Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's actually a pleasure for me to rise in support of this bill tonight. I know that others have said that there's no urgency in this matter but I do want to note that Operation Burnham which we all keep referring to as the trigger—for lack of a better word—for this bill and this office being created happened in 1996 and the inquiry report was made public in July 2020 so it's almost the anniversary three years on. It has never been I would argue more apt for New Zealand to signpost our values when it comes to operations and the conduct of our military the conduct of armed conflict and the values that we hold dear hopefully in terms of the rule of law the protection of human rights and humanitarian law even when the worst of circumstances are occurring. I am perplexed by the repeated submission of the National Party members—who are the only members of this House voting against it tonight—in saying that Operation Burnham did not in fact find anything adverse. In fact there were some extremely concerning findings in that report in terms of failures in process and accountability and in transparency that went right up the ranks to three successive heads of our military and in particular in terms of the ways that those failures in process and transparency and in accountability impacted the ability of successive Ministers who were at that time and until the passing of this bill the only and the highest civilian accountability mechanism for our military to actually do their job. So those extremely concerning findings I would frame are the impetus for this bill. It was not necessarily what happened on the ground but the fact that there were such big failings in terms of the ranks of our military in identifying failures in humanitarian law and their own obligations in holding each other to account and upholding New Zealand's values. Now if our military is to continue to engage in military operations with the likes of Australia and the United States to take part in operations that put us in danger of breaching international humanitarian law we in fact have an obligation to those populations those communities on the ground who interact with our military personnel. That's not to say that any one of us in passing this bill suspects our military of being war criminals which seems to be the argument against this bill but the fact is that we stand for values that say that the rule of law and human rights will protect those communities even when we join military operations. Whether or not I support those decisions themselves is a very different thing but I did live at one time in my life in a Middle Eastern war and so I would hope that nation States that engage in military operations across the globe far away have systems in place that would uphold the rights including the right to life of people like myself and that we'd want to hold that Operation Burnham actually engaged the deaths of five people including a child. So it's about making our systems accountable and assuring that the New Zealand public as well as those communities who interact with our military across the globe are confident that we hold those values above and beyond any stated bravado that comes often with war. This is a good first step in meeting some of those obligations and in honouring the recommendations of the Operation Burnham report but we—together with the ACT Party interestingly—share the concern that some of the mechanisms in this bill were weakened as against the report of the select committee in terms of transparency in terms of giving a veto to the Ministers to hold information secret in terms of the limitation of access to the Official Information Act and in terms of the presumption that all proceedings will be held confidentially unless the inspector-general makes them public. I would point out that it shouldn't be up to a journalistic investigation to uncover not only misdeeds but procedural impropriety as Operation Burnham did reveal. So this office would best operate if those limitations were eventually removed. The intention is good. The structures do provide for an independent mechanism that will start to rebuild that trust and confidence in our military but some of the opaqueness may mean that although justice may well be done it may not be seen to be done and those mechanisms do need to still be strengthened. But with that it is a line in the sand for New Zealand to say that in fact our military will be accountable. It will to some extent be found more transparent than it has ever been and we say that the values of our nation will apply equally to our military in its operations and in its processes whether here or across the world—whether they're operating in the Pacific as they mostly do or whether they're in combat operations much further away. So it is a good step and I do commend the bill to the House.