Hughes GarethGARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the Military Justice Legislation Amendment Bill. Look I'll reveal to the House that I come from a military family. Both my parents actually met in the New Zealand Navy; wider family was involved in it. I rebelled: I joined the hippie navy" and went sailing with the Rainbow Warrior instead. But it's an important part of my history and an important part of our country's history. What we're doing today with the support I believe of all parties in the House is aligning and updating our military legislation and making it closer in terms of the progress we've made in the civilian sector with our normal justice system. There are three main positive changes from this legislation regarding victims' rights the onus of proof and those cases where the person is unfit to stand trial.The first is preserving victims' rights. Here you did see a very clear anomaly and separation between the two justice systems. As a result of our 2002 victims' rights legislation those who were unfortunately a victim of serious sexual or physical violence had the right to be informed not only about the application of bail but wider sections such as bail breaches release and escape of offenders who had offended against them. What we know is that that wasn't the case within the military justice ecosystem—a clear separation—and I think for those who were subject to those offences in the military system quite a clear and egregious secondary abuse to them. I know it could be seen as quite a traumatic experience and a re-victimisation when the information just wasn't provided; so I'm glad to see this updated.At the I guess meta-level I want to read a quote from Golriz Ghahraman from the Green Party who was standing in for us on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and heard the submissions: "In this case the discrepancies between the procedural safeguards the standards for fitness to stand and even victims' rights were not in alignment and therefore … not really knowable to those who they apply to. And that kind of discrepancy really kind of undermines the rule of law across those jurisdictions." This is where I think for me it was quite shocking to learn that there was not only a separation but a complete reversal of the onus of proof in the military justice system. I bet that if you surveyed New Zealanders 99 percent of them wouldn't be aware of this and would be quite staggered because it is such an important constitutional point in our traditional justice system. It's great that the onus of proof is being reversed back to what most people would consider a more natural and normal sense.Lastly when it comes to those cases where the alleged offender is declared unfit to stand trial what is happening in this legislation is now aligning it more closely with the civilian justice sector requiring two expert psychiatric reports before someone is declared or considered unfit to stand trial—a much better situation than the status quo in the military justice sector.So look I won't take too much more time except to say that this is positive legislation. I guess on the other side of the ledger while we're also talking about our civilian law as it relates to the military forces I'd like to acknowledge the work of Dr Kennedy Graham a former Green MP who's been pushing successive Governments to sign up to in our legislation the I believe Kampala convention internationally where heads of State can be put on trial when they breach international law when it comes to conflicts abuse of power and invading other nations for example—something I hope to introduce as a concept to this House if members are unaware and something I believe it's high time for our country to sign up to. Kia ora koutou."