Maritime Powers Extension Bill

I move, That the Maritime Powers Extension Bill be now read a second time.

This bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 to provide a clear domestic legislative framework for responding to drug smuggling activity in international waters beyond New Zealand’s territorial sea. I would like to thank the chair and all members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for carefully considering this bill over a relatively short period of time, and I am pleased that the committee has submitted a unanimous report that recommends only minor changes to the bill. Therefore, rather than focusing on the content of the bill, I want to take some time to speak to the broader context that it sits within, and I understand that these issues were considered by the committee and by submitters.

All parties in this House can agree that it is critical that our law enforcement agencies have a full set of options available to prevent criminals smuggling illicit drugs that are causing harm in New Zealand’s communities. These are serious powers, and they will not be exercised lightly by the Customs Service. This bill reflects New Zealand’s rights and obligations under international conventions to suppress maritime drug smuggling. The bill balances the protection of New Zealand with the rights affirmed under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This bill is part of the coalition Government’s wider strategy for combatting organised crime. Through Budget 2018, this coalition Government has increased funding for both customs and police, to build capacity and capability, and, in partnership with law enforcement agencies offshore, to disrupt organised crime groups in New Zealand.

The security of our maritime environment is fundamental to our national security. We are all aware of the challenge we face in monitoring and responding in the vast ocean that surrounds us. I recognise here the critical role that the New Zealand Defence Force plays in supporting civilian agencies like customs, police, the Department of Conservation, Fisheries New Zealand, and others in managing their areas of responsibility. While the powers proposed under this bill will not materially change the level of support required by customs, we need to continue to ensure agencies, including the Defence Force, are equipped to protect New Zealand’s interests in this dynamic and changing environment.

Given the transnational nature of drug smuggling, Aotearoa New Zealand cannot respond to these challenges alone. We work closely with our overseas partners to prevent the smuggling at the earliest point in the supply chain, and customs is increasingly stopping exports to New Zealand from within source countries, rather than responding when they reach our border. Passing this bill means that New Zealand has another option available to respond when drug smuggling activities are detected in international waters. Regional partners such as Australia already have similar powers, and this bill ensures New Zealand can more effectively contribute to joint operations. We also work closely with Pacific Island countries to build the capability of customs and border security agencies. These are long-term initiatives, but the Government’s Pacific reset is adding a new level of priority to building strong, mature partnerships with our neighbours in the Pacific.

Ultimately, this will protect New Zealanders, but it also directly strengthens the ability of these countries to protect their own people. Members may be aware, for example, of an Ecuadorian fishing boat suspected of smuggling drugs in the Cook Islands in February this year, where the New Zealand Customs Service was there on the ground, supporting local agencies. It also provided intelligence, evidence, information sharing, and coordination support from New Zealand. The Cook Islands’ Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Hon Mark Brown, has written to convey his appreciation of the support that the New Zealand Customs Service provided. This is an excellent partnership model, that I expect will be the basis for future operations.

In conclusion, passing this bill is a necessary step in ensuring that customs and other law enforcement agencies can fully respond to suspected drug smuggling activities. It is, however, just one part of a broader strategy for combatting organised crime, which encompasses stronger relationships with partners in the Pacific, and more widely strengthening our capability to respond both onshore and at sea. I commend the Maritime Powers Extension Bill to the House. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I acknowledge the Acting Minister of Customs who has just taken his chair, Kris Faafoi, obviously, in taking over the role, but, importantly, acknowledge the former Minister Meka Whaitiri too, who had shepherded this to the House so far.

I’m very pleased to speak on this Maritime Powers Extension Bill in its second reading debate. In many ways, we’ll be echoing—as is the nature of this House—what the Minister has said. By and large, there is concord, there is agreement across the parties for the necessity of this bill, and I’ll touch on some of that.

I wear two hats. I only mention that because I’ll recuse myself from one of them. They are, obviously, the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, but I’m also the National Party spokesperson for customs—but it’s not my role to put that hat on while addressing the topic today, other than to say we’re very supportive of the intentions of the bill. That’s been part of the reason why not only as a committee but this side of the House was happy to expedite the bill as quickly as possible through the select committee process, and I’ll talk to that in a moment, too.

So the committee did thoroughly consider the bill, but, as I was saying, we did move relatively swiftly, and that was for several reasons. One was we had three submissions in total, and I’d like to put on the record my thanks to those three submitters—organisations and individuals—for their time. That, of course, reduces, if you will, the workload of the committee in terms of consideration.

The second is that, as we have noted, there was great cooperation and agreement on the committee around not only the need for this bill but, actually, how it was drafted. The committee worked very quickly to bring it back to the House. It’s no surprise that one of the reasons is that we want this set of powers to be made available to our customs people as quickly as possible.

