr Horan was not casting a vote on this matter. Can she assure the Committee that she has received a proxy for—[Interruption] Sorry, could I just complete my point. Can she assure the Committee that she has received a proxy on a procedural motion?

All members in this House are honourable members, and I think we are getting into dangerous ground when we start challenging the right. Members who cast a vote know what the consequences are if they mislead the House. In any consideration a change in that particular vote is not going to change the outcome of this particular—[Interruption] It still is not going to change the outcome. The member can ring up the whip on the other side.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have just two quick points, if I may. The issue of the procedural motion proxy would determine the outcome of the motion. The second thing is I do not think the Government whip was intending to cast aspersions on—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Yes, I know.

—the Opposition whip. I do think it is important for her sake, though, to clarify the difference between a proxy on a procedural matter, which is—

Order! I have ruled on this. Let me reread the votes. Those who voted for the closure were 59, including Brendan Horan. Those who voted against were 60. So the motion is not agreed to. I have made that quite clear, and we are going to gain nothing by casting aspersions. Members know the consequence of casting votes they do not have.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Are we going to get into some new material?

This is new material. I believe that you have just mistakenly declared the result of the vote, and I think you have actually just cast the names and numbers the wrong way round.

💬 Hon Member: Yes.

Even the Opposition is agreeing with that point.

I declared that the motion is not agreed to on the first cut. Did I—[Interruption] The key point was that I said the motion is not agreed to, so we are not having the closure.

I will continue where we left off on the commencement date in clause 2 of the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill, soon to be enacted as the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Act. In terms of the commencement date, there are a couple of key points I want to speak to. One of the fundamental things, I think, was around the education period and the time that was needed, particularly for the enforcement agencies.

This is a narrow piece of law, and it is a narrow field, I guess, in terms of the likelihood of offending, but when it does occur, it is very, very serious. The police submitted that what they need is an opportunity to carry out training. That is why the commencement date was set at a month—and, actually, that is quite limiting for the police to carry out training.

Typically, what they will do, and let us bear in mind that they have to do it within 28 days, is have a number of training days where the sectional police officers in particular—the front line, if you like, of the police force; those who are out there in the incident cars—will go through a training process. They will learn what this legislation is about and what the expectation is in terms of how it will be enforced.

This is not a punitive piece of legislation. The Summary Offences Act in itself is not something that wields a significant amount of weight. But the point is that the implications of someone using one of these high-power laser pointers maliciously is significant, and that fact will not be lost on the police. So in that first 28 days the police will actually have to carry out some training days across what amounts to probably several thousand police officers—the front-line police officers in each police station across the country. What the police will want to understand, really, is not just the law and what the expectations are, and what the ingredients of the offence will constitute, but in what manner the police intend to actually police that. I would suggest that they will very much take a proactive, informative position on it.

That brings me to the next point I want to make about the commencement date and the time allowed for the education process, which is that an education process must occur for the general public. So in those first 28 days from the Royal assent, what the public has to get its head round is what a high-power laser pointer is, as distinct from a laser pointer that may be used—

💬 Grant Robertson: A low-powered one?

Sorry, Mr Robertson?

💬 Grant Robertson: As distinct from a low-powered one.

Exactly—as distinct from a low-powered one. Of course, in the university world this will be a big deal. It will be a big deal because there are a number of people who use these things in the education setting, and, of course, there are many who use them at conferences and seminars and what have you. I would hazard a guess that inside the equipment box of a number of seminar presenters, at conferences and so forth, are laser pointers. Also, there are many people who use these things as toys and many stores that sell them as toys.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Do they?

Yes, absolutely. Obviously, they are going to need to determine, as retailers of these products, where they land. That is not to say that they cannot sell them, but, obviously, if one falls into the hands of someone who uses it for a malicious purpose, then that will obviously be of concern to retailers. So that 28 days from the commencement date provides that opportunity for the general public, for those who are commonly using these devices, to get their heads round what the expectation is and what is this legislation is actually about. It is not about punishing law-abiding citizens who are going about their lives using laser pointers for legitimate purposes; it is about those who would use them for malicious purposes.

Then we have the impact in terms of the workplace. In many workplaces laser pointers are used. In fact, in many workplaces lasers are used. So there will be some question that workplaces will have to resolve within that first month as to whether the lasers they are using would constitute high-power lasers if they were actually held and used by hand. In fact, in engineering and even on building sites lasers are used. I have used one myself—not well. I have to say that if I laid down a snooker ball on the living room floor, it would roll to one corner—disappointingly so. I did use a laser and obviously got that wrong.

I would just like to congratulate Dr Cam Calder on his great work on the Summary Offences (Possession of High-power Laser Pointers) Amendment Bill, as well. I felt I had to respond, since he did go through what the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee had done when we had to go through clause 2 and the conjecture that there was around the commencement date—around the 28 days. Dr Cam Calder raised a number of issues there around how the committee approached that issue and why it came to the result that we have here in front of us tonight. It is simply that there was, as he said, a desire for him to see the commencement date being immediate. Although we appreciated his intention to make sure that there were no more incidents that could be attributed to these hand-held lasers, we were also mindful of the fact that we had received advice from the police and others that we potentially needed to give a bit more time for them to get themselves in a position to be able to enforce the law, and also to educate and inform members of the public about what the change in the law would be. So that is why 28 days was settled upon as the appropriate balance.

We were actually asked in the committee to go for an even longer date than 28 days, but we felt that it would accommodate Dr Cam Calder’s wishes more if we went for 28 days rather than, say, a 3-month period. That was something that could well have been the case for this bill.

💬 Simon O’Connor: What about 26 weeks?

Well, you can go for any number you want, really. And just remember that numbers are important today, because the Labour Party has put out its tax rates, and they are all going up. It chose 36 as the number for all those good, hard-working New Zealanders—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Come back to the bill.

—who have to pay 36c in the dollar. Twenty-eight days is the one that was decided upon here today, and that is why we are looking at clause 2 of this bill.

Once again, it is a very good bill in the name of Dr Cam Calder, who has taken a great interest in making sure that it passes through this Committee. We look forward to its passage through the rest of the evening.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 Principal Act