Crimes and Misconduct (Overseas Operations) Bill

, on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade: I move, That the Crimes and Misconduct (Overseas Operations) Bill be now read a third time. The bill ensures that members of the police and other persons serving in overseas operations such as in the Solomon Islands are subject to the jurisdiction of New Zealand courts for offences they commit overseas against New Zealand law. The catalyst for the bill was the Status of Forces Agreement with the Solomon Islands. It provides that, in the case of offences that occur outside the course of official duties, the Solomons will seek jurisdiction only if the sending country can assert its jurisdiction overseas.

We had some discussion during the Committee stage in relation to clause 5(2), when an honourable member opposite queried the intention of the legislation with the interpretation possible, and I have confirmed advice from officials that her concerns are probably without foundation. But I appreciate the manner in which she drew them to the attention of the Committee.

New Zealand is currently able to assert jurisdiction over New Zealand defence personnel serving overseas and members of the police serving in a UN overseas operation. However, New Zealand cannot do so in respect of people serving in a non-UN overseas operation. Accordingly, if members of the police and other persons are not subject to the jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts and they are involved in offences falling outside of official duties, the only option might be prosecution in the Solomon Islands. So the bill will minimise the possible exposure to Solomon Islands law of members of the New Zealand Police and other members in the overseas operation. It will also ensure that New Zealand can assert its jurisdiction over members of the police and other persons serving in future overseas operations.

The bill will be retrospective. Once passed, it will be deemed to have come into effect on 24 July 2003, allowing New Zealand courts to assert jurisdiction from the beginning of the deployment. The issue of retrospectivity was carefully considered when the bill was vetted for compliance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, as section 26 of that Act limits the creation of retroactive offences. The Attorney-General concluded that the bill is not inconsistent with the rights and freedoms contained in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The retrospective application of the bill is seen as a justified limitation because of the importance of protecting New Zealand personnel from possible exposure to a legal system that may be incongruent with the standards applicable in New Zealand.

Although the bill does not contain a clause expressly allowing for waiver of New Zealand jurisdiction, no one can be prosecuted unless the Attorney-General gives consent. This requirement, in effect, gives the ability to waive jurisdiction in situations where, in the interests of fairness and justice, it would be preferable for the host country to retain jurisdiction. The bill also makes it clear that New Zealand police will have the power to arrest personnel covered under the bill overseas, and to detain them for as long as is reasonably necessary to take them to New Zealand. This complements New Zealand’s power to assert its jurisdiction in respect of such offences.

The arrest power provides similar arrest powers as are contained in the United Nations (Police) Act and the Armed Forces Discipline Act. However, it is not a generalised power to arrest overseas. The arrest power relates solely to the arrest of persons involved in those overseas operations and who commit offences while serving in an operation. An arrest under this power is not conditional on the prior determination of fact, or an assessment of evidence by a New Zealand court. The bill provides that the provisions of the Crimes Act relating to arrest will apply to the arrest of a person under the bill. So that means that a person can be arrested only in the circumstances that are permitted under the Crimes Act. However, the Attorney-General’s consent must be obtained before the prosecution itself proceeds.

The enactment of this bill will therefore ensure that our police and civilian personnel serving in the Solomon Islands in similar operations in the future enjoy the same protections as defence and police personnel serving in similar United Nations operations already enjoy under our law, which is consistent with international practice for these sorts of operations. It is for that reason, I am sure, that this bill has deservedly received such widespread support from the variety of parties in our Parliament. I commend the bill to the House.

I am grateful for the comments the previous speaker has made in the context of the Crimes and Misconduct (Overseas Operations) Bill. National supports this legislation. There are some aspects of the legislation, however, in respect of which we entertain a degree of reservation. A principal concern would have to be the legislative process that has been followed in this case. The Minister has sought to justify, as best she could, with all the available arguments that could possibly be mounted, the reason that this Act will be deemed to have come into force on 24 July 2003. Generally, legislation is prospective. It takes effect after it has received the royal assent. There are specific provisions that provide that legislation comes into force at a future date, but not so in this case. Instead, this legislation has been backdated to 24 July 2003.