The third reason I think we were able to expedite the process quickly—again, without cutting any corners—was our excellent advisers. Can I acknowledge those from the Customs Service and from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) for their work and advice. It was very much appreciated, not only the clarity of their thinking but, in fact, the good humour, at times, that was illustrated and, I think, probably their patience—perhaps only with the chair, but maybe with the entire committee—as various questions were asked. But my thanks on my behalf and that of the committee goes to them, and not to forget the Parliamentary Counsel Office, as well, for, obviously, the drafting of the bill. It has only seen, as the commentary indicates, very minor changes.

Look, the bill is relatively simple. I’ve spoken in the first reading around what the whole purpose is. Fundamentally, it’s about New Zealand’s good citizenry—how to be a good citizen in the world. We have signed up to several agreements. One is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, as it’s often referred to. As a signatory of that, we cooperate to stop the illicit smuggling of drugs. I won’t get into the different types of drugs, obviously, but, you know, it’s pretty connotative, what we’re suggesting there.

We’ve also signed up to a convention that’s known as the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. So it’s very much like UNCLOS in a way because it’s directed at stopping the illicit movement of drugs around the world.

So we’ve signed up for that, but like so many international treaties that we sign or engage with, we need domestic legislation to make those active in New Zealand, and it’s been a little bit of a gap in our customs framework to date that we have not been able, it has been felt, to fully execute those treaties. So, to put it very simply, until this bill passes—and this is not an encouragement to those considering smuggling drugs in New Zealand. I’m wondering whether I’m perjuring the good nature of the House—

💬 Gareth Hughes: They’re all watching Parliament TV.

Yeah, I’ve caught myself in a trap, Mr Hughes. Oh well. But, basically, at the moment there’s some ambiguity over whether or not we’d be able to prosecute people who are internationally smuggling drugs. So I’m not talking about people bringing drugs into New Zealand. Our customs people do a remarkable job in that space, along with stopping other inappropriate publications and so forth. But if at the moment—

Tim van de Molen: I suspect the drug dealers aren’t watching Parliament TV.

That’s a good point. One of my colleagues has pointed out that he doesn’t think that the drug smugglers are watching television, or I hope they’re not—maybe a smuggled television, who knows?

💬 Hon Andrew Little: You’d be surprised.

And the justice Minister says—we’ll have to have a talk after this.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Especially when they know you’re talking, Simon.

That’s right, that’s right. They must be very interested in Greek and Latin as well, I suspect.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: That’s what they’re waiting for.

Look, fundamentally—fundamentally—

💬 Jamie Strange: The commonality.

Now, he’s thrown me—there we go. Fundamentally, at the moment—

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

This is almost one of the first times in seven years, on one of the simplest—yeah, anyway.

At the moment, if we interdict, or stop, a ship on the high seas, which we are empowered to do, there is some question over whether or not we’d be able to bring a prosecution within the New Zealand environment. So I think it’s a really important element for the House to understand that we do have the powers to do that at the moment. Under UNCLOS and other agreements, we can stop ships which we are suspicious of, both those flagged to other sovereign nations and those which are not flagged. There are protocols in place to do that, but there is, again, ambiguity that if we have stopped a vessel off, let’s say, Fiji and it is found to contain a large number of drugs, we’d, obviously, interdict that ship, take the crew into custody, and do all the requirements that you would imagine, with foreign affairs and our other partners. But there’s, again, a question whether, without this law, we’d be able to actually make the necessary prosecutions. So this is what the bill seeks to tighten up.

New Zealand is well advanced in its customs work and engaging with customs—and I thank the customs people for the opportunity to have come and visited their sites to get a slightly deeper understanding of what they do. Their work there is very thorough.

They’re doing an excellent job, but, as is probably no surprise, New Zealand continues to come under pressure, particularly as more and more people look to bring drugs in. It’s a lucrative market in New Zealand. It’s not, obviously, a large one, but people, for whatever reason, are quite prepared to pay a high amount of money—I’m not sure if that’s a pun—

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

—yeah, I’m very sorry; it’s a Thursday evening—that, obviously, helps generate the trade. We know that a lot of it is coming through the Pacific. It’s coming through the Pacific Islands, so, fundamentally, that’s the area that we need more work in, and I’m pleased to see that customs is focusing on that.

It was mentioned by the Minister—and quite importantly—that that work by customs is not done alone. They cooperate very closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and, as I have noted, they are one of our advisers on this bill. Obviously, customs is not going to operate in international waters or in the protected areas of other countries, such as the Cook Islands, without engaging with that nation.

