Mapp Wayne: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14237] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 National is opposing this bill and there are particular and deliberate reasons why we do so. In fact the set of circumstances set out by the Green Party tells us why the bill as it has come back from the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee fails to meet the requirements necessary for National to support it. 
National did vote for this bill to go to a select committee and we do recognise that there is a category of people—the private army if one will—whose activities should be prohibited. A number of people from across various parties have referred to cases in particularly Africa where persons are recruited who would never form part of the armed forces of a particular nation but who are there effectively to create mayhem. They are not in the category of bodyguards and they are not contracted to assist—as for instance occurred in Iraq where Mr Bremer had privately contracted bodyguards—but they are there in the classical sense of the mercenary. They are a private army undertaking armed conflict creating havoc death destruction and instability and often overthrowing legitimate Governments. If the bill was limited to that and precisely aimed at that National would have absolutely no doubt that to support it was the right thing to do and I believe that every party in the House would have shared that view. 
I guess the benchmark is this—and I will refer to the situation of my colleague Ron Mark because it has been referred to in the past. As he has stated many times in this House he was contracted to join the Sultanate of Oman’s army. It was largely arranged through the British Government so he was in a sense an instrument of foreign policy. There would be no doubt and it would be common knowledge that people recruited in those circumstances were paid more than local citizens; that was never in any question. Yet this bill would capture someone in the situation that Ron Mark was in in 1990. 
The action of people with particular skills joining the army of a legitimate Government in order to provide those specialist skills is a long tradition and is commonly used by many countries—often with the blessing of many democratic countries because it is designed to reinforce stability in those countries and in fact has done so. If the select committee had used its wit and wisdom to ensure that the situation Major Mark was in was excluded then there would have been no doubt that National would support the bill. But to find a definition set out carefully in clause 5 that was fully considered by the select committee and that still effectively covers that situation—the Greens say it does and so does the Government—tells us that the bill is wrong. Surely the Government should have taken on board the countries that are not signatories: Britain the United States Australia and Canada. Those are countries from which highly skilled military professionals are often recruited by particularly Middle Eastern nations to form part of their armed services. Those people are under the normal chain of command; they are not a private army or anything of that nature. 
For this bill to capture them is I think a case of New Zealand essentially trying to have an expression of political correctness. The idea of prohibiting mercenary activities sounds reasonable on the face of it. What person would want to support a mercenary in the classical sense? The answer is that very few people would. But the way that this convention was pulled together and the way that the select committee did not then do a proper job of limiting the application of the bill show that the Government was not serious about the convention but rather simply wanted to have a record of being some kind of model citizen. I wonder whether the New Zealand Government would ever prosecute in that situation—because I cannot imagine that it would—and if it does not intend to do that then what is the point of passing law like this? 
The reality is that this bill should not be passed in the form it is in. The select committee had the opportunity to come up with a sensible definition but it failed to do so. One has only to look at a number of situations in the Pacific and I am not talking about the Sandline International situation. For instance if any Pacific nation decides to employ a New Zealand helicopter pilot for quite legitimate reasons and to have that person in its armed forces who almost certainly will be paid more than the local people—let us be realistic about this—then such a person is likely to be caught by the convention. That frankly is ridiculous. It is bad law to sign up to conventions that are there for the warm glow of it if one will rather than to take a reasoned and sensible approach to prohibit the genuinely egregious behaviour of the private army operating outside the normal military conventions. The British Government the United States Government and many other European Governments have said this kind of convention simply does not take account of the real world. 
The issue of Iraq has been mentioned recently—and so it should be; it is an important issue—and there are literally thousands of people there who are highly skilled and undertaking a wide variety of tasks. I mentioned the case of Mr Paul Bremer. His immediate security was privately provided. I absolutely guarantee that those security personnel were earning more than a Private First Class in the United States army. 
Peter Brown 
: You think so? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Yes I hazard a guess that they were earning a little more than a Private First Class. Yet that activity which clearly has approval at the highest levels of the United States Government would be caught by this convention. Does New Zealand really think it is right for such people to be caught by the convention? I would not be at all surprised if the Prime Minister either knowingly or unknowingly had the benefit of such protection herself when she visited Iraq. Surely she is not suggesting that those people should be at risk of prosecution yet that is how this convention is worded. It is wrong to pass conventions that are so poorly drafted as to capture a wide class of people whom we would think are doing a good job—helping peace preserving security and providing countries with the ability to get ahead—just in order for Mr Goff to go on some sort of international stage and say that New Zealand is a party to the International Convention against the Recruitment Use Financing and Training of Mercenaries. We do have to take a more critical approach to the precise wording work out precisely what we are really against—and it is clear what that is—and also work out what we say is OK. This bill as presented to the House simply does not meet that threshold test.