Mark Ron: Amended Answer to Oral Questions — Question No. 7 to Minister; Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — First Reading 
Mark Ron: Amended Answer to Oral Questions — Question No. 7 to Minister; Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:613;Page:9775] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I want to start my contribution by reading from the  
Concise Oxford Dictionary 
 the definition of the word mercenary—and this is the definition not the Government’s or some United Nations definition. It states: “Working merely for money or other reward. Hired soldier in foreign service.” The problem with that definition is that it does not fit Mr Locke’s or Mr Goff’s view of a mercenary. They see mercenaries as being characters with no heart cold-blooded killers with red bandannas around their heads—giving that communist flavour that Mr Locke tends to prefer to democracy—wearing belts of ammunition and out there bayoneting babies. That seems to be their view of a mercenary. By the  
Concise Oxford Dictionary 
 definition a mercenary is not one of those characters. Indeed I was a contract officer—as are and were many New Zealanders. To give this Government a bit of a steer I refer it to the Christchurch  
Press 
 of Monday 3 November. It has quite a substantive article on soldiers for hire. 
Whilst Mr Locke may care to have his view I point out to him that many people around the world have for years generations and decades given foreign service on behalf of another country—as the honourable member across from me Ashraf Choudhary will know. Pakistanis Baluchistanis Indians and Sri Lankans have all soldiered for money. The Queen’s Ghurkas who were based in Hong Kong for generations are the most famous mercenaries we could ever think of. Suddenly this left-wing socialist Government has now decreed them to be dishonourable people. I remind the Government that they are people to whom it continually looks to for the preservation of its freedom. 
The Sultanate of Oman where I worked and soldiered for 5 years as a contract officer was protected and defended by Indians Baluchistanis and Iranians. 
Rodney Hide 
: What about the Pope? 
RON MARK 
: The Pope has his own private mercenary army. But suddenly today because someone wants to sign up to a further tinpot chicken-something agreement dreamt up by a bunch of left-wing loonies in the United Nations we are to move legislation to outlaw those honourable people. Members should stop and think for a moment. Currently there are people in New Zealand recruiting from our police. Right now our police could be off to Iraq earning $1000 a day. Are they the people the Government is trying to target? Is that considered mercenarial? 
Under the definitions described in this piece of paper it is all about money. What I read in this bill is that if Mr Locke—God please let it happen—and Mr Donald were suddenly to get on their ideological high horses put on green uniforms and fight for genetic engineering and do it for nothing they would be OK. They can go out and bomb and kill put “necklaces” around people’s necks—like the African National Congress did—and set fire to innocent women and children but because they are doing it for no monetary gain that is OK. 
Under this legislation the moment people get paid they are mercenaries and that is illegal. The legislation states that if people are getting paid more than the locals for doing the same job then that makes them mercenaries. We have a lot of New Zealanders serving out there in Iraq clearing mines. Are we saying that they will do it for the same amount of money that an Iraqi gets paid? How stupid! They have families back here and New Zealand cost-of-living standards to meet. They are doing a brilliant job clearing mines and making life safe for other people and this Government thinks they should hire out their services for the same rate of pay as an Iraqi. That is daft dumb and stupid. It does not even make sense. 
What about people like Alan Johnson who was working for the World Food Programme and was in the building that was bombed in Iraq? Is he a mercenary? Maybe not but many of the companies that hire people like Alan Johnson—a friend of mine—are also hiring people for private jobs. Be it protecting an oil rig or protecting a vessel sailing through Indonesian waters from pirates or providing people to kill poachers in Kenya the same companies are hiring “contract” military people. I am not satisfied that these definitions do not capture all of those people. I am not satisfied that it is appropriate for Mr Locke to fight and kill people for ideological reasons because he does everything for love and does not want to be paid yet if I want to do the same thing for the same side and demand to get paid for it I am a mercenary. 
We really need to think our way through this. Why is it that the British Government—the Tony Blair Labour-led Government—has seen the value in such practices to the point where it has produced green papers. It knows that it has companies like the Armour Group DSL and other companies out there like Saladdin. What about John Tamihere’s former business associates? John Tamihere who is the chief executive officer of the Waipareira Trust was a shareholder in a company that hired soldiers to snatch a businessman out of Indonesia. 
Rodney Hide 
: With guns! 
RON MARK 
: Yes with guns. Was that not a mercenarial action? What about this Government sitting here passing pious pieces of legislation like this whilst it condones Sandline’s entry back in Papua New Guinea? Sandline is currently operating alongside New Zealand and Australian operatives doing work that it has always done. Suddenly such activities are not acceptable yet we know it is happening. The questions are: what is legitimate work advanced in the interests of a free democratic world? What is legitimate work that is for our benefit? What is work that we do not necessarily want to talk about because we have allowed other people to do something that we know is an extension of our foreign policy? 
The Brits God bless their cotton socks are far better at understanding this than anybody else. They have been doing it for decades. But oh no not us—we will sign up to a politically correct treaty from somewhere in the bowels of the United Nations. We will pass this touchy-feely feel-good legislation. We will go out of here and pat ourselves on the back but it does not mean anything. What it does do is turn a whole lot of New Zealanders who have done damn good work into criminals. What about the New Zealand military nurses who were contracted to go into the Middle East? Who was opposing them? It was East Germany. You know the sort of people that Mr Locke and the Green Party support—people who wanted to advance the ideological cause of communism all over the world and do it for a pittance but kill and maim none the less. 
New Zealand nurses Army officers and pilots served throughout the Middle East against people like that and with one stroke of the pen this Government—whose Cabinet contains a member who has hired mercenaries—says it should no longer happen. That is ludicrous; it does not even make sense. Mr Locke and the Green Party riled against the Counter-Terrorism Bill saying that the Government was using terrorism as an excuse to ramrod through changes that breached people’s rights and civil liberties. I would have thought they would have said: “Here is another piece of legislation that Mr Goff has just said is justifiable that also breaches civil liberties.” 
Actually it has nothing to do with it. Most of the people who are employed in this industry by British and American companies are out there working hand in hand side by side with American and British servicemen and women with the full knowledge and support of the British Government the American Government and even those they do not want to acknowledge them. Take the Mujahadeen. Who was over there fighting the Mujahadeen in the interests of the British? The SAS were. Who did they have working alongside them? They had hired ex-soldiers; people we now call mercenaries. In fact they were contract officers plying their trade legitimately—a trade learned and appropriately applied. 
I know full well who the Government wants to target in legislation like this but let us get it right because the definition here is so broad. The bill contains so much ignorance that it is not worth reading because it captures the wrong people. If the Government wants to get New Zealand First support there will have to be a heck of a lot of amendments to this bill. Quite frankly I think we have more important things to spend our time on in this House than a piece of legislation like this. It should simply be dumped off the agenda. 
Bill read a first time and referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee