Anzac Day Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage: I present a legislative statement on the Anzac Day Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon CHRIS PENK: I move, That the Anzac Day Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

On behalf of our colleague and friend the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage with whom this legislation is something of a joint venture, I move that the Anzac Day Amendment Bill be now read a second time, having been introduced in April of this year to provide for a broader and more inclusive commemoration of those who have served our country in wars and warlike operations.

The Anzac Day Act was last amended in 1966, and it currently restricts commemoration to those who served in six specified conflicts, the last being the war in Vietnam. Much has happened since that time. The bill proposed amendments to the Act to take account of the service in more recent conflicts and other operations in which New Zealanders have served, and also so that it would be broad enough to commemorate service in years to come.

We wanted to make sure that it would include those New Zealanders who have served in allied forces in war and warlike conflicts, such as UN missions or multi-force groupings or organisations. It was also intended to commemorate non-military service in a war or warlike conflict, such as service by medical teams, the Home Guard, and the Merchant Navy.

The wording of the present Act restricts recognition of allied forces who landed on Gallipoli in the first allied troops landing to troops from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, when in fact other allied troops also participated. The bill intended to broaden this to include New Zealand and other allied forces.

The bill was referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in April. I’m grateful to the committee, both permanent members and others who made themselves available to consider the important matters being discussed. Of course, we’re also grateful to those who submitted and provided contributions to the consideration of the committee at that time. They considered a number of different submissions on it and, as a result, recommended a number of changes that I consider to be very useful in their report back to the House on 23 September.

I’m very pleased to bring the bill back to the House today with the amendments of that committee as recommended. In brief, the select committee supported the replacement of section 2 of the Anzac Day Act 1966, but they recommended the following changes. They felt that New Zealand’s longstanding relationship with Australia, as reflected indeed in the name Anzac, should be recognised and that the bill should change the Act to commemorate the Gallipoli landing of New Zealand, Australia, and other allied forces.

The committee confirmed and recommended that the amendments should be interpreted as applying to both living and dead service members, including those whose deaths might have occurred outside the war or warlike conflict; not only those who have died in war and warlike conflicts but also those who died in connection with New Zealand military service—for example, those who died during military training—the service of New Zealanders in allied multi-force missions; non-military service in certain circumstances; and service that has now taken place and also service that will take place in the years to come.

Importantly, the committee also emphasised that the Act is not and should not be prescriptive and it should be open for communities and individuals to commemorate and reflect on Anzac Day every year as they see fit. The committee’s changes have made this a better bill. I’m delighted that they have recommended that it be passed, and I support the amendments and recommendations that they have made.

I also, of course, want to take a moment to thank all those who have served in the way that the bill will ultimately recognise in that broader fashion. Anzac Day is a special day in the calendar for New Zealand and elsewhere; so too is Christmas. I take this opportunity to wish you, all your presiding officers, and fellow members of the House of Parliament across the aisle and on our side too a very Merry Christmas, and I look forward to seeing you in a happy New Year. In the meantime, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In the Johnsonville Rugby Club, in the heart of the Ōhāriu electorate, there’s a plaque on the wall. The name on that plaque is Leon Kristopher Smith, who was killed on 28 September 2011 in Maidan Wardak Province in Afghanistan. Every year, the club holds a ceremony—he was an old boy of the club; an old boy of Onslow College—and his mother and other family members attend. Interestingly enough, Leon Smith, under the current rules, is not eligible to be celebrated on Anzac Day.

This bill, and this is the reason why we do support this bill, means that people like Leon Smith—who died an absolute hero and received the New Zealand Gallantry Decoration and the Charles Upham Bravery Award for an operation; not the operation in which he unfortunately died but one just a month before in Kabul. So to bring Leon Kristopher Smith within the recognition of Anzac Day is very noble and something that we do agree with wholeheartedly on this side of the House.

Having come from the police service—and I know that the Minister has been in the service himself—there is a tendency to think that those things that we’ve been involved in were real and the ones that came after just weren’t quite. Very good evidence of that were the RSAs themselves. Second World War vets had to fight to get the recognition to go to the RSA, as did the Korean War vets, and as did subsequently, in fact, the Vietnam vets. It was only very latterly that “That wasn’t a real war.” That was reflected, too, in some of the submissions received by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—“Why change it?”; “Really, this was about the First World War.”; “This was about those.” There’s only six at the moment—there are only six areas, or war theatres, that are actually recognised, and this will broaden it. That started with the South African War—although, interestingly enough, the South African War was only brought in in one of the later changes. It started off with the First World War, and the latest one, of course, is the Vietnam War now.

