Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia orana Madam Assistant Speaker. This is the first call I have taken in a debate this week so I'm wondering if you'd indulge me—just literally for a moment—to do two quick things.Hon Stuart Nash: Have you forgotten how to speak Tim? Have you forgotten how to speak?Hon TIM MACINDOE: The first is Mr Nash that I would like to congratulate the Prime Minister and Clarke Gayford on the birth of Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford last week because I think this is something that the whole country rejoiced in. I am myself the father of two wonderful daughters who are my pride and joy and I wish for the Prime Minister and Mr Gayford the same happiness. I am sure that that little girl will be deeply loved and I look forward to meeting her at some stage when she's brought to Wellington.The other thing and on a sadder note but as the MP for Hamilton West could I place on record my aroha and sympathy to the whānau and iwi of the late Hon Koro Wētere. I was often conscious of the fact that my electorate fits into just a tiny little piece of what he used to represent when it was known as Western Maori. I had the privilege of meeting Koro on a few occasions particularly at Tūrangawaewae and always found him to be an absolute gentleman and a person of great decency and integrity.Hon Stuart Nash: He was a Labour MP!Hon TIM MACINDOE: Ha ha! He was a Labour MP. Mr Nash I am pleased to say that there are many Labour MPs past and present for whom I have great admiration and he was one—a person who I think served his people with great great integrity and decency as I said.Now Madam Assistant Speaker thank you for that. If I may now turn my attention to the Military Justice Legislation Amendment Bill could I as other speakers have done acknowledge both the first Minister the Hon Mark Mitchell who introduced this bill brought it to the House just before last year's general election when it was widely supported and the Hon Ron Mark who has picked it up in his current role as Minister of Defence and who is carrying it through. I'm often surprised by how many people say to us You politicians are always fighting and bickering and behaving like children." and unfortunately they never seem to focus on debates such as this when in fact common sense decency and integrity prevail. Here we have a measure that is serious—Hon Andrew Little: You have to admit it is rare!Hon TIM MACINDOE: Ha ha! Mr Little may think it's rare; I don't think it's all that rare but I guess it depends on your perspective. The important thing though is that this is a serious matter and it's being taken seriously by MPs on all sides of the House and I commend those who have done the work. I say that because although I now have the privilege of being the deputy chair of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee I only came on to the committee in March of this year so unfortunately I didn't hear the submitters who came—the four submitters as was mentioned by the Minister earlier—to put their views forward to the committee. I did hear the summary of their evidence and the advice of officials at the end of it and became aware of the fact that those submitters while few in number had made a significant impact and their views have very much been taken into account. As I've said it's clearly a bill that is widely supported in this House as it makes a number of significant improvements to the military justice system. The Minister and previous speakers have already drawn attention to some of its key features such as the incorporation into the military justice system of victims' rights under Part 3 of the Victims' Rights Act. So I wondered if I might just mention one particular case—I'm certainly not going to mention the name of the victim but it sometimes helps just to understand why these measures are important—and this is a case that has been in the public domain it's been reported by the media so I hope I'm not being insensitive in drawing attention to it. What I'm hoping to do is to help people listening to the debate to understand why this measure is important. This concerns the case of a woman who served as a marine engineer in the navy and while doing so encountered years of sexual abuse. As I say it's a very distressing case and that's a very very serious matter to have occurred and so it is naturally important that we ensure that we have adequate ways for both our criminal justice and military criminal system to be able to deal with this. Sadly it got worse: she alleges that in 2009 while she was deployed on a training exercise in Britain she was raped by a male colleague. Her evidence to the committee that she felt that this Military Justice Legislation Amendment Bill introduced very positive measures and was something that she widely welcomed is naturally a matter that the committee has taken great note of and is pleased to hear as I know are those who have advised the committee particularly as representatives from the military. In January of this year Stuff revealed how people convicted of crimes in a Court Martial didn't have their convictions shown on their civilian records. I think that if you reflect on the seriousness of the crimes that we've been talking about and the abuses that have occurred to find that they were protected from having that sort of offending on their record seems to be grossly unjust. After all you would expect that anybody who was convicted of such a thing in a civilian court would have that on their record for a substantial period of time. So I mention that simply as an example of why this bill matters why the changes that it's making are important why they are widely supported across both sides of the House and I look forward to seeing this bill continue its passage through the House."