Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Controls Bill

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Very pleased to take a call as chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on this Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Controls Bill and to thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs for his contribution. As he rightly noted, these are elements which need to be put on the record to make it very clear to, obviously, the courts and others about what is critical here.

I want to thank all of those who have worked incredibly hard to bring this bill to the House and I want to acknowledge previous Ministers, as well. This was actually brought in at first reading before the dissolution of the previous Parliament. In noting that too, actually, I believe it was a New Zealand First intention to introduce this within the Customs and Excise Act, so I thank the Minister for delaying that and taking up this National Party - initiated bill.

My thanks also go to all the officials and advisers who helped the committee. While never taking away from the work that the MPs do on these committees, I think all of us in the House here would acknowledge the tremendous work of those officials, advisers, and the public too that come in to give us their thoughts—well, a massive contribution.

This bill is very particular. It is around the brokering of weapons. So, simply put and in a New Zealand context, it’s a New Zealander, be it a person or a company, that is, effectively, buying and selling weapons—brokering and trading in them. So they are not the manufacturers of these weapons. They’re the sort of person—just for the want of a very simple analogy—who will be, I don’t know, buying weapons from Russia and then selling those on, or brokering, to the likes of Syria, or it could be from Britain and into Germany or whatever. That’s what we’re talking about here. Why I mention that is a number of people were raising questions in the committee around, effectively, arms trading. That is separate to the brokering of weapons or the brokering of arms. This is about New Zealanders or New Zealand companies which are buying off an external entity and brokering—moving—those goods to another.

As the House might anticipate, the brokering of weapons is one of the more clever, if not disingenuous, ways that weapons are making their way into war zones. I had the good fortune, in fact, with Andrew Little and Ron Mark, at the start of this year to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to see our troops there, and as we took the various briefings from officers and commanders from most of the Allied countries, it was very clear that a lot of the weapons that had been used against those troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are brokered. But I’d better be very, very clear to the House that these are not weapons brokered by New Zealanders, as far as I’m aware. It’s just highlighting that this is a dangerous and problematic activity.

Again, it is not the sale of arms. There is legislation already on New Zealand’s books which allows that, so if a New Zealander is trying to buy—sorry. Well, to buy weapons—that certainly comes under some legislation. If a New Zealander, for some reason, is making and trying to sell weapons, that’s already covered by existing legislation. This, very simply, is around the brokering of arms. It’s also the domestic legislation required to bring about the Arms Trade Treaty, which New Zealand signed in 2014.

The select committee worked relatively hard on this. It was one of those bills that when it came before us, it looked, in a sense, relatively simple, but thanks to those who submitted to the committee, it became relatively clear that there were items that needed to be tidied up. The biggest one was just being very, very clear that this applies to New Zealanders, either those who are resident in the country or New Zealanders who are ordinarily resident but might be overseas. In other words, if a New Zealander brokering weapons decides to jump over to Australia or zip over to Italy and broker weapons there for a week, they would still be captured by this legislation. It also applies to entities and corporations, corporates, and so forth.

Importantly—and the Minister touched on this near the end—it does not apply to foreign nationals. That was something which we fleshed out and debated for a while. So if a foreign national is brokering weapons from New Zealand, that is a problem, but this bill itself doesn’t address it. Again—really importantly—New Zealand already has domestic legislation which will deal with instances like that. One amongst many is to extradite said person and send them back to their own country, where their brokering weapons legislation will kick in.

We also thought, as a select committee, that it was quite important that people have a really clear understanding of what is and isn’t to be brokered. It’s probably not a surprise to most people in this House, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has a rather exhaustive list of items which are deemed to be military and those which are dual use. A really simple explanation of that, of course, is if you are making semi-automatic weapons, they will be down as military-grade items and they are not allowed to be sent, sold, or brokered to countries such as—Syria comes to mind. However, there are dual uses, so guidance chips—well, actually, guidance chips for missiles probably only fit into that military-grade side.

A dual use might actually be Kevlar gear. You may actually be able to use it for military purposes, but the use of Kevlar in material may also be used in other, non-military purposes. So that’s what we’re talking about there. We thought as a select committee it was rather important that the ministry, through gazetting and then through to its website, list what items are, effectively, banned, what can and cannot be sold, what are known as strategic goods, and those which are dual use and which, ultimately, are military end uses.

We also wanted to make really clear a question around the burden of proof. The context of this is if someone in New Zealand wants to be involved in brokering—and, again, I suspect it’s probably important for the House to know and understand that we don’t have a large number of people brokering weapons in New Zealand, to our relief—but with this legislation a person is required to make themselves known to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade if they wish to be involved in brokering. Of course, if they’re not—if they don’t make themselves known—an offence is created. The way that the bill was originally drafted made proving that they didn’t know rather difficult. I’m no lawyer—there are much smarter legal minds than mine, of course—but it’s very difficult to prove a negative. You can’t prove you didn’t know. A person can prove that they knew something, but to prove that they didn’t know gets rather complicated, and I want to thank particularly the Office of the Clerk for initially noting this concern and allowing us, along with our advisers, to move through to a resolution. And I think the committee’s landed in a rather good spot there.

We’ve also, as a consequence of that, narrowed what the expectations are around employees. Again, the context of this: the employer—the person who, effectively, is doing the brokering—should know, should register, but there could be a question at times that an employee of that business did not know, for whatever reason, so we’ve tried to put a little bit of latitude in there. Again, we would expect the employer, the business, to be letting all their employees know, and so we’re not going to allow employers to get off scot-free by any means, but we’re just narrowing the exceptions there.

