Russia Sanctions Bill

I move, That the Russia Sanctions Bill be now read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

There’s clear urgency for the passing of this bill, and I’d like to thank all the members who’ve contributed to the debate this evening. What we have all established is that not only is there a necessity to continue with the progress of this particular bill, both the humanitarian implications of war being undertaken at this moment, the devastation to property, the loss of life, and the displacement of populations urges us to act in unison with others. And as I’ve said, an estimated 2 million people have now fled the Ukraine, and this number continues to grow every day. Those who are staying in the Ukraine need assistance, so the humanitarian efforts that are currently being undertaken around the world, which New Zealand is contributing to, will help those who need food and power and warmth.

Can I briefly comment on some of the points that were raised in the speeches—firstly, that this should have been done earlier. I think the situation warrants a targeted, bespoke approach to sanctions in light of the actions of Putin and the continued aggression. I left New Zealand on 19 February, and at that time, while it was potentially imminent that an invasion or an attack could occur, actually what we were seeing at that moment was militarisation along the Ukraine border. I was over in Europe on the 24th when the invasion occurred, and things escalated very quickly. But once we saw as a country that things were escalating, as has already been said by many speakers in this House, we applied all the sanctions that we had available to us: travel bans, export controls, and we undertook diplomatic representations at a range of levels to ensure that we were reflecting our concern as a country to what we were seeing. And certainly, once an invasion occurred, we called in the ambassador here in New Zealand and we preserved our ability as a country to keep diplomatic channels open. Why I point to that is that I don’t think we acted too slowly on the way in which New Zealand expressed its position on this significant issue.

The other point that was raised was in relation to multilateralism. And I think many speakers made fine points around the fact that the United Nations Security Council did fail us in the way that it was not able to enforce a vote in relation to sanctions. However, the United Nations Security Council does not act alone, and it acts alongside other institutions—other parts of the UN system. So when the United Nations General Assembly placed its vote around condemnation and 141 nation States voted in favour of condemnation, we were in good company. Again, that informs our ability to be able to use that indication as a means for taking a targeted approach to sanctions against Russia.

Can I say that when we tabled the bill, we left a day for a limited level of consultation to occur. And I take on board quite seriously the points that were raised by members in this House that in an ideal world, we would have a really long period of time to consider autonomous sanctions and go to full public consultation. That has not been the case in this instance, but in the day that we were able to seek advice from groups, we deliberately ensured that we were contacting the New Zealand Law Society, the Privacy Commission, and the New Zealand Bankers’ Association on aspects of the bill, because we understood how important it was to get their soundings. Again, these were issues that were raised by parties in this House, all of them, just to ensure that we had some level of exposure of the intent of the bill with those who were either going to be responsible for undertaking the implementation of the sanctions or could improve the legislative drafting of the bill.

I’m grateful for their input, and several minor changes were made to the bill as a result. They include insertion of a new clause 8(2) to provide greater clarity on the threshold for recommending sanctions. The new clause 8(2) clarifies that it is for the Minister to judge whether a sanction is appropriate as an act of condemnation by New Zealand. It ensures that it is appropriate for the Minister to consider sanctions for the purpose of exerting pressure on, or punishing, Russia, including through targeting oligarchs. This still retains the broad power for the Minister to make sanctions.

The other amendment was amending clauses 15 and 31 to clarify that the purpose of sharing information is for the purpose of this bill and any regulations under this bill only. Also the period that an individual or business has to wait to seek the review of their inclusion on to the sanctions list was reduced from 12 months to six months. And this acknowledges that the sanctions could impose significant economic consequences on them, and that the intention of the sanctions is to push individuals to exert their influence to cease the war.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the hard work of officials who did exhaust themselves—both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and other departments over these last few days—to ensure that the bill got urgent attention for this introduction. I know that their hard work will not stop, because once the bill comes into effect, they will work at pace to get the first tranche of regulations into place.

Lastly, can I just acknowledge again the member Gerry Brownlee. We’re not making too much politics of this. Whether it’s 83 percent or what makes up 83 percent, the point is there is a portion of the bill that has helped to enable at speed the presentation of the bill that members are considering here today. Can I also acknowledge the Green Party. They made very helpful decisions around the need for greater transparency in the regulation-making process, also to consider a threshold and the way in which to give effect to a sanctions regime. And also, alongside the Māori Party, the Green Party were very clear that the bill needed to be reviewed before the three-year period at which regulations normally apply. So clause 29 is a direct indication of that feedback.

