Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill

We are debating clause 1, “Title”, of the Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill. I believe that Parliament deserves to hear from Labour members as to why on earth they seek to pass this legislation. We have already established during the Committee stage of the debate that the agreement the legislation seeks to enable ratification of here in New Zealand was drawn up 15 years ago. The first question I believe Government members should answer is why, after 15 years in which New Zealand has not seen fit to ratify that agreement, we are now seeking to ratify it. One answer could be that the world has suddenly realised that it needs to be ratified. Maybe one answer could be that countries like the United States of America, Australia, the United Kingdom, or any number of European countries—France, perhaps, or Germany—all suddenly see that there is a real problem happening in the world, and say we should ratify the agreement in order to sort the problem out.

But that is not the case. Among the countries that have ratified it, our closest allies would be Italy and Belgium. They are the only Western countries I can find on the list of those that have ratified or implemented the agreement. Why on earth New Zealand wants to be in bed with Libya has really got me whacked. OK, Libya has at least abandoned its nuclear weapons programme in recent times—we should at least give Colonel Gadaffi some credit for that. Or maybe we should give the United States some credit for it, because if the United States had not got rid of Saddam Hussein, Gadaffi sure as hell would not have given up his nuclear weapons programme. Still, I am blowed if I know why we want to get into bed with the few countries that have implemented this agreement—including Libya. Maybe the fact that Togo has implemented the agreement is the reason the Labour Government says we should implement it, too.

There is an even more important issue. Let us not make light of this. The final statement of the majority of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in the commentary on the bill reads: “There are suggestions, including from the Special Rapporteur on Mercenaries”—that is, the special rapporteur of the United Nations—“that the Convention should be amended or a new convention negotiated to recognise the role of private military companies and regulate them accordingly. We understand that this is a long-term objective that will be pursued through UN processes and is an issue that the Government may address at a later stage.” Given that the Labour members on the select committee acknowledge that the United Nations itself does not think the convention is satisfactory and the UN’s own special rapporteur says it will not work, why is Labour now passing this bill under urgency here in New Zealand, 15 years after the convention was initially drawn up, when no other countries that we are involved with in any defence activities are doing the same thing? Parliament deserves an answer on that before the Committee stage is abandoned.

I believe that the Minister in the chair, Harry Duynhoven, or another Labour member—or a United Future member, as I note United Future supports this legislation, too—should explain to the Committee why, when the UN itself says the convention is not satisfactory, New Zealand intends to pass this legislation to ratify it. That makes no sense, at all. If the UN had said that although there had not been a big take-up of the agreement and there had not been widespread ratification, it still believed it was important to ratify it for certain stated reasons, maybe then there would be an argument for doing that. But where is the evidence of that? The UN is telling us that the convention is not very satisfactory and that something else should be done, but Labour says it knows better than that and will ratify it.

There, again, is the point. I plead with the Government to listen to the arguments. The bill’s ambiguity is such that maybe it should be titled—since we are discussing the title—the “We’re so very confused that we don’t know how to define what a bad mercenary is in comparison with a good one that we’re going to pass legislation that tries to define what a mercenary is not, although we’re not really sure that we’ve got it right and the United Nations is telling us that it too doesn’t believe the definitions are sustainable, stand up, stack up, or are enforceable Bill”. What does it take to get people to listen? As I think about Mr Franks’ speech, I am drawn to remember the representations that have been made to Parliament by the Falun Gong. Is that what the Greens want? Do the Greens now seriously want this legislation to be used by the Chinese to have the Falun Gong arrested and tried or extradited because the Chinese deem those people to be a subversive element within their country that is engaged in recruiting mercenaries—or, as the Falun Gong may say, in recruiting converts to a belief? Is that what the Greens support?

This legislation has so many hooks in its back end in Part 3 that can be misused to cause us huge international embarrassment that it is not worth passing. The dangers are there, and they have been flagged. The Greens have probably another hour to consider Part 3, in particular, seriously before they cast their vote. The “United Poodle” party—well, who knows? It is a case of sit up, beg, lie down, roll over, and play dead because Helen Clark says so. The United Future members will just do as they are told. They do not have a coalition agreement, and if they had any agreement of any worth, this bill would not be going through, for one reason and one reason alone: it is unworkable. It is too ambiguous. Dr Lockwood Smith was perfectly correct when he said that the Labour Party acknowledged, as the commentary on the bill states, that the Special Rapporteur on Mercenaries’ and the United Nations’ views on the convention are clear. It is not enforceable; it is not workable. It is too full of ambiguity. The title of this bill should be “You’ve Got to Be Joking Mercenary (Prohibition) Bill”, because it is not workable.

I re-emphasise that when talking about Part 3. The countries that have not ratified the convention, as Dr Lockwood Smith said, include Australia. Who are our major trading partners? Who are the people we most rely on for our growing economy? Australia, the United States, Britain, Singapore! Excuse me, have any of them signed this treaty? Do any of those countries allow regulated private companies to work in the security field? Yes, they do. Have they signed the treaty? No, they have not. Will we therefore put ourselves in the situation where one of those people who comes here to recruit people to go overseas, work for that person, and do legitimate, good work will be prosecuted, arrested, and detained by us? It may well be that that person is a representative of one of a country’s internal security agencies. It may well be that that person is a representative of a company that the Government has ticked and approved as being a company with moral values that does nothing to jeopardise the interests of a free and democratic world, and therefore he or she is the type of person who should be contracting personnel to go into Iraq, Sierra Leone, or Cambodia. But those people will not fit within this definition.

Even worse, we now have a definition of what a mercenary is not, and a sort of a definition of what a mercenary is, and those definitions do not quite stack up. Once we get into the courtrooms and we are dealing with vexatious litigants, how will a person prove he or she does not fit within the mercenary category? The room in this legislation for dragged-out legal actions, for diplomatic embarrassment, and for the inappropriate harassment of Falun Gong members is so broad, so wide, and so available as to make it not worth passing.

I would simply say to members that they should walk with caution, take a breather, take time out, and reconsider this bill.