Goff PhilHon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. Can I just take one minute too to join with others who have formally acknowledged the role of the messengers who will be leaving us this week in Parliament. I have been here a long time; so have many of them. I want to pay tribute to all of them in fact for the loyal and professional service they have given to this House over a very long period of time. Not only have they served us but also they have been our friends and I want to acknowledge them and wish them the best for the future. Labour is of course supporting this bill as we have all legislation that has been designed to suppress terrorist action both at home and internationally. Just in this last week we think of the more than 200 people killed by the bombing in Baghdad—200 people. I read the story this morning of a little girl who was an innocent victim of that bombing only identifiable by a small patch of green cloth which her mother recognised from the dress that she had been wearing. And of course we will do anything in our power to stop that sort of disgraceful and appalling behaviour that is supposedly motivated by a cause religious or political but most likely motivated by the worst side of human nature: the lust for power and control and an utter disrespect for other human beings. By passing this bill we will be able to ratify two further conventions that enable us to support through our laws 14 of the 16 conventions that are opposed to terrorism. But I want to say that if we look at this in context the sheer delay in passing this bill which puts into effect two conventions that were passed in 2005—which is 11 years ago—shows I think that the Government believes that at best this sort of legislation has only a partial impact on suppressing terrorism. I think we should have done this long ago but I also think that we must go far beyond this sort of legislation if we are to defeat terrorism. In particular I think that we need to address the causes of terrorism: the international injustices that give rise to acts of terrorism. It is interesting that the Act that promoted the two conventions passed in 1998 which is the forerunner for this legislation today was in relation to a Palestine Liberation Organization attack on an Italian cruise liner called the Achille Lauro and there was one person killed in that attack a gentleman by the name of Leon Klinghoffer who was an American Jewish businessman who was shot in cold blood and his body and his wheelchair were dumped over the stern of the ship. What was recognised after that act was that there was a gap in the law. An act of piracy is an act apparently done to further your private ends and this was not done for that purpose so the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation was passed to ensure that action could indeed be taken against those who committed unlawful acts against ships and to require the signatories to the treaty that we will be able to ratify by this legislation to extradite or to prosecute the people concerned. So this needs to happen but actually when you look at that instance involving the Achille Lauro you see that it was just one further act of terrorism that evolved out of the international failure to resolve the conflict in the Middle East—the fact that two peoples Israelis and Palestinians have claim over the same piece of land and that we internationally have never been able to deal with the cause of that conflict and to find a solution that was mutually acceptable and just to both sides. And clearly if we are to make a difference in the world we need to do more than simply apply the patch over the offending that is occurring which is what this legislation does and we need to tackle the causes. We also need to be very careful that we as a country do not exacerbate rather than improve the situations that give rise to terrorism. I want to give two examples of where countries have exacerbated the cause of terrorism. The first goes back to the 1980s when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and that country has lived under conflict in the 30 years ever since. And we deplored the self-interested action of the Soviet Union at that time. But it has also been raised in this House that most acts of terrorism that are occurring now including the one that I made reference to arose out of the decision of the coalition of the willing to invade Iraq in 2003. And I for one am proud that this country did not participate in that invasion. We said at the time that the grounds did not exist for that action. I was involved with Hans Blix who was running the organisation to check out whether there were weapons of mass destruction. He told me personally that they could find no evidence. The New Zealand Kiwi soldiers on the ground told me they could find no evidence. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service reported there was no evidence of those weapons. And we said This action will be counter-productive" and it was. We stood away from our erstwhile friends in Australia the United Kingdom and the United States. We withstood the pressure that they put on us to be part of that invasion and I am proud that we stood away from that invasion and worked only to provide humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of it. If it were not for that action we would not have the level of terrorism that has taken hundreds of thousands—probably millions—of lives and that leaves the world today with 70 million displaced people around the world deprived of the things that we would take for granted in terms of stability: a roof over their heads a job and peace for themselves and their families. So we need to be careful in the actions that we take internationally. Thirdly we need to be sure that we here at home address and do not aggravate the conditions that might potentially give rise to terrorism taking root in our country. Tomorrow—I think it will be tomorrow depending on the sighting of the new moon—our Muslim community will be celebrating Eid ul-Fitr. I have many friends in that community and I know that—they tell me—people born in New Zealand who are loyal New Zealanders and who are decent New Zealanders have to put up daily with prejudice and people sneering at their culture their religion their dress and how they observe their religious practices. The most important thing that we can do as a country is not simply to pass legislation like this but to make sure that our country is an inclusive one where people respect each other where people are treated equally where people have opportunity and where regardless of race colour or creed they are treated as New Zealanders with that respect. I know too that when there are problems in that community the people whom we rely on most to put an end to any potential development of illegal or criminal activity are the Muslim community themselves who come to the police who come to the Government and say: "We're worried about this individual. They are a disturbed individual and we think they're being affected by the propaganda they're seeing online." We support this legislation. It is legislation that should pass this House unanimously but we need to think that there are those other things that are far more important for our country to do if we are to defeat the scourge of terrorism and prevent it from ever taking root in this country and suppress it where it is happening internationally."