Locke Keith: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Locke Keith: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7710. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 On behalf of the Green Party I will deal with a different provision in the bill. It is to do with the export of strategic goods—goods that could be used for a military purpose. It is good that the bill elaborates further on these exports compared with the previous legislation because we do not want to be in the business of exporting components of nuclear weapons biological or chemical weapons or weaponry that may be used by people who in terms of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s criteria are in violation of international humanitarian law or who may use the arms to contribute to regional conflict. That is another aspect of the regulations that are separate from this bill. 
This bill lays down a set of criteria that exporters have to go through. There are huge volumes on bits and pieces of equipment that one is not allowed to export. As I indicated one has to take into account the country that something is going to as well as the nature of the export. There has been quite a debate over the export by Rakon of oscillators that could be nuclear-hardened or shock-hardened specifically for military purposes. That activity was funded by Rockwell Collins which is a military corporation. 
That debate took place about a year ago but even before that there was another good illustration. Oscmar International based in Auckland was producing a particular harness called the Manworn Laser Detection Harness. The firm was exporting that around the world. One of its contracts was with the Israeli Defence Force. In answer to a written question from myself to the then Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade it was admitted that the ministry turned down the export licence for Oscmar International to export the harness to Israel. It was turned down in March 2004 and the declining of the application was confirmed in June 2004. 
Where this bill is a bit relevant to that is that it appears from reports that once the application was turned down and the company could not export the laser harness itself it then through computer technology emails and putting things on disks and whatnot transferred that technology to San Diego and Mexico where other affiliates of the company existed. I presume that the harness was then done up and exported from there to Israel because as everyone knows America is the main supplier of military weaponry to Israel. This bill refers a lot to electronic goods as well so under this bill it would be an offence for Oscmar to do that. So the bill is helping in that respect. 
There is another problem in this export area. It has come up also in the discussions the Green Party has had led by our co-leader Russel Norman on whether the Superannuation Fund should be put into firms that produce cluster bombs or bits of nuclear weapons. One reply when we brought that up was that big companies like Boeing produce all types of equipment some for civilian purposes some for military purposes and that we should not knock them for doing the military stuff. 
I think that that was part of the debate over Rakon too. Rakon was saying that it was producing oscillators for civilian purposes as well but the counter-argument which I think would be covered by this bill was that the oscillators were being specifically produced to military specifications—and Rakon was producing equipment to military specifications and being funded in the tens of thousands of dollars to do so by Rockwell Collins. Hopefully the bill covers that situation and the export would be prevented. 
There is also another question that is always very debatable when we talk about the destination of equipment and that is whether the country concerned is violating international humanitarian law in terms of what the Government calls the criteria for assessment of export applications. I would say—and it relates to the debate we have been having over the last day in Parliament—that the United States is violating international humanitarian law and that we should be very cautious about what military equipment we export to it.