We also looked around annual reporting. It was one of the things we thought was relatively important—that if a person is going to register as a weapons broker, there should be a report annually to talk about what they have done. In many ways it’s just to marry up what they are saying they’re going to do with what they have actually done. That report’s to be furnished to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and we’ve left it up to the ministry to come up with, basically, what they want to do there.

Look, that’s pretty much the long and the short of it. I think the Minister used the word “dry”; it is one of those sorts of dry bits of legislation in and of itself, but actually it’s an incredibly important part, too. First and foremost, we don’t want to see New Zealanders involved in illegitimate brokering of weapons, but really importantly, too, I think we want to be seen as, well, an important and moral player in international affairs. So when we sign up to treaties like this, New Zealand needs to be proactive in getting them into our domestic legislation and supporting good humanitarian and legal approaches. So with that I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to speak in favour of this bill progressing at the second stage. Can I thank the members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, who have provided the report to the House.

The Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, has well described the effect of this proposed regulatory regime for the brokering of weapons and military equipment by New Zealanders. It’s unusual for legislation to regulate offshore activity, and this is one of those rare instances where New Zealand seeks to regulate the behaviour of New Zealanders when they’re out of the country, rather than having those New Zealanders just being, effectively, subject to the legislative code of overseas countries.

This bill applies to New Zealanders when they’re at home and when they or their entities are operating offshore, and it requires New Zealand citizens, New Zealand ordinary residents, and New Zealand entities wishing to engage in brokering to register with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade and obtain a permit for their brokering activity. As other speakers have probably already said, the secretary can only grant permits if he or she is satisfied that the activity is consistent with New Zealand’s international obligations, and, additionally, it doesn’t prejudice the security, defence, or international relations of New Zealand.

It’s a piece of legislation that is necessary to bring us into line with the multilateral trade agreement the Arms Trade Treaty—which New Zealand ratified in 2014—to regulate the international trade in conventional arms. As the select committee report notes, this flows from that international agreement.

This is one of those many pieces of legislation which enjoy broad support in the House. It’s seen by me as being almost—well, I was going to call it a housekeeping bill, but it’s not, really. It goes further than seeing to a tidy-up of existing legislation, but takes the New Zealand regulatory regime further and imposes obligations on those who want to broker weapons in either New Zealand or overseas jurisdictions.

A “weapon or related item” is a good that’s specified in a “strategic goods list”, which is defined in the bill as being on a list which is provided for under the Customs and Excise Act, and “brokering activity” is defined as people would ordinarily understand it to be. It’s, effectively, being an intermediary for the arrangement, facilitation, or negotiation of a transaction that involves the international transfer of weapons or related items—as I’ve already described—from a place outside New Zealand to another place outside New Zealand.

This is a sensible piece of legislation. The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee were provided with advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They’re a very capable ministry, and very careful in the advice they proffer to the select committee.

There is a change recommended by the select committee in respect of offences committed outside New Zealand. There’s a deletion proposed to clause 33(1)(a)(iii) of the bill “so that the bill will not apply to a person who has been found in New Zealand and has not been extradited.” The select committee say that they didn’t think that this provision was fit for purpose within the context of the bill because “It would have treated an offence as one attracting universal jurisdiction.”, whereas “The offence in clause 10 relates to carrying out brokering activity without the requisite registration or permit in New Zealand, rather than prohibiting engaging in brokering activity per se.” So it notes that the committee understands that “foreign nationals with no physical presence in or link to New Zealand would not be registered under New Zealand’s brokering regime.” Therefore, they recommend deletion of clause 33(1)(a)(iii) of the bill.

There’s a record-keeping obligation that’s imposed. Obviously, in order to police these things, you have to require those people who are involved in this activity to keep records, and the committee recommends extending the obligation to keep records from five years to seven years, which seems a sensible recommendation.

That said, I will just simply recount that the application of this legislation in practice will be through the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The secretary will probably delegate that function to others within the organisation at times.

The bill has been around for a little while. It was introduced on 27 June 2017. The committee reported back to the House on 29 March and has recommended unanimously, with the support of all parties in Parliament who sit on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, which includes members from the Greens, as well as the Labour Party, New Zealand First, and National. Accordingly, I’ve got great confidence that this legislation that’s proposed for second reading should be passed.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Only three minutes to go.

No, I don’t feel the need to waste the time of the House filibustering in the way that the National Party used to do, so I’ll sit down now.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I thank the Minister for ceding the floor so that I can speak so early in this debate. Can I say, in looking at this, here’s another piece of legislation that a hard-working coalition of three parties is saying they are doing because they’re hard-working, but, if we look a little big deeper, it was presented to the House on 27 June 2017, long before the election, and on 15 August it was sent off to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, a month before the election. So it’s great to see they continue the work of the last Government, which was very hard-working, in focusing on issues that were important.

While this may not be of great importance to everybody in New Zealand, we do need to do our fair share. We need to line up with other nations, and we do need to make sure that our rules, our regulations, actually meet the requirements of commitments New Zealand has made internationally. We certainly must take our foreign affairs extremely seriously. That’s why it concerns me so much that New Zealand First must be voting against this bill. I think that’s just appalling. But the good news for the Government is that National will be supporting it, so they do have the numbers to get it through.

Now, why do I think New Zealand First is voting against it? The reason for that is on 18 August, before the election last year, in Opposition, Ron Mark who was not “honourable” then—he was not “honourable” back then—got up and put out a press release that said “New Zealand Customs proves ‘War Dogs’ Bill unnecessary.” He called this legislation the “War Dogs Bill”. We go a little bit further. He said in his press release, “[The] National-led Government took us down a rabbit hole to regulate non-existent Kiwis trading non-existent arms in some Sub-Saharan fantasy.” He went on, and he must have been speaking about Willie Jackson when he said this, and I quote, “The peaceniks in the other parties love the opportunity to dance around the maypole, sing Kumbaya and bag a bouquet defence industry but not us.”

