Huo RaymondRAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'd like to acknowledge the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. The committee conducted the International Treaty Examination of the War Crimes Amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. I am not a member of the select committee and did not participate in the process so pardon me if some of the issues I raise here have already been covered at the select committee.The war crimes amendments are two separate sets of amendments to the Rome Statute. We support these amendments. For New Zealand to legislate for specific offences corresponding to those set out in the war crimes amendments two pieces of legislation will need to be amended namely the International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act 2000 and the Crimes Act 1961. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was the treaty that established the ICC or the International Criminal Court. At present 139 States are signatories to the Rome Statute and 122 States have incorporated it into their respective domestic law. New Zealand signed the Rome Statute in 1998 and incorporated it into domestic law through the International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act 2000. The Rome Statute is based on the principle of complementarity meaning it exists alongside domestic law rather than above it. In order to ratify the war crimes amendments State parties do not need to pass new domestic legislation to include the expanded list of war crimes. New Zealand will need to introduce amending legislation to extend the current definition of war crimes" in the Schedule of the International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act and the Crimes Act which is what we are doing. I do have questions to ask but given the nature of such calls I'd like to ask only one which is around the definition in the advice attached to the select committee commentary in terms of expanding bullets. Under the amendments the State parties resolved to criminalise and bring within the jurisdiction of the court the use of a number of weapons as well as expanding bullets. According to the additional information or advice prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade which is attached to the select committee commentary I read out "Expanding bullets are commonly used in law enforcement situations … This type of bullet expands or flattens on impact and therefore does not penetrate the target. For this reason"—the advice concludes that—"expanding bullets are used by police or armed forces in certain contexts to avoid incidental civilian injury or damage." That's on page 4 of the additional information or advice which was attached to the select committee commentary. The statement was obviously correct but I feel it only spelt out one aspect of the statement without explaining clearly the other half of the story. This piece of advice appears to be incomplete and definitely contrary to the impression we would otherwise have. It is particularly so after the recent terror attack in Christchurch where the local mayor called for a ban on expanding bullets which are designed to do great damage. Expanding bullets are designed to well expand and make a bigger wound channel and kill quickly. They create wounds that are almost impossible to fix. The nearly 100 victims shot in the 15 March terror attack in Christchurch were struck by a type of expanding bullet designed to do maximum damage inside a body and that's the reason why local mayor Lianne Dalziel called on the Government to go further with banning such expanding bullets.Following the tone of the advice the only way expanding bullets are used to avoid incidental civilian injury or damage is that the bullets would expand upon impact and therefore can be used to avoid over-penetration. In other words expanding bullets are designed to not travel through the intended target. For hunters it is a kind of a humane way for them to kill animals without causing too much pain by killing the animals instantly and quickly.However without explaining that part clearly it is difficult to understand why the amendments we are dealing with would ban such bullets along with a number of other weapons and why the committee would hope that the amendments would discourage the use of inhumane weaponry."