Many of the members who were here will remember the plaque over the door which is for the New Zealand Wars. Actually, it was only when I happened to be overhearing one of the guides bringing people through that I realised this is actually officially a war memorial in here. And the fact was that the very first sort of war involving Europeans and Māori wasn’t recognised—so I don’t think anyone would begrudge that recognition there now.

So, again, this does make sense. As I say, there’s a natural tendency for people—and we saw that in the submissions—not to broaden it out, because there’s a fear that somehow we’re watering things down. I respect that people do have those views because they will have in mind someone—whether it be an uncle; it might have been a great-grandparent or great-grand-uncle; it seems to be a lot of people have great-grand-uncles who perished in the First and Second World Wars—and they’re the ones that they go looking for when they go to the Commonwealth war cemeteries. And there’s probably not many of us for who, if we look back through, there isn’t somewhere from either Gallipoli right through to France and Passchendaele and into the latter war cemeteries where there’s not someone who we’re related to.

So broadening this out—why it does deserve to broaden out. It’s a little bit unspoken, but in the world—and we do celebrate these things—increasingly, as we look at the demographic of New Zealand, the reality of it, and we don’t like to say it, is some of the people who now form quite large parts of our population probably weren’t necessarily on the same side in some of these conflicts. So we’re able to recognise that, actually—and going back to Leon Kristopher Smith—it’s actually individuals who’ve died, individual tragedies that we’re celebrating, and individual deaths or acts of heroism. So what it comes back down to is—and, again, if there are those watching that think this is somehow diminishing the actions of those who went before us, just think that—actually, the act of lying there, knowing that you’ve done your bit for your country, and knowing that you’re probably not going to go home is what we’re really celebrating here.

I can always remember reading about the Battle of Passchendaele. Passchendaele—while we talk much about what happened at Gallipoli, in fact, the second Battle of Passchendaele was a terrible day for New Zealand. I think 830 died on one day there. I remember an account of that battle. There was a sergeant from the Canterburies lying there; someone had a report of this person who had been wounded so many times and continued to fight. Nobody ever knew what finally happened to him; I don’t even think he was actually identified personally. Often when I think about the sacrifice people make, that is the one—it just probably took me at the right time—that comes to mind.

So next year, when we’re celebrating Anzac Day and when, you know, we do have our parades in every town and city—and I think it’s fantastic that we can drive through; there’s hardly a small town or a hamlet anywhere in New Zealand that doesn’t have one of those war memorials on it—the fact we can now understand is that it’s the act of sacrifice, it’s the act of giving your life, your health, or whatever we do for our country, that we are really celebrating.

I just can’t help but also think that there are many ways that people do give their lives. I do have to mention the Tā Wira Gardiner case. People will remember Tā Wira Gardiner. He died from glioblastoma, which is recognised as something that is brought on or caused by agent orange. When you look at a death like Leon Kristopher Smith, they are the ones we sort of do understand, but there are a lot of people who carry the scars and ultimately the deaths. The case of Tā Wira Gardiner is still under way. I just hope that those who will be making decisions as to whether that will go back to court—without turning this too political. Sometimes the long, slow deaths that result from some of these deployments can, in their own way, be worse than those where the actual death can come much more quickly, and those that are left behind—and it so often is about those who are left behind—can actually deal with it. In the case of Wira Gardiner’s family, of course, the family—in fact, even the fact that they’ve kept the case going there is in commemoration for Wira Gardiner because he wanted to know that even after he’d gone, those that came behind would benefit from him.

But going back to the bill there, again, we have no hesitation in supporting this. I just hope that next time we are celebrating Anzac Day, commemorating Anzac Day, whichever way we actually do spend the day ourselves, we just take into account that there’s a lot more now. It’s part of our history. It’s locked in. You know, World War II and those six conflicts that we celebrate, they are locked in. But let’s not hesitate to lock in a few other conflicts that bring about the same loss as many of those wars did. I end on just respect again for Leon Kristopher Smith. I recommend this bill.

