Hughes Gareth: Depleted Uranium (Prohibition) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Depleted Uranium (Prohibition) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 27 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3464. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. That was an absolutely shocking couple of calls from the National members just then. This is a legitimate serious and very prescient issue facing this Parliament and we hear nothing but politics from the National members—nothing but politics. You know it is just like—paraphrasing that famous New Zealander—you can almost smell the depleted uranium coming off their breath. We would like to congratulate the member Phil Twyford. This Depleted Uranium (Prohibition) Bill is a good bill. The Green Party is proud to be supporting it. We are disappointed that National will not be supporting it. You know I did not hear any legitimate arguments why National could not send it to a select committee so we could get the experts we could get the military in we could maybe even hear from some of our allies and thrash out the issues. Instead this party wants to throw it out the door—to throw the baby out with the bathwater. 
It is a significant issue. It has been shown in numerous reports around the world from the United Nations Environment Programme that it does pose a health risk to humans and it does pose an environmental risk. I note that in 2006 New Zealand became a signatory to the UN General Assembly resolution accepting that depleted uranium munitions were a potential risk to health. I do not get what the problem is with sending this bill to a select committee so that we can have this discussion. This bill is a simple bill. It does only a few things. It seeks to ban the possession use sale manufacturing testing and transit of uranium munitions around New Zealand. 
It is important that New Zealand sends a message to the world. We have been a world leader on cluster bombs. We have been a world leader on landmines. We have been a world leader on banning nuclear weapons around the world. The “New Zealand disease” as it was called was the risk that we would spread our nuclear-free zone around the world and it has happened in a number of countries and history has proved us right. I am convinced that history will prove the National Party wrong on this serious important issue. We could have that debate around what impact it would mean for our Defence Force. In fact what I think our New Zealand Defence Force would like is having the legal cover so that its personnel do not have to work with depleted uranium around the world. We know that we are already testing them when they come back from overseas deployments. We want to give them protection so that they do not have to be involved in something that I consider is immoral a significant health problem and something we should be banning. New Zealand if we were passing this law would be sending a strong message to the world. 
I would like to touch on a different point which is the fact that New Zealand has been trans-shipping annually in the last almost two decades through our ports around 5000 tonnes of uranium yellowcake from Australia. The fact is that I have gone through all of the Environmental Risk Management Authority reports and one of the destinations of the Australian uranium yellowcake is a facility in Metropolis Illinois the same facility in the US that produces depleted uranium munitions. I believe that New Zealand is complicit in the international nuclear trade. We are complicit in making it cheaper and facilitating the trade so that the US can manufacture horrible horrible weapons. 
New Zealand should not be part of that nuclear trade and that is why the Green Party is proud to be supporting this bill. We have been a leader on these issues before. History has proven us right. History will prove us right again. It is absolutely disappointing that the National Party is not supporting it but we take our hats off to Phil Twyford. We do not think this is about politics. We think this is about a serious important issue that New Zealanders and people around the world are facing and we congratulate them and wish this bill all the best.