Donnelly Brian: Armed Forces Law Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDonnelly Brian: Armed Forces Law Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 October 2007. Volume:642;Page:12244. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First): My father who saw active service from 1940 to 1945 served in both North Africa and Italy. He went to his grave really resentful about a statement that had been made by a Governor-General in addressing defence forces. He started off by saying “Gentlemen of the air force men of the navy boys of the army”. Dad never ever forgave him for that.I mention that little anecdote because it demonstrates that we have moved on from archaic attitudes and therefore we have to move our structures and our legal procedures on a regular basis as a result of that. For example we no longer would even consider tolerating things like keelhauling or using cat-o`-nine-tails and those sorts of things. I think they have gone. Some people might advocate using them from time to time but even the gentleman beside me Ron Mark would not go as far as that. Nevertheless this is really what this Armed Forces Law Reform Bill does.It is worthwhile noting the age of some of the Acts that this bill amends and updates such as the Courts Martial Appeals Act 1953—in other words it is 54 years old. So it is certainly timely that Parliament hasrelooked at how these things are worked out in terms of the modern world view. The Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971 was also put in place quite some years ago and society has moved on enormously from that particular time in the way we consider how our citizens should be treated be they those on the main street or within the armed forces.I refer to the fact that comment has been made by a number of members about how the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee worked very much in a bipartisan way on this bill. The bill is of course non-controversial although one can see from the report back—and I was not on the select committee—that a lot of technical work and really considered thinking was done around getting the bill back to the House in the form it is in.I must admit the first select committee I ever served on was the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and in fact Dr Mapp was on that committee at that time. I can say if nothing else that he took the role extremely seriously in terms of trying to make sure the select committee came up with appropriate decisions. It really does beg the question that was raised by the Hon Phil Goff. If a select committee such as this one can work in such a bipartisan way in terms of getting the law around military discipline correct then why is it not possible to get the same sort of bipartisanship in terms of our defence policy?Dr Wayne Mapp will recall that at the time Derek Quigley was the chair of the select committee and we did a very very good report on the Defence Force theInquiry into Defence Beyond 2000. The select committee concurred with most of that and I do not think members will find much in the way of minority reports but that was very much a bipartisan inquiry. It is disappointing that the two old parties particularly cannot put aside the adversarial nature of the first past the post system and be able to sit down and ask what the most important thing is that this country actually needs. It is to ensure the security of its citizens and I would say that we should work together on that. Members can still play games around public-private partnerships and agree to differ on those sorts of things. I applaud the members of the select committee because we can certainly see that they have done a very very good job in working on this bill to get it where it is and to achieve the ends of what the bill set out to do.I will bring up one or two other points. One is about media freedom. The bill still allows for the exclusion of the media where there is any potential danger of harm toNew Zealand or where the information might be directly or indirectly useful to any enemy of New Zealand and that is how it should be.I conclude my remarks on this call by saying this. Although things have changed and I have referred to some of those changes in attitudes and ideas one thing has not changed over all that time—that is the quality and bravery of our Defence Force members. I refer back to the very very appropriate awarding of the VC to WillyApiata. His bravery would have earned a VC at any time in the past.