Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) : I will continue a little bit from where I broke off when the House rose during my previous speech. As indicated in my second reading speech, I introduced Supplementary Order Paper 140 to clarify that body-scanning technology, which presents an unclothed image of specific passengers, cannot be used. It is important to note that technology in this area is improving and developing quickly. Earlier versions of the technology showed detailed unclothed images of the passengers being screened. However, with developments, such detailed images are now less likely to be produced. Manufacturers of the technology are aware of the privacy and dignity issues. Therefore, solutions have been developed that achieve the necessary security outcomes, while still maintaining the privacy of passengers. It is important that legislation preserves the privacy and dignity of passengers by not allowing technology that presents a detailed unclothed image of a specific passenger. That is why I introduced a Supplementary Order Paper, which all parties in the House supported.

There are currently no inflight security officer programmes in other countries in which the officers do not have a firearm capability. If New Zealand were to use unarmed inflight security officers, I would expect that other countries would not see those measures as being adequate. Further, if New Zealand were to require that foreign inflight security officers must be unarmed, this could raise objections and problems with our air services agreements, which enable us to fly to other countries, and with our obligations to consider security requests from those countries. This would likely result in the cancellation of flights to those countries and would question the integrity of New Zealand’s aviation security. The parties in the House recognise that although the intentions behind Mr Locke’s proposed amendments were genuine, it would be impracticable for us to adopt them. His proposed amendments were therefore defeated.

I would like to offer my thanks to the Ministry of Transport, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Aviation Security Service, the New Zealand Police, and the Ministry of Justice, which have all contributed a great deal of hard work and expertise towards the legislation. Finally, I would like to thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for its work on the legislation, especially the input of the Hon Mark Gosche, who chaired the committee. I am also thankful for the support of most parties in the House for what I believe is important and necessary legislation. I commend the Aviation Crimes Amendment Bill and the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) to the House.

PANSY WONG (National) : National is pleased to support the passage of this legislation. New Zealanders are well known to be travellers and we welcome visitors. The tourism industry is obviously a very important contributor to our economic well-being. In order to enable our visitors to travel to this country with confidence and security, and to enable our people to fly to other places in our planes, it is important for us to abide by international aviation security measures. It is for that reason that National supports this legislation.

I say once again that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has taken a very responsible and diligent attitude to examining the legislation. We have made some changes that I am sure even the Minister who was just on his feet, Harry Duynhoven, must appreciate. Two of the provisions in the legislation attracted the most comments and feedback during the submission stage. One of those provisions is about prohibited items that travellers might carry on to the plane through not knowing or not paying attention. According to the original legislation all those prohibited items would be taken away from those travellers, and airlines or airports would have to keep a record of the items and store them away somewhere until people claimed them back. We were very persuaded by submissions from the various airline and airport officials and authorities that in order to do that, we would probably end up building quite a few warehouses, which might be larger than the airport itself, in order to store those prohibited items. We were told, for example, that many visitors, or people travelling overseas, carry water. We have heard that the Hon Maurice Williamson bought some lovely perfume for his wife that was treated as a prohibited item.

The select committee came to the conclusion that we should really adopt a more practical method, which means that a prohibited item would be confiscated and destroyed. In order for that not to cause undue distress for the travellers, and also for people who have to implement these measures, like the security officers in the airport, we would like to impress upon the Minister and the various authorities that they should make sure that very focused, widespread promotion is mounted to let the public know that prohibited items will be confiscated and destroyed. We think that that is just a case of being fair. People should be very well aware of it. We want very clear notices to be put up at airports in order to give people one last warning that items taken from them will be destroyed, to avoid the very distressing scenes that might happen there.

At this juncture, I want to bring in the Sikh community’s concerns. This community has felt that it has been targeted since the international sentiment towards the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Sikh community has very, very serious concerns that it has been targeted, particularly because its men carry kirpans when they come of age. Kirpans are usually 6-inch-long soft-bladed ceremonial swords. Sikh men carry these swords with them all the time. Members of the Sikh community are very concerned about what would happen to them if they forget to pack away the kirpan in their luggage. I am grateful to Mr Mark Everitt of the Aviation Security Service, who has agreed with the Minister’s consent to address the Sikh community in person about its concern. First of all, Mr Everitt has assured those communities that they will not be targeted. He has also assured them that it will be written into the operation manual that if a search needs to happen, then due care and respect will be given to individual privacy so as not to embarrass people in public.

The Sikh community also suggested that there could be a box for kirpans provided at the airport for when people have forgotten to take the kirpan off and pack it in their luggage. The New Zealand Sikh Society is very happy to clear the box every now and then. Mark has taken it upon himself to find out whether that can be arranged. The Sikh community also—I think rightly—stressed the importance of promotional campaigns being mounted in the Sikh community and other communities that feel that they might be targeted because their practices are quite visibly different from the wider community’s practices. I would impress upon the Minister the need to send a message through the relevant authority that promotional campaigns should be targeted towards those communities in order to remind them that any prohibited item will be confiscated and destroyed.

The other matter the Sikh community raised was the need to pass educational material on to the relevant authority so that people understand the religious importance that kirpans have for Sikhs. The Sikh community did not ask for an exemption, even though it was informed that it could have one. I knew about this for the first time when we were told by Mr Mark Everitt that if one had a blade that was 3 centimetres long, then one could actually carry it on to the plane. But, despite that, the Sikh community did not ask for an exemption. What it really wanted was respect for, and an understanding of, the religious importance of the kirpan.

