Estimates Debate — External Sector (continued)

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is indeed a pleasure to rise and share some of the discussion that was had at the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, as we talked about the fact that New Zealand’s security and prosperity depends on the conditions within, and our connections with, the world. The fact remains that we must engage with, and seek to influence, other countries to our advantage, in line with our values and interests as a nation. We heard from a range of Ministers who have responsibility for foreign affairs, trade, our defence force, and customs, who told us how we are indeed doing that—and that is this Government’s focus.

We heard from the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, about the Pacific reset, which is a reset of our regional relations with the Pacific Island nations. He told us that there were largely two components to it: one was the fact that the Pacific Island region is challenged by a broad range of challenges—like, for example, the impacts of climate change, and the work that the Government is doing to decrease some of those vulnerabilities that various nations face and increase their resilience to deal with the impacts of climate change. The other, of course, is the fact that the Pacific is an increasingly contested strategic space, and we need to maintain our voice and influence to work together with various Pacific Island nations.

I actually want to point to one specific comment that the Minister made in response to specific questions about how we do that. He made it very clear that the Government’s focus is not on imposing various measures but working with local cultures to determine what specific needs are in different Pacific nations, and to make sure that we do it in a way that is acceptable, following local consultation—and I thought that was incredibly important. The Minister also emphasised the importance of New Zealand’s foreign engagement when it comes to addressing climate change, and the amount in Budget 2018 was $300 million over four years, an increase of about 50 percent, to assist Pacific nations with climate change challenges.

There was also discussion about the fact, of course, that we are a small nation that is incredibly reliant on trade, and, therefore, some discussion around the various free-trade agreements (FTA) that are under way as well. Trade, of course, and establishing those relationships and strengthening the relationships that we have with various parts of the world, is incredibly important to our economy, as a country.

There was discussion around the importance of securing a free-trade agreement with the United States, where the Minister talked about the fact that that indeed is still very much on the table. The fifth round of negotiations for the New Zealand-European FTA took place in July as well, where both parties are hopeful of striking a deal by the end of the year. We talked about the upgrade to the Singapore FTA as well.

Another point that I want to make is about the discussions with the Minister of Customs, at the time, about the work that is under way in combating sexual exploitation of children. There was a huge amount of discussion at the select committee about this because there’s an increasing focus within customs to address this. Budget 2019 proposes spending of nearly $10.3 million over the next four years for new policy initiatives within customs to combat the sexual exploitation of children. I just want to read this bit because it’s incredibly important and a lot of time was spent on it within the select committee: “The Minister told us that access to, and distribution of, child sexual abuse material across borders is a ‘significant and increasing problem’. He said [that] the United Nations estimates that the criminal market for the global sexual exploitation of children generates between US$3 billion and US$20 billion a year. Also, the Internet Watch Foundation reported a 57 percent increase of websites showing these kinds of images. Customs reported 1.4 million attempts over the past three years to import or export child sexual material over New Zealand’s cyber border, (excluding the Dark Web). This is an average of 1,000 attempts a day.” And so there was consensus across the select committee that this is indeed an incredible focus.

There was also, within the defence force, very quickly, I might add, a huge focus to ensure that property, plant, and military equipment—that we need to keep us safe and keep our borders safe, and that hasn’t been upgraded over years—be upgraded. Thank you.

Madam Chair, thank you very much. I agree with my colleague who has just spoken, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, that the conversation in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee was a very useful one. Indeed, of the many hearings that I have participated in, attended, or answered questions in, this was one of the most useful, one of the most insightful, and one where we almost got the answers that we required.

We started with a very wide-ranging conversation about the need for bipartisanship in foreign affairs, and that, actually, what bipartisanship meant for an Opposition was that they wouldn’t necessarily agree with everything the Government did—indeed, didn’t have to agree with much of what the Government did—but we shouldn’t be afraid of that, actually, robust debate in the committee that in this House leads to better foreign affairs outcomes for New Zealand, and that we shouldn’t be afraid to actually debate important issues of foreign affairs, both in public and in this place for the people of New Zealand. It can’t be left to any one Government, irrespective of what parties are involved in that Government, and I made that the case both when we were in Government and now, of course, with a different Government.

I would say that the Rt Hon Winston Peters recognised that there should be opportunities for us to explore these sorts of things. He did say that the Government would have information that an Opposition wouldn’t, which, perhaps, would make it difficult for an Opposition—any Opposition—to have these conversations. In conversation with him in the committee, he also accepted that we must find ways to share more information. The greater involvement that New Zealanders have through observation, or being able to put their views to Parliament or members of Parliament on issues of foreign affairs, can only be good for democracy and can only be good for this House and the direction the Government goes in.

