Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill

Clause 2, again, is a fairly simple clause. It is when we get to clause 3 that the substance of the bill can really be addressed, and there are some issues that colleagues have raised that the Minister in the chair, Marian Hobbs, should respond to. Even in clause 2 there is something that the Minister could assist us with that would be of value to the Committee. Clause 2 states that the Act will commence on a date to be appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council. When the bill was introduced, we were told that the reason for commencement by Order in Council was that it was proposed that the Act should come into force on the same date as the agreement came into force in New Zealand. I presume that that agreement is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

That seems to all make sense up to that point. The agreement was to enter into force in New Zealand on the 30th day after the date of the deposit of New Zealand’s instrument of ratification with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. What would interest the National Party and the Opposition is why the Government is now amending the commencement date. Supplementary Order Paper 190 provides that the commencement date will be changed. The amendment to clause 2 on that Supplementary Order Paper states: “To omit from lines 7 and 8 on page 1 the words ‘a date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council’, and substitute the words ‘the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent’.” It would be helpful, in order for the Committee to understand what is going on here, for the Minister to take a call and explain the reason for that change.

I accept that it is not a huge change. It is quite common for a commencement date to be the day after the day on which a bill receives the royal assent. There is no problem with that, but this is a significant issue. The clause had originally been put in for a specific purpose, which was to coincide with the date of the agreement coming into force in New Zealand. The legislation was supposed to commence on that day. It would be helpful for the Committee to understand what has changed. It is a not a big deal. I stress that it is not about the downfall of the Government—it is causing enough problems for itself in other areas without this legislation causing problems—but it is important that the Committee understands the reason for that change.

For example, has the agreement already come into force? When does the agreement come into force in New Zealand? When was the instrument of ratification lodged with the Secretary-General of the United Nations? Has it been lodged? What is the nexus now between the royal assent being given to this bill and the coming into force of the Statute of Rome agreement in New Zealand? The Committee deserves to know that. It is not a big ask of the Minister, but it would certainly give us a better understanding of why that clause is to be changed. There must be some reason for it.

The bill as introduced had a perfectly rational commencement date. It will now be changed, and there is obviously some good reason for it. That change must relate, in some way, to New Zealand’s ratification of the agreement, and it would be very helpful to the House—if we are to vote in favour of the commencement date as amended by Supplementary Order Paper 190, and I stress that we have no huge problem about that—to understand why. Why is the Government asking Parliament to amend the commencement date, when it seemed that the original commencement date in the bill as introduced to Parliament was a perfectly rational commencement date that tied in with the ratification of the agreement—its deposit with the Secretary-General of the United Nations? What has changed? I am prepared to resume my seat in order to save time and enable the Minister to take a call and explain to us—because it may save some debating time—why the Supplementary Order Paper amends the commencement clause when that clause seemed perfectly rational. Something must have changed to make that amendment a sensible one. I believe that it would be courteous to the Committee—if the Minister expects it to vote in favour of the amendment—to explain why it has become necessary.

I will try to answer that—and members can see that I am trying, as I was taking advice from the officials. The bill, as amended, because of adding the European Commission in, will come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the royal assent. Then, following the passing of the legislation, we will have to carry out two Orders in Council. Under the new provisions of this bill, the European Commission will have one date and the International Criminal Court another. In order to make that coherent in the bill, we amended it.

It would be helpful if the Minister in the chair could also cast a little bit of light on another matter, which I raise as a matter of speculation. I am told that staff for a European mission are hanging about in Australia waiting for the passage of this law, and that the earlier starting date and desire for the bill to be put through urgently are because of those staff who are hanging about waiting. If that is the case, I am a bit puzzled by it, in the sense that literally thousands of fellow countrymen of people from European Union missions are in New Zealand at the moment without the benefit of any immunity. Many of them would probably be far more likely to run foul of our law than any of these earnest diplomats or sober-suited mission members.

