Key John: Motions — New Zealand Defence Force—Deaths of Corporal Luke Tamatea Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker and Private Richard Harris in Afghanistan 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Key John: Motions — New Zealand Defence Force—Deaths of Corporal Luke Tamatea Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker and Private Richard Harris in Afghanistan 
[Sitting date: 21 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4527. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I seek leave to move a motion without notice on the incident on Sunday 19 August in the Bamian Province of Afghanistan which tragically claimed the lives of three New Zealand soldiers. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I move  
That this House express its deep sympathy and condolences to the families friends and military colleagues of the three New Zealand soldiers killed in Afghanistan on 19 August.  
It is with profound sorrow and also a deep sense of shock that just 1 week after this House passed a motion expressing its condolences on the deaths of Lance Corporal Pralli Durrer and Lance Corporal Rory Malone in Afghanistan we should find ourselves here again paying our respects to three of their colleagues. On Sunday morning Corporal Luke Tamatea Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker and Private Richard Harris were travelling in a convoy on the road to Romero in Bamian. They were in the last of the four Humvees and were driving it in order to seek medical assistance for one of their colleagues travelling in the same convoy. At 9.21 a.m. their Humvee was hit by a massive improvised explosive device. The explosion was not survivable. These three New Zealanders who were serving their country so loyally and so well were killed instantly. 
In this House last week my colleague Deputy Prime Minister Bill English said that the Defence Force families knew there were risks in the job but that did not make it any easier when the knock at the door that they hoped would never come did come. On Sunday it came for the families and friends of Luke Tamatea Jacinda Baker and Richard Harris and for their colleagues in the Defence Force and indeed for all New Zealanders. It is of course the families and friends of the three fallen soldiers who bear the loss most acutely and to them we extend our deep sympathy. At this time this House also thinks of the other families who have lost soldiers in this conflict and we know that this will have renewed their pain. We are mindful too that four of the five soldiers lost in the past fortnight were from the 2/1st Battalion based at Burnham. Our thoughts are with that regiment in particular. 
In the last couple of days tributes have been paid to Luke Tamatea Jacinda Baker and Richard Harris and in that way we have put names and personalities to the toll. The three were different but they shared characteristics in common with other New Zealand servicemen and women who have served and who continue to serve in Afghanistan. They were loyal they were brave and they were hard-working members of a team that always looked out for each other. It would not have been possible to ask more of them. 
Our mission and mandate in Afghanistan has been to provide sufficient security to allow the reconstruction to occur which has significantly improved the lives of local people. Through the efforts of our brave soldiers we have seen in the Bamian Province the mortality rate for children under 5 halved and maternal deaths are a quarter of the 2002 levels. Bamian University is now a multi-faculty institution with 2700 students this year of which 15 percent are female. Nearly half of all primary school children going to school in the Bamian Province are now girls. This is a record of which our servicemen and women can be extremely proud. 
At the same time soldiers like Luke Tamatea Jacinda Baker and Richard Harris have been serving New Zealand. Their effort is our contribution to an international force mandated by the United Nations. We have contributed in a way that is built on the finest traditions of the New Zealand military over generations. We have enhanced our reputation as a defence force that is totally committed to the task even when the conditions are difficult or dangerous. As I have made clear in the past couple of days the Government is committed to withdrawing from Afghanistan in the first part of next year and we will continue to work towards the best way to do this. When we leave it will be done in a way that honours the sacrifice and effort New Zealanders have made for a country that is not their own. Bamian is a better place for Luke Tamatea Jacinda Baker and Richard Harris having been there. We are proud of them we mourn them and we wish that they rest in peace.