Just to let the member know, this debate will be interrupted at 4.30, but, if there is some excess time, the member will be able to have that in the next opportunity.

Oh, OK, feel free to cut me off.

As it is the last time for me to be speaking in the House today, probably—possibly to the profound relief of people on the other side and perhaps some on this side—let me begin by wishing you a merry Christmas and all other members a merry Christmas as well, and also acknowledging the real heroes of the House, the workers and the clerks who keep this place functioning as well. So merry Christmas to everyone. I’ll get that out before I get cut off, Madam Speaker.

Thank you.

TEANAU TUIONO: I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak on the Anzac Day Amendment Bill, and we will be supporting this bill. We will be supporting this bill, and it’s not just that it’s Christmas; it is something that we have considered as a party and we’ve considered as a select committee as well. So it’s a good way to finish off the year—to find a bill that’s actually got support all around the House.

As other members have talked about as well, we canvassed a number of submitters that came to the select committee. I’m on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and people were passionate. There were some that thought that the bill was being broadened too much, some that thought it was far too narrow and needed to be more conclusive. So what I thought we did as a committee was to try to find that balance. I acknowledge that Minister Penk sort of took that on board when he said, “Well, you don’t want to have an exhaustive list of a whole lot of things, but you want to be able to make space so that people are able to commemorate and to remember those that have gone before.” And that was the balance that we were trying to get as a committee, because stories are personal to different families, and each family and each community has different stories as well.

There were a number of submitters, for example, that wanted to look at the role that the New Zealand Wars would be included. We have got the Hon Peeni Henare on the committee as well, and he reminded me that, actually, there are ways for that to be commemorated. And in this I’m talking about Te Pūtake o te Riri he Rā Maumahara, a day on 28 October where we remember the Land Wars. I guess, for me, it’s letting people know that how you commemorate Anzac Day is how you commemorate it—we don’t want to be prescriptive. So if that is how you remember Anzac Day, on your marae or at your church, then kei te pai.

I think about that in terms of my own personal story and of my own history. I was thinking back to my own tīpuna, actually, who went to Ruapekapeka to fight the British. So they go to Ruapekapeka to fight the British, and then, a generation or two later, my great-grandfather and Hana’s brother sign up in the Māori contingent to go and fight for the British against the Germans in World War I. And often we think about history being this far away thing, but I remember as a young child actually meeting my great-grandfather, and he passed away in the 1980s. And so when he was born, it was a couple of decades after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. So when he was born, there actually were people still walking around that were around during the events of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

So history is not that far away. I think it’s important that we are able to have spaces for people on their marae and their churches and all their different communities to commemorate in the ways that they see fit. It would be different for my family as it would be different for a number of other families.

If you look at the select committee report, it’s not actually a very long report, but we did deliberate over it, I think, quite carefully to sort of make sure that we canvassed the issues that submitters were bringing to the committee, because it was very important. It was very important for us to find that way to make sure that people are able to commemorate, to hold that space for what Anzac Day is about, but also to make sure that people have that flexibility to be able to commemorate that in the way that is best for them.

There are different amendments that we suggested as a select committee, and those are around clause 4. Clause 4 amendments propose to replace section 2 of the Act, and new section 2 would remove the list of specific conflicts from the Act as well. We had a discussion about recognition versus commemoration, and we fell down more on the side of commemoration. So that gives people the ability to say, “Well, actually, this is the experience that I have; this is the experience that my family have as well.” We also spent quite a bit of time talking about those that died in service and warlike conflicts, but those, also, who died as a part of their training as well. So making sure we can find a way to fold in those important aspects as well.

But at the end of it—and I think I’ve got less than a minute—is to make sure that people can continue to commemorate and remember their loved ones, to find space for others within these commemorations, not to be prescriptive, and to allow people to commemorate Anzac Day in the best way possible.

So I see everybody is coming into the House. They know I’m just about to wrap up and they’re enthusiastic about it.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: We came for you!

TEANAU TUIONO: They’ve all come for me, Mr Speaker. So let me end by wishing you, Mr Speaker—because we’ve had a change—a very, very merry Christmas. Let me once again acknowledge all members of the House and hope you all have a have a good summer break and a very merry Christmas. On that, I think that might be the time where you cut me off. Merry Christmas, everybody.

This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day.

Debate interrupted.