The Minister has explained to us—or tried to—the reason for that backdating. It is to mark the commencement of the deployment to the Solomon Islands, so it is a little unclear as to whether there is a swathe of charges to be laid against police officers and other civilian personnel in respect of activities they may have been involved in, in the Solomons, from the period 24 July 2003 to the present time. Let us hope that that is not the case. Let us hope that the office of the Attorney-General is not cluttered with decisions to be made in respect of multiple charges and multiple accused.

This legislation is to some extent a complement to the United Nations (Police) Act of 1964. That legislation, which came into force on 14 May 1964, has served New Zealand well and provided a measure of control and discipline for police officers engaged in United Nations service. A gap was discovered and led to the Crimes and Misconduct (Overseas Operations) Bill. This bill allows New Zealand to exercise criminal jurisdiction over New Zealand police personnel and civilians serving overseas as part of non - United Nations deployments. So the bill will allow New Zealand to exercise jurisdiction over non - armed service personnel participating in the Solomon Islands deployment.

It was a very historic step on the part of New Zealand to send troops and police to the Solomon Islands, and it might very well be the case that Taito Phillip Field will offer some comment on that. But my recollection as a matter of history was that the last time we saw an entry into this part of the Pacific was probably to suppress the Mau rebellion against New Zealand rule over Samoa. That culminated, of course, in what some commentators have described as the infamous 1929 “Black Saturday”, on which New Zealand troops opened fire with machine guns on unarmed Samoan protestors, killing nine and wounding over 50 other personnel.

I have two primary concerns about this legislation, and the first I had an opportunity of briefly touching on in the Committee stage of the bill. That is, it seems to me that, for no good reason, the select committee set its heart against the inclusion in this bill of appropriate reference to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. They certainly turned their minds to that issue, but I urge members of the House to reflect on the possibility that those who are charged with offences on foreign soil, under New Zealand law, should have the full rights that are available to people who are charged under New Zealand law on New Zealand soil. By not making specific reference to that legislation, a gap is created, and, potentially, an injustice is done.

Of course, it is beyond the scope of what I seek to say during this third reading debate to offer any detailed view on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. But I would note that under Part 2 of that legislation, a number of critical rights are given in the area of search, arrest, and detention. For example, there are provisions like section 21, “Unreasonable search and seizure”; section 22, “Liberty of the person”; and minimum standards of criminal procedure are set by section 25. I would have thought that a robust Committee, imbued with a proper sense of jurisprudence, might well have seen it as appropriate to include reference to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The sophistry apparent in the commentary of the select committee I would assert is unfortunate.

The second issue that I believe is worthy of comment relates to this whole issue of territoriality and nationality. New Zealand has generally followed a practice that our laws are intended to have effect within New Zealand only. That has not been the invariable practice in respect of other countries, but from a constitutional perspective it seems sound and reflects the well-understood sovereign doctrines in international law. When there have been exceptions, they have been made with significant care, and I can see members opposite nodding in acquiescence with that comment. There are so few exceptions, but I will instance just two. Those two relate to aspects of the criminal law. [Interruption] Is it not an excellent outcome that Government members have suddenly become awake, and that on the opposite side of the House there is a fertile interest in constitutional law doctrine?

The two examples relate to the readiness of the New Zealand Government to prosecute for sexual offences committed outside this country, and the very deliberate legislative entry we have made in connection with terrorist activities outside this country.

So I conclude that there was clearly justification for bringing this legislation before the House at the start of the Solomon Islands deployment. However, the Government has disgraced itself by the slow passage of this legislation. When one asks: “What is the intended mischief?”, the answer is that the passage of time has seen no real mischief created—and why might that be? I suggest that it is because in the international arena, New Zealand punches above its weight, and that in our peacekeeping and peacemaking operations we show a commitment, a care, a diligence, and a compassion that may well not need legislation of this type. That was apparently not the view of the Government. It seems that on this occasion, as on many occasions in recent times, the Government was again wrong. So it may very well be that we can move to the early repeal of this legislation, which is a further indictment of this Government’s failure to focus on the really important aspects of legislative policy.

It is a true pleasure and delight to follow the sacked Opposition defence spokesperson—the member for Epsom, Richard Worth. I just wish that when he had been the spokesperson on defence, he had used the words that we have just heard from him, because he just told the House that New Zealand punches above its weight on international commitments, and I totally agree with the member on that point. I think it is absolutely right that New Zealand has a proud record in these areas. Yet, when he had responsibility for defence, he never said those things. So I am glad we have given him the opportunity under urgency on the Crimes and Misconduct (Overseas Operations) Bill for him to come down and fess up as to his true belief in New Zealand’s great reputation in these areas. To that end, I support the third reading of this bill.

