Smith Lockwood: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Lockwood: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14263] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 We are debating clause 1 “Title” of the Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill. I believe that Parliament deserves to hear from Labour members as to why on earth they seek to pass this legislation. We have already established during the Committee stage of the debate that the agreement the legislation seeks to enable ratification of here in New Zealand was drawn up 15 years ago. The first question I believe Government members should answer is why after 15 years in which New Zealand has not seen fit to ratify that agreement we are now seeking to ratify it. One answer could be that the world has suddenly realised that it needs to be ratified. Maybe one answer could be that countries like the United States of America Australia the United Kingdom or any number of European countries—France perhaps or Germany—all suddenly see that there is a real problem happening in the world and say we should ratify the agreement in order to sort the problem out. 
But that is not the case. Among the countries that have ratified it our closest allies would be Italy and Belgium. They are the only Western countries I can find on the list of those that have ratified or implemented the agreement. Why on earth New Zealand wants to be in bed with Libya has really got me whacked. OK Libya has at least abandoned its nuclear weapons programme in recent times—we should at least give Colonel Gadaffi some credit for that. Or maybe we should give the United States some credit for it because if the United States had not got rid of Saddam Hussein Gadaffi sure as hell would not have given up his nuclear weapons programme. Still I am blowed if I know why we want to get into bed with the few countries that have implemented this agreement—including Libya. Maybe the fact that Togo has implemented the agreement is the reason the Labour Government says we should implement it too. 
There is an even more important issue. Let us not make light of this. The final statement of the majority of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee in the commentary on the bill reads: “There are suggestions including from the Special Rapporteur on Mercenaries”—that is the special rapporteur of the United Nations—“that the Convention should be amended or a new convention negotiated to recognise the role of private military companies and regulate them accordingly. We understand that this is a long-term objective that will be pursued through UN processes and is an issue that the Government may address at a later stage.” Given that the Labour members on the select committee acknowledge that the United Nations itself does not think the convention is satisfactory and the UN’s own special rapporteur says it will not work why is Labour now passing this bill under urgency here in New Zealand 15 years after the convention was initially drawn up when no other countries that we are involved with in any defence activities are doing the same thing? Parliament deserves an answer on that before the Committee stage is abandoned. 
I believe that the Minister in the chair Harry Duynhoven or another Labour member—or a United Future member as I note United Future supports this legislation too—should explain to the Committee why when the UN itself says the convention is not satisfactory New Zealand intends to pass this legislation to ratify it. That makes no sense at all. If the UN had said that although there had not been a big take-up of the agreement and there had not been widespread ratification it still believed it was important to ratify it for certain stated reasons maybe then there would be an argument for doing that. But where is the evidence of that? The UN is telling us that the convention is not very satisfactory and that something else should be done but Labour says it knows better than that and will ratify it.