Urgent Debates — Solomon Islands—Deployment of Police and Military Forces

I have received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition seeking to debate under Standing Order 376 a decision in principle that New Zealand will send police officers and military forces to the Solomon Islands as part of the South Pacific’s intervention in that country. The announcement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade that the decision has been taken in principle is, I believe, a particular case of recent occurrence, even though the final details of that intervention have not yet been settled. The matter clearly involves ministerial responsibility and requires the immediate attention of the House. I therefore accept the application and call on the member to move the motion accordingly.

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. We are debating this matter today because it is another significant contribution New Zealand is making, another significant call on our defence forces and, in this case, our police forces. The lesson that we can draw from it is this: so much for the benign strategic environment! The irony is that this Parliament has, just in the last couple of months, debated three significant deployments by the New Zealand Defence Force to parts of the world that certainly cannot be called benign.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the Leader of the Opposition, but there are people close to him who are talking. There is too much noise. I regard it as a rare occasion when I accept one of these debates. This debate is to be held in comparative silence, and I want it to proceed from now on in that vein.

Parliament is conducting this debate against the background of a defence policy that is based purely on that one single assumption: that we live in a benign strategic environment. It is becoming increasingly clear—in fact, I think it is actually a fact of Government policy—that New Zealand is the only country in the Asia-Pacific region that believes we live in a benign strategic environment. The commitment to the Solomons is yet another piece of evidence.

Let us just sort out the facts of the matter about what this commitment is, because I would be interested in the Government explaining its own rhetoric. We are being told that it is a police-led deployment. Well, that must and can only mean that the police get off the boat first, because in fact it is a major defence commitment first and foremost. We can go only on the reported comments coming out of the Pacific Islands Forum, which say that New Zealand will commit up to 200 soldiers and 40 police.

The Government is going to have a discussion in Cabinet about the exact size of the deployment, and the details of who goes when and with what equipment. But the Government should stop calling it a police-led deployment. We are sending 200 of our armed defence personnel—soldiers, not engineers; 200 of them—to a place where there is plenty of shooting going on and where, as the Minister has pointed out today, 750 automatic weapons are estimated to be floating around what is quite a small community even by New Zealand standards.

There also happen to be 40 police going as well. The Government seems very anxious to couch this whole deployment as simply a matter of law and order—dealing with the criminals and getting a law and order system going. I do not believe that that is the case. I believe that the fact that the Government is sending 200 armed soldiers tells us that the objectives of this deployment are rather different. Certainly the Australians think so.

Listen to this description from Greg Ansley at the Pacific Islands Forum: “With several hundred firearms in the hands of militants and criminals, including automatic weapons”—and members should listen to this—“combat troops will be deployed to quell opposition by militants.” Now, what does that mean?—“combat troops will be deployed to quell opposition by militants such as warlord Harold Keke ...”. Quelling opposition with soldiers does not sound like a police-led deployment. Either one story is being told at the Pacific Islands Forum and we are getting a different one here in New Zealand, or, worse than that, maybe there is fundamental disagreement between the New Zealand Government and the Australian Government about the purpose of this deployment.

The Minister of Defence, who I know has been over there in discussions with Alexander Downer and the Australian Defence Minister, ought to get up in the House and tell us whether New Zealand is sending combat troops who will be deployed to quell opposition by militants. Is that what we are going to do, or are we going to send some police to round up a few criminals—because these are completely different objectives? I am asking the Government today to explain clearly to the public of New Zealand, and the Parliament of New Zealand, who will back our defence forces to do the job, and to explain to us exactly what it is they see as the objectives in the Solomons.

I have been hesitant to inject criticism into this debate, because in general I believe that this is exactly the kind of role New Zealand should be fulfilling in its region. But I have learnt, as has this Parliament, that the Government is at best economical with the truth in describing what it is doing with our military resources and our police. Here we have two completely different descriptions of the objectives: a police-led deployment focused on rounding up some criminals, or on the other hand the evidence of 200 soldiers we are sending. Australia is sending about 1,500 troops. Let the Parliament not be confused: 200 is simply New Zealand’s contribution. The Australians are sending well over 1,000 armed soldiers to this police-led deployment to round up a few criminals.

We simply do not believe the story, because the story does not add up. On these matters, more than any, the Government should be candid. We are looking for a full explanation of the Government’s aims, and the Government has already set out some of those aims. It has said that it wants to restore a working police force, a justice and corrections system that works. They are quite laudable aims. We believe that a contingent of New Zealand police will be able to contribute to restoring that part of law and order in the Solomons. But Minister Phil Goff could not help getting carried away. He is also setting out to rebuild the social system that has broken down. Now again the Parliament needs an explanation. We have a role for the 40 police, and we have an implied role for the 200 armed soldiers to back up those police. But is either of those groups capable of rebuilding the social system? What does the Government mean by that? This sounds a lot like nation rebuilding.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: It’s a pretty good thing to do when the nation has collapsed!

