Mark Ron: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mark Ron: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 We are speaking to the title of the Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill; I will just continue on from what I was saying. I note that when one reads the bill one finds it indicates clearly that it seeks to give women the right to take up any appointment that they choose within the defence forces—which is quite right and proper. Clause 4 the purpose clause originally talked about the front line and the bill recognises the desire and the right to serve in armed combat operations in a combat role.  
The reality that we have had to struggle with as a nation is that most people particularly those of the older generation have not particularly liked the thought of women participating in combat roles. Part of that was because they felt women would be unfairly disadvantaged through their inability to fight hand-to-hand with males. One could understand their reluctance. I would not like to allow the likes of my cousin MetiriaTurei to go head-to-head with someone like RanaWaitai in a physical confrontation. The outcome one would predict would be pretty clear and obvious. [ 
Interruption 
] That is right; RanaWaitai would go down quite quickly to my cousin from Ngati Kahungunu. But that has been one of the issues that New Zealanders have struggled with. They have also struggled for years with the notion of whether it is right and proper to put women deliberately in the front line situation where they might be disembowelled dismembered ripped apart and tortured if captured by their enemy. I guess New Zealand women have put their hands up and said they want to have that right and have asked how anyone can deny someone his or her right to pick up a firearm put on a uniform and go to fight for his or her country.  
What concerns me is that in this debate there is an inadvertent—I do not think it is deliberate—demeaning of the combat support roles played by women. Traditionally in this nation men and women have taken up roles in signals intelligence transport and engineering. In fact I recall a lady by the name of Corporal Paula Jepson from the Royal New Zealand Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. I think she was the first female fitter-welder in the New Zealand Army. She was an exceptionally competent tradesperson.  
New Zealand First applauds the fact that the bill allows women to participate legally as of right at all levels of the armed forces. I take my hat off to the staff I saw in the provincial reconstruction team in Bamian last week. A large number of women are deployed at all levels and in all roles in that contingent whether on the front lineor patrolling and providing security services under the command of Major Paul King. When I arrived back thankfully I was pleased to see the large number of women who were working in the mess preparing food for all the troops as they came in from a hard day’s work. Likewise I saw women working in communications and medical services as women always have done. They are working exceptionally well and are a credit to themselves their families and their nation.  
This bill is simply part of New Zealand’s coming of age and is an acceptance of the reality that men and women demand and have the right to defend our nation and to join the defence forces in any role. Anyone who wants to hang on to a last vestige of concern about the role of women in killing needs to understand the reality of modern war. Today it is possible for a person to sit in an office somewhere in Tampa in Florida and manipulate a joystick to send a Hellfire missile through the back window of a Toyota Land Cruiser and kill an al-Qaeda leader—in the Yemen! That can be done without the person setting foot on the front line so to speak. That task can equally be done by any human being whether male or female. We should also remember that a lot of the dirty work that has to be done—which some parties in the Chamber do not want to talk about—concerns intelligence work and that work is sometimes best done by a woman. That is the reality of life and the reality of security. Again I remind members about Nancy Wake and how effective she was. When the bill receives the Royal assent and becomes law I would love to hear that finally the Government will recognise the good work done by Nancy Wake in a combat role.