Seymour David: Ministerial Statements — Islamic State Conflict—Government ResponseText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSeymour David: Ministerial Statements — Islamic State Conflict—Government Response[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:620. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT):I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the proposals announced this morning. My party believes that the first and most important role of the State is to protect citizens against thugs. This duty applies whether the thugs reside overseas or within our borders. Given this extraordinary power however the State does have a tendency to overreach. Over the past century much of classical liberals’ attention has been rightly focused on resisting the overreach of the State. That was right I say because those Governments did suppress freedom of movement and freedom of contract. Many of my remarks are directed at civil libertarians of whom I count myself as one unlike some of the more ostentatious appeals to that constituency made earlier.Actually I want to congratulate the Prime Minister and the acting deputy leader of the Labour Party on very fine speeches. I began to appreciate some of the opponents of MMP until I saw that Peter Dunne made a very fine speech too.We support the intention to ensure that proper parliamentary processes are followed even while we are for very good reason speeding them up a little. We support the moves to tidy up inconsistencies between the powers of the police and the SIS inconsistencies that unduly hamper justified monitoring of internal threats. The other moves—the funding boost to the SIS the changes in respect of passports the narrow changes to emergency surveillance and the sunset clauses—all appear to be measured and restrained in scope.But the issues being considered today go well beyond those internal matters and they do so because it is not always the State that is a threat to liberty or even other States that are the threat. The contest in the Middle East and the threats of global terrorism in recent decades have come from stateless entities—or at least currently stateless entities as their ambition is to create their own State. We need hardly debate whether there is a contest of values at stake in respect of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). That entity represents the antithesis of civilised values—the values of liberty the rule of law freedom of association freedom of religion and democratic institutions.But the question is whether we should get involved at all. As a country we have throughout our history played our part in defending not just borders but also the values of free and democratic societies and of modern civilisation. It is true that the military contest in the Middle East is not our fight in so far as they are not our borders but the contest about the kind of society that will prevail in that region is of profound interest and concern to free societies everywhere. Here the issue is very much a contest of values the spread of those values around the world and the threat those values are to free and open societies.We do not need to document or list the brutalities of ISIL. We have seen them on the news most nights. ISIL does pose a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria and the broader Middle East. Its current operational threats are in the Middle East and North Africa but its declared threats are global and specifically directed at Western liberal democracies. They are not just theoretical threats. As we have seen in Australia and Canada recently ISIL’s adherents and supporters are capable of random acts of violence. The scale may so far be small but their aspirations are not.One option might be to sit back and wait to see what else ISIL is capable of. We could wait until its capability either wanes or others more directly affected work to ensure ISIL is defeated or wait until it succeeds in a violent provocation of sufficient scale that a military response becomes the only option. It is not at all clear whether for free societies generally a purely defensive posture is possible at least not if we wish to maintain a free and open society in our world. A purely defensive posture would be a garrison State the wagons circled a wall put up with extensive and intrusive surveillance within. That is not the free and open society so painfully built and fought for through the past century and before. And that is simply the case for playing our part and contributing.We would all much rather that none of this was necessary. New Zealand is a small country well away from the immediate theatre of struggle in the Middle East. In a direct sense this is not our fight. They are not our borders at threat. But the values at stake are our values. Although the aspirations of ISIL do not reach our shores they affect our way of life. So the case for playing our part however small that might be is a strong one. Is helping those directly at threat from ISIL a worthy goal the morally right thing to do? Yes it is unambiguously so. Is stopping ISIL achievable? With a broad international contribution the answer must surely be yes because it has to be. To allow a stateless gang one utterly pitted against our freedoms and way of life to dominate a large swath of territory in the Middle East as a launching pad for broader aspirations is unthinkable. In that sense the situation in Iraq and Syria has direct relevance for our domestic security our values and our economy as a small trading nation dependent on international trade and the rule of law internationally.For New Zealand to make a small contribution to international efforts to prevent the humanitarian crisis from deepening and to support the capabilities of those directly in the firing line seems a justifiable and proportionate response entirely in keeping with our traditional values. We must of course be aware of unintended consequences—of mission creep as they say. From what the Prime Minister has said no more is being contemplated than humanitarian aid and capacity building for crucial Iraqi institutions including the army. The ACT Party can support these limited and proportionate measures. They signal a willingness by New Zealand to play our part. The question that matters is whether this is a struggle that is warranted. From what we know so far it is thus we support the limited moves announced today and the intention to seek broad political support for them and to pursue due process in implementing them. Thank you.