I’m not sure the extent to which members will go to other aspects of the bill, but I would just like to cover off in my final remarks of the second reading that I think having a public register going forward into a fuller and broader autonomous sanctions regime will be one of the aspects of a New Zealand approach to a sanctions regime that will give the public greater confidence in the way that we are seeking to not only form sanctions but actually be transparent about who the sanctions apply to. I’m glad that we have that opportunity to include a public register in this legislation, and it will be a small but useful step going forward when we consider the more broad aspect of autonomous sanctions.

Lastly, on the approach to autonomous sanctions, it’s my strong view that we do need to take New Zealanders with us, because applying sanctions, imposing sanctions, has a two-way impact, and we do need to consider that. We do need to consult with the public around the implications to what they may export anywhere in the world if we were to invoke a sanctions regime. We do need to be cognisant of some of the things that they’re concerned about, but also civil society, because the humanitarian aspect of an autonomous sanctions regime is certainly a key aspect of what New Zealand would want to see in a successful piece of legislation that is more enduring than this targeted approach right now. So I’m pleased to be able to offer a brief reflection on second reading.

Can I just start by saying that, notwithstanding the somewhat ill-informed speech prepared by, I suspect, Labour Party researchers and delivered by the last speaker on the first reading, Vanushi Walters—albeit tinged with a degree of unnecessary nastiness, the National Party will continue to support this bill because foremost in our minds is the suffering of the Ukraine people. The fact, too, is that this was an unprovoked attack. About the various comments that were made by the speaker I just referred to, about the long history that has existed on that Ukraine-Russia border, there can be no justification at all for the whole-scale devastation that Vladimir Putin has decided to unleash on the Ukrainian people. It is despicable. And in that regard, can I say, the Minister’s comment that it’s important to take the people of New Zealand along if there is to be a more general sanctions bill before the House at some point very soon—I would agree with that, but we shouldn’t be under any illusion about the effect that this conflict in the Ukraine is going to have on the New Zealand economy, regardless of any sanction that we may or may not participate in.

It seems to me that the simple point here is the principle of saying that we stand up for countries that are free and democratic. We stand up for countries that embrace the sort of values that have made New Zealand one of the longest democracies of all countries in the world, despite our relatively brief post-1840 history. So, I think that New Zealanders will, when they see—through whatever their source of information is these days—that devastation, that human waste, that horrible sort of circumstance arising, and will be quite happy to say, “Yep, we’re doing our bit.” Some may even want to say, “Let’s do more.”

As for the claim by the Government that everything is worked at speed, well, I accept that when there’s been an intransigent position for not just the last short while but for quite a long period of time, it takes a significant amount of time to re-change a position. But I don’t think anyone should listen too much to the idea that New Zealand was fast out of the blocks with, for example, its travel ban on Russians associated with the Putin regime coming to New Zealand. The reality is that most of New Zealand has been on a complete travel ban for most of the last two years, so there’s nothing particularly flash about that.

As for the export ban, well, we all know that it was Fonterra who actually got out ahead of the Government and decided that they would no longer export to Russia. If anyone has a look at the two-way trade between our countries, Fonterra is very much the dominant player and I congratulate them for that courageous decision. It might only be a relatively small part of their income as a cooperative, but none the less, it’s income they have to make up somewhere else. Then there was the talk about, “Well, we stopped diplomatic discussions, stopped the connections between our people in Russia and the Russian authorities, and our authorities in New Zealand and the Russian Embassy.” That simply begs the question, “Why are those diplomats still here? Why are the Russian diplomats still in Wellington?” Because the argument that says, “Well, you can’t punish the people of Russia, because they’re just victims of the Putin regime.” may hold some water, but in the end, the Russian regime speak, acts, and does on behalf of the people of the country, and if you look at the diplomats that are here, those people are direct servants of Vladimir Putin and his regime. For them to make any statement outside of total commitment to the actions that are currently being taken in the Ukraine is unthinkable. And so they should not be here. They should have been asked to remove themselves. We removed, for goodness sake, the Fijian representation in New Zealand when Frank Bainimarama took over the elected Government there. That didn’t seem to be a problem, and I think of the retaliation, again, when the Israelis removed their ambassador some time ago. These things happen, but they are statements, and it is odd that the Russian ambassador continues to sit here in Wellington, clearly very, very supportive of what Vladimir Putin’s regime is doing in the Ukraine, and yet doesn’t himself appear on any of the sanctions lists that we’ve seen so far.

