Turei Metiria: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 25 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1895. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]1.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement “Get some guts and join the right side”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Absolutely I do.Metiria Turei: Will the Prime Minister take his own advice to “Get some guts” and stop negotiating a trade deal with Saudi Arabia a regime that executes children?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.Metiria Turei: How does the Prime Minister reconcile negotiating a trade deal with Saudi Arabia where children are imprisoned for life and publicly flogged while claiming the suffering of children as a justification for going to war?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The New Zealand Government through successive foreign Ministers and through the ministry for a long time has advocated strongly for human rights and stood up and made clear our concern when we see those incidents. That does not stop us from negotiating free-trade agreements with countries about which we have some concerns about their human rights. We have done that over successive Governments.Metiria Turei: Why will the Prime Minister not make any trade deal with Saudi Arabia conditional on the Saudi Arabia regime halting the execution of children?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As I said earlier—I stand by my answer to the last question—we advocate strongly for human rights but that is not a condition for which we set a free-trade agreement nor has it been for the Labour Government. But of course we would also need to look at the conditions and the claims the member is making and check the veracity of them.Metiria Turei: Will the Prime Minister take his own advice to “Get some guts” and make the $20 million in aid he gives to Indonesia each year conditional on the Indonesian regime not shooting dead children in their school uniforms?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Again we would have to check the veracity of the member’s statements; they sound fairly outrageous. Again I stand by the same record which is that New Zealand gives humanitarian aid because the aid is actually aimed at supporting the people who are most in need. Like many countries they cannot always necessarily control who is in charge.Metiria Turei: Can the Prime Minister explain if child soldiers are a reason to go to war in Iraq why then not go to war in Nigeria where Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of children and recently murdered a 7-year-old girl by using her as a suicide bomber?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The Government is outraged by what we see in Nigeria with Boko Haram. We continue to follow the principles that we are also following in Iraq and Syria and Libya and other countries which is in relation to the diplomatic and humanitarian work that we do. The Iraqi Government in particular has asked for help in relation to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and we believe that in doing that we are not only supporting the people of that region but actually supporting New Zealanders themselves. I heard the member saying to the press gallery words to the effect that we should live in some cocooned world where we do nothing because somehow New Zealanders will be safe. Well I am sorry about that but New Zealanders travel and there are domestic terror threats from ISIL whether that member wants to accept that or not.Metiria Turei: So is the Prime Minister telling this House that he will accept taking economic benefits through trade deals from countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia and others where children are routinely tortured where they are imprisoned and where they are murdered by those regimes and he thinks he is doing it in New Zealand’s name?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am simply making the point that there are many countries in the world that New Zealand has free-trade agreements with—and has negotiated those across successive Governments—about which there are human rights concerns that we have and we raise those issues.