💬 Hon Member: Who said that?

The reason we know Ron Mark said it back then was because he wasn’t “honourable” back then. He hadn’t got the title, so we could hear him. If he said it today, it would be hard to hear over the din of the helicopters flying in and out of the Wairarapa. But New Zealand First must be voting against it because a Cabinet Minister—actually ranked second amongst Cabinet, from that party—said that it was a waste of time and that the Government was looking at taking us down a rabbit hole. Well, I would say to Mr Mark that he wasn’t “honourable” back then; if he has changed his mind, he could well be honourable now—but that’s really up to him.

We do support this bill because it is important. The trade in illegal arms around the world is devastating and it can be devastating. We heard firsthand in the committee of the significant harm that is done. There is no suggestion that there are New Zealanders who are involved in this type of illegal trade, but there is also no suggestion that we shouldn’t have appropriate rules and regulations in place to be able to make sure that when we say that, we can back it up and it’s correct.

The final point I would make in the debate is that the committee did take quite some time questioning officials to make sure that we weren’t overburdening law-abiding citizens who trade in weapons for recreational use in New Zealand. We received assurances from them that, actually, the legitimate trade in firearms—there are many New Zealanders who use firearms for legitimate recreational purposes, with appropriate licences and so on—won’t be impacted upon by this at all. It was important that the committee got that assurance, because it’s not everyday Kiwis that this bill focuses on; it is those who could, or may in the future, be acting illegally. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is more in sadness than in anger that I saw Todd McClay there rise and sort of try to bag this bill, because, I must say, he’s such a decent fellow at the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. It was a really good select committee, and we made, I think, some excellent progress here. It was well-chaired by Mr O’Connor almost all of the time, as well.

You can refer to peaceniks and what have you, but this really is an important part of the network of steps that are being taken to make sure that the illicit trade in arms is stopped. As the member would know, this is, in fact, part of our international obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty, which was ratified in 2014—a United Nations treaty which comes straight out of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. If we look at that, the purpose of it goes right to the heart of what the United Nations is about: the maintenance of peace and security. That, really, is what we’re seeking to achieve here: to make sure that New Zealand does not, by accident, become a place from where arms brokering occurs.

We were very reliably informed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that arms brokering is a very small activity in New Zealand indeed. There’re perhaps one or two people who are in fact genuine arms brokers. Having said that, we need to take these steps to ensure that we have the same kind of robust regulatory frameworks around arms brokering to make sure that New Zealand doesn’t, indeed, become that. There’s no great sophisticated industry. This isn’t some “Gunrunners” or “War Dogs” bill. In fact, it may well be that there are some items which are quite legitimately traded. One of the things this bill does is it balances that.

As the United Nations treaty does, this bill also recognises the ability of sovereign nation States to ensure their own security within the realm of conventional weapons. Also, the other thing it does, which in fact goes beyond the treaty, is recognise the fact that there are dual-use goods—a whole list, an enormous list of items, which have perfectly legitimate civilian uses. In fact, many of the high-tech items have very, very important civilian uses, but, put to the wrong use, they can also have military applications. There’s a balance to be struck there between ensuring that people aren’t accidentally caught by this legislation and at the same time making sure that we don’t have an industry in New Zealand identifying these high-tech goods and then arranging purchases and sales in overseas countries. Arms brokering, as the Hon Mr Parker said, is not about sales from New Zealand; it’s about arranging transactions overseas between two overseas parties.

The object of this bill—and the object of the treaty—which flows from the treaty, is to prevent and eradicate the illicit trade in arms. We know that’s important, because we know that a lot of strife and armed conflict in the world today would not be possible but for the fact of the porous nature of the arms trade. So what we’re trying to do is have a solid wall of defence, a multilateral—this is a Government that wants to act multilaterally. It has a multilateral approach to the restrictions in the arms trade, whether that be actual arms dealing—which is one thing—or arms brokering, which is what we are concerned with here today.

So that’s the very, very important thing that we’re doing here today. I must say the select committee did work well. The bill as it came to us—I think we would all agree, around that committee table, that there was some room for improvement. As the Minister the Hon Winston Peters said, the improvements are mainly technical. They don’t go to the heart of the bill, but they are important. They were important because they went to things like burden of proof. They went to the outline of the offences. Another matter that they went to was, in fact, extraterritoriality.

This is a bill that, by its very nature, because it concerns transactions which occur overseas, has an extraterritorial element. It is quite extraordinary for a nation, a sovereign State like New Zealand, to say we are going to create a regulatory regime and criminal offences which have reach overseas. So we’ve always got to be very cautious about that.

As the bill was initially drafted, it had an extraordinary element and that was that it appeared to achieve universal jurisdiction. That is to say that if an offence occurred overseas, whoever did it, wherever they did it, whenever they did it, New Zealand could in fact go and enforce its law against the citizen of another State. That’s an extraordinary power. It does exist in some small areas—crimes of piracy and slavery are the classic examples—but it was not considered that this was appropriate, because this is, essentially, a regulatory offence. It’s an offence about engaging in an illicit commercial activity, not entirely dissimilar to drug brokering or something of that ilk. So when we think about the justification for universal jurisdiction, it wasn’t there. When we looked at clause 33 of the bill, we noted that to have an ability to arrest, detain, and charge someone who wasn’t a New Zealand citizen for activities that occurred in a foreign nation—it wasn’t appropriate, it wasn’t fit for purpose, and it’s good to see that that suggestion has been adopted.