When it comes to those lists, there is a question that we will tease out a bit further in the committee stage. One of the questions that’s coming—and I’ll signal it for the Minister now—is why does our travel ban list not mirror that of the UK, the United States, and Australia? It doesn’t. There is a glaring omission there, and there needs to be some explanation for that. There was another comment that the Minister made that concerned me a little bit. She said that part of the consideration that’s led to this bill coming into the House today was the vote by 141 countries, including New Zealand, to condemn Russia through the General Assembly vote at the United Nations. Well, what does that say? It actually says that, well, having recognised that the multilateral system is creaking because of the situation with the Security Council, with the irony of Russia being in the chair of that Security Council and then exercising a veto to make sure that no sanctions are approved in that body against Mother Russia, it is now the body—that’s the United Nations—that we still turn to to get some sort of validity for the bringing of this bill to the House. That concerns me. I think the idea should be that we have truly an independent foreign policy—and we can agree with those international forums. We; we don’t have to withdraw from them, we don’t have to rail against them, but we should have that provision available to us so that, on behalf of the people of New Zealand, a statement can be made about this sort of aggressive action.

I understand that clause 8, in that regard, is going to be another area that will be discussed in the select committee. But I will suggest that those who are promoting it have a good read of clause 8 as it’s written in the bill. It would seem to me that there is adequate provision there to guide the Minister in making recommendations ultimately to the Government.

So we come to this bill having promoted the concept of autonomous sanctions for a long time, through a time when there was not a will in the House to get it passed and where there was a desire on the part of our party to have it. Clearly, that was not shared by enough to make up a Government majority—a simple fact.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Could have done it.

The Minister over there, the Hon Andrew Little, might be shaking his head and grumbling, but the Labour Party have never supported the concept of autonomous sanctions until this point. Until this point—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: That member’s party was in Government; it didn’t do it.

Well, look, the member over there speaks through his mask. Unfortunately, he’s very muffled, so Hansard won’t pick up the particular irrelevance that he’s trying to burble away with. But it is a fact that this bill could have been passed some time earlier. It’s not something we are particularly going to dwell on, because we have in front of us tonight the opportunity to pass a bill that will be very, very useful in stating New Zealand’s commitment to the international rule of law, to the sort of style of Government and the freedom of peoples that we like to see further expanded around the world.

With those comments, can I say that the National Party look forward to the next stage of the bill where the Minister will perhaps be able to answer one or two more specific questions about some of the drafting of the bill. It certainly won’t be a time to question the intent of the bill, which we very strongly support.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, thank you. I rise to take a short call on the Russia Sanctions Bill. I want to begin, as many members of the House today have done, by just acknowledging the horror of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the absolute tragedy that is being played out in many towns and cities in many parts of Ukraine, and the cynicism too with which the Russian regime has waged this war, purporting to offer safe passage to those who are in exile, knowing that the passage they were offering would lead to Belarus and then to Russia, and then opening fire on those purported safe passages. Vladimir Putin has proven himself to be an evil leader, waging an evil war, and we send our support to the people of Ukraine and our admiration for Volodymr Zelenskyy and the incredible leadership that he is providing in those incredible circumstances.

This bill provides New Zealand with an opportunity to respond, to join the rest of the global community in doing what we can to put meaningful pressure on Russia and those who run its Government, those who run its economy, to bring home to that country, to its political leadership and to the elites in its society that the conduct of Russia in global affairs, and particularly in relation to its war on Ukraine, is simply unacceptable. This gives us the means to do that. But we should also acknowledge that, in doing this, this is a significant departure from our foreign policy—our consensus foreign policy—that we have operated under for many years. We can have an independent foreign policy, and we do, and subscribe to the international institutions that are part of a stable world order. That is what we have subscribed to. As a small country, and therefore a vulnerable country, the international institutions that provide for peace and stability and the good conduct of international relations are absolutely vital.

