Pettis Jill: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Pettis Jill: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14253] 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 This bill is called the Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill. Every day in Parliament we commence with a prayer although that is not so at the moment because we are in urgency and there is a slightly different format to the usual start at 2 o’clock. Part of the prayer includes the phrase: “putting aside all personal interests”— 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Private and personal. 
JILL PETTIS 
: I am sorry: “all private and personal interests”—and I say to Mr Mark who has just resumed his seat that I am sorry we did not have the prayer today. The reason I have stood to speak on this bill is that I have to tell Mr Mark I suspect the speech he has just concluded was so loaded with personal interest it has to have some sort of response made in order to achieve some sort of balance. This bill is quite simply— 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I take that comment as a personal slur on my integrity and I do not mean to sit here and allow it to go unchecked. I demand an apology from that member now through you. I have taken deep offence at that; it is outrageous. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member has taken personal offence. I think the matter has been debated quite widely and the member himself has made reference to it. However the member has taken offence so I ask the member on her feet to withdraw that implication. 
JILL PETTIS 
: I am very happy to withdraw it. I have to say though that I suspect that the speech the member has just given bears very little relevance to what is actually in the bill and a lot more to his personal experience. This bill quite simply states that it is an offence to recruit use finance or train mercenaries or to participate in a war or act of violence as a mercenary. I was a nurse. I have a great passion for health issues. That member was a mercenary. He has said so himself in this Chamber. He has a great and passionate interest in issues military to do with mercenaries. If he takes offence at that I have to say there is something wrong with him. I did not do anything as a nurse that I am not proud of. I was proud to be a nurse and that is why I talk about issues to do with health with great passion and honesty—and no guilt. 
I also have to say that this bill focuses on the types of mercenaries who participate in wars and those who participate in concerted acts of violence including acts designed to destabilise Governments with the common thread being that the persons involved are motivated primarily by profit. My father and lots of my father’s generation went to war I believe—if there is a right reason to go to war and I think sometimes there is—with the motivation primarily to achieve peace; they did not go for profit. 
New Zealand has long opposed the use of mercenaries. There is nothing new in that at all. It is part of New Zealand philosophical belief. The involvement of mercenaries— 
Stephen Franks 
: What about von Tempsky? 
JILL PETTIS 
: That is just a bit before my time—as an additional party to a conflict is rarely if ever conducive to that conflict’s peaceful resolution. 
I remind that member that when he gets up on his high horse—or as someone said this morning: “He is more hack than horse.”—he should remember that some of the things he says are not necessarily objective. This bill is an objective long-term look at the situation. It is very good legislation and I ask that member to shuck off his hair shirt for a moment and look at this bill in the way it is intended. It is a good bill.