The other thing about this bill is its scope is broad in terms of the arms and items it covers. The Strategic Goods List—I invite those who suffer from a lack of sleep to go and read it, because it is 300 pages of different items. Whilst the first 30-odd pages are guns and tanks and what have you, the other hundred-and-whatever pages are all kinds of items of high technology, whether it be avionics, whether it be the Kevlar vests, navigation systems, chemicals and toxins, and so on and so forth. It just goes on and on.

Importantly, people who trade in those goods without realising that they are, in fact, restricted goods won’t be liable to prosecution as long as they believe they’re going to be put to legitimate civilian uses. There are a number of situations where you won’t require registration under this legislation—one won’t require registration. That is one of them: where the goods are dual-use goods, but you have a reasonable and honest belief that they’re being put to civilian uses. Obviously, for things like avionics, there is a very good trade—and New Zealand has a very good trade, in fact, in its own avionics—and we don’t want to suppress those kinds of industries.

There are other areas, as well, that we were a little concerned about. Another one is where employees are acting believing, quite reasonably, that their employers have taken care, that they are complying with this regime, and that there’s no wrongdoing involved. Obviously, the trade in arms between sovereign States is an entirely legitimate function—we all recognise that—and if an employee’s undertaking that in the belief that the registration has been undertaken, there’s absolutely no reason to intervene there.

A couple of other things which were important were not only the registration process—which, it must be said, is relatively light-handed; there’s a fit and proper person test, but there’s no great and onerous testing regime to make sure only people of the utmost integrity, like the lawyers’ application process—but the other thing is annual reporting of activities. Anyone who is engaging in brokering activities in New Zealand is required—and this was an innovation at select committee as well—to report those activities. So not only do we require registration of the brokers themselves, but we also require reporting of exactly what brokering transactions were undertaken. That’s important as well because it gives us a knowledge, a visibility, about the size of this industry in New Zealand so that we can trace and track what’s going on.

So we’ve got a whole lot of defences in there. We’ve got some jurisdictional improvements, and we’ve got an approach which is entirely consistent—and, in fact, it’s something we can be quite proud of. It goes beyond what the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty requires. It extends it beyond guns and tanks to dual-use goods to make sure that not only are we not supporting an illicit arms trade but we’re not supporting an industry for the manufacture of illicit arms as well. So, with that, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this, the Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Controls Bill. Although I sat for a short time on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, I didn’t actually get to do any work on this bill, but I’m very pleased—I’m very pleased—to take a call on it.

This is actually a really important issue and one that I’m really pleased that we, as a country, have decided to address. I want to acknowledge the Hon Gerry Brownlee, because it was him as Foreign Minister that introduced this bill to the House and, of course, to the select committee process.

The reason why I think it’s very important is if we look at the history over the last 20 or 30 years globally—if we just go back 30 years—we see the amount of conflict around the world, and the real issue that communities face with the illegal trade of weapons and arms across what have been pretty porous borders. Actually, if we’re really honest about it, the international community probably hasn’t been as good as it could be in terms of policing that. It’s very good to see that in the last decade, especially with the serious implementation of end-user certificates, countries now are really starting to tighten up and police who’s actually trading and brokering arms, where those arms are ending up, and whether they’re being used for a legitimate purpose. So I welcome the bill. It’s a very good bill, and as a country we’re sending a very positive signal that we’re going to regulate our own industry.

There was a comment made by the Hon Todd McClay referring to a statement by the Hon Ron Mark, referring to us as peaceniks and the fact that we like to dance around the maypole and sing “Kumbaya”. But, actually, this is a pretty serious bill, and I would hazard a guess that as his leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, is our Foreign Minister, who stood in this House and delivered a serious speech for 15 minutes outlining for us very clearly the importance of this bill to us as a country, I would assume that the Hon Ron Mark will now change his position and he will be voting for it.

I’m only going to take a short call. I stood to support the bill. It is a very good bill. Just very quickly, in terms of our defence industry, it is small but it is growing, and I can say with confidence that, actually, the brokering of arms is not something that really is—it’s not an area that our defence industry participates in at the moment. They’re more involved in the development of very specific components or fuel farms or support services for our defence forces. That relationship between our New Zealand Defence Force and our defence industry has got much closer. It’s healthy, it’s strong, and they’ll be welcoming the passage of this bill as well. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

It is an honour for me to stand in support of this bill, and it was an honour for me to sit on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee as we worked on this bill. I’d like to thank my colleagues and especially thank all the expert officials that assisted us. We asked them back week after week as we tweaked every detail in this bill. I’ve heard, as a result of that, a few of my colleagues mention that this is a technical bill and maybe it’s a little bit boring, but I wanted us to come back to the core context of this bill, because it is actually exciting and it’s necessary. It’s even historic in the context of the treaty that this bill seeks to implement.

I’ve seen war. I know what it sounds like and what it feels like, certainly as a child, and now the part of the world where I emanate from, the Middle East, is living under perpetual war it seems, as a result of just this kind of activity—the kind of activity that this bill seeks to regulate and stop: the brokering of regular arms. This kind of activity—and it’s not limited to the Middle East; the people of much of Africa are suffering under this. The Democratic Republic of Congo is living under perpetual war. The youngest nation in this world, South Sudan, pushed hard for this treaty because they are experiencing the same. The kind of war that I lived under—it turned out the brokers were the likes of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, and they did have to appear before some kind of Senate committee, but we want more than that. We want this kind of activity criminalised and regulated.

