Shearer David: Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill — Procedure Second Reading Third Reading 
Shearer David: Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill — Procedure Second Reading Third Reading 
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DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 It is a great privilege and pleasure for me to stand today to take a call on the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill. I thank my colleagues for allowing me to do this because I was not involved in the select committee process but for me this issue is rather personal. In July 2006 during the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict I was appointed the humanitarian coordinator in charge of coordinating the relief effort and rehabilitation particularly the relief effort in southern Lebanon. About a million Lebanese had to flee from the south when Hezbollah fired off rockets into Israel and Israel responded by effectively flattening and destroying most of the towns in southern Lebanon. As I said a million people left the area. 
Israel used cluster weapons in that war and perhaps most appallingly it used them at the end of the war once we had an agreement. As humanitarian coordinator I remember holding a press conference in Beirut and stating the outrageous fact that nearly all of those munitions were fired in the last 3 to 4 days of the war. It was outrageous because by that stage the conflict had been largely resolved in the form of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701. That resolution halted the war but it did not stop millions of cluster bombs being fired into the southern part of Lebanon just as those one million people were returning to their homes as Grant Robertson has mentioned. The people returned to their homes at a time when cluster weapons literally littered the countryside. 
I remember driving through the southern part of Lebanon and having to go round the cluster munitions. They were just small canisters with ribbons on the end and they floated down. On many occasions they landed unexploded. It is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of the cluster munitions that were fired came down and did not explode. They littered the ground. They littered the hospitals the playgrounds the schoolyards and the residential areas of the people of southern Lebanon. 
At the time a colleague of mine an Israeli reporter who was in contact with me and who wanted to know about it found some of the soldiers who had been responsible for firing off some of those bombs. One of the battalion commanders who estimated that he had fired about 1800 cluster bombs containing 1.2 million cluster bomblets stated: “What we did was insane and monstrous we covered entire towns in cluster bombs.” These were soldiers whose consciences spoke to them and they spoke out publicly at the end of the war about what they had done. So for me it is a very proud moment to be involved in this legislation during its passage through the House. 
When I left the war in Israel was claiming either the life or limbs of about three people a day; it has now killed about 20 people and maimed or injured about 170 others. Overwhelmingly as Grant Robertson said more than 90 percent of those people are civilians. A lot of them are children because children go out pick up the bomblets and play with them and the bomblets explode in their hands. Cluster bombs have polluted and continue to pollute the agricultural land of south Lebanon on which 70 percent of the population rely. Those people cannot go back into their fields because of the threat of cluster munitions. If they do go back then there is the threat that those unexploded munitions can go off. 
I join with others in the House in congratulating the people who have championed this legislation in both this Parliament and in the previous Parliament. Phil Goff Marian Hobbs Georgina te Heuheu John Hayes and the members of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee have brought this legislation through. Again I pay tribute to the non-governmental organisations and the civil society groups that have in a sense paved the way and been in the vanguard of making sure that New Zealand is at the front and that the two Governments involved have been able to follow through with the knowledge and certainty that this is the right way to go forward. 
As my colleague Phil Twyford mentioned this bill is one of the strongest pieces of legislation globally to ban cluster munitions. The divestment provisions in particular are to be applauded. This legislation means that we back up our talk with actions. As I say it is a very proud moment for New Zealand and it is something that I am very pleased to close the circle on from a moment in Lebanon in July 2006 to being here in December 2009. Thank you. 
Bill read a second and a third time. 
Name changed to Cluster Munitions Prohibition Bill.