Mark Ron: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Mark Ron: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14261] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 One has to laugh does one not to read such a clause. I tell Mr Power that I tried to read that same clause three or four times and I think his point is well made. I do not for the life of me understand why the Minister is not now scratching out an amendment to that with the assistance of his staff because it is an absolute nonsense and it is no wonder that lawyers make so much money out there when this Parliament produces paragraphs such as that. 
I want to come now to clauses 15 16 and 17. It is interesting that under the heading “Investigation and prosecution of offences against Act or referred to in Mercenaries Convention” clause 15(1) states: “Sections 16 and 17 apply whenever the Attorney-General receives information that there may be present in New Zealand a person who has committed or is alleged to have committed an offence against article 2 article 3 or article 4 of the Mercenaries Convention.” Then we get into a whole series of questions that I guess have to be asked and I am going to ask them of the Minister right now. 
The first is: what happens when the Attorney-General is told that there is a person in New Zealand who is recruiting people who someone believes will be mercenaries—and therefore he is a mercenary—what is to be done? Do we go and knock on the hotel door of the said chap who might be from the United Kingdom or the United States or who might well be here at the behest of the CIA or of any of Britain’s intelligence agencies looking to recruit good competent highly professional New Zealanders with good moral values and ethics to go and—say for example—chuck the Soviets out of Afghanistan after their having invaded Afghanistan? 
 Will the Attorney-General of New Zealand bring to the courts in this land an American or a British officer or a person operating or working on behalf of the British or American Governments? When the New Zealanders who have been say in Iraq doing the work that they are alleged to have been doing are found what will we say? “The State where the offence was committed was Iraq.” Oh OK. “The State in relation to where the offence was directed or attempted was Iraq.” OK. “The State in relation to which any person against whom the offence was directed or attempted is a person of the kind referred to in article 10 blah blah of the Mercenaries Convention who was Saddam Hussein.” Oh OK. So we will prosecute that person for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. What is worse is we will prosecute that person for working with legitimate Government agencies as a private contract officer to overthrow some other tinpot dictator in a country that he or she has invaded or taken control of. 
Will the New Zealand Attorney-General seriously go head-to-head with intelligence agencies of allies who are seeking to make the world a better place through using New Zealanders of good moral and ethical values who have served 25 or 30 years in the New Zealand Army and are veterans of Sierra Leone Cambodia and East Timor? Will we seriously throw those people up in the courts prosecute them under these clauses and slap them in jail for 14 years? What will be the reaction of the average Joe Blow on the street to that? I suggest that the average New Zealander would say that it is ridiculous and absurd. It is unworkable and there is the potential in the bill for a diplomatic row or argument we do not ever want to have particularly if on the same weekend the Prime Minister is over there trying to negotiate a free-trade agreement I suggest. 
What would then happen to any of the allegations in this spurious ambiguous legislation—which might even have been maliciously brought—when this Government engaged in another round of free-trade discussions with the United States? Well I will tell members what would happen. They would be thrown out—or would they? Would this Government and Attorney-General seek to make an international political row over such an issue and accept the consequences of that? Now I am waiting to hear the answer because the procedures that are laid out here raise—to me—the potential for a huge diplomatic problem. So we will arrest some of the people who come here looking for good professional honest officers and NCOs of integrity to go into places like Iraq to try to rebuild it. 
Will we tell police officers with exemplary service records that if a charge is laid against them because they have been actively engaged in combat actions whilst being paid more than local people and not being a national or a citizen of Iraq the moment someone lays a charge back here—despite the fact that those officers might well have been recruited by a British company at the behest of the British Government—we will now charge them and all the people involved? I do not think so. I think this is rubbish.