I rise to speak to the third reading of the Crimes and Misconduct (Overseas Operations) Bill, which fundamentally has been passed so that in the event of New Zealand personnel serving in the Solomons committing a crime—and although the operation is not United Nations peacekeeping, it is still peacekeeping—it would be deemed to be a crime in New Zealand under this bill. Such persons can be arrested in the Solomons by New Zealand Police and tried in this country under New Zealand law for the crime committed in the Solomons, which otherwise could not be done under our territorial laws.

As it happens, I was in the Solomons when the Solomons Parliament introduced its parallel bill. It was not made abundantly clear by the Minister, but the Solomon Islands Parliament has passed a law that exempts New Zealanders serving in the military, in the police, and as civilians, and we have given an undertaking that should a New Zealander commit a crime, he or she will be prosecuted in this country. The first thing I want the House to know is that the Solomon Islands judiciary never collapsed during the peacekeeping. There are still expatriate judges and Solomon Islands judges, and if the House gets the impression that the Solomon Islands judiciary is not capable of giving a fair trial to a New Zealander, that is not so. It most certainly was the fact that at the time we intervened, the Solomon Islands police force probably was not capable of doing such prosecutions, and it certainly did not exercise proper policing functions over large parts of the Solomons, which is the reason for the intervention.

I am a little concerned that the bill is open-ended. There must come a point where we ought to say that law and order has been restored in the Solomons, and there is really no case for a New Zealander who commits a crime in the Solomons to be able to say that he or she should be tried in this country, just because he or she is serving, say, as a civilian adviser.

With the Solomon Islands having passed its part of the bill, it is now necessary for this Parliament to pass our part, but I do make a few comments about this legislation. I support the bill in the sense that I myself have made representations—not just to this Government, but also to the previous Government—that the situation in the Solomons did require intervention, and it would not be able to be healed within that country. There are complicated reasons for that, which go to the nature of the ethnic tension. I have also said to successive Governments that an intervention would be very successful, and it would not actually require a very large number of New Zealand personnel. While it has been very successful, I think the numbers we have sent are way over the top, but that is partly because we were with the Australians and they tend to be a bit way over the top. We never needed anything like that number, and I still think that the number of police serving in the Solomons from New Zealand is excessive.

I make the point to the Minister of Finance that we ought to be thinking about pulling some of those numbers back, and part of the reason I say that is that our aid vote to the Solomons is being reduced in other areas in order to pay for policing. So we ought to be conscious of the fact that we do not want to send across more of something they do not need, when that means we are not able to help them more with things that they do need.

But coming back to the bill itself, I think I should defend the Solomon Islands judiciary. I think that they held to their task when there was a civil war going on, and when the Solomon Islands police force was a large part of the problem. It was not all of the police, I have to say, but when some of the police were out of control, the judiciary themselves continued to uphold the rule of law. I think that a New Zealander who committed a crime in the Solomons would always have had a fair trial in the courts, and would have a fair trial today.

Having said that, this is the best part of the package that we agreed to with the Australians and the Solomon Islands Government. I suppose that we also agreed with the volunteers—because they are volunteers, although I do not know whether the Army are volunteers; the police certainly are volunteers, as are civilians. They were given an undertaking that this law would be passed. I think—and I am putting it slightly differently from Mr Worth—that New Zealand is somewhat overextended in the number of peacekeeping operations it is conducting. I think that we are in 22 different countries, or something like that. It is said that we are punching above our weight, and I also think we ought to look at whether that is sensible. The Solomon Islands are in the Pacific, and is clearly an area of interest to us, so I acknowledge that I call for this intervention. I believe that the Government has done the right thing. Having done that, I acknowledge that Parliament is obliged to pass this bill, so the ACT party will support its third reading.

I do not intend to rotary hoe the same paddock over and over again, nor to go over much of the commentary by Richard Worth and the Hon Richard Prebble—who has far more experience in terms of the Solomon Islands than many other people, if not any other person, in this House. However, I want to touch on just a couple of points.