Another issue that has attracted a lot of feedback and submissions was the need for us to have security officers on board airplanes in the future. Pilots and enforcement authorities would like to have a lot more input into that provision. They are already concerned about whether having security officers on board would make flying safer or less safe, and they are concerned about who would be in control and under what circumstances action could be taken. I understand, through being on the select committee, that the committee included in its commentary the comment that it hoped, if that provision were to come into force, that the relevant enforcement agencies would be involved so that people could agree on common-sense, acceptable practices.

National is pleased to have made a contribution through the select committee process. We understand the need to pass legislation that enables our people to continue to enjoy travelling to other countries, and that enables visitors to continue to be able to visit our country.

Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) : As the Minister for Transport Safety, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, pointed out in his speech earlier, the Committee of the whole House debate on this legislation took place on the sixth anniversary of the attacks in America that happened on Tuesday, 11 September 2001. I think everybody will remember those terrible scenes that unfolded on the television. Ever since those days the international aviation world has changed, and it has changed dramatically. As I have said in earlier debates on this legislation, we are doing things now that, I suppose, many of us would never have dreamt of having to do in New Zealand law some years ago.

New Zealand is a long way from those tragic events and from many of the other acts of terrorism that have taken place on aeroplanes, but that does not, unfortunately, leave us out of the loop when it comes to having legislation that enables us to ensure the safety of passengers flying within New Zealand and to and from New Zealand. Also, as the Minister has pointed out, there are international aviation agreements. There are standards that this country is required to meet, both in the way we operate and in the way in which our law is written, which do, I suppose, impinge upon the personal freedoms that all of us in this place hold so dear. It is a dilemma when we all want the right to be able to travel freely without impediment and without intrusion by bureaucracy or officialdom, and we have to balance that against the need of people to be able to travel safely throughout the world and, as I have said, we also need to meet international obligations.

So in dealing with this legislation we tackled some fairly fundamental issues in that respect. The thought of having armed officers on board aeroplanes flying in and out of New Zealand is one that none of us would relish, and we probably all would like to be able to say that we should not pass a law that allows this. If we did not pass such a law and if international partners suddenly required that measure, then very rapidly we would become an island that nobody could fly in and out of. So the way in which this legislation has dealt with that requirement is to allow for it to happen, but it would not happen until a future Government, a future Cabinet, deemed it necessary to pass the next part, if you like, by an Order in Council, which would authorise flights bearing armed officers to land in New Zealand, and authorise those leaving this country to depart. That probably was the most difficult issue that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee dealt with, and certainly the Air Line Pilots’ Association, which I have listened to over all the years that I have been in this Parliament and I have taken great notice of, has always opposed this. In theory, it still does, but it also recognises the need for the law to be able to be changed rapidly if we reach a point where New Zealand can no longer fly in and out of all the destinations that we currently are able to. Because of that factor, it is with some regret, I would imagine, that most of us who support this legislation will pass it, but that is the nature of what has happened internationally. Governments around the world are having to take these measures, even though in the sense of preserving our personal freedoms, they are less than desirable.

As Pansy Wong indicated, the committee looked at what was probably the one contentious issue beyond that, which was of a much more minor nature. That issue was around the confiscation of items that people can no longer take on to planes and whether those items would be kept, recorded, and made available for people who wanted to get them back. In the end we were convinced by the airlines, airport companies, and others that to do this would lead to significant delays for passengers trying to leave New Zealand or trying to travel within New Zealand. So we amended the legislation—sensibly, I think—to change that provision.

In regards to the whole concept of being able to carry on to planes things that in the past we would have given no thought to, I had my eyes opened when I was the Minister of Transport, which was when we first introduced these types of measures, by going to Auckland airport and seeing the types of things that people thought were acceptable. Many thought that when we banned pocket knives and scissors it was silly, but if people had seen the array of weapons I saw that had been confiscated—great big daggers, axes, and all sorts of things that we could not imagine anybody would ever think were acceptable to take on a plane, whether or not the law allowed it—then they would be convinced, as I was, that these sorts of measures were, in fact, necessary. Even during the course of dealing with this legislation, I received an email from somebody who was highly offended at the thought that he would not be able to take a chainsaw full of petrol on to the plane, and if it was confiscated, then how dare we not give it back to that person. I think that we have to get these things into perspective.

David Bennett: What’s the matter with Possum?

Hon MARK GOSCHE: I know that David Bennett would like to carry his chainsaw on to an aeroplane. He is from a rural background, and he is a lawyer also, but even he would have to agree that a chainsaw full of petrol is something that we would not want to let on the plane at Hamilton airport.

But some people think that that right should be protected, so we have to listen very carefully to arguments about those sorts of issues because sitting in below that is the need to protect people’s privacy as much as possible and to be as least intrusive as we can be. Some of the measures that are allowed for in this law, which will now be passed, take that matter into account. The Supplementary Order Paper the Minister brought in around the scanning done through people’s clothing so that security staff can see a body underneath is definitely banned in this law, and that is a good change that the Committee of the whole House passed without any member opposing it. Also, security officers and people working in airports will take account of the right of people to have some privacy.

I too, like Pansy Wong, was very happy with the explanations that the officials gave us as to the way in which they will deal with people with cultural differences—particularly members of the Sikh community, but not just that community, because there are others who wear headwear and who carry significant religious items on their body. Extra training will be given and there will be good consultation with those communities to make sure that our Government departments and officials are aware of those needs. As a result of hearing that, it was deemed by the House and the select committee that there was no need to make any extra changes to the bill.

