Coates BarryBARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. It is with great pleasure that I rise to support the Brokering (Weapons and Related Items) Control Bill and the pleasure is not only because the Green Party fully supports this bill but for me this is the culmination of actually having spent 20 years on this particular issue. In the mid-1990s I worked with other organisations on the forerunner of arms control around this which was the European Union code of conduct at a time when I was living overseas. That provided for basic controls over small arms which were then and are now flooding into some of the poorest and most conflict-ridden parts of the world where they cause unimaginable suffering and terror. The scale of small arms going into troubled parts of the world is absolutely staggering and it is to the shame of Security Council members that actually most of the sales of small arms around the world come from the five permanent members of the Security Council.This legislation follows on from the Arms Trade Treaty and the Arms Trade Treaty was exceedingly important. It was championed by Oscar Arias the former President of Costa Rica. New Zealand did not play a leading role in the negotiations but it was amongst the first 50 States to ratify and importantly New Zealand did provide model law to Pacific Island countries which enabled Pacific Island countries to quickly sign and ratify this agreement which they had been strongly behind. Around that time there had been cases of small arms being trafficked through the Pacific without the understanding of Governments.This issue of small arms became particularly relevant in New Zealand when we were subject to brokering an arms deal. A shell company—a company that was a company in name only—was formed to traffic arms between North Korea and Iran. It may seem rather bizarre and in fact it took investigators a very long time to establish that the company involved was actually a New Zealand company. It was registered in Auckland. A labyrinth of thousands of Auckland-based companies were sifted through and eventually they came to the address of 369 Queen Street where this company was based.This New Zealand company brokered 35 tonnes of weapons going between North Korea and Iran and really that case provides an absolutely impeccable reason as to why this bill is urgently required. In a way it is a shame that it has taken since that case happened in 2009 until now to have this legislation come through because the Arms Trade Treaty which was ratified in 2014 had actually talked about prohibitions on the brokering of small arms. So certainly it is about time this legislation came to Parliament.In that particular case the 35 tonnes of weapons included destructive weapons such as surface-to-air missiles explosives and rocket-propelled grenades and by the way this weapons shipment was entirely in contravention of the UN arms embargo at the time. The shipment was intercepted in Thailand. Eventually the director of the company was traced back and found to be a 28-year-old fast-food manager based in Auckland who had no idea what the company was that he was registered as a director of.The registration system that led to the formation of this shell company and many thousands of others was initially defended by the Government but subsequently—thankfully—there has been legislation passed to tighten up on shell companies. However it took until the Panama Papers and their revelations to actually take the next stage in tightening up the regulations. I would say that this was a period of this Government when there was an extraordinary number of shady and crime-ridden syndicates operating through New Zealand shell companies. Thankfully some of that has been tightened up and recently we saw finally after a very very long time money-laundering provisions passed in this House as well. It has taken far too long for this legislation to come through. I pay tribute to the organisations that have worked on these brokering issues for a very very long time. The organisation that I headed for 10 years Oxfam New Zealand was one of those that pressed firstly for the Arms Trade Treaty and also for the coverage of the brokering activities under this legislation. I commend its work and the work of many other organisations that have been working in a dedicated way for a long time to see this legislation finally come before the House.There are two aspects of this legislation that we really want to see strengthened and the first of those is that the register is able to be made public. There are provisions in the legislation that suggest that perhaps it will not be made public. From the Green Party's perspective we need transparency around this register. It does need to be made public. There may of course be some details that should remain commercially confidential but we think that the onus should be on a public register and full transparency in that register as with we should say other registers such as the foreign trusts register which is still not public even after the Panama Papers revelations.The second major thing that we would like to see introduced at the select committee is the extension of this bill from brokering to also cover the activity of mercenaries. Mercenaries are also an important element in destabilising legitimate Governments and are increasingly a mechanism of choice for those who would foment illegal revolutions in different countries. We saw that when the Papua New Guinean (PNG) Government reacted to the fiasco in Bougainville which had descended into a civil war over a goldmine. The PNG Government hired a British mercenary called Sandline International to come in and basically kill lots of people in Bougainville. Thankfully there was a division within the Government and the mercenaries were stopped before they were able to commit what could have been atrocities against the local people of Bougainville who were trying to struggle for a degree of autonomy.I certainly think that this bill is worth supporting. I think it is one of the more important bills that we have had through this House. I commend the Government for bringing it to the House. I commend political parties for supporting it. We need this legislation to go through and more than that we need it to be very well implemented and enforced in ways that will stop the misery that brokering brings to innocent civilians around the world who are victimised by the flood of small arms into the world's conflict zones. We certainly will support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.