I want us also to come back to the context that the UN representatives were working in when they were negotiating this treaty. I looked into it, and South Sudan stood up and talked about how the world had high expectations of this conference, begging for the treaty to be agreed to. Peru stood up and said, “Arms cannot continue [to be] commercialized without regulations. The present situation does not allow us to avoid diversion [of this] illicit market, or to the criminal and terrorist organizations which destabilize our societies.”

So the delegates at that conference felt the weight of that responsibility and the world’s eyes upon them. They came up with this treaty. They agreed to it against all odds. States like Iran opposed this agreement, but we reached it and New Zealand became a signatory. It came into force in 2014, and, now, this Parliament gets to move closer to implementing it, to making New Zealand the kind of nation that contributes to the rule of law internationally, and to the remedy for violence that we’re seeing all over the world, which creates not only war but also displaced persons—refugees. The UN calls the refugee crisis right now in the Middle East the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, and it’s perpetuated by this kind of activity.

So I am very proud to stand in support of this. We now have, I think, a robust regulative regime for this kind of activity. We will require persons or companies, New Zealanders, or those based in New Zealand to report and to keep records for seven years. We have a defined, detailed jurisdiction for New Zealand. This is something that’s rare in New Zealand, but it has happened. A shell company registered in New Zealand has actually been used to broker weapons to Iran and North Korea. So it is important. It is important that we require companies and we require brokers to keep records and to make themselves known, for us to have an oversight body that looks into this, and that we know what kinds of employees and what kinds of situations are going to be held liable and where the limits of that lie. I think that I, certainly, will sleep more soundly, as should other New Zealanders and people around the world, knowing that New Zealand is now contributing to this. So it is a great honour for me to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Kia orana, Madam Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I only joined the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee a few weeks ago, so I didn’t have an opportunity to hear the submissions on this bill, and I want to acknowledge those who were previously on the committee who did the detailed work. I had the impression, when I joined the committee, that it was a bill that enjoyed unanimous support, and I was certainly impressed by the way that the whole process had been chaired by Simon O’Connor.

What struck me about it as I listened to it was what reasonable, law-abiding, self-respecting New Zealander wouldn’t support a bill whose overarching purpose is to regulate the brokering of arms and military equipment to help prevent arms ending up in the wrong hands. Of course, that is what it’s about, and it’s about New Zealand meeting our international obligations in an ever-changing security environment. So it’s a serious topic, and I do commend all the members of the committee for the work they did.

However, it was only then that I discovered that the description I’ve just given of New Zealanders may not include the current Minister of Defence, because what he had to say about the bill in Opposition, just eight months ago, was poles apart from the view—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Who is the current Minister?

The Hon Ron Mark. And the views that he was expressing then are poles apart from the views that have been expressed in this House by all members of the Government before. But, of course, that is because now it’s a Labour – New Zealand First - Greens bill, overlooking the fact that yet again here we are debating a bill that was actually a National bill, introduced by the Hon Gerry Brownlee as Foreign Minister, and he did a very fine job.

This afternoon I did something I’ve tried to do in the past and always failed, and that was to listen very carefully to the Foreign Minister and to try to discern some serious intent and something of real weight and content to take from his speech. Again, I was left fairly disappointed, but he did say at one stage that this was a very serious issue in which fundamental human rights were at stake—well, that’s certainly true—and he also made the point that New Zealand is a strong supporter of the international Arms Trade Treaty, as a result of which he had no hesitation in commending this bill to the House. Well, those are two very good things.

I had hoped that the Hon David Parker, who was the next Minister to speak, might be a little bit more enlightening, but I have to say his speech reminded me of one of the finer contributions that our former colleague Steffan Browning used to deliver here, and I very much doubt that his oratory—or his Hansard transcript—will ever feature in one of the records of the great parliamentary speeches of the 21st century.

But, nevertheless, it is, as I say, a serious issue, so it’s worth putting on the record that the party that is now promoting this bill said just eight months ago that—New Zealand First says a new Act to regulate arms brokering isn’t necessary. Well, if it wasn’t necessary eight months ago, why is it now something that this Parliament is debating in the very first year of the new Government’s term of office? It’s not something that they pushed down the Order Paper, thinking, “Oh well, we’ll get to it if there’s a rainy day and we get a bit late.” Here they are in their first term of office and they’re already putting it up. The real story here, he said, was that New Zealanders have had enough of National ducking the real matters of importance. Well, apparently we were ducking the—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! I’d just like to say to the member that this is the third speaker who has referred to what a member of this House has said. I just want to refer you back to the bill. This is the second reading speech, and the expectation is that it is a review of what the select committee found in their deliberations. So if I could bring you back to that process, thank you.

You’re quite right, Madam Assistant Speaker. I will simply, in responding to that point, make the point that, clearly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has now decided, as a result of the select committee’s work, as a result of the submissions, that something that he previously said was of no national significance whatsoever is so important that we should be debating it right now. For that reason, I support him—and let’s get on with it.

I understand this is a split call. The Hon Willie Jackson—five minutes.

Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Tuatahi, e tika ana ki te mihi ki tō tātou kuia, Auntie Lou Cook, kātahi anō kua hinga; nō Ngāti Porou tēnei kuia, te teina ki taku kuia me te tino hoa ki a Ron Mark. Nō reira Auntie maumahara tō mahi ataahua i roto i te rohe Masterton, i roto i tō hapori. Kāore mātou e wareware. Kāore mātou e wareware hoki i tō aroha ki tō mātou whānau, taku pāpā Bob, Matua Kēkē Brown, me Monica hoki. Nō reira, Auntie, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai ra. Ka nui tēnā.

