Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill

I do not have the detailed knowledge of international conspiracies that the member who preceded me has, nor do I have the same interest in the subject, but the issue that the Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill deals with is an important one, and for that reason, because it is giving effect to an international convention signed in 1989, United Future will support it going to the select committee. But I want to give notice of two or three issues that we will be keen to pursue at that committee, because I think they do need clarification, in terms of the future of this bill. First, the bill, and, I think also to a slightly less confused extent, the original convention, refer to individuals, to persons who act as recruiters, to persons who train, to persons who do various sorts of things. Yet, as Mr Locke pointed out, there are a number of organisations that these persons operate on behalf of. It strikes me, on the face of it, a little odd that we create an offence for persons who recruit, train, or do whatever with mercenaries, but in effect we do not have any sanction on the organisations that employ them. I would have been interested to explore—had the Minister been here—by way of a question, that issue with him, as to what the rationale is for the emphasis on individuals, rather than the organisations that employ them. That is something we can pursue further at the select committee.

Next, I notice that in the bill itself there is reference in Part 3 to a number of actions that the Attorney-General has to take in terms of determining whether New Zealand has jurisdiction, whether consent to prosecutions ought to be given, whether the outcome of those prosecutions ought to be communicated to any persons. While I do not have any particular problem with those sections, it does strike me as a little strange, given the nature of the bill and what it deals with, that there is no reference within it to whether it is in conflict with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, particularly in terms of the rights of freedom of association and other things that are enshrined in that legislation.

I find it strange for this reason: over the last year the Attorney-General has made a particular point of obtaining the advice of the Crown Law Office on New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues, and making that advice publicly available. We have done it on things like the Kyoto Protocol, and the counter-terrorism legislation. Now we have a bill that potentially affects the rights of perhaps a small number of people who might be involved in the mercenary industry, if I can call it that. It deals with the question of both jurisdiction within New Zealand, and clause 13 also covers extraterritoriality, yet at the same time it makes no comment at all about the rights that those people who are its target have under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I am curious as to why that omission is there.

Certainly, the original convention makes no reference in that regard. One would not expect it to. However, I would have thought that a Government legislating to give effect to a convention of this type would want to ensure that the rights of its own citizens were protected to the greatest extent possible, notwithstanding the evil that they were seeking to outlaw. For that reason I am genuinely surprised that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act seems to have escaped mention altogether. There may be good reasons for it. I had hoped, as I said earlier, that the Minister would have been here and by way of interjection I would have sought an answer from him on that point.

It seems to me to be odd that we set up some very clear definitions of what we would regard in this legislation as now illegal in terms of recruiting someone to be a mercenary, in terms of using mercenaries, financing mercenaries, training prospective mercenaries, or training any mercenaries in terms of the way in which those people might participate in hostilities or any concerted act of violence, etc, etc, without putting any presumption on their part of what their rights might be and how they might be protected. I think that is an important issue, particularly when we are to make it possible for people to be extradited to New Zealand to face charges under this legislation—if they ever eventuate—and where we are putting some pretty severe penalties in place for an activity that by this legislation we regard as highly undesirable.

With those few thoughts I am happy to see the bill go to the select committee. I assume it will go to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, although to my knowledge the Minister did not indicate that in his speech. I am sure the committee will want to give consideration to the issue in some detail. I do not think one should view this as a necessary extension of the counter-terrorism legislation that the House has been dealing with recently, although it is tempting to see the juxtaposition of the two events as more than coincidental. However, I think the two are quite separate events, but one might have a wry smile about the timing.

As I said, this gives effect to an international convention that has been around since 1989. One is a wee bit surprised that New Zealand has taken 14 years to get to the point of bringing legislation to the House, but having done so we ought to consider it, and consider it properly.

I want to start my contribution by reading from the Concise Oxford Dictionary the definition of the word mercenary—and this is the definition, not the Government’s or some United Nations definition. It states: “Working merely for money or other reward. Hired soldier in foreign service.” The problem with that definition is that it does not fit Mr Locke’s or Mr Goff’s view of a mercenary. They see mercenaries as being characters with no heart, cold-blooded killers with red bandannas around their heads—giving that communist flavour that Mr Locke tends to prefer to democracy—wearing belts of ammunition and out there bayoneting babies. That seems to be their view of a mercenary. By the Concise Oxford Dictionary definition, a mercenary is not one of those characters. Indeed, I was a contract officer—as are, and were, many New Zealanders. To give this Government a bit of a steer, I refer it to the Christchurch Press of Monday, 3 November. It has quite a substantive article on soldiers for hire.

Whilst Mr Locke may care to have his view, I point out to him that many people around the world have for years, generations, and decades given foreign service on behalf of another country—as the honourable member across from me, Ashraf Choudhary, will know. Pakistanis, Baluchistanis, Indians, and Sri Lankans have all soldiered for money. The Queen’s Ghurkas, who were based in Hong Kong for generations, are the most famous mercenaries we could ever think of. Suddenly, this left-wing socialist Government has now decreed them to be dishonourable people. I remind the Government that they are people to whom it continually looks to for the preservation of its freedom.

The Sultanate of Oman, where I worked and soldiered for 5 years as a contract officer, was protected and defended by Indians, Baluchistanis, and Iranians.