So I don’t get what I hear from the other side of the House—that we sort of attack the international institutions even when they’re found to be wanting, as they are in this instance; that somehow we abandon all that and we kind of throw caution to the wind, and an independent foreign policy means that we have no meaningful relationships with other countries. I just say too that previous Governments have had the opportunity to introduce autonomous sanctions legislation. The previous Government did consider it at the time of Russia’s last invasion into Ukraine, when it annexed the Crimean Peninsula, but it decided not to. It had a majority. It could have done, but it did not do so, because it was as conscious as this Government is of the consensus that has governed foreign relations and the way this country governs its foreign relations.

But we stand with the rest of the world, and I rise to express my incredible admiration and support for our Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, and the way she has conducted herself in that office, in all respects. But in relation to this conflict, it has been as you would expect from a New Zealand foreign affairs Minister: measured, appropriate, gauged against what our likeminded countries and partners do around the rest of the world, and to take proper action. And having seen that the United Nations General Assembly is capable of expressing its opposition to the conduct of Russia, it is right that we follow that and that we take appropriate actions, and that’s what this bill does. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Thanks, Madam Speaker. It’s good to be moving relatively swiftly with this bill, and, a bit like the Hon Gerry Brownlee, we’re looking forward to the committee stage to raise a few questions. I think I want to signal, from my side, there’ll only be a couple of key questions that I want to draw out. It’s going to be an interesting balance tonight between, obviously, scrutiny under urgency but making sure that the bill is passed. Because I will echo what I said in the first reading: I think there have been missed opportunities in the past for New Zealand to implement a piece of legislation like this. Again, not specific to any one country, but to adopt that autonomous sanction, or a Magnitsky-type legislation.

I just wanted to pick up on a couple of points that have been raised by members. I think at one level this is a significant departure if we buy the idea of an independent foreign policy. I sort of don’t, actually. I think New Zealand—we’ll often give lectures at the university on this. I think it’s a hard argument to make any more. New Zealand is very much drawn along by the geostrategic winds, be it our traditional allies or the likes of our trading partners. So we will try to act independently, but we are under heavy, heavy influence. And so we can make an independent judgment on those, but I don’t think we just stand alone. To further echo this, what we’re doing tonight is not new. This is not New Zealand going out on a limb. This has not even been unilateral or bilateral. New Zealand is simply following suit of so many other countries, liberal democracies in particular. So many other countries already have Magnitsky-type laws in play, which they’ve been able to swiftly deploy, and it will be interesting to see, once this one’s passed, just how New Zealand’s sanctions align with other countries, such as our friends in the UK or Canada, for example; Australia, for sure. So that’s important.

There’s also been, and rightly, a lot of discussion about describing this war as illegal, and it absolutely and abundantly is. But I think it’s important, certainly for me, to say it wouldn’t matter even if it were not illegal; this is an unjust and wrong war. It’s immoral. So even the legality is not the key point here. First and foremost, it’s just plain wrong.

And I’ve been disappointed—I mean, people are allowed to express their views, but as they have over recent days, picking across social media trying to make excuses, saying, well, this side did this and this agreement’s been broken here or there. I mean, these are all good, interesting points. But at the end of the day, one country, Russia, is lobbing shells, custom munitions, and other ordnance into cities. They said not since 1945—in fact, I think Kharkov was last shelled in 1944, as they pushed the Nazis out. And now the Russians are back again. They’re just shelling, in a sense, their own people. It’s just madness.

And then there’s one other thing I just think needs to be put on the record. There’s a number of people rightly very happy with where things are at the moment, militarily, but a word of caution—from a layman; granted. Russian war doctrine is to use more and more force. When things don’t go their way, they drop more ordnance. It gets worse. And that’s why, despite the delay, it’s time that we’re putting that through here tonight, because I think, you know, these sanctions will have to ramp up. Again, to be a pop psychologist—and I’ll probably get into trouble for this—someone like Putin is a lunatic, and when he gets pushed into a corner, when he gets desperate—because all of this is about his image—he’s going to lash out even further. He’s going to lash out even further. And so we need to have good, strong sanctions.