They work very closely with the Ministry for Primary Industries as well—they have a hand to play—and, importantly too, with our Ministry of Defence. I just look to the Minister of Defence in the House to acknowledge through him the great work that defence does in supporting customs. Obviously, customs itself does not have vessels to send to the Pacific. They tap, effectively, defence and cooperate very closely together—along with, I believe, our allies such as Australia—to do these missions to interdict the various vessels.

I think that’s important because not only is that a service to New Zealand but it’s a service to—well, the wider realms within New Zealand, or wider countries within the Realm, but also to our partners in the Pacific. I mentioned Australia—we’ve obviously got the likes of Fiji and Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands, to name but a few. So we have a very large area to police, and I think now, when this bill, obviously, moves through second reading and through into its third, after the committee of the whole House, it will just strengthen even further the good work that is being done there.

So I’m very pleased that we had the opportunity on the select committee to consider this bill. As I’ve been keen to stress, we were thorough in our work. We didn’t want to cut any corners, but we also wanted to move this through as a process as quickly as possible, and that was aided by some excellent—albeit three—submissions advisers, who gave us very clear thoughts and advice, as you might expect. The work, too, of the committee—I found, myself, as chair, that the questions were useful and insightful. I think it did help members bring their ideas together, and, ultimately, we’ve been able to report back the bill very simply, really—I could almost name the changes; I won’t, but I count them on one hand.

But I do want just want to finish, in some ways, where I should’ve started, and that’s acknowledging the men and women who do work for our Customs Service, and those who work through defence and the Ministry for Primary Industries and MFAT, who continue to keep our borders safe. It’s a service that is greatly appreciated, and, hopefully, this is just one more, well, bit in the arsenal to help.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. I’d like to acknowledge the previous two speakers, who have very adequately outlined the purpose of the bill. It’s certainly a very important bill for our country. We do have a challenge around drugs, particularly methamphetamine, commonly called P, and the passing of this bill will give the Customs Service powers to stop, board, and search ships suspected to be involved in drug smuggling in international waters beyond New Zealand’s 24 nautical mile contiguous zone. So it’s basically giving Customs more power in order to stop the drugs coming in. Look, it’s certainly only part of a puzzle, and it’s important as well to increase the police force, which we are working on. I’m proud to say that both parties prior to the election talked about that. So, look, it’s all part of a puzzle around keeping New Zealanders safe.

Just a key point I’d like to focus on in my brief contribution is around New Zealand’s role in the Pacific. We have a strong relationship with our Pacific neighbours, with Australia and the Pacific Islands, and it’s important that we play our part—good “citizen-ship” would be one way to say that. [Interruption] Ha!

Just for those listening at home, the Kiribati islands, for example, have an exclusive economic zone the size of the mainland United States but only one ship to patrol it. The Pacific is a huge area, and if we’re going to patrol the Pacific well, adequately, we need to work together as countries. We need collaboration. So that’s why I’m very excited to see this bill being brought to the House. That’s what this bill is about: it’s about collaboration.

In terms of the select committee, I’m honoured to be on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. I’d like to acknowledge Simon O’Connor, the previous speaker, who does an excellent job chairing the committee. We have a positive working relationship across the committee, and there was unanimous support for this, because, like I said, it’s about keeping New Zealanders safe. It’s about stopping the drugs coming in. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. I’d like to start by acknowledging the “citizen-ship” pun by my colleague Jamie Strange, thereby proving he is not an empty vessel. In relation to the Maritime Powers Extension Bill, the first thing that I might note is that it is indeed an extension of the existing maritime powers, and previous speakers—the Minister himself and other colleagues—have noted the ways in which those powers have been extended. A couple of ways, broadly speaking—the first is out there in the field, or on the water, whereby the powers are increased to intercept or interdict ships that are or might be carrying out such operations, and, second, to deal with such instances appropriately on New Zealand shores.

I’ll return to that if time allows. But I’ll note briefly, in passing, as others have already done, that while it is a Government bill, it’s also supported on this side of the House. So, again, I acknowledge the work of Ministers various who have been involved to date and also those others in Government who are concerned with agencies that do the necessary work to carry this out. Others have already mentioned the fact that others other than customs itself are involved in the work that is needed. Minister Faafoi also did make mention of the fact that interoperability also exists on the international plane, such that we are by definition and by the nature of the bill, anticipating working closely with other countries and their respective customs and navies and so forth to be able to meet its aims.

The commentary of the bill as reported back from the House refers to amendments that have been marked up, of course, in that version of the bill, and I’ll touch on those again briefly if time allows. To provide context to that, it’s necessary to understand that this is a legislative instrument that gives effect to an international instrument such that New Zealand has already signed up to a couple of international treaties—if you’ll excuse the tautology at this time of the parliamentary week—that we live in a global world and therefore must abide by. I don’t intend to go on any further on the subjects of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the illicit traffic in narcotics drugs and psychotropic substances—to the relief of all, I’m sure.

