Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise today proudly again to speak in favour of this bill. As has been said by every member of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee we did have some robust discussions and we're all incredibly proud of our work on this bill but also I would like to thank the officials that assisted us. We called them back week after week and they responded diligently to all of our queries and were incredibly useful to our—what have been called—robust debates on details of law.I am so proud of that select committee. I'm also so proud of this Parliament that we are in agreement and consensus over this. I particularly welcome the comments by my then colleague on that select committee the Hon Mark Mitchell who declared himself to be a peacenik with the Greens on this issue only. But we are today all peaceniks with the Greens. We stand today as a Parliament as a House of Representatives for peace.I do want to—as I've done on a previous occasion—just draw on my own personal experience on this particular issue because I have seen war. I would like us to come back to that context—that very important very real context. Anyone who has lived in war as I have will know will remember the sounds and the terror but also in particular as one of the ordinary people the helplessness and that sense of being trapped and having no control over violence that escalates that ebbs and flows but does seem—particularly in the part of the world that I emanate from—to be never-ending. We seem to be living in a time of perpetual war now—in particular in the Middle East but not just in the Middle East.I've looked at the conference that came to be—as part of the arms trade movement—within the UN that came up with the Arms Trade Treaty. The countries that begged for this the States that came with their representatives the NGOs that begged for this included South Sudan the tiniest newest nation in this world who reminded delegates that the eyes of the world the eyes of the victims were upon them. Even though some quite powerful nations also fought against this treaty the delegates at that conference came to an agreement.I do want to remind us all of what the victims said. One statement said Arms cannot continue [to be] commercialized without regulations. The present situation does not allow us to avoid diversion [of] illicit [markets] or to the criminal and terrorist organizations which destabilize our society." So that's what we're trying to stop right now.There are hundreds of little communities and societies all around the world that are being destabilised by violence and we see it on TV every day. But New Zealand until now has not been part of the solution. We've not had a law that regulates arms or brokering in particular. We are a country that has actually been the centre of arms brokering in at least one major incident where a shell company registered on Queen Street in Auckland was used to broker some 35 tonnes of arms between North Korea and Iran. That is frightening. That happened in 2014 the year that actually this treaty came into effect and we were signatories proudly as part of that international rule of law effort.But today we can say that we are in fact giving effect to that movement and we will be part of the solution. Our laws now will define what illegal arms brokering means. So whether it's an individual or a company that's registered here they will have to be transparent with the kinds of activities that they're involved with. We will have a definition of the types of items that are going to be regulated—whether they're mixed-use items whether they're actual arms—and we'll have experts feeding into this very fast-moving industry so that we know what we should regulate and how we should do that.So we should be very proud of that because New Zealand has always been a beacon for peace. New Zealand has always been on the side of the rule of law and we will on this day be a beacon again. This kind of thing can't be stopped by any one nation. I think as part of the free world we have a particular responsibility to regulate because of course arms do get moved between legitimate arms manufacturers who manufacture small arms for recreational use and organisations or groups that can't buy them legitimately because there are sanctions in place to control them because they've been identified as a terror group and this is the kind of group that fights these proxy wars that go on for ever and ever for profit. Today we're going to contribute to stopping this.I do want to congratulate NGOs here in New Zealand as well like Oxfam New Zealand who fought very hard for this on the international stage and the ex - Green Party MP Barry Coates who was involved at the forefront of this. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I commend this bill to the House."