Mark Ron: Visiting Forces Bill — In Committee 
Mark Ron: Visiting Forces Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:13753] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I have to admit that when I was looking at this bill and considering what to say—because I think members are pretty much in agreement with it—it occurred to me quite mischievously that when we consider the implications of visiting forces committing crimes in New Zealand or of New Zealand troops committing crimes in a nation they are visiting given the frequency of such occurrences given the distinct lack of such instances—I can recall only a couple of them over the last 30 years—we could be forgiven for considering that maybe the biggest problem visiting forces face is the types of offences that might be committed against them given our rather pathetic policing situation in this country. 
The fact is we are short of police from one end of the country to the other and a visiting soldier who called for assistance from the New Zealand Police simply may not be able to get the control centre to act on his call because 60 percent of the units on the controller’s screen are dedicated to traffic policing. Because those units are highway patrol or commercial vehicle investigating units they refuse to respond to other incidents. Despite the fact they wear a police patch on their shoulders they are saying: “No give that traffic accident that that visiting soldier has been involved in to an incident car or to a general duties officer who is investigating a burglary.” 
So whilst this part redresses the 1939 Visiting Forces Act the greatest threat we in this country need to think about is not acts of criminality committed by visiting forces in our nation; it is acts of criminality committed against visiting forces by our own people because of our own appallingly pathetic and totally unacceptable rising rates of crime and our inability to deal with that. 
There are some issues in this bill that give me cause to wonder. We have had incidents in the past where New Zealand soldiers in Singapore have committed crimes. I recall that when I was in the military a group of soldiers who were caught smoking marijuana fell subject to Singaporean law. It is interesting to note that those soldiers who were threatened with the rotan all said in time as they matured that that was the one punishment that scared the living bejesus out of them and they had never considered doing such a thing in Singapore ever again. One might ponder why we have not thought of allowing our troops who break the law in other countries to be subjected to the laws of those other countries because then they might think twice about breaking the same laws when they come back here. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: They might not get the chance to break them again. 
RON MARK 
: They might not get the chance to commit that crime again particularly if it is dealing in drugs in Thailand for argument’s sake. 
The point is that we have as a result of the agreements and alliances we have an obligation to look after visiting forces. There are some rather interesting clauses in this bill. Simon Power said it was a rather simple bill but let us think of the simple little laws we have in New Zealand that do impact on visiting forces like the right to bear arms. I guess that currently if we did not have agreements or laws such as this a soldier who came in from Australia on exercise could be promptly arrested for carrying a rifle. That would not do because he would look rather silly on exercise without a rifle of his own. The New Zealand soldier who loaned him one from the quartermaster’s store or the armoury might then be charged with improperly illegally handing a firearm over to an Australian soldier. All these issues sit behind the scenes and are quite carefully dealt with in this legislation. 
The issue that I would like to focus on and more so to ask people to exercise their minds on is clause 12 which deals with for example provisions for compelling the attendance of witnesses and provisions for protecting judge advocates counsel and witnesses. How much easier things might have been today for the New Zealand Police if they could have placed constraints on visiting students to our shore who were witnesses to a murder. People have subsequently gotten away with a murder because the visiting witnesses were allowed to go back home to Japan. Despite all the nice “diplomatic-speak” that goes on behind the scenes in respect of the visiting forces we do not seem to have had any success in getting those witnesses currently in Japan—former visiting foreign students—to come back and give evidence to help our police force prosecute those accused of the murder of the young Japanese student at Columbus Academy the English-speaking school in Auckland. It is timely when we look at the provisions of this bill—at clauses 12 13 14 15 and 16—that we stretch our minds a little bit and ask the Government to start considering the type of legislation that should be coming in for those who do actually commit crimes in this country. 
When I was in the military we would have exercises such as Tropic Dawn when we would go to Fiji or Captive Lightning when the Americans came here as part of the ANZUS agreement. 
Simon Power 
: Those were the days. 
RON MARK 
: Those were the days when they would all come up to Waiouru and we would perform exercises like the Truppenamt exercise. We would have a large number of foreign defence force personnel visiting our shores. In all those times in which I estimate we would have seen tens of thousands possibly even hundreds of thousands of foreign visiting defence force personnel on our shores the numbers of instances where they had to be charged for breaking New Zealand laws or even for breaking their own laws—which this bill deals with—were very very few. 
Ironically I would say it is time for this Government to take a good a look at this legislation and stretch its mind as to how it might deal with visiting foreigners of civilian persuasion who come in and make an absolute mockery of our laws laugh at us then get on the next aircraft and shoot off back to their own country leaving behind them a trail of destruction from the traffic accidents they have caused. Young Asian students have killed in Christchurch’s Port Hills. There have been incidents involving students from Lincoln University and most recently up in Auckland. Those are the issues that I think this Government needs to get its head around when dealing with the Visiting Forces Bill that is before us right now because I contend that visiting students are a 10-times bigger danger to the New Zealand citizen than any defence force personnel from the United States Australia Fiji or Singapore. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 212 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to Part 2 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to and Part 2 as amended agreed to.