Firstly, as I understand it, this bill is not targeted specifically at the Solomons. It is true that it came to pass because in deploying troops, civilian personnel, and police into the Solomons, it was recognised that we had a gap in our legislation, in terms of criminal jurisdiction over those people we sent there. The question that comes to my mind is why had we not found this out some time ago. We have had peacekeeping personnel in many theatres all over the world for a great period of time. If I cast my mind back to the initial deployment of forces into the multinational force of observers in the Sinai in 1982, although the initial deployment had only military personnel, New Zealand civilians were there. It seems rather strange that it took until 2003 for people to recognise that we had a gap in our legislation and in our criminal jurisdiction, and to do something. It is even stranger that, having identified that gap on 24 July 2003, we are sitting here under urgency on 31 March 2004 progressing this bill to the third reading. I suggest that it tends to indicate an element of tardiness on someone’s part.

I feel the need to comment on a couple of comments that have been made. The historic nature of the deployment of our troops and police into the Solomons is acknowledged. I do find an irony in the fact that the main reason we sent police there was that people could not trust the Solomons police force to do its job—and here we are today. There were reports of police being involved in criminal activities and of widespread corruption. A friend of mine who worked in the Solomons for many years was flabbergasted to find that after the murder of a New Zealand businessman over there, when everybody was discussing and openly talking about who had carried out that murder, nothing had been done by the police to arrest that man. Also, stories came back to New Zealand of police driving around in vehicles that had been reported as stolen, and there were no charges. The irony is not lost on me. Here we are passing legislation to make it possible for us to prosecute our policemen, should they err, and the very reason for their being there is that the Solomons police were criminally in err.

There were comments about New Zealand punching above its own weight, and being overextended in deployments such as this. That was the very first comment I made for New Zealand First when it was announced that New Zealand was sending troops to the Solomons. My comments—and they were latterly picked up by the National Party—were that we were overextending ourselves, and that this Government in particular, in pursuit of international kudos, had no consideration at all for the plight of the service personnel that it was tasking; it had no consideration at all for the plight of the families, with service personnel just returning from one deployment and being sent off on another one; and it had no consideration or understanding of the level of commitment of our Defence Force personnel, and of how thinly stretched they are on the ground. But that did not concern the Government, because its overriding desire was to look good in front of the United Nations and the international community, to paper over the cracks, and to pretend that our deficiencies and shortfalls in personnel, and the heavy workloads, simply did not exist.

That is precisely what Minister Burton said in response to my comments. I note that those comments were not shared by senior officers in the Defence Force, and that they were later reflected in a paper that became public through the Sunday Star-Times.

💬 Barbara Stewart: How did that happen?

Yes, I wonder how that happened. Only then did the public of New Zealand get the true picture. To say that we are punching above our own weight is, I think, a wee bit boastful, particularly in the light of recent medical surveys that show that the biggest threat to New Zealand’s health and wellbeing is obesity. [Interruption] Do members get that? I think they will. The point is that we can sit here and applaud ourselves all we like, pat ourselves on the back, and bestow medals, wreaths, and kudos upon ourselves, but the truth of the matter is that we are overextended.

We know that operations like this are necessary. We know that intervention was necessary. But we in New Zealand have to either come to terms with the deficiencies in our Defence Force, increase the overall staffing, and increase the authorised level of manning, or accept that we can no longer play the role in the Pacific that other nations would ask of us. That may mean a loss of face, but I suggest that in the interests of the men and women who serve in our Defence Force and police force, it would be the honourable and honest position to take. Failing that, we will continue to do what we are currently doing. We will ask captains to step up to major jobs, we will ask corporals to step up to sergeant and sergeant-major jobs, we will pay them a little bit extra for the time when they do that, and when they get back to New Zealand, we will bust them back down to the rank we can afford. We will then task them with level 2 or 3 positions, and demand that they perform to levels of training for which they have not yet been prepared. I say these things as a warning. I say these things because I have said them before. All of these things are relevant in the third reading, because they are points that were made at the time the troops were deployed to the Solomons, and at the time that this legislation was deemed necessary.

For some reason, I see that Mr—what is his name, that lawyer who defended that murderer up north? Mr Fairbrother and the two Government whips have no interest in this discussion. They sit there talking about what they will do in the weekend when urgency is lifted, and ignore constructive criticism and comment.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: No, they’re swapping CVs for possible job opportunities.