I really just want to stress to those who, rightly, want to ensure that the multilateral order continues: we absolutely want to engage and respect the UN where we can. Well, actually, it’s not even that. We want to just respect the UN, period. But I don’t think us passing a bill like this makes us act unilaterally. We are doing it with so many others. And I want to point out too that it’s, in my mind, not just the Security Council which is failing. I think the whole UN can fail as well. I turn my mind back to the vote that was made, I think, about two years ago, around Hong Kong, or the national security laws. Fifty-three countries voted in favour with China to say that these national security laws, crushing Hong Kong’s democracy, destroying the freedom of the press, leading to people that I know—and I’m not going to mention them by name, because that’ll get them in even more trouble with the CCP, but they were arrested. They’ve been arrested for simply turning up, or protesting, or having a yellow umbrella, or whatever. But the key point is 53 nations in the UN General Assembly voted for the national security law, voted against democracy. I think that’s shameful. It doesn’t therefore say the UN is of no use. It certainly says the UN needs reform. But I think it, for me, illustrates very clearly the need, the absolute need, for us to have this sanctions bill.

The last couple of points—and, look, we’ll probably get into the committee stage. It will be the place of how we respond to the question of cyber-security, or cyber-incursions. Again, probably always risky putting things on the Hansard record, but I think we’re going to see an increase in cyber-issues, shall we say, and tit for tat. And, you know, we already have issues of non-State and State actors deploying these sort of tactics, and I think, unfortunately, Russia’s a very strong purveyor of them. We need to be able to ensure that this law can respond.

The final part, drawing back to the whole question around Magnitsky Acts: there’s been some talking about the bill tonight being bespoke, and that’s true. In some ways, we don’t have to again be bespoke. New Zealand can learn and look overseas and see where some best practice is. I’m sure the Minister and her officials have drawn on that, as they too have from Gerry Brownlee’s legislation. But New Zealand doesn’t always have to do things in a unique way; sometimes off-the-shelf works. And so I will begin to conclude by once again waving the flag, if I will, for, you know, New Zealand to adopt Magnitsky legislation. I suppose I speak not only on behalf of Louisa Wall and myself as co-chairs of IPAC, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, but my MP friends and senators across the globe, who would want me to say this, and I’m happy to. It’s something their countries have taken up, and they would love us to do the same. But I welcome committee stage when we reach it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak in support of this bill this evening. As always is the case with war, the impact is felt most severely by ordinary people and I know colleagues in the House tonight will have been watching online and watching on television and seeing the images of families and children uprooted in the face of explosive weapons going off in their urban neighbourhoods. The latest reports—I think two million people are fleeing across Ukraine’s borders; half of that number are children. It’s tragic, it’s completely unnecessary, and it’s absolutely essential at this point in time that the international community rallies to impose the maximum cost possible on President Putin for what is an egregious breach of the UN Charter and a betrayal of humanity.

I won’t rehearse many of the arguments that colleagues have already been running through this evening, but I do want to observe that there’s a long tradition of bipartisan cooperation in the whole area of foreign policy in New Zealand, and that’s as it should be. But there are differences amongst us and there are differences between the parties in matters of emphasis. It was very clear to me, listening to the speech of the Hon Gerry Brownlee this evening, that he represents a tradition on the centre-right of politics that is less committed and less devoted, you might say, than we are on the left of politics to the institutions of the multilateral system of international law.

There’s a reason—there’s a very good reason—that this Government is taking a thoughtful approach to the question of autonomous sanctions. That is because we have always—and in fact, successive Governments for a long, long time have—taken the view that the UN system is the appropriate place to have those discussions and to build coalitions and to use the might of sanctions to impose a cost on countries that transgress.

Now it’s obvious to everybody that for a member of the P5 like Russia to launch a completely unprovoked and unjustifiable invasion of its neighbour, to threaten the use of nuclear weapons and countless other breaches of international law over the last couple of weeks, makes a mockery of the UN system. It does, but it is within our capability to grasp some progress and hope for the future of the international system from the jaws of this tragedy. And we can see that in the way that the international community has rallied around: countries, businesses, international organisations. There’s been a remarkable mobilisation across the planet of people determined to make Vladimir Putin pay.

We can be part of that—and we must—and that is why we are bringing this bill to the House this evening. It should be a point of great satisfaction to us all that this House is unanimous in seeing it through. But—and there is a but—we must take an equally muscular approach to strengthening, buttressing, and reinvigorating the multilateral institutions and international law. That has to be the way forward because, if we don’t, the world will be a much more dangerous place and there will be other Putins, there will be other invasions.

