Collins Judith: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Collins Judith: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8522] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 The National Party supports the Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill. I do not want to take all of my time but will speak just briefly on this matter. 
Jill Pettis 
: Talk for 10 minutes! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Mrs Pettis wants me to speak for the full 10 minutes but time is valuable and I shall stick absolutely to the points. At this time it does not hurt us to recall the fact that right now I understand a British naval servicewomen is being held in Iran. That is in fact what happens on the front line. She is there with her male colleagues as well and I do not want to fail to mention them. This is a serious business. This is not playtime PlayStation Xbox or whatever else; this is serious business. People get killed. It is extremely important that people remember that this bill is about the fact that women have been demanding and will be given the right to go into the front line and to kill and be killed. That is what we are talking about. 
So in view of that it is absolutely essential that we should mention our greatest living war hero Nancy Wake. I know people will groan but frankly I say we should honour Nancy Wake. While I am speaking on this bill I will use an email that I received just over a week ago from several students of Freyberg High School in Palmerston North: Adham Hussein Sophie Swan Laura Balman and Anna Baldwin. They wrote the following: “Dear Ms Collins We are writing to you regarding honouring World War II heroine Nancy Wake. This year our school Freyberg High School Palmerston North is doing her life story as our stage challenge performance. We have emailed Maggie McNaughton from the  
New Zealand Herald  
and have been able to get the current address for the rest home in England.”—so they want to do some work on her. The email goes on to state: “We have done research into her life and are amazed with the achievements she has accomplished and also saddened by the fact that she has not been recognised by the New Zealand Government. Following the research we have undergone we have found that you have supported Nancy Wake and want to make it clear she deserves a medal before it is too late.” They want my support again. 
I know—and the Government keeps pointing this out—that for some reason the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee felt itself bound to take the advice of the bureaucrats and to not recommend that Nancy Wake get an honour. But it is about time the people in this Parliament showed a bit of leadership did something the bureaucrats did not like and gave that woman a medal. Here we are today talking about the Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill and when we are talking about that we talk about the fact that we are sending women into battle. Well actually we already have done that. People like Nancy Wake have been into battle. More than that they have actually done the—unfortunately—dirty business of having to deal with the enemy. They have done that. 
 This Government for some reason utterly beyond my comprehension wants to say that Nancy Wake should not be honoured. She is a New Zealander she has a New Zealand passport she is Maori and she is someone whom we should be honouring. She is our greatest living war hero male or female. She was born in New Zealand has lived in New Zealand and her parents were New Zealanders. In fact there is a photo in Peter FitzSimons’ biography of Nancy Wake that shows her father’s family shop in Rotorua. Yet where do we hear the current MP for Rotorua on this issue? Nowhere. I do not care whether the select committee was hoodwinked by the bureaucrats and bullied by its chairperson Diane Yates. I do not care whether that occurred because I think it is time for this Parliament to do some good on this issue and to stop being a bunch of people who just get led by the nose and do whatever they are told to do by people who do not want to deal with the issues. This woman is still alive. She is in her 90s. Who knows how much longer she will be with us? It is time we did the right thing. 
In our support for the Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill we say this. Let us do the right thing. I hope the Government will join with me and will in fact recommend that Nancy Wake be given an honour in the next honours opportunity—and I hope it is an Order of New Zealand. I hope that this Parliament will put some pressure on various parties to do the right thing.