They are swapping CVs for possible job opportunities. Mr Fairbrother may have a job to go to, but I am not too sure about that other young man. The point is that they ignore these comments at their peril, and, regretfully, they ignore them at the expense of the good men and women in our defence forces and police force.

I also want to say that it is rare that all the parties are unanimous in support of legislation. I went back through the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee report, and, without meaning to be churlish, I did not see a minority report from the National Party expressing all the concerns that Mr Worth expressed. I am not being churlish, but it is noted that if he had serious concerns, they would have been written in the bill as a minority report, and they are not, at all.

💬 Judith Collins: He wasn’t on the select committee.

The fact that Mr Worth was not on the select committee does not mean a thing. He could have been, had he chosen to be. He could have asked to be subbed on, and I am sure that one of his other members would have gladly let him have a seat.

New Zealand First supports the passage of this bill. We pass on a flick in the ear to the Government for taking so long, and we ask people to note that this legislation pertains to any future operations where police and civilian personnel may be deployed. I suggest that that will be an ongoing and, regrettably, a more frequent thing in the future.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this bill and its purpose. It was motivated by the commitment of personnel to the Solomon Islands. Because of the situation of lawlessness there, we had to cover the police and the civilian personnel who went there, so that if they committed crimes they did not commit them with impunity. There is a very good purpose behind the bill—to make sure that anyone on an overseas operation, whether Defence Force personnel, police, or a civilian, is subject to proper justice.

Often in overseas operations there are situations of concurrent jurisdiction, as the commentary on the bill mentions, when offences are committed against citizens of the host country or when the offending personnel are in an off-duty situation. There are three categories of situation. Members of the visiting force can commit offences between themselves—in the Solomon Islands case, between members of the New Zealand visiting force. There is a whole system within the Defence Force, of course; if offences are committed between members of the Defence Force in an operation such as that in the Solomons, there are procedures within that force to deal with that. At the other end of the scale, if members of the force—or, in this case, New Zealand civilians, as well—are off duty and commit crimes, there is a general application of local legal jurisdiction. Then in the middle there is a bit of a grey area. If members of the visiting force in the performance of their duties are in some way reckless or criminal—driving erratically, or whatever—and offend against a person or property of the local society, there is often an overlap, or concurrent jurisdiction, and it is necessary to work out whether they should be tried locally, or back in their home country, or within the institution of the visiting force. Of course, what happens in that grey area is often the subject of a status of forces agreement, or negotiation between the parties.

Although there is talk in the commentary on the bill about concurrent jurisdiction, the emphasis has been towards the trial being held by the visiting country—in this case, New Zealand—because of the state of the judicial system, the police system, etc. in the Solomon Islands. The situation there was very difficult when New Zealanders were committed over there, and since that time many members of the Solomon Islands police force have been dismissed or are up on charges, and Government officials and Ministers have been subject to some form of dismissal or prosecution. That shows the very difficult situation that our contingent went into, and the need for a fall-back situation so that no New Zealander could get off scot-free if he or she committed what we all know to be offences and what would be offences under New Zealand law.

That being said, in a case like the particular situation in the Solomon Islands, and there may be one or two similar ones that develop internationally, we do not want to treat as the norm that the jurisdiction falls back on the visiting country—in this case, New Zealand—because we want to develop the capacity of the host country to support its own justice system and apply its own laws. That is particularly so when its property or its citizens are affected by members of a visiting force, be they defence personnel, police, or civilians assisting in governmental capacities, etc., as is the case in the Solomon Islands. We support that capacity building.

We do not really want to go down the track of the Australians in relation to Papua New Guinea recently, and get into the problems that they have got into. They are trying to commit 230 members of the Australian police over there. New Zealand is sending some police, too, although I do not think that has taken place yet, partly because of the big dispute that has occurred between the Australian Government and the Papua New Guinea Government over criminal jurisdiction. The Australians initially claimed full immunity for their police, but people such as the Foreign Minister of Papua New Guinea, Mr Rabbie Namaliu, said that that was unconstitutional and undesirable and they would not accept it. The Australians have had to move to more limited immunity, as the result of a two-way dialogue. They have moved back to a more normal situation, where there is give and take and where jurisdiction is not totally given away by the host country.