In conclusion, these are extraordinary times in which we live. Six years ago nobody would have dreamt that we would have to do these sorts of things, but events on the international scene—like September 11 in New York—have led to Governments around the world having to pass these sorts of measures. This legislation will enable New Zealanders to be able to continue to travel throughout the world as they have always done. I do not think there is any member of the House here who does not want to be able to get on the plane and visit Australia, the United States, and Britain, as so many of them do on regular occasions—except for me. This law will allow those members who like to do that to get on a plane knowing they can land at the other end, and at the end of the day that is a very important right, too.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) : That was the Hon Mark Gosche, who by the sounds of it has never flown outside of New Zealand, but I am sure that he would have taken that opportunity as a younger fellow, both when he was in this Parliament and before he came to this House.

There is one community group he forgot about. That group is made up of those people who do want to carry chainsaws on planes. In Hamilton we have a local identity who is known to carry a chainsaw at the rugby. Possum is standing for council. For all of those people who are from regions that do not have the joy and privilege of holding the Ranfurly Shield for more than a week, I can tell them that they will see Possum at the local stadium. He will have a chainsaw on a cherry picker and he will boot it up throughout the game when the Waikato team scores—as we regularly do—then at the end he will throw out lollies to the kids. He is a local identity who probably would have been allowed to take a chainsaw on to a plane because it is part of his identity and his make-up.

This legislation is pretty uncontroversial. Most of the parties in this House saw the need for it. It was based on an international consideration that we had to deliver something in this area. I think the Green Party is probably the only party that has seriously gone out against the legislation and made arguments against it, but those arguments simply do not stack up. The reality is that we live in an environment where we have to pull our weight. We have an international airline that relies on us having an environment that gives it the opportunity to provide the services it needs to provide in order to be an international airline. As part of being the world citizens that New Zealanders intend to be, we have to be part of the community and we have to have legislation and rules that fulfil the nature of what the community dictates in this circumstance.

There is another part of the aviation area that is of relevance to New Zealanders, as well. Mark Gosche touched on it when he talked about trips to Australia. This legislation will become more and more relevant because more and more New Zealanders are leaving New Zealand, and our people leave by plane. They are leaving this country because of the rules and regulations that Government members dictate to people. This legislation will have a very practical impact on the thousands of New Zealanders who leave this country each year and do not return—the New Zealanders who go to Australia to make the most of the opportunities there, when they should be making the most of their opportunities in New Zealand. That is a direct result of this Government’s policies and it needs to take responsibility for making a whole generation of New Zealanders leave. This legislation is also part of the Government’s attempt to do that, because it enables our airlines to compete on a worldwide stage to take our people away, to send them overseas to environments where they can prosper, when they should be prospering here and making New Zealand stronger.

In essence, this is uncontroversial but needed legislation in an international context. I think that the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee worked together well to build legislation that covered most of the issues. There was some debate on certain issues to make sure that we had them formulated in a way that covered the potential considerations in regard to ethnic minorities. There is also the need to give the Government of the day the ability to make the calls. The reality is that New Zealand is a free, peace-loving, independent country and we probably will not have to engage inflight security officers at any stage, but Cabinet still needs the ability to do that at some point in time if it is necessary.

So this legislation is a bit of an insurance policy. We probably will not need to use it, but it gives us the ability to have a set of rules that are compatible with our international trading partners and the world community as a whole. In essence, basically all parties are supporting this legislation because they see the need for some kind of legislation in this area. The main issues have been pretty well dealt with by the select committee. National looks forward to the bill being passed and to seeing its implementation.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) : It is a bit unfortunate that the New Zealand First spokesperson on transport and aviation, Peter Brown, is unable to speak on this legislation, because assuredly he knows what he is talking about in this particular field—

David Bennett: He’s a mariner! How would a mariner know about aviation?

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY: He has also been a politician since 1996, which the member has not been, and therefore he has been able to explore these issues somewhat more fully than the member over there whom I am hearing from.

Jill Pettis: He won’t last as long as that member has.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY: No, the member will not last as long as Peter Brown. Maybe we could have a little chat about policemen in St Petersburg, but, no, we will not go there.

I want to refer to three anecdotes. The first one is that when the September 11 attacks took place I happened to be at a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Canberra with Arthur Anae and Georgina Beyer. The events of September 11 occurred overnight there, and the changes that occurred to the security at the Australian Parliament overnight were amazing. Unbelievable things occurred in the fewer than 12 hours from the time that it occurred to the time that we re-entered the building for the conference. For example, a whole pile of X-ray machines and a whole pile of other things were brought in. We in this Parliament will remember that one could not get a vehicle on to the property here without having it looked at underneath with mirrors, etc. Obviously we have to respond to circumstances in a variety of different ways, and these circumstances have changed.

The second anecdote that I really want to talk about goes back to my teenage years. At that time a horrific murder took place. A guy who was trying to knock off his wife put his luggage on a plane—I think it was in Canada—then did not get on himself. The luggage was, of course, a bomb, the whole plane exploded, and 50 people were killed. Nowadays, we just take it as read that if a passenger does not get on a plane, the passenger’s luggage comes off. At times that is an inconvenience. One might be sitting on the tarmac while a search is being carried out for the luggage, yet we accept that, even though it could be said to be an infringement of our personal rights for the plane not to take off when it is supposed to take off. But, personally, I do not want the plane to take off if it has a bomb in the cargo hold. Therefore, once again, we have to make changes in changing circumstances.

