Locke Keith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Locke Keith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18347] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Prime Minister in her first speech for the year said: “We have forged an independent foreign policy record we can be proud of. We continue to place disarmament human rights and engagement in peace making at the forefront of foreign policy.” The Green Party certainly supports such an approach and there is much we can be proud of in that respect. New Zealand continues to promote complete nuclear disarmament as part of the New Agenda Coalition of countries we have done good peacekeeping work in East Timor and the Solomons and we are among the best countries in terms of the promotion of international human rights. 
Phil Goff stuck his neck out in promoting an international tribunal to bring to justice the Indonesian military officers who oversaw the massive violations of human rights in East Timor before independence. The importance of such a stance has been shown by the acquittal of every military officer brought to trial in Indonesia for offences committed in East Timor. That has left the military with the attitude that it is above the law which unfortunately is what we see in Aceh today. That arrogance has seriously impeded the delivery of aid to the many victims of the tsunami. The Indonesian military seems more interested in continuing the war against the Free Aceh Movement and lining its own pockets than in helping the people of Aceh in their hour of need despite a ceasefire order from the new President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. 
However it does not help us to advance human rights on a world stage when our Government is undermining them in some serious ways at home. On this very day in the Supreme Court just across the road from Parliament our Government is arguing that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security should not have to take into account our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and international refugee law in ruling on the security risk certificate against the former Algerian MP Ahmed Zaoui. On that matter it is unlikely that the Government will be any more successful in the Supreme Court than it was in the High Court or the Court of Appeal or than it was in all the other court cases against Mr Zaoui all of which it has lost. Just before Christmas the Supreme Court issued a warning to the Government that it cannot keep a refugee like Mr Zaoui in jail indefinitely without charge. After 2 horrible years in jail Mr Zaoui is now on bail and is loving living in the real New Zealand—the one without the bars on the windows—and loving mixing with ordinary Kiwis. 
In some areas such as in the passage of the Civil Union Bill last year Labour members do respect human rights but when the pressure comes on from George Bush for nations to fall in line with his war on terror and all the breaches of human rights that go with it this Labour Government buckles. Be it using the security risk certificate procedure against Mr Zaoui or bringing in legislation like the Terrorism Suppression Act or handing the police and security services more surveillance powers the traffic is unfortunately in one direction: to reduce the freedoms and the rights to privacy of ordinary New Zealanders and to increase the power of politicians and civil servants over what we can do with that power being less and less constrained by the courts. 
 We have all seen at Abu Ghraib prison at Guantanamo Bay and most recently among British soldiers in Iraq what happens if we take judicial restraints off soldiers prison guards and other officials; when we let them put into effect George Bush’s so-called war on terror human rights go out the window. New Zealanders are waking up to this which is why there has been so much support for Ahmed Zaoui and why the Government is not getting a free run with its Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill which gives to a political figure—that is a Minister—the right to take away a New Zealander’s passport on very loose national security grounds. 
This year the Greens will be trying to convince Labour to take another path: to consistently uphold human rights to promote peace and to have us pull our weight in overseas development aid. As a nation we must have a timetable to get us up from the pitiful 0.23 percent of gross national income currently devoted to overseas aid to the international standard of 0.7 percent which we committed ourselves to at the UN millennium summit a couple of years ago. We should take note of the petition launched today by the Council for International Development here in New Zealand that a definite timetable be established to reach that target by the year 2015.