Mapp Wayne: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8682] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 As members on the Opposition side of the Chamber have indicated already we do support the bill and indeed we always have supported the bill. There was never any question that we would ever hold a different position. In truth as we have well observed the armed forces moved down this path many many years ago. I remember the extensive debates that were held in the Navy and the really difficult challenges it had in introducing true equality. Part of the challenge was about changing culture and part of it was about changing accommodations and so forth on frigates. It was a challenge but the Navy got through it. Now we see women service people throughout the world literally. This Government has a very active policy of deploying forces across the world in the service of peace and stability and the National Party has supported all of those deployments. None of those deployments could now be effectively made without the active participation of women so this legislation is crucial. 
I want to directly draw the Committee’s attention to clause 4—no one has referred to this clause interestingly enough. It is actually at the heart of the bill. The words I refer people to are “in an active combat role” which was a replacement for the words used when the bill was introduced “at the front line”—a prosaic term. This demonstrates a real lapse on the part of the Government. This issue which I have heard Sue Moroney talk about was so hugely important to a Government that prides itself on these sorts of issues that for 7 years it simply let it languish. It had to be introduced by way of a member’s bill. 
I have to remind the Committee that a National Government passed the Race Relations Act 1971 and the Human Rights Act 1993. We have been at the forefront of legislative efforts and Jenny Shipley really drove that 1993 legislation; it was hugely important for changing the legal framework. But this Government let this issue languish in the hands of a member and did not adopt it for 7 years. 
That means of course that one gets not legal language but prosaic language such as “at the front line” as opposed to what would be a more legalistic approach. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee picked up on this as did the submissions from the armed forces so “in an active combat role” was deemed to be much more appropriate terminology. I guess “at the front line” conjures up World War I and all of that. It does not actually reflect modern reality at all. 
I will deal with the meaning of those words “in an active combat role”. What does that mean in practice? It means that women are able to serve in every single capacity in the armed forces irrespective of the danger that those positions represent and also to use the term that the Army would use “to close with and kill the enemy”. That phrase is in the Army’s doctrinal manuals. That is the term it uses for infantry soldiers. In practical terms in short we are asking as a nation that any of our citizens—men or women—who join our armed forces put themselves at enormous risk and in certain circumstances be willing to literally enforce the peace by the use of military force. 
We should be under no illusions as to the significance of that. We should be conscious when we are debating a bill like this as to what the significance of it is. It is all very well to embellish it through terms such as human rights equality and so forth—and those are important values—but this is a bit different from most of the legislation we pass in relation to rights of people. Nevertheless this legislation is necessary because in truth that is the decision women are making when they join the armed forces. They are making conscious decisions and they know that in most practical situations the contemporary enforcement of peace and stability will not usually involve the use of military force. 
Indeed I think that that is a good thing. I have the highest of praise for the work that has been done in the Solomons in East Timor and in Afghanistan. The contemporary environment in respect of the use of our military forces is desirably not the classic approach of using fighter jets aircraft and all of that; it is actually about changing the way that people think in those countries. One does that by way of an active engagement with those people. Certainly these are risky situations. One does not have to build peace in a peaceable country; one has to build peace only in a country that knows conflict. But I believe and we know from experience that raw military force is ultimately not the pathway to do that. To change the minds of people by the force of example is a more effective approach and we can see that in the way that our armed forces have been deployed in recent years. 
I refer specifically to a decision made by Don McKinnon the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade—and it was a political decision; members should make no mistake about that—to deploy our forces into Bougainville in 1994 without weapons. That was done very very deliberately to send a cultural message that the solution to the problem in Bougainville then was not through the use of military force. Yes it required trained military people who were used to dealing with tensions and issues of conflict but we actually had to change the culture there. That has been the case in East Timor and the Solomons and with the provincial reconstruction team. Sometimes of course the threat of military force is necessary as part and parcel of that but it is not inherent on it. 
The reason I am spending a bit of time on this point is because it reflects the contemporary change in peacemaking and peace-enforcement. I guess I would say to our American friends and our British allies in Iraq that there are lessons to be learnt in that; that the pathway in Iraq is in fact building a cultural change to break that cycle of violence. We know that that will be a big challenge. I know the Government knows that it will be a big challenge but it is necessary. I know that Winston Peters in not condemning the troop surge—when he was put on the spot one might say—understood the need to change the culture in there and saw the surge as perhaps providing some of the conditions that would enable that to take place. That is why he would say he wishes them well and why we would say that. I guess that in truth that is why the Government did not really disagree with him. It could see that everyone wants a good outcome there and that that will involve changing circumstances. 
The role of women in the contemporary armed forces will be hugely important and will be part and parcel of that. I know from what people have said that having women in the Solomons was very very important in being able to reach out to people because of the experiences that women bring to those difficult situations. One cannot keep women isolated in certain roles. If they can fill every role they have the best opportunity to reach out. So I did want to put those points on the record because it reflects a changing philosophy in the use of armed forces which is I think a good one. 
National is very supportive of this. We are particularly supportive of the way this bill has been redrafted. We really appreciated the submissions from the armed forces to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. It gave us a really good insight into the contemporary nature of the use of military forces in difficult areas in the world and how one changes the cultures of those countries by example in order to build the culture of peace in those countries