[Firstly, I take the opportunity to make special mention of our elder stateswoman Auntie Lou Cook, who has just passed away; this lady is from Ngāti Porou, she is a close relation of my grandmother, and a cherished friend of Ron Mark. Therefore Auntie, your wonderful work will always be remembered in the Masterton area, within your own community. We will never forget. Neither will we forget your kindness to our family, to my father Bob, to Uncle Brown, and to Monica as well. Therefore Auntie, rest, rest, rest in peace. Let us leave it there.]

I did a farewell speech there, Madam Assistant Speaker, to one of our kuia who died in Masterton. She was a Labour supporter—a very, very close friend to Ronnie Mark. So tomorrow I go with Ronnie Mark to her tangi. She was my grandmother’s sister, Auntie Lou Cook, and someone who played a pivotal part in the Hon Ronnie Mark’s life. So I just wanted to honour her here tonight as we come down to dinner. She was a very special person in a lot of our lives.

I just want to say of the nonsense from the other side: we’ve got to move on sometimes—gotta move on. We can’t carry grudges. This bill has gone through despite the constant attacks from Gerry Brownlee and others and the weak chairmanship from the other side, but we’ve tried to help him along—Mr Simon O’Connor. We’ve tried to help him through.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: That’s an appalling comment.

No. I’m just trying to be honest, like yourself. It’s been a slow and tough process for our committee, but we’ve got there through the hard work of the Labour Party and Green Party colleagues in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

But it is an important bill, and despite this waffle about what was said from Ronnie Mark a year back—times have moved on and things change in politics, as the National Party, who are now part of the losing fraternity on the other side, know. The key points, I think, to discuss, with regards to this bill—well, there are many, but I do say that in terms of the regulatory regime for the brokering of weapons and military equipment by New Zealanders this bill clearly establishes that and also the requirement that all New Zealand citizens, New Zealand ordinary residents, and New Zealand entities wishing to engage in brokering to register with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade obtain a permit for each brokering activity—very important that we go down that track.

I think the key thing to note with the bill is that it requires ordinary New Zealanders, residents, and New Zealand - based entities wishing to broker the international—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member; the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The key thing to note, I think, with the bill, is that it requires New Zealanders, ordinary residents, and New Zealand - based entities wishing to broker the international transfer of arms, military equipment, or civilian goods that they may have a military end use too, to first register with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and second, to obtain a permit for each brokering activity.

This has been well traversed over the last hour or so but as previous speakers have said—

💬 Hon Member: Sure?

No, no, absolutely sure. They’ve covered most of the key points of the bill, but I’d add that with this bill it helps New Zealand play its part in the international framework by ensuring that there are appropriate controls in place that will prevent Kiwis and New Zealand - based entities from being involved in illicit arms brokering and deter any illicit arms brokers from shifting their activities to New Zealand.

Weapons that are capable of having a devastating impact on a people or nation if they are traded into the wrong hands should be of major concern to us. We’ve all seen from the relative safety of Aotearoa some of the effects weapons have had abroad, from attacks that have taken the lives of the innocent to those that have helped change the landscape of many a nation. So it’s important to us as a people that proudly declared all those years ago that we would stand alone and ban nuclear energy from our shores that we continue to rally against illegal trading in weapons and military equipment.

💬 Hon Member: What’s Wikipedia say?

What Wikipedia says is that the Labour Party saved this bill and despite the very, very incompetent chairmanship from the National Party chair, we were able to get to this position today. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to take the second half of a split call on the Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Controls Bill. If I were to add a footnote to the title of the bill, it would be that it’s a hand to head off a body of arms, which I might say is about half a dozen corporal metaphors if I were to go out on a limb.

We support this bill, on this side of the House. Indeed, we introduced it into the House in the previous Parliament, and as the speaker prior to me has noted, with whom I am sharing this split call, it does allow us to fulfil international obligations, specifically the Arms Trade Treaty, which we joined in 2014.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Great speech.

So for that reason alone, but others as well as we shall see—which Mr McAnulty’s very anxious to hear—it is indeed a good bill.

It seems to me a well-structured bill because it goes to the entity and also the activity of those who would broker arms, and, indeed, the activity itself. So, respectively, it calls upon a person, which is either a natural person or, of course, a company or other legal entity that would broker arms, for the registration of that entity to do these things but also the doing of the things themselves, the activity, is also regulated—well, in fact, it is legislated for, but is to be controlled by the mechanism of a permitting and consenting regime.

In order to ensure compliance with the law, the bill creates various offences, both in the criminal and civil domains, according to whether mere technical breaches are undertaken or more serious breaches of the particular offences in the bill. So without going through those exhaustively, I might note that engaging in brokering without being registered is in itself an offence, as is the breach of conditions that are set in a permit that might have been quite rightly obtained but not adhered to subsequent to the fact of it being obtained. Similarly, failing to produce records—keep records or produce records, I should add—or providing false or misleading information in relation to the activities of that entity are also offences. So it seems to me appropriate that we have mechanisms in the bill to ensure that it is well policed.

The elements of the offence, considering those carefully, was an aspect of the select committee’s consideration. I was pleased to be a very small part of that. That’s been discussed at some length by previous speakers, so I shan’t take any more of the House’s time in saying that I join my colleagues on this side of the House—and, indeed, it seems the other—in commending the bill to the House.

Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight on the second reading of this bill. I was not a member of the committee that has considered this bill, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, but I want to thank them for the work that they have done. I also want to thank the nine submitters that made submissions on this bill, and the officials who have worked through those submissions through the select committee process and have made recommendations for amendment. I believe that the recommendations that have been made by the select committee for the amendment of this bill provide better clarification about the intent and purpose of the bill, and, also, higher accountability.

