Prebble Richard: Debate on Iraq 
Prebble Richard: Debate on Iraq 
[Volume:607;Page:4115] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 The ACT New Zealand party strongly supports the stance taken by the United States of America Australia and Britain to enforce UN resolutions on Iraq. ACT believes that New Zealand should join the 20 nations that are now in the coalition of the willing that are prepared to take military action to enforce UN Resolution 1441. 
Mr Speaker I thank you for taking my letter requesting the Business Committee to consider having this debate and I thank the Government for deciding to take the debate and to lead it off. Having said that I say that there is a great deal of truth in what the Rt Hon Mr Peters says: we as a Parliament should have been debating this issue before the New Zealand Government took decisions at the UN that are going to have profound effects on this country not just this month but in years to come. This is the most important issue facing the world yet our Parliament is now debating it after the New Zealand Government has taken a number of stances on our behalf. I also say to the Government that I deplore the fact that the Government refuses to put down a motion to test whether there is support for the Government’s position. It is my view that this minority Government did not want to have a debate and will not put down a motion because it does not have the majority support of MPs of this House for its policies. 
I point out to Parliament that the Government is actually running three different policies on Iraq. We have the Government’s statements that we hear on  
Morning Report 
 and on television that are driven by public opinion polls and I think are frankly often just crude anti-Americanism. Then we have what I call its Persian Gulf policy. In the Persian Gulf we have a New Zealand naval frigate and we do have an Orion—and strongly with the support of my party—and that policy is described by the Greens as being a pro-American policy. Then we have at the UN a “neither for nor against” policy. The Prime Minister gets up and says what strong statements they have made denouncing Iraq but they have not actually got around to doing anything to enforce them. There are three different policies. 
Of course the Prime Minister could not actually draft in this House a motion that would cover all three policies. Therefore realising that there is no parliamentary majority for its policies it will not test the will of the House. I think that in a democracy we should. I see that Tony Blair is prepared to test the will of the House in the British House of Commons. So I have put down a motion. I submitted it to the Clerk at 10 o’clock this morning and I am going to seek leave for it to be put—and I have helped the Government because the motion will help clarify the matters. 
The motion I am going to seek leave for is this: that this Parliament recognises the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with UN Security Council Resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction pose to international peace and noting the UN Security Council on 8 November 2002 in Resolution 1441 unanimously voted that Iraq has not complied with previous UN resolutions and was in material breach of its obligation and gave Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations or “face serious consequences” further notes the report of the UN arms inspectors that Iraq has not provided an accurate full and complete disclosure this House disassociates itself from the New Zealand Government’s position at the United Nations to oppose a second UN Security Council resolution and deplores the announcement of France to veto any such resolution and this House records its support for the United States of America Great Britain and Australia’s preparedness to enforce UN Resolution 1441 and calls on the New Zealand Government to offer all practical support to the “coalition of the willing”. 
At the end of the debate I am going to seek leave for that motion to be put. I believe that it is important that this House not just debate but that we stand up and be counted and that we are prepared to vote. I call on the House to either vote for or against the issue facing us. 
I say this to the Government: the real issue that we now have is not whether Saddam Hussein is going to be removed—he is—but where we are in a post - Saddam Hussein world. Mr Peters has asked whether the Government is getting information that we have not heard. I believe that the Government is not. I believe that Helen Clark gets her information at the same time as Mr Peters—from CNN. I do not think that New Zealand has ever been more irrelevant. At a time when foreign policy is impacting on our daily lives—we can see it when we fill up our cars with petrol—the New Zealand Government has never been more irrelevant. Old alliances are being torn up. The Prime Minister says that she is supporting the multilateral approach of the United Nations. I say to her that her policies have turned out to be bankrupt have they not? That approach has not worked. How can one describe a UN that is not prepared to enforce its own motions as anything more than an empty debating chamber? Where is the security of New Zealand when the United Nations is not prepared to enforce its own resolutions? Where are our security interests served? 
I put it to the House that our security interests are served when the world’s only superpower the United States of America is prepared to act against rogue States. The United States has asked us for assistance and shamefully for the first time in our history we are not standing up against fascism against this terrorist and against this threat to world peace. We should be there and I agree with Mr Peters that we should be there because that is the right thing to do. But I also say to the House that there will be serious consequences for New Zealand because of our failure to take those actions. That is a matter that should have been debated by this Parliament that we should be debating today and that we should be voting on this afternoon.