The third anecdote relates a little bit to the chainsaw story we heard from the previous speaker, David Bennett. We came back to New Zealand from a Pacific Island and we had to come back via Brisbane. At that Pacific Island a member who happens to be still a member of this House had been staying in a five-star hotel with Little Lord Fauntleroy in a world heritage site, while the rest of us were having to slog it out and do our tasks in one of the less savoury parts of the world. But when he was on this outer island, this particular MP was given four big talking sticks, which are huge things that one could take out a legion of men with. What does the MP do? He takes them on to the plane with him. It was an island service and the staff said: “OK, you can do that.” But when we got to Brisbane and went through the security there, the security guy said that the MP would not be able to take the talking sticks into the cabin with him.

The next thing we see is the MP going up the escalator with the four sticks in his hand, and the security guard asking where the hell the guy got to. So even when he was told he was not able to take the sticks, he still wanted to take them—something pretty akin to a chainsaw—on to the plane with him. Fortunately, airline staff trapped him up at the counter, took the sticks off him, and put them in the hold. I will not mention any names, but I have to say that the MP concerned does not happen to be in the House at the moment.

Those anecdotes demonstrate the need to make sure that the legislation ensures we are safe, in a variety of different ways. Members may remember that it was box cutters that the guys took on board on September 11—harmless box cutters. We can go to the $2 shop and buy five of those things for $2. That is what they took on board and murdered their victims with. Members can just imagine what those men could have done with those big talking sticks, and they can certainly imagine what they could have done with a chainsaw.

I think the previous Labour speaker, Mark Gosche, actually got it right. We have to balance the need for people to travel safely around the world with the need for freedoms. As time goes on, with experience, changed circumstances, a changed world, and everything else, we have to continue to balance those freedoms up against each other. As Mark Gosche has pointed out, this is enabling legislation in some areas; it does not actually say: “Yes, we’re going to allow security guards to have weapons on planes.” If that were the case, the guy with the talking sticks could have been in serious trouble. It will be only if lots of people with those big talking sticks get on to planes that the legislation will be sparked through Orders in Council.

Obviously, New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation; we think it is sensible legislation. We think, based on the reports that I have got back, that the select committee worked very responsibly on the legislation, to make sure that any of the wrinkles that may have occurred were ironed out. We believe that this legislation deserves the full support of the House.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : The Green Party is supporting this legislation, despite its strong objection to the provision for armed air marshals to be on planes. We were disappointed that our amendments to disallow the arming of these inflight security officers were rejected at the Committee stage.

The legislation is good at such things as determining secure areas in airports. However, the endorsement of air marshals shows a general weakness in the approach of this Parliament and of some other Western Parliaments to security questions and how to deal with security risks in the post - September 11 environment. Rather than security provisions being the minimum required to protect the community—as used to be the case in a more relaxed New Zealand—there seems to be the attitude that the more security provisions there are the better. We are losing the balance that should be involved in security measures. On the one hand we want to help keep people safe, but on the other hand we do not want to interfere with people’s freedom of movement, freedom of speech, or bodily integrity.

Security is not about eliminating risk. First, it is about looking at the circumstances objectively to find out what risk there is without taking any further security measures. Second, it is about working out what risk would be acceptable. If there is not much difference between the actual present risk and the socially acceptable risk, then we probably do not need to have any more security measures—in fact, we might even need fewer.

Members should look at our domestic airport checking systems. There has been a little moderation in checking in terms of the length of scissors allowed, etc., but, as far as I can tell, there has not been any real assessment of what the current risk actually is on domestic flights that justifies so much heavier security than we have traditionally had—that is, before the one particularly traumatic event overseas in 2001. We should always remember that there were many, many more aircraft security incidents around the world in the 1970s and 1980s than there were in the 1990s or have been this century. There were many hijackings in the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, but we did not have such intrusive airport checking as a result. To my knowledge there has not been one serious security incident in New Zealand in the 6 years since 11 September 2001 on an international flight in and out of New Zealand, let alone on a domestic flight.

The mindset of absolute security can be quite damaging and inhuman. A few weeks ago I was passing through the security check at Auckland domestic airport, followed by a mother with a little boy aged about 3. The toddler was carrying a little soft toy dog through the X-ray system and it beeped. The officer grabbed the soft toy dog and ran the scanner over it while the little boy balled his eyes out. I thought: “This is craziness. Have we lost all sense of proportion when we needlessly cause a little kid such grief?”.

I am now used to putting anything in the little tray that might set off the security beeper when I go through the security door. But many travellers are not used to doing this, so they have to go through the indignity of a closer body scan or pat-down. Maybe people are getting used to this security screening, but I still think that it is somewhat demeaning. Excessively severe security measures are not in synch with the free spirited, independent, risk-taking Kiwi personality. I said that Kiwis were risk takers, because I think we are amongst the world leaders in risk taking. Our most respected citizen, Sir Edmund Hillary, is a renowned risk taker as he is the conqueror of Mount Everest and he made an overland trip to the South Pole. Our All Blacks are admired for being big risk takers who will risk injury if necessary, yet our Government wants more and more security measures against the minute risk of a terrorist incident here—and it is minute.

