Counter-Terrorism Bill

I rise to support the schedules. There are two schedules here. One relates to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, which is a UN convention, and the other relates to the Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection. As has been said before in speeches I have made in the first and second readings and in the Committee stage, the Green Party strongly supports New Zealand adhering to these two important conventions. It is important in relation to nuclear materials, not only as part of the damage to the nuclear environment but also to the peace and welfare of the world, that we do not allow the circulation of nuclear materials, as prohibited by these conventions, and this is quite relevant to some of the political events of today.

I was reading in the news media—just last week, I think—about Israel’s development of nuclear materials in the form of nuclear bombs. Of course, these conventions go more to the raw nuclear materials. But the nuclear materials being used by Israel to make bombs are now being put on submarines, so Israel now has nuclear weapons on submarines. Israel has been assisted by the United States, according to the informed sources that various newspapers in New Zealand and around the world quoted. The United States Government was complicit in getting those nuclear bombs on Israeli submarines, in contradiction of its declared opposition to some other countries having nuclear materials and being able to develop them into nuclear weapons.

There was a lot of attention paid to Iraq. The United States claimed that Iraq was building a nuclear capacity. The inspectors had told the people well before they went there that there was not a nuclear weapons programme under way in Iraq. It had been finished in the early 1990s, through the efforts of the UN inspectors there.

Other attention is being paid to Iran and North Korea, and I think rightly so. We do not want nuclear proliferation and we do not particularly want the presence of nuclear weapons in the Indian subcontinent. That is very dangerous, in terms of what might happen in a war between India and Pakistan, or in a major military conflict, if one side or another resorts to nuclear weapons. It made me very worried when the President of Pakistan said, about a year ago, when it had a military standoff, that the only reason India did not invade in a conventional sense was that Pakistan had nuclear weapons.

We have a really serious problem here. Anything we can do in terms of reducing the existence of these sorts of nuclear materials and their circulation, and their possible development into nuclear bombs, the better. The same applies to plastic explosives. New Zealand is playing a lead role in the area of nuclear disarmament. We should look at it as both a problem with nuclear weapons and a health problem, in relation to nuclear materials themselves. It has come out over the last day. The Hon Bill English made a statement, that everyone read as the National Party moderating its nuclear policy or trying to undermine New Zealand’s policy of stopping the visit of nuclear-powered warships to this country—that he was not recognising that there is a danger in nuclear materials, in the form of nuclear propulsion.

While there are a lot of safety procedures in many of these nuclear power plants, and with nuclear generators on warships, the fact is that there still is a risk if something happens. A British warship has gone aground in the Tasman Sea recently. Ships can have accidents, and if those accidents involve nuclear materials on nuclear waste ships, or nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed warships, it can be very damaging to the environment. We should definitely avoid that sort of thing.

I was not going to take a call on the schedules, but I will do two things. First, I will compliment Mr Locke, because Mr Locke brings to this Chamber the alternative view that people fought and died to allow to exist. I will compliment Mr Locke because he is absolutely consistent. It does not matter what bill comes before the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, if it is a bill that in any way impacts on human rights or civil liberties, Mr Locke is true to form, and regardless of what sort of derision might be heaped upon him and his political party, he will fight for those things he truly believes in. I give him full credit for that.

However, I am confused when the Green Party votes against Part 2, and then says it supports the schedules. The fact is that the schedules are meaningless without Part 2. Once again, we have one of those situations where members of the Green Party stand up and say that they oppose the lifting of the moratorium on genetic engineering, yet when presented with a golden opportunity to force the Government’s hand and stop it allowing the moratorium to be lifted, they fade into the distance. They give up their vote for the abolition of the right to appeal to the Privy Council and roll over and play dead.

Here again they had the opportunity to enshrine their beliefs within this legislation to endorse the nuclear material and plastic explosives conventions, and what did they do? They voted against Part 2. To now stand up and say that they agree with the schedules and endorse everything they stand for—waxing lyrical about the evils of nuclear-power plants and nuclear-powered vessels, and how supportive they are of New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy—means absolutely nothing. Is it any wonder that discerning New Zealanders are thoroughly confused by the positions Green members take? I would have fully understood had they opposed Part 1 and voted for Part 2, or said that they were opposed to the overall thrust of this legislation and voted against the entire bill. But to vote against Part 1 and Part 2—which enshrines the schedules—then say that they support the schedules does not make one ounce of sense.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: How does one implement schedules?

Precisely! How does the Government implement the schedules and give effect to those two conventions if it does not have Part 2? I ask Mr Locke to take another call to clarify that for the record, because when we get on the hustings and talk about nuclear policy, nuclear-free New Zealand, and the evils of nuclear-power plants in Australia, Britain, or wherever, Mr Locke’s comments here will be raised to the fore and held against him. I do not think that is fair. He is clearly a very misunderstood person, but the explanations he has given tend to lead us to that conclusion.

New Zealand First will be consistent. We will vote for the schedules and for the entire bill. We acknowledge and respect Mr Locke’s commitment to civil liberties and the issues he has raised, but this latest speech of his has certainly raised a great deal of confusion.

I am hopeful that we can get a bit of clarification about what happens if the status of these conventions is changed, and whether a change automatically carries through into the relevant definitions in the Terrorism Suppression Act. The conventions that define terrorism and terrorist acts for the purpose of the bill appear in the Terrorism Suppression Act to come through in their form from time to time. I may have missed something when I was flicking through that Act, trying to work out the interrelationship between the Act and this bill. The effect of the Terrorism Suppression Act is that the Prime Minister can simply adopt the definitions from these international instruments, and is then able to designate and use them in a way that is outside the reach of this Parliament. I am anxious to hear that the definitions in these conventions—having been put in a schedule and, therefore, presumably, carefully considered by the select committee—cannot be changed by the parties to the instruments without the approval of this House, so as to have an effect on the way they are incorporated in Part 2.

It is a relatively straightforward question, and I suspect that there is a very simple answer to it. The definitions are either applied in their form from time to time, irrespective of New Zealand’s adherence to any change, or they are not. Maybe the answer is that they cannot be changed, and that there is a single-party veto on change affecting us. Whichever way it goes, I would be glad to hear that, having solemnly considered these definitions in a bill schedule, a change made by the other parties cannot then bind the New Zealand people and their Parliament.

I move, That the question be now put.

I want to very briefly reply to Ron Mark, but I thought I explained it before. This problem often confronts MPs, and I am sure that Mr Mark has confronted it before. It is that a bill has a part that has some very good stuff in it and some very bad stuff in it, and members can have an argument voting for or against. In this case, I thought that the powers of customs to seize materials from people who were not yet designated terrorists was a bad part of Part 2, so on behalf of the Green Party I voted against that. However, all along we said that we supported the good parts. That is one of the positive things about the passage of this bill—it has some good material in it, even if there is a lot of bad material, and we support the good material that has come through the process. It is very simple.

Schedules agreed to.