Foreign armed marshals will be allowed on to Air New Zealand international flights and the Government will give itself the power to deploy local police in the same capacity under legislation introduced yesterday.
The bill will also allow for random searches of staff at local airports in areascritical to aviation security, including baggage handling, aircraft maintenance and catering. And it also strengthens the seizure powers of airport security staff involving banned goods and potential weapons.
The Aviation Security Legislation Bill has been introduced to meet standards set under the Convention on International Civil Aviation, a specialist agency of the United Nations.
It has been introduced the week before Prime Minister Helen Clark is due to discuss counter-terrorism with United States President George W. Bush at the White House.
The law will most likely be applied in the first instance to Air NZ flights to and from the US, where air marshals were introduced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The bill gives the Government the power to respond to requests from other countries in dealing with heightened security situations.
"New Zealand needs to have an effective and efficient process to respond to requests made by other states to deploy armed [in-flight security officers] on New Zealand airlines," notes explaining the bill say.
"The absence of such a process could lead to ongoing flight cancellations.
"Air NZ could sustain a loss of revenue associated with cancelling flights occasionally but, if a directive from another state's regulatory body necessitated a continuing cancellation policy, its presence in those markets and its financial position could be severely affected."
The new power to search airport staff will be conducted only with the consent of the employee. But those who decline to be screened or to have their relevant vehicles searched will not be allowed into a security area.
National leader John Key said last night his party would support the legislation.
"While we don't think it's likely that we will see air marshals on our domestic air services in the short term, we think passenger security is paramount."