So I first want to start off by acknowledging that committee. As I wasn’t part of the select committee I wasn’t aware whether this was a significant issue for New Zealand. So upon doing some research it was very interesting to note that there actually has been an example involving New Zealand and, thus, justifying this development of a law for ourselves but also in joining with the others across the globe, in an effort to address the issues.

The example I will talk about, in New Zealand, was back in 2006, so this shows that this issue has been around for a long time and significant steps have been taken, and this is yet another step in addressing the issue and implementing the steps that we have taken. So in 2006 a large shipment of conventional arms from North Korea was destined for Iran, in breach of the UN arms embargo, and was intercepted in Thailand. Subsequently it was discovered that it was a New Zealand - registered company that had leased the plane that was transporting the arms. Because New Zealand had no controls on brokering by New Zealanders, no action was able to be taken by the New Zealand Government. As a result of that, our reputation was negatively impacted by this.

There are multiple armed conflicts around the globe, and there has been a global effort to reduce harm caused by the illicit arms trade. New Zealand is internationally recognised, as was mentioned by one of the previous speakers, for our role in promoting disarmament, including nuclear disarmament. We are proud to also be playing a similar role in addressing the trade in conventional arms. New Zealand was amongst the first 50 countries to sign up to the treaty which we have spoken about tonight, the Arms Trade Treaty. That was a landmark treaty—a world first, in fact, in terms of regulating the trade in conventional arms.

We have export controls—so a regime that regulates the movement of arms and weapons and military equipment from New Zealand—and we have import controls, a regime which regulates the movement of arms into New Zealand, but there is a gap, and that’s what this bill, the Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Controls Bill, seeks to address. The gap that we currently have is where there are no controls in place on persons in New Zealand or New Zealand citizens operating abroad who negotiate, arrange, or facilitate the international movement of arms or military equipment, an activity which is known as brokering.

In terms of the significant changes that have been made to the bill as a result of the committee process, there were changes, particularly in clause 3A, around the jurisdictional scope of the brokering regime. I just want to read that one out because it’s an important one. The assumption is that we can only make laws that apply to ourselves here domestically, but on the strength of the submissions and the discussion that they obviously had at the select committee, they inserted clause 3A to ensure that the jurisdiction that this applies was absolutely clear.

So clause 3A is a new clause which has been inserted into the bill: “This Act applies to any brokering activity that is carried out—(a) in any place (including any brokering activity that is carried out wholly or partially outside New Zealand) and by a person—(i) who is in New Zealand; or (ii) who is a New Zealand citizen or ordinarily resident in New Zealand; or (iii) that is an entity incorporated or registered under the law of New Zealand; or (b) wholly or partially on board a ship or an aircraft described in section 33(1)(b).”

There were other changes that have also been recommended by the committee in terms of Gazette notices to be published on the website. Those recommendations have been put forward by the committee for us to consider here tonight and I certainly support them: providing clarity about the burden of proof—there was a very interesting discussion in the select committee report and from the officials on the mens rea or the actual intent and thinking behind the action; the elements of the offence and the narrowing of the exception for employees—a very interesting discussion there, and ensuring that the right people are being captured through this legislation; annual reporting as a condition of registration; the period for which brokers are required to keep the records—they recommend that that be increased from five years to seven years; and also some recommendations around offences committed outside of New Zealand.

Earlier, the Hon David Parker spoke about how it’s unusual to make laws that apply outside of New Zealand, but I think that we have agreement, certainly amongst many of us here in the House tonight, that it is important that we implement our undertaking in the Arms Trade Treaty, which we signed up to. We’re required, in that treaty, to implement domestic legislation to give effect to that, and this is us doing that, and I want to again commend the committee that has worked on this. Since we signed up to that treaty in 2013—ratified in 2014—this bill has been developed, it’s been introduced, it’s gone through now to its second reading, and that is us upholding our responsibilities under that treaty to introduce measures to regulate the brokering taking place within our jurisdiction and so by that we will be meeting those minimum standards by the treaty that we have been party to.

So with that, finally I want to thank all those that have been involved in this important piece of legislation. Thank you, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak and take a short call on the Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Controls Bill, a bill that, as we’ve heard, is anchored and underpinned by the Arms Trade Treaty 2014, which arose as a US-led development against the background of the Syrian conflict. As we’ve heard also, we are, and have, ratified this treaty, but it’s also interesting to look at those countries that haven’t ratified the treaty: Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Angola, Namibia, Philippines—none of them has ratified the Arms Trade Treaty. If we look at some of their histories, which are relevant as you discuss and look at those parties that may indeed be brokering weapons, we can look at Rwanda, which has a very sad history unfortunately. In the three years from October 1990, Rwanda, one of the poorest countries in the world, became the third-largest importer of weapons in Africa—estimated spending of US$112 million. Weapons came from Egypt, France, and South Africa.

Uganda also has troubles. In 1991, they first came to international attention in the arms trade brokering environment when they had a plane with illegal arms grounded in Yugoslavia. I’ve mentioned Congo—they were actually under a UN arms embargo from 2003 to 2008 for exactly the sort of things this bill is looking to address. Their brokering relationships came from Malaysia and also from Bulgaria. Angola: “Angolagate”, it was called, was a scandal in 1999 that rocked the French political world and, effectively, involved a very large sum of money—US$790 million—with brokers around the world. Again, the risk that we put ourselves at without this sort of bill: France, Russia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria. I could go through some of the others: Namibia also has a chequered history, and the Philippines. I’ll come back to those countries in just a moment.

