Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): I'd like to take a moment to honour those killed in the terror attack outside Kabul airport last week. It was a horrific development and has worsened what was already a terrible situation. I understand that the attack killed up to 170 Afghanis and 13 US troops and we add these victims to a toll that stretches to the hundreds of thousands if not the millions in the blood-soaked and tragic history of foreign interventions in Afghanistan for this present conflict of course has its roots in the great power rivalries between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia up to 150 years ago.When the Great Game between the British Empire and Russia was transplanted by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union from the 1950s onwards that of course culminated in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979 which I note was another Western intelligence failure. The United States spent uncounted billions arming the mujahedin in their war against the Soviets in the 1980s and that war cost we think about one million civilian Afghan lives as well as something like 90000 mujahedin fighters and 18000 Afghan troops.When the Soviet-backed regime gave way in the early 1990s eventually of course leading to the rise of the Taliban many of whom were former US-backed mujahedin that eventually of course led to the US invasion and occupation under which another 47000-odd Afghan civilians lost their lives as many as 69000 police and military in the Afghan services and something like 90000 opposition fighter lives during the course of the last 20 years.I just want to take us back to the special debate that was held in this Parliament when our Government committed us to joining New Zealand forces to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. My former colleague Green MP Keith Locke in his speech then said Military action in Afghanistan will almost certainly result in the deaths of more innocent people and cause more destruction in a country which has already been devastated by civil war and the oppressive policies of the Taliban regime." He also said that it would be "counterproductive in terms of the battle against terrorism. A military strike is likely to create more anger in the Islamic world towards the Western powers and the United States in particular. One of the outlets for that anger will almost certainly be new forms of terrorism [aimed] at more innocents." and of course that is what we saw with the Islamic State attack at Kabul airport last week. Keith also said that we are talking perhaps about a long war against the Taliban. Now I doubt that even he would have anticipated that it would be fully 20 years but I doubt that he would have been surprised to learn that it would end in total failure with the Taliban as fully in control of Afghanistan at the end of the war as they were at the beginning.Now there are people in Afghanistan right now whose lives are forfeit because of New Zealand's participation in the occupation and the Green Party believes that we should do absolutely everything we can to support those people even whilst we grapple with the current COVID-19 outbreak and the many other challenges that our country faces. So there are four things that we would like to see. First of all we would like to see the Government committing to widening the eligibility criteria for resettlement to include family members of Afghan New Zealanders and to do everything we can to get them out of Afghanistan. Second we believe that we need to ensure that there is a meaningful number of vulnerable Afghans who are most likely to be targeted by the Taliban because of their race gender sexuality nationality or political affiliation and to see that they are evacuated. Canada Australia the United Kingdom have all committed to taking Afghan refugees and New Zealand must do that as well. Finally we should continue to work with our international colleagues on ensuring that the people who face dire peril are supported in their time of need. Keith also said "New Zealand is a small nation. But we can do our bit to combat terrorism as a peacemaker and [as] a champion of social justice and adherence to law not as a war maker.""