The reality is hidden behind the propaganda of global terrorism, which is a mythical concept. There is no such thing as global terrorism; it does not exist. There is only non-State terrorism in specific countries, which is a result of those countries’ political or economic problems or their often wrong foreign policies. Most countries in the world are not subject to non-State terrorism and do not need to bother themselves much about it. That is the reality, which has been proven by objective facts. In any case, State terrorism is the greater problem, as we ourselves have discovered, with the only terrorist-related problems we have had being the French State terrorism against the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour; Israeli State terrorism, when it tried to obtain fake New Zealand passports—quite likely to carry out the political assassinations for which Mossad is notorious—and, more recently, the Chinese Government hacking into our Government computers.

In America, Britain, and Australia there is some danger of non-State terrorism, and that danger is increased by their Governments invading Iraq. But there has been a gigantic security overreaction. I was in Sydney just over a week ago at a big protest to get APEC to take a stronger line on climate change and against the war in Iraq. It was a surreal atmosphere. Thousands of police had been mobilised with riot shields, water cannons, barriers, and buses to arrest hundreds of people. The police were very provocative. They took a banner pole off a gent near me—his banner read: “Cage Bush, not Sydney”—because his banner pole was over a metre long.

As the leaders of the demonstration that day had repeatedly said, it was going to be a peaceful demonstration, and it was. The protestors responded to these police State - type measures with good Aussie satire. Banners read: “Show us your water cannon, Big Boy!”, and “Arrest all comedians!”. That last slogan referred to the jokesters who took a car disguised as a Canadian diplomatic car through police checkpoints with a dressed-up Osama bin Laden inside. Those comedians fooled the system and all of the Aussies cheered them. In reality, if we have over-the-top security we only challenge people to have a go at breaching it.

The Draconian character of the APEC security measures was never really about enhancing security. It was all about demonstrating power—the power of the Howard Government and the power of the State behind him, with mobilised armed forces and police. It was about the creation of fear in society, which has been a major feature of the so-called war on terror that has been operating in Western countries since September 11. The more a society becomes fearful, the more people will accept the stronger State, greater surveillance of their lives, and a weaker judicial system. Of course, that helps right-wing political forces more than progressive ones, and it helps people like John Howard to get elected.

That is why it is so great that John Howard’s over-the-top scaremongering about APEC riots fell flat on its face. That is why it is so good that the terrorist slanders against Ahmed Zaoui were finally disproved, and that last week the Security Intelligence Service, after nearly 5 years of hounding him, finally admitted that it had got it wrong. The SIS and all those forces that have bought into the war on terror—including, unfortunately, our own Government—needed a real live terrorist to justify all the extra security measures it was bringing in here and all the extra spending on the SIS, the Government Communications Security Bureau, and police counter-terrorism. The only problem was that there were not any terrorists in New Zealand—and still there are not—so they had to deem an innocent man, Ahmed Zaoui, to be the fall guy. Hopefully, we can learn something from all this and get back to a more relaxed Kiwi style where, through strong, informal community life, we look after each other rather than rely on a strong security State.

Excessive security measures, supposedly to confront some terrorist danger, intersect with excessive angst in other areas of our life. We are developing what some have called a risk aversion culture. It is quite at odds with the traditional relaxed Kiwi culture. We find it more difficult to accept risk and to accept accidents. When kids are playing, sometimes they hurt themselves and sometimes they kill themselves. But instead of accepting that that is life, that we have the occasional accident, as we did in the past, there is now more of a tendency to wrap kids up in cotton wool. When a mentally disturbed person kills someone, politicians and the media descend to label blame, when often, actually, nobody is to blame. When we put mentally disturbed people, rightly, into the community, occasionally one will lose control, someone might get injured, and someone might get killed. But that is an acceptable risk to take, if we are to be humane to people who are mentally disordered. Let us go back to the more relaxed Kiwi way of doing things and actually take a few risks.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) :Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnātātou katoa i te Whare. Last week was the anniversary of 9/11, and last week was also the anniversary of the death of Steve Biko. He was born on 18 December 1946 and died on 12 September 1977. Steve Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. He was arrested under the Terrorism Act of South Africa on 18 August 1977. He was brutally treated, and eventually he died on 12 September. Although the police claimed his death was due to an extended hunger strike, an autopsy showed that he died from massive injuries to the head, consistent with the torture commonly practised by the apartheid police of the time. Coincidentally, 12 September is also the 26th anniversary of the last test of the 1981 Springbok Tour, during which a squad was specifically named after the anti-apartheid hero Steve Biko.

More important for Aotearoa, last week was also the birth of probably the most important piece of international legislation ever for Māori. Thursday, 13 September 2007 will be forever remembered by indigenous people all around the world as the day on which the United Nations General Assembly, after 25 years of effort by indigenous people the world over, voted to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. As we consider these bills today on security and seizures, and on human rights, I ask us to note that Thursday, 13 September 2007 will also be forever remembered by Māori people all around the world as the day on which a select group of Māori MPs—namely, the Māori Party caucus of Tariana Turia, Dr Pita Sharples, Te Ururoa Flavell, and myself—along with MetiriaTurei of the Green Party, expressed their full and formal support for the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Thursday, 13 September 2007 will also be forever remembered by Māori people all around the world as the day on which another select group of Māori people—namely, the Labour Māori caucus of Parekura Horomia, Dover Samuels, Nanaia Mahuta, Mahara Okeroa, Mita Ririnui, and Shane Jones—stood alongside the Government in opposing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Yes, it is hard to believe, but it is true. While the Māori Party was registering its support for the declaration, Labour’s Māori caucus was not only voting against it but was laughing and making snide remarks about it while a Māori Party speaker was recording support in this House for the declaration. Yes, that vote of opposition by the Labour Māori caucus and the disrespect it showed in this House will be forever remembered in the years ahead as a breach of respect for international indigenous rights.