So I stand in support of this bill. It is an excellent bill. It is allowing us to stand shoulder to shoulder with the international community in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, sending a very sharp message to President Putin that this invasion of Ukraine cannot be allowed to stand and the international community will make him pay a very, very significant price for it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In this second reading debate, I just wanted to pick up on a few of the points that previous speakers have made in their comments and to just reflect on them both for the implications of this bill and potentially for a wider regime.

First of all, I wanted to endorse some of the words of the Hon Gerry Brownlee in his comments in the beginning of this reading, where he made a reference to the decision to impose sanctions even when it comes at some cost to one’s self. The reason I wanted to endorse that was because that’s when you actually get to know whether or not you’re doing the right thing. If you’re not prepared to impose sanctions because it could come at some cost to your own economy, then you can be pretty sure that you are not doing the right thing. You have to be prepared to stand up in times of challenge and controversy, not just times of comfort and convenience.

One of the things that the Hon Gerry Brownlee also mentioned was in reference to bringing the General Assembly into the operative part of the bill. I know we will have an opportunity in the committee of the whole House to get into this a bit further but he did raise it in his comments in this reading where he said that the existing clause 8 already has adequate provision for the Minister to be able to consider thresholds. I understand his point. The challenge that we’ve got is, essentially, what it refers to—or what it does actually refer to—is the absence of sufficient United Nations Security Council action, which draws attention to the part the UN system that is dysfunctional rather than drawing attention to the part of that is functional, which is the General Assembly. As I said in my first reading speech, it’s the General Assembly that is the much more inclusive consensus-based body and it has condemned, in the strongest possible way, the war that Russia is committing on its neighbour Ukraine.

The reason I wanted to raise this is because if we want a piece of legislation that reinforces the UN system, reinforces the multilateral system, we think that we should be trying to operationalise that in the text of the bill itself, not just drawing attention to the component where it is dysfunctional and where it isn’t working. After all, as I said in my first reading speech, it’s the Security Council dysfunction that has been used as an excuse by any number of countries, some of which we would regard as close friends and allies and deep trading partners to, essentially, opt out of the UN system and the multilateral system at all and do their own thing where they have wanted to. That’s exactly the kind of the thing that we don’t want to see more of. What we do want to see more of is New Zealand acting in concert with the international community and that should be our threshold; not a negative threshold of that system failing. So there was that point. I just wanted to endorse the words that the Hon Phil Twyford just made in his contribution just now, as well, where he also made explicit reference to the General Assembly.

A couple of members have raised points around urgency and absolutely we support urgency in this case, because it is clearly urgent. There’s probably no better example of urgency that I’ve seen in this House. One of the ways that we have dealt with that recently, in relation to COVID, of course, is to have a post-enactment review, and that may be a way for this House to, at select committee, be able to draw on the views of experts, having put this bill into place but to be able to say for the sake of improvements in the future and any amendments that we might want to make to it that we have that opportunity.

The Victoria University law professor Geoff McLay today suggested that the regulations themselves could come back through the House in exactly the same way that we do with the COVID orders. So we’ve got a recent precedent where we have to act under urgency because COVID-19 is such a fluid situation and events change so quickly and the Government has needed to be able to move very quickly on those but there still needs to be parliamentary scrutiny at the same time. That would also be quite a good way of ensuring that there is parliamentary involvement and oversight as well.

The final thing that I just wanted to say in this part of the bill is: this is a humanitarian crisis. There are international laws and norms that are being violated. There are potential crimes against humanity, potential war crimes, and potential acts of genocide that are being perpetrated. It is not the time for partisan sniping about what could have or should have or would have happened at some point in the past. It really isn’t. I would just encourage members to focus on the plight of the Ukrainian people as they are being bombed and shelled and driven out of their homes rather than to score petty partisan points when, frankly, this bill is one that we are all completely united on and want to get passed and want to be robust. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand this evening in support of the second reading of the Russia Sanctions Bill on behalf of the ACT party, and it is very important that we are passing this law tonight. The situation in the Ukraine is not only devastating for the people currently in Ukraine and those millions who have been driven from their homes to seek refuge in bordering countries but it is devastating for everybody who believes in liberal democracy around the world, that we could see the bullying actions of Vladimir Putin, not just stand at being bullying but turning into forms of unprovoked invasion in a liberal democracy.