I listened closely to the points that Richard Worth made in relation to the application of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and the difficulties in relation to people who are not members of the armed forces. There are well-established systems in the armed forces, not only the New Zealand armed forces but also other armed forces, in terms of prosecuting people who commit crimes. In relation to civilians such as those we have sent over to help the Solomon Islands civil service, it is a more difficult situation. This is a generic bill; it does not apply only to the Solomon Islands, and one can envisage a situation under the bill in which our civilians are not necessarily accompanied by New Zealand police officers. If a crime is committed by a New Zealand civilian official working in a Solomon Islands Government ministry, one imagines that a New Zealand police officer who happens to be there could do the arrest, do a bit of the evidential work, and do the beginnings of a prosecution, before the person is brought back to New Zealand for trial.

But one can see the problems that arise when one gets into extraterritoriality. As Richard Worth indicated, there are only a couple of areas—sex offences and terrorism—where that extraterritoriality does apply. There are good reasons for being a little bit careful about it, because, clearly, there are evidential problems in a situation like that of the Solomon Islands—particularly if the New Zealand Police were not there, which could be the case in some other commitments. How does one know exactly what is going on, or who has said what about a particular crime? When the person is brought back to New Zealand it is very hard to fully apply justice. There are difficulties in that situation, which is why it is better to have jurisdiction lie with the local force, even if the local justice system is imperfect in many circumstances. And I am not arguing that there was a proper judicial system in the Solomon Islands, particularly when we first sent the force over there.

I think we have to have some assumption that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act applies. Whether it needs to be written into the bill, we can argue about. The argument in the advice given to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, which Ron Mark mentioned, was that because the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is not referred to in relation to the United Nations (Police) Act and the Armed Forces Discipline Act, and because those procedures operate quite well legally, we do not need to have it in this bill, although one could say that the armed forces—and the United Nations acting internationally, which we are tied into by that Act—do have quite substantial systems in place that mean there is not quite so much requirement that a reference to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act be put in. But when we are talking about difficult situations applying to civilians overseas, where perhaps there is no New Zealand police officer on the scene, having a reference to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act could be of some use.

I have not heard a full report on the work we have done through our civilian commitment in the Solomons, or the work the Australians have done, in terms of building some of those institutions. I am sure a lot of the work has been very good work in terms of developing some of the ministries back to competence and helping to train local personnel, but we have to be very careful when we intervene in a substantial way, as we have done in the Solomon Islands, in the civil society, particularly in Government ministries etc., in that we might have a disposition to apply our own models. I would like to see an assessment of that. For instance, the New Zealand Government approach—which is, unfortunately, a bit different from the Green approach—is towards deregulation, privatisation, and things like that, which might not necessarily apply most effectively in the Solomon Islands. In the sort of chaos that ensued in the Solomon Islands, the pressures to adopt an Australian or a New Zealand model might have been a little bit great. I will be interested to get an assessment of that, and an assessment of whether the traditions of the Solomon Islands, and the possibility of utilising them, the tribal structures, etc., were fully taken account of in our helping to rebuild Solomon Islands society.

I rise just to signal once again United Future’s support for the Crimes and Misconduct (Overseas Operations) Bill. It seems to me that in the end this bill has struck a very good balance. On the one hand it ensures that New Zealand police and civilians deployed overseas by our Government in peacekeeping roles, in serious situations such as they face in the Solomons, have the protection of New Zealand law, so that they are not subject to undue prosecution or arrest by people in the local situation, and therefore exposed to its volatility, when they are on active duty under orders from New Zealand. On the other hand it ensures that those people, should they commit crimes in those situations, do not escape punishment for those crimes, but are answerable to New Zealand courts and the New Zealand nation under New Zealand law.

I feel it is important that our nation pass this bill into law, as we are doing this evening, because I strongly suspect—as does Ron Mark of New Zealand First—that this will not be the last time we have to deploy police and civilians in peacekeeping roles within our region of the Pacific. Unfortunately, we live in an area of the world that is subject to a fair degree of political instability in a lot of the developing and emerging nations that surround us in the islands of the Pacific. It always seems very tragic to me that people who live in paradise, in terms of climate and surroundings, nevertheless very often do not seem to be able to bring peace and stability to their own nations and their own political systems. So it seems to me that we will probably be doing this again, and, with that in mind, I think it is very important that this law is in place so that we have a clear basis on which to go forward.

