Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): I think in the last few years where the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee has considered bills this would be the one that has demanded the greatest degree of consideration by all members of the committee. While we end up at the end of all of the select committee consideration coming down on two sides of the proposal I don't think it in any way diminishes the desire by all members the committee to get as good a piece of legislation as is possible—albeit that on our side of the House we do not support it.I want to acknowledge the advisers who were available to the committee. It was possible to have quite significant and robust discussion with them and they were very willing to engage in that discussion. I particularly want to acknowledge the contribution made to our deliberations by Sir Ken Keith. To have someone of his capacity his understanding and his broad experience advising us was I think of extreme value. It meant too that where there were positions taken and he asked for time to have a think about those things we could be certain that when he came back there was a degree of thought gone into any proposition far greater than any one of us on the committee might have been able to put in place.We know that this bill has come out of the royal commission subsequent to the investigations into Operation Burnham which occurred in Afghanistan. I think though to suggest that there is any comparison between Operation Burnham and the matters that the previous speaker Dan Rosewarne just raised being dealt with by the Australian military at the present time—where there were very clearly war crimes committed by one particular soldier—is wrong; completely wrong.There is I don't think anyone else in this House at the moment who has been privy to viewing this footage that was available of that particular battle. I would have to say that anyone who was able to see that would find it very hard to point the finger at anyone inside the New Zealand Defence Force who were deployed in the field on that particular day.I think it's important that we recognise that those soldiers were in Afghanistan because the New Zealand Government had committed them to that particular endeavour. They were there working under a set of some rules of engagement—the legals"—for how they would operate. That was approved by the New Zealand Government. Their responsibility was to do their best for the people of New Zealand. There is no doubt in my mind that there was several moments during that battle where large numbers of New Zealand soldiers were in danger of losing their lives.It was an operation conducted with other military forces. We were part of that. While it's good that we were able to come back here and review this with the clear sight that hindsight always provides I think it's important that we recognise that this is unusual; it's not something that occurs every day in the military.I think also we need to recognise that the military in its three branches is very different to any other organisation that exists in New Zealand. They are not a police force. They are not a first responder. They are a military force and they are always going to be when deployed in a position where they will be coming up against people who have nefarious intention toward them. That intention would also of course be directed at us—at our freedoms our lifestyle and all of the values that we have in our democratic society.What concerns me about all of this is that we are somehow saying because of this one incident and because the royal commission has you know—and they did a good job the royal commission of it. No issue with their report or anything like that or for that matter their recommendations. But their recommendations are for us to consider not necessarily enact. I think reaching a conclusion that the operational arrangements for the New Zealand Defence Force should be so significantly changed as this bill is proposing to do is wrong.We ask those soldiers to undertake exercises that are going to see them firing upon people at various times because that's what military forces do. It is I think ludicrous to suggest that we are going to in the future if it was necessary to ask our military personnel to go into a battle zone that somehow they would know at all times there was someone else looking over the top of them—not their immediate superiors not their headquarters staff back home; but someone who is completely apparently independent who is going to decide whether or not what they have done is reasonable.What I fear most is that this will lead to effectively the Inspector-General of Defence becoming the veto operator on defence activities. In other words you have to ask the question: why would anybody in a leadership position in the Defence Force having been asked by the Minister of Defence—therefore the Government of New Zealand—to undertake a particular deployment where they've gone through all the exercise of the rules of engagement and I know that they are extensive. There is no such thing as just "fire at random" in any of these circumstances. There are rules of engagement and they are agreed and they are set down and they are drilled into every soldier. In fact the previous speaker was able to say that when he was on deployment he carried those rules of engagement on his person so that they were known at all times.So there we have it: that they are being prepared to go into a deployment. What I think will happen is that the particular commanders of that deployment will end up going to the inspector-general and saying "This is what we are planning. This is how it's going to work. What do you think?" So you're going to have the supposed line between the Crown—therefore the Government—and the military broken by effectively the Crown deciding to second-guess itself by appointing an inspector-general into an area where very few people will have sufficient expertise to be able to enable the activities of the military recognising that they're within the rules of engagement going to be at difficult circumstances at various times.I want to just repeat again: I think it's a great shame that the footage of that battle is not more publicly available and able to be seen. It can't be because of arrangements that this country has with like-minded countries—and I'll say no more than that. But if people could see that then I think their understanding of the allegations made as a result of the investigations by the journalists and ultimately some of the conclusions of the royal commission would be a little more hard to understand. Because there's no doubt that when the we put soldiers into the battlefield effectively—and they are in a position where they could lose their lives—then there has to be an understanding that they're going to at times respond to those provocations in a way that some people won't like but we have to accept is the role that the military takes on.So we're not supporting this bill because I think it undermines that relationship between the military and the Crown. It further I think puts a degree of scrutiny over the top of the military operation that I don't believe is in all circumstances necessary. I say again that Operation Burnham became the subject of a royal commission because it was rare; because it wasn't something that happens often. I think that to suggest that because of that we change how we do things from this point on forever in such a radical way as this is just a little bit too much."