Mapp Wayne: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14255] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 As the previous speaker quite accurately indicated I guess in the next few days we will see a cocktail party hosted by our legation in New York. Those people who will be attending this fine cocktail party— 
Simon Power 
: Will the member be there? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Mr Goff is likely to be there I suspect. The representatives of Azerbaijan Surinam Togo Turkmenistan—in fact many of the “-stans”—will also be there. These places are of course great bastions of democracy. I have been reading extensively about the cult of personality that is becoming a feature in the “-stans”— 
Stephen Franks 
: They will have to say thank you because we are not going to send our mercenaries to overthrow them. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Yes indeed. This bill is an example of political correctness. The Minister in the chair took a call on the last part. I carefully noted when she said that the convention would not have applied to Mr Mark because he was in a support role. He was a company commander in an engineering role in the Sultanate of Oman. That is essentially what she said. She implied that he was not in a combat role and thus would not have been affected. But the reality as everyone knows is that the Sultanate of Oman Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the Middle East have had a practice of recruiting from the West—actually in collaboration with the British Government the French Government and other Governments—highly qualified specialists many of whom actually do fight directly in the front line because they are uniquely qualified. It is those people who are now affected. Everyone who follows these issues knows that it is a great concern of highly qualified special forces of Western armed forces that their personnel are being recruited essentially by these other countries often with the support of the foreign affairs departments of Western countries. Surely it is not sensible that the legislation applies to them. 
I know that the Government will say it does not apply if a person is a member of the armed forces. The problem—and this is our fundamental dilemma with the bill—is that there is ambiguity or conflict. On the one hand the bill states a person is a mercenary if he or she is recruited engaged in active hostilities and paid at a greater rate than other members holding the same rank. but one can hold the same rank only if one is actually in the armed forces. If one were in a private army then this issue would not apply. So the exclusion—that the bill does not apply to members of the armed forces—is contradicted by the inclusionary words. That is a point that Mr Power raised. There is a tension between who is a mercenary and the set of definitions of who is not a mercenary. The problem is that the two groups of definitions are actually in conflict. 
That is precisely why I put forward the amendment in the last part—to ensure that someone recruited into the armed forces of a nation but paid more than the locals could not be deemed to be a mercenary. That is our critical issue. Frankly the way that the legislation is now drafted and the way that the Government voted against that amendment leaves that fundamental issue in doubt. We on this side of the House have been consistently saying there is a very good reason why Britain the United States France Australia Canada and Germany—many of which countries supply military specialists to the armed forces of Middle Eastern nations and others—have not signed the convention. Because of the way that the convention is drafted it affects precisely that activity.