Well, it is a pretty good thing to do. But will the Government explain just what role for combat and aggression there will be? The problem in the Solomons is not just about a few criminals breaking windows and taking the odd potshot. The problem in the Solomons is a fundamental breakdown of government—as the Minister has said, a collapse of a State. Why? Is it just because the police force is not working? No, it is because there are underlying ethnic and historical tensions that run very, very deep in that community. To call them criminals—well, of course they are criminals—is a bit like saying one can fix Northern Ireland just by rounding up a few of the IRA criminals. That is what they thought they were going to do 30 years ago, only to find now that in Northern Ireland they are conducting political discussion with the IRA. The problems are very deep seated, and I am asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Minister of Defence, I think, a reasonable question. It is not a partisan matter. It is not a criticism. Simply, there is a need for the Parliament to know the purpose of the deployment.

How will the police and the soldiers contribute to rebuilding a social system? What measures will New Zealand be taking on our behalf to deal with the fundamental underlying ethnic tensions in the Solomons? Because if those are not dealt with, then there is little hope that that State can be rebuilt.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: What has that got to do with anything?

Well, it will take a quarter of an hour to explain it. I would also be interested in how long the Government believes that these New Zealand troops will be committed to the Solomons. If in fact the goal is to rebuild that State—to put back together a shattered nation—the troops will not be home by Christmas. This problem has been decades in the making. Our contribution to Bougainville, which now looks very simple by comparison with the situation in the Solomons, went on for 5 years. I would hope that the immediate objectives of the Australian and New Zealand Governments will be achieved, that law and order can be sufficiently restored so that we no longer need 1,500, or 1,700 armed troops from Australia and New Zealand in the Solomons, and that a process like the Bougainville process can be begun.

I have said that National supports this deployment—and we do. We believe that Australia and New Zealand ought to be paying a great deal of attention to matters in our own region. I would note in passing the contrast between how Australia and how New Zealand are balancing their regional and global interests. Australia now has very minimal involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: It’s got a thousand people in the Middle East, for goodness’ sake.

Well, it has a lot less involvement than it had. Proportionately, what troops are there are relatively small compared with Australia’s resources. On the other hand, New Zealand in recent months has, with the full support of this side of the House, made significant redeployments to Afghanistan, to Iraq, and, now, to the Solomons. That of course underlines the original point I made—that we do not live in a benign strategic environment. But it does raise this issue. These deployments are all likely to be lengthy, and there is now accumulating evidence that they are putting pressure on our defence forces. The effect of East Timor is still rolling through our defence forces. I understand that the Territorial Force has almost halved in number since the beginning of the deployment to East Timor.

💬 Hon Peter Dunne: More than halved.

Its numbers have more than halved to be under 2,000. We are clearly not sustaining our Territorial Force on the past deployments that we have made. The past deployments have been sufficient to exhaust the Territorial Force. The evidence is that with the shortages of personnel in the defence forces, those three major commitments are beyond the sustainable capacity of our defence forces. It is not that the defence forces cannot do the job they have been given in the short term, but, in the long term, it makes it very difficult for the current defence establishment to maintain its training, its skills, and its professional attitudes, as a modern professional army. I would be interested in hearing from the Minister of Defence about how he sees the impact of those major deployments on New Zealand’s defence forces—

💬 John Carter: And on the police.

—and on the police. I will just come to that. The Government cannot resist saying too much. The fact is that we have made a decision, out of our best impulses as New Zealanders, to send 30 police to the Solomons. Why does the Prime Minister not just own up to the fact that there will be 30 fewer police in New Zealand? Why do we get given all this stuff about how it will not make any difference, how the Government has a bottom line about policing in the community and what is needed there, and how the number could be trebled and it would not make any difference? There will be 30 fewer police, and all the Government has to do is to appeal to New Zealanders’ better instincts and say: “Yes, we have decided that it is important that New Zealand makes a contribution to law and order in the Solomons, and, yes, that means fewer police in New Zealand.” If we listen to the Government we get the impression that we will have 30 more officers in the Solomons, but no fewer in New Zealand. I am asking: “Why bother?”, and “Why go to all that trouble?”.

I welcome the chance to debate this issue, but I have to say what a pathetic contribution that was from the Leader of the Opposition. I would like to hear one member of the Opposition tell this House one substantive point that Mr English made on this debate—because he made no substantive points. First of all, could I begin where he ended—

💬 Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I point out through you that the member on his feet is quite able to yield to me so that I can explain exactly the substantial points that the Leader of the Opposition is making, because it is clear the Minister missed them.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member knows that is not a point of order.

Let me start where the Leader of the Opposition ended—discussing the question of police. He said that sending 30 police was not affordable and that we cannot do it. I ask that member why it is that in the last year of his Government the police numbers went down, but does he not know that there are now 700 serving police officers more in this country than when he lost office? Those are police figures.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s not true.

If Dr Smith challenges the veracity of that, he could ask me to table it, and I will table it at the end of my speech, if he so desires. There are now 700 additional police officers, and, from somebody no less than the president of the Police Association, in the paper today, we had it said that this deployment makes good moral sense, and it makes good pragmatic sense. It is good for our members; there will be no shortage of volunteers. They will get invaluable training and experience, and they will come back better officers—and they do. They do something for the Pacific and they come back to New Zealand with a better understanding and a better ability to police. There is no question about our ability to afford to make a commitment on that basis.

Now, the big point that the Leader of the Opposition seemed to make was that this was not a police-led deployment, and so that was further evidence of division between New Zealand and Australia. Let me quote from the transcript of Alexander Downer, the Australian Foreign Minister, standing as far away from me as the Hon Annette King is at the moment. He said: “This is not, in principle, a military operation. We feel though—and the police feel very much—that they need the reassurance of armed peacekeepers on the ground as well.”—and of course, that is right. He ends up by saying: “This is essentially a police operation with a guarantee of security from armed peacekeepers; this isn’t a military operation.” So the main point made by the Leader of the Opposition added up to nothing, because as usual in this House, he is speaking from ignorance. Time and again in the course of this debate, he demonstrated his ignorance on this issue. He would have been better not to call for the debate at all.

This is a very important decision that Cabinet will shortly be making, and that the House at the moment has the opportunity to debate—but I have no doubt that the right thing for New Zealand to do is to join with the consensus in the Pacific Islands Forum countries, to make a contribution at the request of a small neighbour and fellow member of the forum, and to respond to its request at its time of need.

It was significant yesterday that 16 countries of the Pacific Islands Forum came together to hear at first hand a request from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Solomon Islands about their need for help. It was hugely significant that the response from the Pacific Islands Forum was unanimous. Every country pledged itself to support in principle and, where it could, in practice, the needs of the Solomon Islands. As the Minister from the Solomon Islands said: “This is not a case of our sovereignty being under challenge by inviting people in to help us from outside. This is a request from a sovereign Government.” He could have added that if sovereignty has been lost from the Solomon Islands at all, it has been lost because the men with the guns have usurped the authority of the democratically elected Government to the point where that Government cannot govern at all.

Sitting behind the Minister of Foreign Affairs from the Solomon Islands was the Prime Minister’s principal adviser. He has a bullet wound to his stomach from an assassination attempt. Sir Fred Soaki, the former Police Commissioner in the Solomon Islands, was assassinated. They know who did it. They arrested the person who did it. He could not be contained, because there is no justice or prison system to carry out those functions, and he is at large. This is a country where, when money is in its Budget, armed thugs will surround the Cabinet room and demand compensation payments—demands that have to be met by members of the Government at the threat of their lives. This is a country where the rule of law has so broken down that Harold Keke, on the Weathercoast of the island of Guadalcanal, can rage, murdering more than 50 people, burning houses and villages, holding people to ransom, and torturing people—and the Solomon Islands cannot do anything about it.

That is terrorism in our backyard. We as a country cannot afford to allow a small neighbour to suffer from this condition, and to continue to deteriorate further to the point of being a failed State. We cannot afford that, because, as we know from Afghanistan, a failed State very quickly becomes a haven for drug smugglers, arms traffickers, people-smugglers—and, potentially, terrorism. The regional security and stability situation in the Pacific is such that we cannot allow the example of people who choose to arm themselves, to extort and terrorise money out of a Government and individuals—yet that is what has been happening in the Solomon Islands for too long.

Another point the Leader of the Opposition got absolutely wrong was to describe the current situation as the result of ethnic conflict. There was ethnic conflict—very bad ethnic conflict—in the Solomon Islands, between the Malaitan people and the people of Guadalcanal, a conflict so bad that 20,000 people were effectively ethnically cleansed out of the island of Guadalcanal back to their home islands. That problem, however, was predominantly resolved by the Townsville peace agreement, and the international peace monitoring team.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: That’s not true.