With those few remarks, I have pleasure in signalling our support for this third reading.

There have been some very good speeches tonight on this bill, and it has been a pleasure to listen to some of the contributions, particularly those of Richard Worth and Richard Prebble. Even Ron Mark was interesting, and certainly I enjoyed Keith Locke’s speech. I found it very interesting, and although Mr Locke and I do not always agree on everything it is always nice to hear his view. Often he makes some very good comments.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: What about Mr Copeland?

I am, however, stunned that Mr Copeland has told the House tonight that this bill will provide protection for our New Zealand police and non - service personnel overseas. It does not. It does not provide one scrap of protection for our personnel overseas. This bill is all about making sure that those personnel can be prosecuted, either in the country in which they are serving or in New Zealand. It does not say at all that they will not be subject to the laws of the country in which they are serving. In fact, it says quite the opposite. It says that unless they are being prosecuted in that country, they can be prosecuted in New Zealand for the alleged offence. So Mr Copeland has, unfortunately, made a very grave error. I am sure he did not intend to do so. When I see that the chairmanship of the committee was held by his own party leader, the Hon Peter Dunne, I would have thought Mr Dunne could have briefed Mr Copeland better on this bill.

This is, unfortunately, one of those instances where the bill is only four pages long but has a seven-page commentary from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. That is an indication that an awful lot of talking was going on and maybe not enough listening—and certainly not enough reading, if that is the idea that Mr Copeland has about the bill.

I have to take up the point that this bill does not apply just to our efforts in the Solomons. It applies anywhere that our non-troops—police and other personnel—are serving in overseas operations involving peacekeeping, unless they are operating under a United Nations force. Quite clearly, the Government is signalling that there may be other instances, possibly in the Pacific, where New Zealand is called upon to make a contribution, even if the United Nations—that great bastion of peacekeeping but not a lot else—is not involved.

That does raise certain issues. Mr Richard Worth has made the comment that New Zealand traditionally likes to punch above its weight, and that drew some derisory comments from a member on the other side of the House, Mr Hughes. New Zealand does traditionally punch above its weight in matters international, and sometimes that means it actually goes outside its own abilities and stretches itself way more than it can really afford to do. That point was well made by Mr Mark. This bill is not something we should be rushing through tonight in urgency. It could very well have been put through by the Government in the normal course of business, as it certainly has the consent and approval of all members of the House. It is a bill that deserved to be treated in that way.

It is a travesty that tonight, on 31 March—although I note that Parliament thinks it is 30 March—we are putting to bed a bill that first saw the light of day last year after our people were moved into the Solomon Islands. I note the comments from Taito Phillip Field, who I thought was very helpful in advising the House as to why this bill was necessary—that it was part of a joint agreement between Australia, the Solomon Islands Government, and New Zealand. I appreciated that comment and I thank him for it, because I found it very helpful to know why the bill was needed, when, clearly, it has not been thought necessary before.

I was also very pleased with the Minister’s comments when she graciously noted my concerns over clause 5(2). I thought she handled that well. I am a bit concerned by the answer that parliamentary counsel gave me, which was that that matter should be covered under clause 6. I am a little bit worried about that. The lawyer in me feels there is at least a credible argument for anyone acting for a person so charged under this legislation. I think that maybe that could be looked at further, but I guess the Minister is probably thinking that, all things going well, the Act will not be needed for a long time, and, hopefully, will not ever be needed.

I take on board the concerns that Mr Worth had in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and the fact that people covered by this bill will not have the same rights that they would have if they were arrested and charged with an offence in New Zealand. That is a concern, because the people we are talking about are putting themselves in positions of danger at the Government’s request. They are doing so at the request of New Zealand, so that we can all take pride in the fact that our little country is able to contribute in, hopefully, a helpful way towards other countries’ stability. I believe they deserve to have at least the same protection as someone who is accused of a crime in this country.

Even though National members have those concerns about the bill, we will support it, and we will do so because it should have been put through months ago. Hopefully, we can come back at a later stage and amend the legislation, if any of the concerns we have raised do turn out to have been proven.

Bill read a third time.