I want to take the time to acknowledge the bordering countries of Ukraine who have taken in up to 2 million refugees, currently, and I know it will rise, and they’re doing a wonderful job in what is a humanitarian crisis. Our Government has been slow to act. I know James Shaw just previously said we shouldn’t talk about the things that have passed, we should only talk about this point on, and towards the future, but it is true that those other countries are playing their part by taking in people who don’t have homes, people who are running, scared of potentially losing their lives, let alone their freedoms. And yet we are still waiting for the Minister to know whether we can even have Ukrainian Kiwis’ family members come here so that they can be supported, not just to go across the border but to be able to be with their family members, reunited here.

I also want to acknowledge the president of the Ukraine, Zelenskyy. He has done a fantastic job in uniting the people of Ukraine behind a single message to stand and fight for democracy, and stand and fight for their freedoms. And I think it’s in times like these that I’m reminded, actually, of something that I said in my maiden statement, which I never expected would come back around so fast. I reflected at that time on my grandfather having lived through Nazi-occupied Holland, and I had heard many stories about the atrocities that happened at that time, and I said that we should never repeat them again.

The walls of this Chamber here remind us of the sacrifices that people make in times of war, for the freedom and lives not only of themselves but for their fellow men and women in their countries and the countries of others. And these plaques here are a reminder that while we need Government to preserve our freedoms, concentrated power can threaten our freedoms. That is not felt any more strongly than right now, especially for the people of Ukraine who are taking up arms when they never thought they would. Can you just imagine overnight being told you need to obey all the laws and be a good, upstanding citizen and you’ve never even held a firearm before, let alone started creating your own makeshift bombs, and then, overnight, your president is asking you to do that for your country? I cannot even imagine that happening here.

The issue is that Vladimir Putin has been able to get away with bullying for far too long. We have been in a world where a lot of the recently elected leaders preach a lot about kindness, and they pretend that we can solve every problem with just a smile, and talking about being kind to one another. Well, I’m afraid that that does not work when you are met with a dictator. We actually need the ability to hit them where it hurts. That’s the only way they will respond, because we need to be very, very clear: this is not a war against Ukraine; this is a war against democracy. And if Vladimir Putin wins in Ukraine, it will not be the end. Liberal democracy is under threat, not just in Ukraine but around the world, and we need to stand together for collective action.

The United Nations Security Council has failed to allow us to do that in a multilateral situation that we have relied on for years and I hope that we can also rely on in the future. I hope this is not the end of multilateralism and the systems that we rely on to keep peace and security in the Asia-Pacific, for us here. But we also need to have the ability to create economic sanctions and to hurt bullies when they threaten liberal democracy. That’s why we need to pass this law tonight, so that all of the other countries that have passed sanctions unilaterally know that we will stand with them. That we will stand, not as a weak link in the West but as their fellow friend and somebody who will pull our own weight.

We need to pass this law not just for the Ukrainians, although that is extremely important. It is for all of the others that may come in the future, and that’s why this law doesn’t actually go far enough. It is specific to Russia. We need to make sure that if another country does this in the future, like China to Taiwan, they know that we will have their back too, that this will not just be the end, it won’t just be Russia.

In conclusion, we have been slow to pass this framework. We should have had it ready to go. We should have known that something like this was going to happen, especially with the veto powers of the Security Council. It’s not just Russia who has that veto. We need to live in a reality where we acknowledge that the world is messy. You can’t just, you know, smile at a dictator and everything will be fine. We need to use muscle. We need to stand strongly, and we need to condemn the actions of Russia, not with words but with real actions. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to rise in support of this bill, the Russia Sanctions Bill. I also thank the Minister, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, for the excellent work on bringing this bill to the House.

This is an unprecedented bill, introduced under urgency to deal with unprecedented circumstances. Russia’s attack on Ukraine is unprovoked aggression; therefore it’s against the values we rely on for our own peace, security, democracy, human rights, and the international rules-based system. The war on Ukraine is not a Russian war. I do believe it’s wrong to characterise it as such. Perhaps that’s what Putin and his friends want us to believe: that Russia is in a war against Ukraine. We need to call it what it is. It’s a war that’s been carefully designed, planned, and is being waged by Putin and his powerful friends around him. In fact, the brave people of Russia are rejecting this war, and we’ve seen demonstrations on the streets of Moscow and other cities saying no to war, and we have seen how Putin and his security apparatus has responded by crushing them. It’s a personal war for Putin, because Putin is seeking glory, and he wants to be a Caesar of the new Russia, or perhaps even bring back the glory days of the USSR era time. And nothing will stop him unless we do.