But I come back to the attacks of 9/11, which are very much part of the context of these two bills before the House today to provide enhanced security measures for aviation in New Zealand. As we consider these proposals on search and seizure, the screening and searching of staff, and other measures, I want us also to be thinking more broadly about the whole context of political war. I refer the House to a comment made by David Horowitz, a strategist, who said: “Political war is about evoking emotions that favour one’s goals. It is the ability to manipulate the public’s feelings in support of your agenda. In this war, the most potent weapons were anger, fear and resentment.” That quote says a lot about the ways in which the doctrine of a war on terror and the deliberate build-up of fear and hostility drive the passage of policy, and the way in which that doctrine forces us to react through the passage of bills such as these two, the Aviation Crimes Amendment Bill and the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2).

I note that the majority of public submissions presented to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee were mainly about prohibited items, review processes, devices or aids for searches, and imaging technology. So it is timely for me to share some notes of my recent overseas trips, which may be of value to this debate. The first was a trip I took to further my knowledge as a member of Parliament for an indigenous electorate, Te Tai Tokerau. I decided to visit what would have been my electorate if I had been an Australian MP, the Northern Territory. Visiting the Northern Territory to highlight the dangerous consequences and the inherent racism of the Australian Prime Minister’s plans to solve child abuse and alcoholism in Aboriginal communities by getting his filthy little hands on their lands for 99 years was never going to be a particularly difficult task.

I could have been arrested for carrying a copy of Howard’s racist intervention plan, which many people have described as “a weapon of mass destruction targeted against the indigenous people of the Northern Territory”, on an internal flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs. That I chose not to do so says more for my intelligence than it does for the scant effort that went into producing that 500-page document. It was supposed to be based on the findings of the Little Children Are Sacred report, but it chose to completely and utterly ignore the 98 recommendations that are part of the report itself, in the interests of a series of proposals designed to maximise Howard’s visibility prior to the Australian general election, and to change legislation to open up the Northern Territory to mining companies, liquor companies, gambling companies, and other enterprises, which his plan was supposedly going to put an end to.

John Howard’s racist intervention plan was deemed to be so dangerous to race relations in Australia that he had a clause inserted into the bill exempting the plan from prosecution under the Racial Discrimination Act. It was a clear demonstration that the authors of the bill intended that it would be racist, so they covered themselves against any prosecution later on. If that bill is not a description of a dangerous weapon, then I am not sure what is.

Another somewhat less dramatic, but equally relevant, situation played out for me on my same break-out to Alice Springs—a report of which can be found on my website www.tokerau.co.nz, which every member of this House received; it is entitled A Walkabout with Alice—[Interruption] I say to Mr Donnelly that this one cost me $1,100. One of the organisations I visited was the headquarters of the local tribal authority for the area, the LhereAretepe, where I was presented with two beautifully hand-painted boomerangs. These were not those quaint little ones that one throws and they come back. No, no. These were the bigger ones, with one arm longer than the other—the ones that do not come back. They are the ones thrown with the specific intention of hitting the target. They do not come back. I mention these boomerangs because although I had no intention of using them on the plane, I have no doubt that if I had wanted to, I could have caused considerable damage with them.

When it came time to fly back home, security refused to let me take them on the plane. “Sorry guys”, I said, “I ain't letting them go, so you’re going to have to come up with a solution to this problem, because they’re travelling with me.” Security staff called the Qantas security representative, who called his head honcho. To my pleasant surprise the head honcho came up with the line: “Qantas does not consider boomerangs to be dangerous weapons. Let the man keep them.”

That incident got me thinking about just what exactly gets through the system. I must say I was astonished to realise that a very dangerous weapon slips past everyone, on every single flight that I have been on since 9/11—that is, all those carry-on bags with collapsible metal handles, which, with very quick and relatively minor readjustment, can be very quickly turned into extremely dangerous weapons. It made me realise that for all of the fuss that is made about terrorism—bottles of clear liquid, plastic knives and forks, nail clippers, and having to put one’s shoes through the X-ray machine—current airport security is allowing carry-on luggage on to flights that poses a far greater danger than Mahara Okeroa’s long-suffering socks.

I know that this bill is supposed to have serious implications, but I really do have difficulty understanding why we have to restructure, refinance, and realign upwards the prices of flights within Aotearoa every time someone wants to take a shot at the United States for its war-mongering, resource-raiding activities across the globe. The Māori Party accepts that the world is becoming a dangerous place to live and to travel, especially for Americans and everybody else caught up in the American invasion of Iraq. Although we are supporting this bill, we urge the citizens, and, indeed, the governing authorities in Aotearoa, to begin exercising far more independence and discretion in the way in which they view dangers in our world. Tēnā koe. Tēnātātou katoa.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I am pleased to take a call on the third readings of the Aviation Crimes Amendment Billand the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) and would like to get back to the substance of the bills, having just heard some very entertaining speeches tonight in the House.

These bills are serious and they include many issues of importance to our ability as a nation to respond to the ever-moving world of aviation security—particularly where there is a deteriorating situation, as we have seen in recent months in Heathrow. Unfortunately, the reality is that the world is not what it used to be—or at least how it seemed to be, because, by and large, I think New Zealand has been protected from some of the threats and atrocities that other countries have faced for decades. Anyone who has lived in London in recent years will have been very conscious of the constant threat of bombings, and conscious of the stories of those Londoners who lived through the IRA bomb blasts of the 1980s and 1990s, and the more recent bombings of the 21st century.

