Twyford PhilHon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control): Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to acknowledge the excellent contributions from colleagues across the House in this debate and underline the importance and the value of the cross-party commitment that this Parliament shows to nuclear disarmament. As colleagues have pointed out it is one example of the important tradition that we have in this country of a cross-party commitment on elements of our foreign policy. It's always good for New Zealand when we're facing outwards to the rest of the world that we can speak with one voice. I also want to thank the Hon Todd McClay and the Hon Jenny Salesa for joining me on the Government's delegation to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in New York. As colleagues have pointed out the world is in a very dangerous place right now. Many experts have said that there is a greater risk of a nuclear exchange whether it's deliberate or by miscalculation or error right now than at any time since the height of the Cold War. We've seen the rise of authoritarian nationalism the weakening of the institutions of multilateralism and the atrophy of many of the systems that have been in place between the nuclear powers to reduce the risk of nuclear war. There has never been a greater need for nuclear disarmament nor for the kind of leadership and statespersonship that we've seen in previous generations. But you wouldn't know that from the way that nuclear-weapon States behaved at the nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference in New York. Even before Vladimir Putin's nuclear sabre-rattling—the threats that have been made by Russia in the course of their invasion and their war in Ukraine. The nuclear-weapon States have to be brutally frank over the last two decades collectively so badly failed to meet the commitments that they made under international law to reduce their nuclear arsenals and to disarm that they have and they bear responsibility for undermining the institutions of international law and multilateralism as far as they relate to nuclear disarmament. I stood in the UN hall in New York and looked around: it was absolutely clear to me that an overwhelming majority of the world's countries want to see nuclear disarmament and yet the nuclear-weapon States are champions at making excuses and they cling to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction insisting that their right to threaten humanity with the incineration of entire cities a nuclear exchange that could threaten the survival of our species—that somehow that doctrine makes the rest of us safer. New Zealand rejects that logic and we have done so since David Lange smelt the uranium on the breath of nuclear deterrence back in 1985. We as a country are working harder than ever now in defence of multilateralism of nuclear disarmament and of the institutions of peace.There is a bright spot on the horizon in this very grim scenario and that is the creation of the nuclear-ban treaty—the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It now has 68 States parties and 91 signatories and I have no doubt that in the course of the next generation a majority of the world's countries will sign up to that treaty. The nuclear-weapon States and their financiers and their allies will become increasingly isolated and the public tolerance of nuclear-weapon States will become less and less. I also want to talk about the importance of tackling the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific. The nuclear-weapon States—the United States France the United Kingdom—have never owned up to the environment damage: the fact that people were driven from their lands; their waters are poisoned. Three generations later there are still excessive cancer incidents in the populations that were affected by nuclear testing. We must tackle this and New Zealand is working alongside Pacific countries at the Pacific Islands Forum to do this to put in place a research programme that would create the basis for remedying that historical wrong.