We’ve heard of the nine submissions that were made to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. They were very thoughtful submitters, including the New Zealand Law Society, the Public Health Association, Privacy Commissioner, Amnesty International, and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. Their concerns were wide ranging: that the bill should adopt more stringent standards and that maybe the scope was too narrow—so some saying it needed to be widened and some saying it needed to be narrowed, and that there was a need for greater consistency with export, import, and domestic weapons legislation.

I want to conclude and just come back to those countries that I mentioned: Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Angola, Namibia, and Philippines—I’ve heard those names before. I’ve heard them before in this House quite recently. Oh, that’s right; they’ve all got waka jumping legislation. Could it possibly be—could it possibly be—that if you have waka jumping legislation that maybe your Government is undemocratic, that maybe your Government is unstable and more inclined to be brokering illegal weapons, like this bill is trying to counter? I just wanted to seed that thought. We’ll be supporting this bill. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. That was a really interesting way to end your speech, Mr Reti. Can I just say that I am a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and I just want to provide a bit more history, because I’m a bit of a history buff. I like to know where things began and how we’ve ended up where we are today, and I just want to quote that the Arms Trade Treaty was part of a global effort which began in 1997 by Costa Rican President and 1987 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Oscar Arias Sánchez, and it was actually about the concept of human security. There was a general recognition at the United Nations and in some countries that we needed to regulate an unregulated activity. So that was the reality of the beginnings of the Arms Trade Treaty that, as some of my colleagues have already noted, we signed in 2013, we ratified in 2014, and we will accede to it through the progression of this legislation through the House, and join 94 other countries.

The question of why we would do that is incredibly important, and this is where I do want to pick up on what my colleague Dr Shane Reti said. This is all about stopping military weapons and arms getting to areas such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mexico, and the Central African Republic. I mention those territories in the world because that is where armed conflict is happening today. The whole intention of this bill is actually really simple: it’s to create a registration process in a regime that ensures that—when these types of weapons are being distributed, exported, and imported around the world—to do so in New Zealand you now have to register.

Currently, it’s voluntary registration. So, through the implementation of this piece of legislation, (a) you will have to register, and in that registration process you will be given a permit if your activity or if the activity you or your business wants to engage in is consistent with New Zealand’s obligations under this Arms Trade Treaty. There could be conditions on those permits, so it’s not an open slather of once you get your permit you can do what you like. The reality of what we’re trying to do is to ensure that the world is a secure place. Underlying this is security for us as a country. Obviously, it has to reinforce our defence commitments, but it’s also, critically, about our international relations, and, actually, everything we do on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee critically looks at our international relations. So the whole intention of the bill is to build peace, it’s to reduce human suffering, it’s to promote cooperation and transparency, and also to hold countries accountable for their actions, and the consequences of those actions on other countries.

My colleague Willow-Jean Prime highlighted some really good discussions and debates in the select committee, which actually did happen. I do want to take the opportunity to comment about Duncan Webb, Golriz Ghahraman, and Chris Penk—all lawyers. They had really interesting discussions about issues of jurisdiction. As you’ll see—and I note that in introducing the debate tonight, the Hon Winston Peters actually highlighted the seven changes that the select committee recommended. And they weren’t random changes. Actually, on a lot of occasions, we had quite intense discussion about the jurisdictional scope and having to limit it and be really clear about who this piece of legislation applies to.

So I too want to add my thanks to the officials who had to listen to those discussions and translate those discussions into this coherent piece of legislation that we have before us tonight. I see my colleague Simon O’Connor, who is the chair of our select committee, nodding his head, because in some instances, I was a passive observer as these three people had these dynamic conversations. So it really was a lesson in a select committee wanting to work together for the best interests of our country and also to produce a piece of legislation that, actually, we could hold up as world leading, world class. So I’m quite proud of the amendments that we made and, obviously, will be accepted by the House tonight if we all agree at the conclusion of my speech.

I do want to highlight one of the issues that I think was really good about the submission of annual reports. So we are regulating the trade and weapons, and we’re wanting transparency, and I think our request for those who are granted permits to then submit an annual report, again, speaks to our wanting to be as transparent as possible. So we want to know what weapons have been brokered. Where are we sending them to? We need to hold ourselves accountable to the intention—as I said before—of the Arms Trade Treaty, and to ensure that things that happen in our country actually don’t contribute to exacerbating those conflicts that I’ve mentioned earlier, because fundamental to us doing this, and ensuring transparency, actually, at the end of the day is to deter the people that do want to contribute to war, that are profiting from war, that are distributing these weapons in these areas that, fundamentally, lead to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. So, from our perspective, I think what we’ve tried to do is actually embody the spirit of the Arms Trade Treaty throughout the whole of this piece of legislation.

It was also really interesting—no one’s really talked about why we’ve increased the period for which brokers are required to keep records from five to seven years. Actually, for us it was about aligning it to requirements concerning tax records and Fire and Emergency New Zealand contracts and levy payments. So within the piece of legislation, we also had some principles about it aligning to other pieces of legislation so that there was some symmetry, and that there was a rationale, and there was also, again, an ability to hold those companies accountable going forward.

I really don’t have much more to say, other than I like how select committees work sometimes—you know, really constructive engagement. We do listen to one another. We have quite dynamic discussions, and end up making changes to bills that make them better. I’m presuming—even though the other side’s been trying to beat up the fact that Ron Mark, in a previous life, did not support this bill at first reading when it was entered into the House by the Hon Gerry Brownlee, who then was the Minister of Foreign Affairs—actually, as a Parliament, we should celebrate the nights and the days when we have pieces of legislation that we all agree on, and that there is consensus. Kia ora mai tātou.

Bill read a second time.