Talking about the mechanics of how the bill actually operates, I mentioned earlier the fact that it is an extension of powers. The powers already do exist to some extent but do need to be broadened such that at sea our people operating in those waters are able to be able to interdict ships that are in a particular environment beyond the exclusive economic zone of New Zealand. That is defined in the bill, but referring to the definition in another Act already, so that much is straightforward. I think it’s worth noting in particular that “high seas” is defined to mean all parts of the sea not included in the following: “(a) the internal waters, territorial sea or exclusive economic zone of New Zealand or another State;”—which is an important point in itself—“or (b) the archipelagic waters of an archipelagic State”. One might think of, for example, a near neighbour of Indonesia.

I was grappling with understanding how all the different zones and statuses of various ships might affect how this law will be intended to operate, and I would like to take this particular opportunity to acknowledge the work of the officials in advising me and telling members of the committee and understanding exactly how that all fits together.

Because I am a bear of little brain, I felt it necessary to make a diagram that set out how it all operates. The particular forum that we have now does not allow for me to show that, but I’ll step through as clearly as I can, if I may, how I see and now understand the different statuses of vessels work.

The first thing to note is that this law applies to ships and they, in turn, can be broken down into three categories: those which are registered to New Zealand—so far so good and pretty straightforward. The next category is foreign ships, and then, third, are what we might call Stateless vessels, which are, as the name suggests, not registered or associated with either New Zealand or any other nation. Returning to the category of foreign ships, that in turn can be broken down into registered and unregistered vessels, and that distinction is a key one in understanding how the bill will operate once it passes into law, as seems inevitable, particularly in relation to the definition of what a flag State and registered or unregistered ship might be.

Having established, I think reasonably clearly, how the bill will operate—by colleagues before me, I should say, as well as those brief remarks that I’ve added. I think and I hope to fill a bit of a gap there. I will note, as a couple of others have done, that there were a few submissions, as is normal. I’d like to acknowledge those who took the time and trouble to make submissions. The report that I have in front of me reminds me that two out of the three submissions were in support, so the Meatloaf threshold has been met—“Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad”, of course. One of those that was in support made the point that funding will be required to ensure that customs and the New Zealand Defence Force have the resources to exercise these powers effectively. I don’t doubt that that’s the case—whether that’s already the case, I presume and expect that would be the situation, but no doubt the Government would be able to continue to ensure that is the case so that the important work that’s already being done and the further work that will now be able to be done will indeed be easily carried out.

The one submitter—the 33 percent of the submissions that was opposed to the bill—was merely making the point that customs should, in this person’s view, focus more on the more dangerous, as this person saw them, drugs. There was a concern that the result of this bill would be to focus on “low-risk” drugs. It’s not a view that I necessarily share myself, but for the sake of completeness in this, the second reading, I think it fair to all concerned to report back some of the feedback that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee had received in considering the bill.

Perhaps it’s worth, in my final couple of minutes, just taking a moment to acknowledge the context of needing such legislation, which is summarised for us well by the Customs Service as really mentioning the fact that illicit drugs—and they mention methamphetamine particularly, by way of example—do cause substantial harms to individual New Zealanders, their family and whānau, and the wider community. They point that out, really, to then go on and say that it’s critical to ensure that the law enforcement agencies that we expect and indeed require to take care of such problems on our behalf actually have the full suite of options, so that they’re not only equipped in the physical hardware sense of the phrase but also equipped in the legal sense of the word to be able to deal with these things on our behalf. So it is that we want them to not only have the ability to physically apprehend but also the legal powers to be able to do so lawfully. Then, once such vessels and their masters and so forth are brought back to New Zealand, they can face justice in New Zealand courts, as we would expect to be the natural consequence of such activity or alleged activity.

Customs also noted, in providing some background for us, the risk of organised criminal groups evading border controls. My colleague Simon O’Connor has already given some helpful advice to those who might be contemplating doing so, at least for the next few days, with the bill due to pass into law, we expect and hope, and come into force as early as 1 October. I will just note that while normally a short turn-around between the passage of legislation and its effect is somewhat to be frowned upon if it means that people need time to arrange their affairs in order to be able to comply with it, we’re talking about the enforcement of that which is already illegal, and I don’t feel as though we should necessarily give criminals any more occasion to arrange their affairs to evade capture from law enforcement agencies. So, with that, I wish all those involved all the best in its passage through the House.

As it is 5.59 and the Serjeant-at-Arms is likely to come and grab the Mace any time soon, I thought that I would just quietly rise and make a point of order to prevent any of our colleagues starting a speech only for the sake of a couple of minutes. Thank you very much for your presiding over the House for the last week, Mr Assistant Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): So are you seeking leave?

I seek leave for the House to rise early.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be not.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.