Mapp Wayne: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8927] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 National is pleased to support the Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill and I acknowledge the previous speaker Lynne Pillay for moving this legislative amendment. 
I will focus on three issues; firstly the contribution that women play in the armed forces today. This issue is hugely important in the contemporary nature of peace enforcement or of international deployments where New Zealand has a particularly important role to play in building trust and confidence in the places where its peacekeepers are deployed. I know full well that our deep expertise in these areas is noted by other countries. I am absolutely sure—in fact I know for a fact—that that is in no small part due to the cultural changes both gender-based and indeed ethnicity-based that New Zealand brings to contemporary deployments. That has been a very important part of New Zealand’s contemporary role. This law recognises a reality. 
Another issue I wish to talk to however is the issue of national interest as opposed to complying with a UN convention—as important as those issues might be in some areas. We should be passing law because it is in our own interests to do so not because we are required to do so by some UN agency. That is an important point that this Government often neglects. It plays a completely slavish role: anything that the United Nations proposes the Government just meekly and subserviently supports. 
I bring to the House the point that recently the United Nations human rights organisation had to be completely reorganised. This should be one of the centrepieces of the United Nations. One of its roles surely is to defend human rights. But in fact the previous commission was so discredited so bankrupt of observance to principle that the UN itself or rather more accurately those countries that have a deep commitment to human rights in practice—as opposed to merely espousing the language of it—felt they could no longer participate in that organisation and that it had lost its fundamental purpose. 
So a new organisation was created to try to rectify that problem. Do members know what that new organisation has just done? It decided to single out Israel of all the countries in the world as a particularly grievous breach of extending full human rights to women. I guess the women of Saudi Arabia were particularly impressed with that decision. After all everyone in this House knows that every woman in Saudi Arabia can vote can drive a car and has all the other rights that every other woman expects to have! That is of course something that I guess those women are looking forward to in anticipation because in fact they do not have any of those rights. They are extensively discriminated against both in practical terms and through the law. 
Did that UN body decide to make a point about that? No. So I guess this is one of the reasons why National takes perhaps not a sceptical approach but not a slavish approach either that we should be passing a law like we are passing today because it is in our interests. The fact that it happens to also comply with at least the best intentions of the United Nations is a good thing. But I would like the Government to recognise at least occasionally that the UN has some deep and grievous faults and that slavish adherence to every single request by the United Nations does not necessarily serve this country’s interests. 
 We have only to think of the recent visit by Mr Stavenhagen who had exactly the same myopic approach. New Zealand is clearly one of the worst offenders—in his view—in treating people equally. It is that kind of statement that causes many people in New Zealand and not just in the National Party to ask: “For heaven’s sake where is the balance?”. So I say to the Government that when it deals with laws like this—and I suppose the Minister specifically mentioned it; interestingly enough the previous speaker did not do it quite so much—it needs to take a more critical approach. 
We on the Opposition side of the House have always worked to improve the rights of women and indeed of all people in New Zealand. I need to remind Ms Pillay that in fact it was the previous National Government that passed the Human Rights Act 1993 and that was a very important advance for the rights of all people including women. Yes there were things that had to be fixed up and I for one am pleased that this final discrimination has been removed. 
My final point is this however: we should not pretend that these kinds of changes do not have their own kinds of risks. We have only to look at what happened with the capture of the British sailors in Iran. A great deal of pressure was put upon the woman sailor in that situation. I acknowledge that ultimately Iran did the right thing and released the sailors and it perhaps did not particularly mistreat them but there are many countries that would—and indeed have. Non-State actors are particularly notorious for doing this. We should be aware that when we say we are extending our human rights legislation so that it is complete we are also putting people under a degree of risk whereby our people will perhaps be treated differently by those people who do not have such a developed view as we have and that some quite bad things can happen. I am fully aware that when all New Zealanders—men and women—join the armed forces they do know those risks and they take them on with open eyes. I guess that is part and parcel of our having a full volunteer force. But of course circumstances can change as they have in the past. So we need at least to have our eyes open to this risk. 
Yes it is a good day for women today. Yes it is important that our armed forces provide full opportunities to women. Women have felt that that aspect is important in the armed forces and they look to this Parliament to support them in their endeavours. In closing I am pleased to say that National is pleased to be able to support this Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill. But I do put those particular caveats on record because we do look at these issues a little more carefully I suggest than the Government and we do not just accept every UN pronouncement in quite the uncritical way that the Government does.