van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand this evening in support of the second reading of the Russia Sanctions Bill on behalf of the ACT party and it is very important that we are passing this law tonight. The situation in the Ukraine is not only devastating for the people currently in Ukraine and those millions who have been driven from their homes to seek refuge in bordering countries but it is devastating for everybody who believes in liberal democracy around the world that we could see the bullying actions of Vladimir Putin not just stand at being bullying but turning into forms of unprovoked invasion in a liberal democracy. I want to take the time to acknowledge the bordering countries of Ukraine who have taken in up to 2 million refugees currently and I know it will rise and they're doing a wonderful job in what is a humanitarian crisis. Our Government has been slow to act. I know James Shaw just previously said we shouldn't talk about the things that have passed we should only talk about this point on and towards the future but it is true that those other countries are playing their part by taking in people who don't have homes people who are running scared of potentially losing their lives let alone their freedoms. And yet we are still waiting for the Minister to know whether we can even have Ukrainian Kiwis' family members come here so that they can be supported not just to go across the border but to be able to be with their family members reunited here. I also want to acknowledge the president of the Ukraine Zelenskyy. He has done a fantastic job in uniting the people of Ukraine behind a single message to stand and fight for democracy and stand and fight for their freedoms. And I think it's in times like these that I'm reminded actually of something that I said in my maiden statement which I never expected would come back around so fast. I reflected at that time on my grandfather having lived through Nazi-occupied Holland and I had heard many stories about the atrocities that happened at that time and I said that we should never repeat them again. The walls of this Chamber here remind us of the sacrifices that people make in times of war for the freedom and lives not only of themselves but for their fellow men and women in their countries and the countries of others. And these plaques here are a reminder that while we need Government to preserve our freedoms concentrated power can threaten our freedoms. That is not felt any more strongly than right now especially for the people of Ukraine who are taking up arms when they never thought they would. Can you just imagine overnight being told you need to obey all the laws and be a good upstanding citizen and you've never even held a firearm before let alone started creating your own makeshift bombs and then overnight your president is asking you to do that for your country? I cannot even imagine that happening here. The issue is that Vladimir Putin has been able to get away with bullying for far too long. We have been in a world where a lot of the recently elected leaders preach a lot about kindness and they pretend that we can solve every problem with just a smile and talking about being kind to one another. Well I'm afraid that that does not work when you are met with a dictator. We actually need the ability to hit them where it hurts. That's the only way they will respond because we need to be very very clear: this is not a war against Ukraine; this is a war against democracy. And if Vladimir Putin wins in Ukraine it will not be the end. Liberal democracy is under threat not just in Ukraine but around the world and we need to stand together for collective action. The United Nations Security Council has failed to allow us to do that in a multilateral situation that we have relied on for years and I hope that we can also rely on in the future. I hope this is not the end of multilateralism and the systems that we rely on to keep peace and security in the Asia-Pacific for us here. But we also need to have the ability to create economic sanctions and to hurt bullies when they threaten liberal democracy. That's why we need to pass this law tonight so that all of the other countries that have passed sanctions unilaterally know that we will stand with them. That we will stand not as a weak link in the West but as their fellow friend and somebody who will pull our own weight. We need to pass this law not just for the Ukrainians although that is extremely important. It is for all of the others that may come in the future and that's why this law doesn't actually go far enough. It is specific to Russia. We need to make sure that if another country does this in the future like China to Taiwan they know that we will have their back too that this will not just be the end it won't just be Russia. In conclusion we have been slow to pass this framework. We should have had it ready to go. We should have known that something like this was going to happen especially with the veto powers of the Security Council. It's not just Russia who has that veto. We need to live in a reality where we acknowledge that the world is messy. You can't just you know smile at a dictator and everything will be fine. We need to use muscle. We need to stand strongly and we need to condemn the actions of Russia not with words but with real actions. Thank you Mr Speaker.