I was in Lockerbie—on one of my numerous OE travels—just before the awful bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, where it was blown to bits at 31,000 feet, and 270 people were killed. The hotel I was staying in just a month before became a huge crater in the ground, and one can only imagine the horror of seeing the victims of that awful flight, and of seeing the debris scattered over an area of 845 square miles, in that picturesque little Scottish town. Although there have been hijackings, bombings, and kidnappings for decades there is no doubt that 9/11, and subsequent events, have brought these things more into focus in our country.

The first signs of that increased focus for the New Zealand people were the introduction of security screening on outbound domestic aircraft. Mountains of scissors, pocket-knives, bottle openers, and other sharp objects were taken from passengers, and we had to get used to the idea that these were all considered potential weapons. Then we got on to flights to the USA, where we had to remove our shoes and go through an extra security check. More lately we have had to put our liquids and gels into clear plastic bags, or have them taken from us. I understand why people feel like this is a restriction on our freedom—and it is. But New Zealanders like to travel to countries that are far less safe than ours, and inbound visitors on overseas aircraft are critical to our thriving tourism industry. This means that we must accept some changes that may make us feel uncomfortable—particularly the idea of gun-carrying security officers on aircraft. Unfortunately, in today’s much more globalised environment, it seems necessary.

These bills provide that, should the need ever arise—and we hope it will not—armed inflight security officers will not be allowed to enter New Zealand on foreign flights without a full Cabinet approval process. Government policy in regard to inflight security officers is that they should not be deployed on New Zealand aircraft, and reliance on ground-based security measures should be given more emphasis. The bills reflect this, with a requirement that inflight security officers on New Zealand flights cannot happen, without full Cabinet sign-off. That is as it should be.

Other speakers in this debate, in the second reading, and in the Committee stage mentioned that the Air Line Pilots’ Association came along to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, of which I was a member, and made a very compelling submission about inflight security officers. Like most of us, the association is not that keen on the idea. It fully supports the current Government’s policy—that inflight security officers will not be deployed on New Zealand aircraft, and that we should do everything possible to ensure security on the ground. However, the association told us that should things change in the future in regard to international civil aviation requirements, then pilots need to be assured of the appropriate training of inflight security officers—particularly as pilots are ultimately responsible for deciding whether a plane is safe to fly. One way to do this is for the Air Line Pilots’ Association to be consulted on inflight security officer training, and this is included in the amended legislation.

Another major change that other speakers have mentioned is in regard to the seizure and storage of prohibited items. We heard from submitters about the sheer volume of these collections, including the mountainous bins that had to be stored somewhere on airport premises. This, along with the requirement in the original legislation for airlines to provide for the recording, storage, and return of seized items to passengers, was considered by the select committee not to be practical or reasonable, and therefore the requirement to do that has been changed. I believe that most passengers now know that their Swiss Army knife cannot be taken on board an aircraft in their hand luggage, and it is just tough that it has been confiscated. The difficulty arises when new laws or new rules are introduced, such as the recent one around gels, liquids, and aerosols. It takes a little while for passengers to get used to this, although it has been pleasing to see the proactive role played by airport staff in ensuring that passengers understand the requirements and are provided with a plastic bag, prior to check-in. I congratulate those staff at airports, because I think they have done a very good job.

Another concern that has been raised and dealt with was whether the use of new imaging technology, which can produce a naked image—such as the body-scanning technology being used in Holland—could be used under the provisions of the bill. There was quite a lot of media controversy about this. Again, I am pleased the House has adopted the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper ensuring that this cannot occur.

One issue in the bill that has not received so much attention was around background checks, and the inclusion of an explicit power for the Director of Civil Aviation to require security checks for certain persons, including staff who require an airport identity card. Apparently this already occurs, so the legislation formalises an existing administrative process. The director’s powers are quite wide, in that he can seek both unclassified information from a range of sources—for example, courts and the police—and a recommendation from the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. I am always very wary of these kinds of intrusions into workers’ backgrounds, and their rights in the process. So I was very pleased with the proactive approach in including a natural justice process, which must be followed if a security check reveals information that could lead to the check being declined.

I believe the legislation has been enhanced by the select committee’s recommendation that where an application for a security check is declined on the basis of both classified and unclassified information, the Director of Civil Aviation must advise an applicant of the fact that two sources of information have been relied on in declining the check. Similarly, I was cautious about the powers of aviation security officers to screen and search airport workers. Although such searches can be conducted only by consent, if the person refuses consent aviation security officers have new powers to deny the person access to the area, to remove the person, items, or vehicles, or to detain that person. If that person is detained he or she must be delivered to the police as soon as possible.

On the surface these seem like quite Draconian powers, but just as we have had to accept changes to security measures for passengers in the current climate in order to meet international obligations, it appears we have to accept these powers. I hope that airport workers will be well briefed about their rights and responsibilities in these matters, and it is incumbent on airport companies and aviation security to ensure this is done. I look forward to seeing the training programmes that will be implemented to make sure that these workers are protected in terms of their rights.

