Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill

I am pleased to speak on the second reading of the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill. Just to recap, this bill is about amending the Maritime Crimes Act. We are amending that Act to implement some obligations that we have entered into under international counter-terrorism treaties. Our Government has signed up to these international treaties, and to give effect to our obligations, or to be in compliance, I guess, with our obligations now, we have to incorporate that into domestic law.

These international treaties go all the way back to 1988 when these original treaties were devised. Since then there has been a development, I guess. There have been modern, contemporary threats, terrorist threats, that have arisen, unfortunately, around the world. So those treaties were amended in 2005 by some protocols that updated those treaties. We are now at the second reading, to be compliant and to make sure that New Zealand does its job.

Not having been on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, which considered this bill, I do want to commend the committee, because from what I have been observing, from the debate thus far, this has been a really good example of good parliamentary lawmaking process. What we have are international obligations, which New Zealand has signed up to, being incorporated into domestic law, and we have also seen the parliamentary process at work. I would like to commend the committee, which received 150 submissions on this particular piece of legislation. The vast majority of those submissions were opposed, either in whole or in part, to certain provisions in the legislation.

To the committee’s credit, and to the credit of the officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Justice, they gave proper consideration to those submissions and the issues that were raised, and some amendments have been made. Some amendments were made. It was a tricky job of drafting, because, in one sense, one of the main issues that were raised was around concerns that it would impact on proper legal protest activity. So it was a tricky drafting job of ensuring that we remain compliant with our international obligations in the international treaties, ensuring that the wording is consistent, but also addressing the concerns that were raised by submitters around, for instance, legitimate protest activity.

To the committee’s credit, it was able to navigate that narrow path and come up with some good wording to address the issue. For instance, an “avoidance of doubt” clause has been inserted so that it is very clear that legitimate protest activity is not considered an offence under this piece of legislation. So I do commend the work of the committee.

We are looking at four new offences that are being inserted into the Maritime Crimes Act. Those offences, just to touch on them again, are around maritime terrorism and the illicit trafficking by ship of weapons of mass destruction, and that certainly is a new crime—I guess a contemporary crime. There is also the delivery systems, the trafficking of the delivery systems and related materials that go into these weapons of mass destruction, and also the transportation of fugitives by ship.

These are new offences. They ensure that New Zealand is compliant with our international treaties, which we have signed up to. So that is a good thing. But it also ensures that these new offences now are inserted into our domestic law.

Just finally, and I will not take up too much further time of the House, but I do note that the bill itself—there were some other changes, amendments that had been made. One that Mr Faafoi might be pleased about is the fact that—and this has not been touched on in the debate thus far. It is new section 20, in clause 22—the application of this bill to Tokelau. We must not forget about Tokelau—we must not forget about Tokelau in the great Realm that is Aotearoa New Zealand. This bill applies all the way up into the Pacific and into all of the territorial waters. This legislation will apply to that vast expanse of ocean and even beyond our extraterritorial boundaries. That is how significant this piece of legislation is. So I do commend the work of the committee, and I look forward to the further progress of this bill through the House. Kia ora tātou.

I have to say that last evening I was in my office, I had some guests there, we were watching Parliament TV, and I saw that this bill was being discussed. I thought “Well, I’m glad I’m not down there talking about it.”, and now I find myself here today, speaking on this bill.

I just want to thank the member Rino Tirikatene for improving my knowledge of this particular subject matter, with that stunning contribution. I think the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee was commended probably five or six times by him in that presentation, so I will do it just the once. I think the committee has done a sterling job in bringing this matter forward—obviously having to sift through 150 different submissions and consider quite complex legislation. There were a lot of things to consider.

I think particularly the committee has included some clauses and made some changes to ensure that there is an avoidance of doubt clause, which is particularly good. The committee has now made sure that there is a requirement that, obviously, there is going to have to be a serious offence that has been detected before acting. I think this is all very sound, very good. In fact, I will commend the committee again because it is very, very deserving. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.