We’ve heard a lot of concerns about this bill coming late to this House. I’d like to push back on that, like my friends did as well. I think the Government and the Minister did a fantastic job in bringing this bill in a record time, in fact. I think other parts of the international community—what we are doing his here is right. The timing is right. We just need to keep doing what we’re doing.

I just want to spend my last minute talking about the war and its victims. We have seen on TV screens that already thousands of civilians have died by Putin’s army’s indiscriminate bombardment of cities and civilian targets. Two million have already become refugees and are fleeing to neighbouring countries. Amid all this chaos and the sadness, it’s heart-warming to see the international community coming together to push back on Putin. I know that Putin is now regretting his actions. He’s being hit hard by sanctions, and this is probably going to let the Russian people stand up to him. Even his oligarch friends might turn against him as well. The international community needs to keep the pace, and we must keep punishing Putin until he backs away from this madness.

At the end, I want to also acknowledge the brave people of Ukraine and the way they are fighting, their fighting spirit against evil, and I know that Putin and his friends underestimated the brave people of Ukraine. I commend their bravery and their fight against evil. At the end, I want to acknowledge our Ukrainian community here in New Zealand. Like many other MPs, I’ve been getting a lot of emails and messages from them. Tonight, we’re telling them that we’re standing with you, side by side. We’re standing with you in your fight for democracy. We’re standing with your people, with your Government, and you are not alone. Tonight, this bill, if we can pass it tonight—this bill is a good bill. As a part of the international community, we are doing our part and more. We just need to keep doing what we’re doing. This bill is a good bill. It’s a good night. I commend it to the House.

Our next call is a five-minute call—the Hon Mark Mitchell

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and look, I hope that the previous speaker, who I respect a lot, Ibrahim Omer, is right in terms of President Putin being able to see through the red haze of madness and understand just what he’s up against in terms of international will and the international community and how they’ve come behind and are supporting the people of Ukraine. I hope that that does cut through that haze and he understands and he rapidly starts to step backwards. On that point, and I’ll be very brief, I hope this bill—and we’ve had an assurance tonight in the House by the Minister, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, that this bill will extend to any nation that is providing support—or the sanctions will extend to any nation that is providing support to Russia.

I think it was the Hon Phil Twyford that mentioned Belarus and that the Russians had very kindly offered fleeing refuges safe passage through Belarus. Let’s not forget that Belarus has been used as a place for the Russians to deploy troops. They’ve taken over bases there, they have aircraft placed out of Belarus, and I would like to see that if the international community decides that sanctions are in order, this bill would be able to cover countries such as Belarus or any countries that are providing assistance and support to President Putin and Russia. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I won’t repeat comments made by other members about the harm to Ukrainians, and also to Russians, actually. All our hearts are with them. I really just want to make a couple of points, and one is around multilateralism. I don’t accept that this bill actually threatens multilateralism. Autonomous sanctions, by their nature, are a form of collective action, and they only work when a number of countries actually use them. So I do echo the comments around the United Nations Security Council, and I refer to my predecessor in Dunedin, the former Prime Minister Peter Fraser, who was right in voting against a Security Council veto in the 1940s, all those years ago. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that.

I actually think that the previous speaker, Mark Mitchell, was right when he said in the first reading that diplomacy is probably the only way out of this terrible situation: finding a way for Putin to withdraw, taking into account his complex and stubborn personality. I’m sure that’s how we all hope and pray this will end. When that is said and done, these sanctions will have played their part, so I do hope that Ukrainians are energised by that, both those who we see in the pictures on the TV—and I acknowledge the role of the media in bringing them to us—and also those who are fighting for their country, fighting for their lives, and fighting for the future of their children.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. While the eyes of the world are on Eastern Europe and the actions of Russia upon the sovereign State and their neighbour Ukraine, right now I think of our local Ukrainian community here in Aotearoa New Zealand who, whilst some distance from home, have experienced much pain over recent weeks as their thoughts turn to their family members and their loved ones, as it should. That’s why it’s important for the Parliament, I believe, tonight to be united in passing this law under urgency because it signals to them that we are with them. So I will take a short call and I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Russia Sanctions Bill.

In Committee

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