I believe the select committee took its responsibilities very seriously, and I want to thank the members of that committee; I think the House has responded accordingly. Again, there are issues in this bill that none of us feel particularly comfortable with, but I believe we have to live with them. It is good to be part of a very constructive approach to getting the best out of what is somewhat unpalatable but very necessary legislation.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) : I want to compliment my colleague Darien Fenton on a very excellent speech. I think her last sentence summed it up—this legislation is somewhat unpalatable, but, sadly, very necessary. Unlike the speaker prior to her, Hone Harawira, who talked about his trip on Jetstar to Alice Springs, I will give a brief analogy of when I discovered air marshals on an Air France flight to an Inter-Parliamentary Union conference I was attending in Ouagadougou in 2001. Doug Kidd, and the then deputy leader of the ACT Party, Ken Shirley, and I were the New Zealand delegates. The irony is not lost, because of course that was when the twin towers were hit, and we were watching it on the television screens. Yet going from Paris to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso I discovered for the first time that there were guys on the plane who were air marshals. They were on the plane because those routes were considered problematic. Of course, the thing to reflect on is the professionalism by which people do these jobs.

As I am sure previous speakers probably acknowledged earlier on in this debate, I think it is timely to acknowledge the professionalism of security staff and how we are blessed with, I think, some really excellent security staff at our own airports in this country. The security staff by and large—not in all cases, but mostly—treat the travelling public with absolute politeness and decorum. Their jobs are quite onerous, and I want to compliment the men and women who do that job. Obviously, passengers have their different personalities and sometimes can be quite harassed and stressed when going through customs, but my own experience has been that security staff have treated passengers with remarkable politeness doing what is sadly a very necessary job in this current age. It seems to me that, in point of fact, the travelling public has by and large adapted well to these sad necessities. People obviously get into a routine, do it, and life basically goes on. But in saying that life goes on, we should not underestimate the importance of this legislation.

I also pay a big compliment to the Hon Harry Duynhoven on his contribution in his role as the Minister for Transport Safety and his officials on their work in making sure that we come up to a par with other countries. There is no doubt the bottom line is that if New Zealand is seen not to be conforming to best, efficient international practice, it will compromise our airline. It will also compromise flights coming to and from New Zealand, and that is something that we just cannot countenance. As a member of the International Civil Aviation Organization, New Zealand is obliged to comply with its security standards, and again, as I have just mentioned—and I am sure the Minister and other speakers have mentioned—failure to do so could damage New Zealand’s reputation and question the integrity of our aviation security.

I guess in the end it is a matter of getting a balance, keeping a perspective, and obviously trying to do what is necessary and important, but never, dare I say it, to use the typical Kiwi phrase, to get slack, because slackness could, in the end, potentially cost lives. I use the Ouagadougou experience purely because that was a conference of parliamentarians, and I thought that would be the target of some sort of terrorist hit. The irony for us, watching from this conference of high security, was that it did not happen there; it happened to innocent office workers thousands of miles away in New York. Of course, those terrible events have shaped events since then.

I think it was particularly pertinent that Darien Fenton talked about the Lockerbie disaster and tragedy. As I understand it, that involved baggage with a bomb being checked in by parties at one European city and then being transited through London. Then the people who were attached to the baggage, as I understand it, left on an onward flight. That, of course, was an awful, terrible tragedy affecting people who were totally and absolutely innocent and subjected to that terrible heinous crime. The sad reality of it is that the whole point of all these aviation security measures is not an expression of some sort of authoritarian, totalitarian State. The point of these measures is very pure and simple, and that is to protect innocent lives so that our normal civil life can continue. That is just the sad reality of the situation that we now find ourselves in. This legislation is, indeed, important, and I note the main elements of the bill again: to provide aviation security officers with the power to search for, and seize items that are prohibited or restricted on aircraft; and to enable the screening and searching of airport workers.

I think Darien Fenton very relevantly and in a very important way said that we have to, in terms of some of that searching and screening, have checks and balances to make sure that people are not falsely accused of things they did not do. I noted through the select committee reports very relevant things mentioned about members of our Sikh community who have experienced problems. We need to make sure that members of such communities in no way are disadvantaged in terms of basic human rights and notions of common decency and citizenship from doing work in airports and aviation precincts. We should make sure that those security measures allow for peoples’ dress codes and religious practices so that some of those searches and questions happen in an appropriate and sensitive manner.

The bill also provides a power for aviation security officers to search passengers’ outer garments and undertake pat-down searches. As I said, that has to be done in an appropriate professional manner. Mostly from what I have observed—as we all do going through airports to Brisbane, Sydney, or wherever—airport people do that very efficiently. It is now even done on our so-called main trunk routes. This legislation basically gives our aviation security the tools to do this.

I join with the Minister and other members of the select committee to congratulate all the people working in aviation security in this country who, I think, do a very, very fine job. I have always found they are really polite and a good team. I am not going to do a John Carter, who spent time in previous debates telling us all about his mum. Actually, I will. I was travelling with my 81-year-old mother and she had some sort of fluid or some sort of cosmetic, and what really impressed me with the security guy in Auckland was that he was so polite. I am going to say it—it is something about being a New Zealander; there is something about our personality and who we are. I take my hat off to the politeness of people who do that job day in and day out.

The serious point of this bill—and I think it was quite a good contribution from the member who told us about his trip to Alice Springs—is, as Darien Fenton and others have said, a sad necessity, but I think the bill gives the tools to do this important work and to make sure we are safe. I want to close by acknowledging the wonderful, wonderful work done by our aviation security people in this country, who, in my view, do this necessary work with such professionalism and politeness. We are very indebted to them.

• Bills read a third time.