Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Thank you Madam Speaker. There's a saying that history doesn't repeat but it does rhyme. And the parallels between Putin's Russia and Putin's regime and those of Adolf Hitler are quite remarkable. Both were authoritarians who had or have an ideology of chauvinistic nationalism. Both of them use extensive propaganda and coercion to keep their own populations compliant. If you look at the history pre the full outbreak of World War II there are parallels between say the annexation of the Sudetenland on the Czech borderlands with Donbas and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. There are parallels between the Anschluss of Österreich and the annexation of Crimea and of course also after all of that it was ultimately the invasion of Poland that led the world to act more comprehensively to stop Hitler and his regime. So it is that the invasion of the Ukraine has finally spurred the world to act to stop Vladimir Putin and his regime.The big difference of course—I mean there are many differences—is that in this case the world is attempting to use as little violence as possible de-escalation and the use of sanctions rather than to allow the world to erupt into a more general conflagration which given the presence of nuclear arms would be utterly—utterly—catastrophic. Which of course brings us to the nature of this bill on sanctions.The Green Party will be supporting this bill. We're very grateful to the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for the work that she's done and for her engagement with us in bringing it to the House and in particular bringing through references to the General Assembly into the explanatory note; more on that in a minute. As members of this House know and has been referenced obliquely in a couple of prior speeches the Greens do have concerns about where a more general autonomous sanctions regime could go. Primarily that boils down into the risk that autonomous sanctions regimes could well undermine the multilateral system and the United Nations system. But in this case—first of all this is a very narrow bill that does focus on Russia and its war in the Ukraine. But actually this bill reinforces the UN system in the multilateral system specifically by bringing in that reference to the General Assembly.I would just flag at this point we will be tabling a Supplementary Order Paper later on in the name of Golriz Ghahraman to bring that reference forward into the operative part of the bill. Because I think we have an opportunity here to shape a piece of legislation that explicitly enhances the role that the UN system has given that it's the failure of one part of the UN system i.e. the Security Council that this legislation is even necessary in the first place. Again I just wanted to thank the Minister for her engagement on that particular point. I think if we do get into more general autonomous sanctions legislation later on we hope that we'll be able to carry forward that kind of reference in that piece of legislation when we get to it.We know that the United Nations Security Council itself is dysfunctional and I think the Hon Grant Robertson referred to Peter Fraser who of course at the time that the UN was being formed argued very strongly against the veto. But the United Nations Security Council does not equal the entirety of the UN system. The General Assembly is of course a much wider body. It's a much more inclusive body. It's much more consensus based and in this case it has very strongly condemned the Russian war in the Ukraine. The concern that the dysfunction in the Security Council could be used as an excuse by countries to kind of essentially do what they want to just bypass the UN system in its entirety—and you know we have seen that happen before particularly with the war on terror. So I think it is really important to us to be able to say No this action is itself endorsed strongly by the UN system through the General Assembly."Second of all Russia of course has clearly breached international law. It's committing the crime of aggression. It may well be committing war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity and genocide as well. So it is absolutely incumbent upon us all in the international community to sanction Russia for those crimes and to essentially enhance the role of the multilateral system in doing so. Russia of course is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and it is the one that is committing these crimes of aggression and like I said possibly war crimes and crimes against humanity as well.The other I think useful precedent in this is that this is coming before Parliament. I think being debated in the House—if we were to have a more general autonomous sanctions regime come up then I think preserving that principle as well in each case would be an important part of the oversight and transparency with which any future piece of legislation should take place.I just wanted to turn to one particular aspect—which is a bit oblique in terms of New Zealand's role in this but—it is that around the world the sanctions regime is a bit slow when it comes to oil and gas. I noticed that today the UK and the US have said that they will be phasing out the imports from Russia of oil and gas. I do want to say that those countries that are importing oil and gas and other fossil fuels from Russia are essentially helping to bankroll Putin's war effort even whilst they may be applying financial and other forms of sanction on Vladimir Putin and his regime. That is of course Putin's plan: to get countries hooked on the energy exports that are available from Russia. This really should be the very best excuse for countries to finally wean themselves off what is an incredibly volatile risky form of energy and to move very quickly to domestic energy systems enhance their own energy independence and security and—by the way—clean up their emissions output.The second thing that I wanted to say in conclusion is to the Russian people and this has been brought up a number of times tonight. As we pass this legislation there is a risk that people will read it as a signal to go after regular ordinary Russian people either living here in Aotearoa or around the world. What we want to send them is a very clear message that we know that this war is Putin's war. It is not the war of the Russian people. I would ask New Zealanders not to engage in prejudice against ordinary Russians because of the act of the regime in Russia. It is Putin's war not that of the Russian people.Finally I do want to finish by reflecting where some other speakers started which is on the suffering of the Ukrainian people. It is an appalling time for those people. I don't think that we should lose sight of the fact that we really need to be doing everything that we can when it comes to humanitarian aid and in particular support for the now 2 million refugees that are in the borderlands and Poland and other countries around the outside of the Ukraine. I want to thank the Government for its work in examining family reunification as one way that we can make a difference and hope that we can also see it fit to extend many thousands of places to Ukrainian refugees here in Aotearoa as well. Thank you Madam Speaker."