💬 Rodney Hide: What about the Pope?

The Pope has his own private mercenary army. But suddenly today, because someone wants to sign up to a further tinpot, chicken-something agreement dreamt up by a bunch of left-wing loonies in the United Nations, we are to move legislation to outlaw those honourable people. Members should stop and think for a moment. Currently, there are people in New Zealand recruiting from our police. Right now, our police could be off to Iraq earning $1,000 a day. Are they the people the Government is trying to target? Is that considered mercenarial?

Under the definitions described in this piece of paper, it is all about money. What I read in this bill is that if Mr Locke—God, please let it happen—and Mr Donald were suddenly to get on their ideological high horses, put on green uniforms and fight for genetic engineering, and do it for nothing, they would be OK. They can go out and bomb and kill, put “necklaces” around people’s necks—like the African National Congress did—and set fire to innocent women and children, but because they are doing it for no monetary gain, that is OK.

Under this legislation, the moment people get paid, they are mercenaries, and that is illegal. The legislation states that if people are getting paid more than the locals for doing the same job, then that makes them mercenaries. We have a lot of New Zealanders serving out there in Iraq clearing mines. Are we saying that they will do it for the same amount of money that an Iraqi gets paid? How stupid! They have families back here and New Zealand cost-of-living standards to meet. They are doing a brilliant job clearing mines and making life safe for other people, and this Government thinks they should hire out their services for the same rate of pay as an Iraqi. That is daft, dumb, and stupid. It does not even make sense.

What about people like Alan Johnson who was working for the World Food Programme and was in the building that was bombed in Iraq? Is he a mercenary? Maybe not, but many of the companies that hire people like Alan Johnson—a friend of mine—are also hiring people for private jobs. Be it protecting an oil rig, or protecting a vessel sailing through Indonesian waters from pirates, or providing people to kill poachers in Kenya, the same companies are hiring “contract” military people. I am not satisfied that these definitions do not capture all of those people. I am not satisfied that it is appropriate for Mr Locke to fight and kill people for ideological reasons, because he does everything for love and does not want to be paid, yet if I want to do the same thing for the same side and demand to get paid for it, I am a mercenary.

We really need to think our way through this. Why is it that the British Government—the Tony Blair, Labour-led Government—has seen the value in such practices to the point where it has produced green papers. It knows that it has companies like the Armour Group, DSL, and other companies out there like Saladdin. What about John Tamihere’s former business associates? John Tamihere, who is the chief executive officer of the Waipareira Trust, was a shareholder in a company that hired soldiers to snatch a businessman out of Indonesia.

💬 Rodney Hide: With guns!

Yes, with guns. Was that not a mercenarial action? What about this Government sitting here passing pious pieces of legislation like this whilst it condones Sandline’s entry back in Papua New Guinea? Sandline is currently operating alongside New Zealand and Australian operatives, doing work that it has always done. Suddenly, such activities are not acceptable, yet we know it is happening. The questions are: what is legitimate work advanced in the interests of a free democratic world? What is legitimate work that is for our benefit? What is work that we do not necessarily want to talk about because we have allowed other people to do something that we know is an extension of our foreign policy?

The Brits, God bless their cotton socks, are far better at understanding this than anybody else. They have been doing it for decades. But oh no, not us—we will sign up to a politically correct treaty from somewhere in the bowels of the United Nations. We will pass this touchy-feely, feel-good legislation. We will go out of here and pat ourselves on the back, but it does not mean anything. What it does do is turn a whole lot of New Zealanders who have done damn good work into criminals. What about the New Zealand military nurses who were contracted to go into the Middle East? Who was opposing them? It was East Germany. You know, the sort of people that Mr Locke and the Green Party support—people who wanted to advance the ideological cause of communism all over the world and do it for a pittance, but kill and maim none the less.

New Zealand nurses, Army officers, and pilots served throughout the Middle East against people like that, and with one stroke of the pen this Government—whose Cabinet contains a member who has hired mercenaries—says it should no longer happen. That is ludicrous; it does not even make sense. Mr Locke and the Green Party riled against the Counter-Terrorism Bill, saying that the Government was using terrorism as an excuse to ramrod through changes that breached people’s rights and civil liberties. I would have thought they would have said: “Here is another piece of legislation that Mr Goff has just said is justifiable that also breaches civil liberties.”

Actually, it has nothing to do with it. Most of the people who are employed in this industry by British and American companies are out there working hand in hand, side by side, with American and British servicemen and women with the full knowledge and support of the British Government, the American Government, and even those they do not want to acknowledge them. Take the Mujahadeen. Who was over there fighting the Mujahadeen in the interests of the British? The SAS were. Who did they have working alongside them? They had hired ex-soldiers; people we now call mercenaries. In fact, they were contract officers plying their trade legitimately—a trade learned and appropriately applied.

I know full well who the Government wants to target in legislation like this, but let us get it right, because the definition here is so broad. The bill contains so much ignorance that it is not worth reading, because it captures the wrong people. If the Government wants to get New Zealand First support, there will have to be a heck of a lot of amendments to this bill. Quite frankly, I think we have more important things to spend our time on in this House than a piece of legislation like this. It should simply be dumped off the agenda.

Bill read a first time, and referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.