I am, therefore, a little anxious to find out why members of a mission, if it is true, would hover around outside New Zealand, waiting for immunity before they dare set foot in this country. Have our relations with the European Union gone as far down as our relations with Australia? Are we in a situation where we have to commence this bill to entice these fellows and women into our country, because they are anxious that we will take some kind of primitive revenge on them, in the form that once happened to diplomatic agents? If it were true, what would make them sit outside this country, waiting for the passage of immunity legislation, when, surely, it could only be a tidy-up at most? Is this the way our diplomats would act—that they would not go to a country until they had the assurance of immunity, even if it were a country with which we had such friendly and, hopefully, fraternal relations as most of the countries in the European Union?

This is something that I think the Minister really should reassure us about, because if the commencement date is as vital as has been indicated by what I have heard about the need for urgency, it suggests that our relations with the European Union must be very fragile, and that our reputation as a civilised nation must be at extreme risk. I cannot imagine why we would have to rush the commencement of a bill like this—to the stage of putting a hurry-up clause in a Supplementary Order Paper—when all it does is tell people that when they are in New Zealand they will not be liable to our laws, and that we will accord them reasonable dignity. I hope they would feel confident that we would do that for all European Union citizens, irrespective of any law. I hope that members of a European Union mission would feel they were coming to one of the countries in the world where they could expect that the law would certainly not trouble them, provided they acted in accordance with the norms of reasonable, civilised Europeans.

I would like the Minister in the chair to either confirm or deny that we do have urgency. It is a very odd thing for something like this, a technical tidy-up, to be so urgent. I am a little concerned that there may be something behind this—that there might be some members of a mission planning to come here whom New Zealanders want to offer an indignity to. Will this legislation protect a Greenpeace mission? Will it protect people whom New Zealanders might want to protest against? Is it conceivable that there are people coming here who fear they will be offered an indignity, and who want the assurance that the police will be looking after them, in the way that the police have had to look after the President of China, and some of the other people who have come here and who have needed the reassurance of the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act?

That is the implication we get from a provision that suddenly speeds up the adoption of the effective date of this Act. The effective date of this Act, as it was first stated, was simply to come into force by Order in Council. Now it is to come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the royal assent. Yet there are machinery things to be done if there is to be an order made, and the Minister could tell us whether the order would be promulgated on that same day.

I speak on behalf of New Zealand First, and once again I cannot help but say that this is another clear example of why we should reduce the number of members in the House to 99. It was very clear in the Minister’s letter to, I expect, all political parties, that during Commissioner Patten’s visit to New Zealand in 2003, he formally proposed that a delegation office of the European Commission be established in Wellington. That was subsequently endorsed by President Prodi, and New Zealand is going ahead with that proposal. With the expansion of the European Union on 1 May 2004 by the addition of 10 new members, New Zealand is today in a very vulnerable position. The more we do, and the quicker we act, to get the European Union into New Zealand and be able to have dialogue with it, the better.

The attitude of the National Party and ACT, which want to delay something that is formal practice between civilised countries, is quite extraordinary. For example, just a little while ago, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Cyril Svoboda, was here. I am sorry that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee was unable to meet him on the Monday as arranged, but it is vital to New Zealand that we act promptly, and that we do something to have the European Union here.

We have discovered that sometimes the European Union sets out the terms, and that we have to adopt reasonable, civilised terms. Passing legislation that applies to all types of missions of this kind is a reasonably civilised way of behaving. The Government agreed earlier on that this was essentially an obvious and suitable occasion to amend the legislation to include the European Union in it.

As I understand it, members of the proposed staff are in Canberra at the present time, and, in terms of the Minister’s advice to all members of Parliament, they are seeking the usual immunities and privileges that apply to them. New Zealand First supports this bill, and looks forward to meeting with the European Union delegation as soon as possible.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 190 in the name of Hon Phil Goff to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to, and clause 2 as amended agreed to.

New clause 2A New section 9AB inserted