Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): It is an honour for me to stand in support of this bill and it was an honour for me to sit on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee as we worked on this bill. I'd like to thank my colleagues and especially thank all the expert officials that assisted us. We asked them back week after week as we tweaked every detail in this bill. I've heard as a result of that a few of my colleagues mention that this is a technical bill and maybe it's a little bit boring but I wanted us to come back to the core context of this bill because it is actually exciting and it's necessary. It's even historic in the context of the treaty that this bill seeks to implement.I've seen war. I know what it sounds like and what it feels like certainly as a child and now the part of the world where I emanate from the Middle East is living under perpetual war it seems as a result of just this kind of activity—the kind of activity that this bill seeks to regulate and stop: the brokering of regular arms. This kind of activity—and it's not limited to the Middle East; the people of much of Africa are suffering under this. The Democratic Republic of Congo is living under perpetual war. The youngest nation in this world South Sudan pushed hard for this treaty because they are experiencing the same. The kind of war that I lived under—it turned out the brokers were the likes of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr and they did have to appear before some kind of Senate committee but we want more than that. We want this kind of activity criminalised and regulated.I want us also to come back to the context that the UN representatives were working in when they were negotiating this treaty. I looked into it and South Sudan stood up and talked about how the world had high expectations of this conference begging for the treaty to be agreed to. Peru stood up and said Arms cannot continue [to be] commercialized without regulations. The present situation does not allow us to avoid diversion [of this] illicit market or to the criminal and terrorist organizations which destabilize our societies."So the delegates at that conference felt the weight of that responsibility and the world's eyes upon them. They came up with this treaty. They agreed to it against all odds. States like Iran opposed this agreement but we reached it and New Zealand became a signatory. It came into force in 2014 and now this Parliament gets to move closer to implementing it to making New Zealand the kind of nation that contributes to the rule of law internationally and to the remedy for violence that we're seeing all over the world which creates not only war but also displaced persons—refugees. The UN calls the refugee crisis right now in the Middle East the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II and it's perpetuated by this kind of activity.So I am very proud to stand in support of this. We now have I think a robust regulative regime for this kind of activity. We will require persons or companies New Zealanders or those based in New Zealand to report and to keep records for seven years. We have a defined detailed jurisdiction for New Zealand. This is something that's rare in New Zealand but it has happened. A shell company registered in New Zealand has actually been used to broker weapons to Iran and North Korea. So it is important. It is important that we require companies and we require brokers to keep records and to make themselves known for us to have an oversight body that looks into this and that we know what kinds of employees and what kinds of situations are going to be held liable and where the limits of that lie. I think that I certainly will sleep more soundly as should other New Zealanders and people around the world knowing that New Zealand is now contributing to this. So it is a great honour for me to commend this bill to the House. Thank you."