Of course, it is for the Government to make decisions with Cabinet as to what they do internationally. There are many occasions where they will involve the Opposition and bring them with them. But, ultimately, the only way that there is acceptance of the importance that our diplomats and our officers overseas and our Ministers when they go away do on behalf of New Zealand is when there is buy-in from the public. I’m of the view that there are too many members of our public that don’t understand the great, great job that our ambassadors and our officials and our diplomats do overseas. And that’s understandable because, actually, largely, their interaction may only be if they lose a passport, if they get in trouble, or if they are there, perhaps, looking at some trade. But, ultimately, we have a very large number of people around the world that represent us well.

The Minister extended an olive branch to the committee, in my conversation with him, and accepted that, perhaps, on seven occasions a year, this House would set aside time to debate foreign affairs. And we accepted that offer from him. I did suggest that seven may be a number to aspire to over time, and that it would be a challenge, and, perhaps, to talk to the Leader of the House or Cabinet about that. The Rt Hon Winston Peters assured me it wouldn’t be an issue if we decided on seven, but, perhaps, we would start with fewer. We take him up on that offer, and I think this House should do it.

This is a debate about the spending in foreign affairs, where the Opposition gets to criticise and ask certain questions. What I was proposing was a wide-ranging debate on foreign affairs issues, not in urgency or because something’s happened in the world but, actually, to raise the issues and have understanding. In the type of debates this Parliament used to have before the advent of MMP, when parliamentarians were locked away here and couldn’t get leave unless it was an exceptional given by the Opposition, there were wide-ranging debates and the quality of debate was quite outstanding—I think we should do that much more in foreign affairs.

The final point I wanted to make here is that we had a discussion about Israel in the committee. The Opposition raised the concern we had that the New Zealand Government had a map up on one of their websites, showing Israel as Palestine. That was a grave error. We sought, on behalf of the Jewish community in New Zealand, an apology. And the Minister was forthright in providing that and offering it, and said he would ensure it would never happen again. There could be many reasons why this happened—none of them are good reasons; none of them are acceptable.

It is time that we made sure that all across Government in New Zealand, they are clear on New Zealand’s position on Israel and Palestine and the Middle East. Actually, it is time for the Government to make a decision that the embassy that looks after the State of Israel, the independent State of Israel, is no longer in Turkey; it is Israel. The Opposition would support that. That would be a very good use of money. Concerningly, there is no money in the Budget for that, but it is something we should debate in this House when we take the Minister up to have that first debate he promised.

Oh, I was expecting more enthusiasm there. Can I, firstly, acknowledge, actually, Paolo Garcia, who stepped in to act as the speaking chair earlier in this debate on behalf of foreign affairs, and did an excellent job. I’ll touch briefly on a number of the areas including customs; not only that it falls within this vote but, obviously, the Minister in the chair, the Hon Jenny Salesa—to acknowledge her taking that role.

But I would start with some thoughts that came out of the Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade. The member who has just resumed his chair, Todd McClay, touched on an important element in that around Israel. It was very timely and topical because, in this case, Immigration New Zealand had put up a false map and a misleading map that caused a lot of distress across various communities in New Zealand—of course, within the Israeli and Jewish community more confusion and then increased frustration. So we were very pleased as a committee to raise that with the Minister not because it was a foreign affairs error—it was Immigration New Zealand—but we were heartened as a committee, I think, and I was, that the Minister was forthright and has given assurances to the committee that this will not happen again and that the correct processes will be put in place.

I’ve called for, for a while, as well, that New Zealand should be relooking at how it does its diplomatic relations with Israel, notably that we should not be having those relationships out of Ankara. That’s not needed. In fact, it arguably is the wrong symbolism—would certainly encourage New Zealand, as we did in the discussion with the Minister, to relook at how it does its diplomacy in that regard. Personally, I’d like to see it in Israel; just as Israel’s shown us respect by having its ambassador here, we should be looking to have that in Israel. And, secondly, if that’s not possible, then the credentialling should be out of another embassy, but not out of Turkey at this time.

