Goff Phil: Geneva Conventions (Third Protocol—Red Crystal Emblem) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goff Phil: Geneva Conventions (Third Protocol—Red Crystal Emblem) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3522. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 What a curious choice of Minister to introduce this bill the Geneva Conventions (Third Protocol—Red Crystal Emblem) Amendment Bill to the House. I want the House to listen to what Tony Ryall said just a couple of years ago in this very House: “We do not”—and I am quoting from  
Hansard 
—“believe that New Zealand should be constrained by the figment of what the United Nations may or may not state in various conventions.” That is what this Minister said in this House a couple of years ago showing utter contempt for international conventions. What a curious thing it is in the House today that this same Tony Ryall gets up and moves the first reading of a bill implementing an international convention. What will the international community think about this House when a Minister who has shown such absolute contempt for international conventions gets up and moves the first reading of this support for a Geneva Convention? 
I want Mr Ryall to stand up and apologise to this House for the contempt that he has shown in the past out of rabid populism for the observance of international agreements. You know that Minister said that we should have ignored 40 years of observance by successive New Zealand Governments of conventions like the international convention for the protection of civil and political rights and now he stands up in the House and says that this is one that we should observe. Well that is a very bad case of double standards. How ironic after we have just passed one bill in the House to extend a law that would have observed those conventions that the Minister spoke against 5 or 6 years ago that he is now in the successive bill saying that we should observe this one. Well enough of that Minister and those double standards. 
This is a bill that the Labour Party in Opposition supports. In fact it was under a Labour Government that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee ratified this protocol back in 2007. That might seem curious to you. That was 5 years ago and I think this is a lesson to all select committees. This select committee said at the time that this should not be considered a matter of urgency. That is a very very dangerous thing for a select committee to do because 5 years later this Government after dawdling along has decided—after 90 countries have signed it and 60 have ratified it—that maybe New Zealand should do something about it. Again you have to worry about a Government that cannot handle its legislative agenda competently in that way. 
This is legislation that will not unduly encroach upon the time of this House. It is very straightforward. The third protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 which can be ratified following the passage of this legislation is straightforward and it is worthy of support. 
I do not think there is a member in this House who would not respect the work that the international Red Cross and the international Red Crescent do around the world. That symbol in each case—the Red Cross and the Red Crescent—is a symbol of an organisation whose impartiality and independence and safety should be respected. The work that those organisations do in situations of conflict and in humanitarian crises is to be deeply respected. 
What this bill does is enable us to ratify the third protocol which establishes a third emblem. There is not only the Red Cross and the Red Crescent but also this third emblem which has been called the Red Crystal. Why is it necessary to have a third emblem? Well there are countries like Israel which is neither Christian nor Muslim that find it difficult that either of those emblems should be used in a protective way in regard to their country. Equally Eritrea I think was the other country that found it difficult to use the emblem of either the Red Cross which has Christian connotations or the Red Crescent which has Muslim connotations. 
Way back in 1992 I think it was people got together and said: “Well how do we address these sorts of situations?” and in 2000 a joint working group proposed the third additional protocol. In 2005 5 years later that was adopted by a two-thirds majority at the international convention. Even then consensus was not achieved—again largely because of conflict in the Middle East. A number of States representing the Arab League and the Organization for Islamic Conference voted against the adoption of this protocol. That was less about the protocol itself than about a desire by those States that there should be progress in addressing Geneva Convention breaches in the occupied Palestinian territories and a need for improvement in the humanitarian situation in those areas. I respect both of those concerns; I think both of those concerns are well-founded. But that should not prevent New Zealand from supporting the adoption and the ratification of this protocol because it addresses a situation that does require a solution. 
Under the Geneva Conventions New Zealand has an obligation also to prohibit the unauthorised use of Geneva Convention emblems. There is a financial sanction for misusing those emblems and unfortunately in our legislation we put in place penalties that many years after the event no longer have a significant effect. In this case the penalty of $1000 was set in 1987. That is a long time ago. Properly this legislation adopts a bigger penalty of $10000 which is in line with penalty levels for similar breaches. 
By enacting this bill New Zealand will be able to ratify the Third Protocol which entered into force more than 5 years ago on 14 January 2007. We should join with the other 60 countries that have already ratified this protocol. Labour supports the bill accordingly and the sooner we can get this legislation through the House the sooner—belatedly—New Zealand can join with other responsible members of the international community in ratifying this agreement. I just hope that the Minister who introduced this legislation has seen the error of his ways and no longer believes that you can ignore “figments” of United Nations international conventions as he so quaintly but rather rabidly put it back in 2005.