The member might say that it is not true, but that is what the Minister of Foreign Affairs from the Solomon Islands says; that is what the scoping mission we sent up there said; that is what the eminent persons group that went up there said; and I think that for once the National Party, if it wants to make a positive contribution to a debate, ought to do its homework. It ought to seek a briefing from me—which I would gladly give it—because time and again I hear ignorance from the Opposition, and that is why it is on 21 percent in the polls.

The fact of the matter is that the problem is not, essentially, an ethnic problem at the moment. The problem is a problem of people who are ex-militants using their weapons to intimidate, to extort money, and to prevent the Government of the Solomon Islands carrying out the basic functions of governance.

One of the problems that that leads to is that the economy in the Solomon Islands is near to collapse. The banks were all closed at one point because the thugs were extorting money out of them. People will not invest in the Solomon Islands. Why would anyone invest there, when there is no rule of law? The Gold Ridge Mine, which provided 25 percent of the gross domestic product of that country, has been closed for several years. Solomon Islands Plantation Ltd, the palm-oil plantation that was once a major provider of employment, has been closed. Obviously, before that country can get back on its feet economically, it needs the restoration of the rule of law. The lack of the rule of law, and the collapse of the economy, mean that basic social services now cannot be provided by the Solomon Islands Government to its people, and that is why I said we are there to help it rebuild its social system.

Restoring the rule of law is also a means to an end, the end being the well-being of the people of that country. When special constables who do not turn up to work get paid, but they refuse to pay the teachers, the doctors, and the nurses, and when women go to the hospital in Honiara to have babies and find there are no medical staff there to help deliver a child, it is time for the region to come to the assistance of that country.

We have tried a number of different ways to help. We currently have police officers in the Solomon Islands. We have a significant aid programme to the Solomon Islands. All of that has been helpful, but it has not essentially turned conditions around in that country. To make real change and to avoid the situation of aid going in but no progress being made, we have to tackle the question of the rule of law, which is why New Zealand willingly joins in the Pacific consensus that states that there should be a police-led deployment backed by armed peacekeepers. It should be backed by armed peacekeepers, because police go in, essentially, to do a policing task. The military cannot do the task that the police are trained to do. It is a specialist task. But our police officers, and police officers from Australia, Samoa, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and other countries, would be under threat unless we had a back-up of armed peacekeepers.

Hopefully, those peacekeepers will not be required. The general sense coming out of Honiara at the moment is that the thugs who find it so easy to extort and intimidate individuals, because they have the guns, will be somewhat less courageous when confronted with an armed and disciplined force backing up a police force that will do its job and ensure that the corrupt and criminal elements in society are dealt with—as a country would normally do—through effective justice and corrections systems. We need the police there, and we need the armed peacekeepers as a guarantee. It would be irresponsible to put police officers in there without the protection and without the clear message to those criminal elements that if they pick up a gun and fire it, the people they are firing at will be in a position to retaliate.

So we need the police and we need the armed forces, but beyond that, we have to work with the Government of the Solomon Islands to rebuild the system. The police officers cannot do their job unless there is a justice system that can hear the charges against those people who are the criminal elements, try them, and, where they are found guilty, convict them. The justice system cannot work unless there is a functioning prison, and the major prison was three-quarters built before the money ran out. Therefore, that facility is not available.

We must, as well, work with the Solomon Islands Government to build a capacity to better manage the economy and to be able to provide the basic social services that are so badly needed. The 16 Ministers, including five heads of State, who came together in Australia yesterday unanimously agreed to make that effort, and New Zealand will no doubt play its full role in assisting that effort, just as we have assisted the Solomon Islands over many years. This country and the Pacific Islands Forum will not stand by while that State collapses.

Finally, there is a question about whether this action has multilateral support. The Leader of the Opposition put out a press statement accusing us of hypocrisy because we were acting without the support of the United Nations. We have approached the United Nations and, again contradicting what the Leader of the Opposition says, the United Nations Department of Political Affairs is fully supportive of a regional initiative at the request of a sovereign country for assistance. So, too, is the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth itself will do what it can to assist.

We are left with the situation that everybody is in favour of acting. Even the Opposition says that it is in favour but it tries to pick holes in the effort. Its members try to undermine the efforts of their country instead of acting in a bipartisan, constructive, and sensible way. As long as they continue to do that, it is they who will be made the fools, and they who will seem to be the people who are not getting alongside what this Government is doing, and will do, in a constructive way, the right thing for the Solomon Islands and for the Pacific. I urge every member of every party of this country to support the Government in its endeavours, and I am more than willing to brief any party in the House on what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we are doing it, in order to prevent the sort of pathetic ignorance that we heard from the Leader of the Opposition in his opening speech.

Debate interrupted.