One of the elements of foreign affairs, which I thought needed a bit of attention, and gladly we talked to it, was around APEC. Obviously, in 2021, New Zealand will be hosting APEC. We’re pleased to see that more money was put in. That’s not unexpected but there are questions from this side of the House, in particular, whether enough money has been put aside. Just under NZ$200 million at the moment has been appropriated, but we had noted that the Australians and the Papua New Guineans on their respective hostings had put over A$330 million into it, so a substantial amount of money is required for APEC. I think we all, on behalf of “New Zealand Inc.”, want to see that succeed in 2021, so there were challenges coming from the committee to see that, actually, the money was going to be necessarily spent.

There was a little bit of discussion around Scott Base in Antarctica. I had the great pleasure of actually joining people down there in January this year. I can see the needs, but I think one of the questions that the committee had was, obviously: what’s the total spend going to be? There was some scepticism of the idea that millions of dollars would be given by private providers to fund Scott Base. I’m personally a bit sceptical on that, and I’d want to put on the record here too that Scott Base is primarily about science, and through the science, we advance our foreign affairs. And to that end that has to be the priority, and so the question will remain of whether the base development is simply about modernising or, as I say, supporting the science.

We did challenge the Minister around the Government’s relative silence around what’s happening in Venezuela. We did also raise concerns around the pace, if you will, of our engagement around Brexit, US, and EU trade deals. It’s all well and good to speak; we want to see some action.

I promised to touch on customs. Congratulations to the Minister of Customs on taking the portfolio. It’s a fascinating one. I suppose the only and primary question that I had, and “concern” is possibly too strong a word, but, fundamentally, the budget this year is lower than what was spent in the year previous; I think it’s about 3 percent lower. I acknowledge, particularly around child sex exploitation, new monies and focus there. I don’t think anyone in this House would oppose that, but it was just a small question, if you will, of a ministry that had spent something like $249 million, I think it was, in the last year. We’ve seen a budget lower—lower—than that and so it just raises some question around capability, particularly as the de minimis is changing: that is, the amount of goods—value—coming through, and there are some questions already that actually people are falsely bringing products into the country, falsifying documentation, and just making sure that the Customs Service has the money and support it needs to do its job.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to have a go at speaking in the Votes Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defence, and Customs. I am not on that committee, but I have listened to some of the debates that my colleagues have traversed in the Chamber, and have read the documents to get a sense of the sorts of issues that were raised. I listened with great interest and admiration, for example, to my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s speech where she talked about: what is the role of our voice as a State—our influence and our leadership? How do we work internationally with diplomacy across grassroots and communities and what are the bases of our relationship? What are the discussions that we have internationally? I listened to colleagues on this side of the Chamber also raising similar issues. I want to raise similar issues in my contribution today.

I’m really proud—for example, back in 2000, in the National Government’s term, when they actually led the signing of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We have had many issues raised around the world that cause us to pause and think about the diplomacy relationships that we possibly might have as a country. There are plenty of examples. Need I start with the fire burning our global lungs in the Amazon forests right now at this very moment—and I am aware that the Prime Minister and also the foreign affairs Minister have offered comments. The Green Party shares the concerns with the global community about those fierce and widespread fires in the Amazon, many of which are deliberately lit. I wonder what sort of role and conversations we can have about the role of the global State but also what cautions we need to be talking about with the authorities and the leader of that country and of that region.

In this instance, if I could put to the committee the sorts of inspiring conversations about what would prevent the decimation of those incredible forests that hold a massive amount of carbon-sinking ability for all of us, that hold some of the world’s most important places of biodiversity and protecting the ecosystems there—I wonder what our role is in being able to say that upholding the indigenous rights, for example, through the United Nation’s declaration that we signed up to, and understanding that the female chiefs, in particular, have been trying to fight to protect those forests for decades against deforestation, against incredible and corporate resistance, which is aiding the fires that are burning horribly in front of our eyes right at the moment. So I join other colleagues who have raised other issues of international importance where we can have an influence and can have a voice, and that’s just one example, but a very dire and urgent one.

In the last part of my time, we have another example: indigenous peoples’ responsibilities to collectively protect our places, our environment, and our communities as part of a global response to climate change, to addressing our responsibilities as a global partner, to reducing our emissions, and understanding the role that upholding the leadership of indigenous peoples has in that work—the essential leadership, particularly of indigenous women.

I close off with another example happening right now on the island of Hawaii, which is the protection and guardianship of Mauna Kea, where there is a proposal to build a giant 30-metre telescope—a proposal which has seen an open letter signed by over 700 astronomers and astrophysicists who are saying that this sort of proposal is a lazy one that further tramples on the indigenous protection of that mountain, and we do not want it if that is what it is going to do. So there is opportunity for us to have those diplomatic discussions as leaders. Thank you, Madam Chair.