Strange JamieJAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to take a call. I'd like to begin where the honourable member left off giving us a very interesting history around the International Criminal Court. I was surprised by the Hon Ron Mark's comments that it wasn't until the 1970s that movements were made to begin to set up an international court. It shows that the world is becoming more connected. We've had thousands of years of human civilisation. For basically all that time humans have tried to kill each other off. It's something that we don't generally see in the animal world where one species will try and kill itself but unfortunately humans for whatever reason do try to kill other humans and it's continuing.We obviously strive for peace across the globe and we continue to strive for that. The reality is wars continue to take place and this treaty is acknowledging that while those wars take place there must be an aspect of humanity as much as possible within those conflicts. This treaty obviously as we've heard tonight seeks to outlaw inhumane practices.As a former member of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—I was a member while this treaty passed through the committee—I would like to acknowledge Simon O'Connor for his excellent work as chair—Hon Member: Really?JAMIE STRANGE: Nah he is. He's a very fair chair. He does a very good job.Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Fair chair.JAMIE STRANGE: Fair chair—yeah. The submitters—I believe there were four submitters. There was only a small number of submitters but we'd like to thank those submitters.Look this work as we've heard from Priyanca Radhakrishnan—the Rome Statute International Criminal Court—New Zealand signed off in 1998. So it does go back quite a way. The international court is a relatively new phenomenon in terms of the history of mankind but it's absolutely important that we do have it. I'm hopeful that the continued work that the court does means that we do have a reduction in crime that we don't have another world war like we had earlier last century.Many of us have family members who have served in those conflicts. I have myself. If you look around the room here we've got those battles before us. We've got the Somme Gallipoli Passchendaele—First World War. We've got Second World War: North Africa; we've got Malaya which is where my father-in-law fought—Malaya—and Borneo. He also fought in the Vietnam War as well. So the reality is as I've said wars continue to take place unfortunately.I'd like to pick up on another point that we have heard from a speaker and that's the fact that the International Criminal Court has opened investigations in 11 situations publicly indicted 44 people and convicted six. Arrest warrants are issued for 36 individuals and summonses to eight others. There are 22 completed proceedings and 22 are ongoing. There are still 15 defendants at large. So there are still 15 people who have been accused of war crimes who are being searched for.The unfortunate thing and something that really saddens me is that most of these cases relate to crimes committed in the African continent particularly Sudan Kenya Uganda and the Congo. As someone who travelled through the absolutely beautiful wonderful continent of Africa—would've been about 15 years ago now but I travelled from Kenya right down to South Africa—it certainly saddens me that that continent with such beautiful wonderful people has unfortunately been the victim of war crimes of people who generally rise to power take on absolute power and then commit the most unspeakable atrocities and that's why we have this international court.Now the bill specifically relates to some amendments that have come before us amendments in 2010 and then further amendments in 2017. Those amendments have been spoken about tonight. I'm pleased that we have agreement right across the House around supporting these amendments.We have heard about the expanding bullets. The reason that has been raised by two speakers is because it's something that we do need to discuss because our police do use expanding bullets and that's something that will be worked through over the coming months around that. The aspect of expanding bullets that hasn't been touched on is that if in a police situation you're faced with a criminal and there are innocent bystanders around an expanding bullet will lodge within the criminal and won't go through and potentially affect innocent bystanders. So that's another point. So there are clear reasons why expanding bullets are used but discussions will obviously take place around that because expanding bullets are outlawed in this amendment.The International Criminal Court should be a court of last resort. So as we've heard it works alongside domestic law. Ideally domestic law will deal with people who are committing atrocities but when domestic law doesn't address that then the International Criminal Court then has that mandate to come into action around that.There's another point that I haven't heard raised tonight and I'd just like to raise it briefly which is that some countries that New Zealand forces the armed forces train and operate with on joint deployments have not yet ratified the amendment—for example the United States are likely not to ratify this amendment at all. So it does create a little bit of a challenge potentially as our forces work alongside others who haven't ratified this amendment. As a sovereign country we make our decision; other sovereign countries make their decisions. But certainly we do find agreement with other countries on the general belief around stopping around limiting atrocities and around caring for people. So we might not agree on all of the amendments but we certainly continue to work together on that.Look this is about technology. As technology grows and it will continue to grow within humankind we will see more weapons emerge more advanced weapons weapons that at this point in time in 2019 we couldn't even dream of or imagine. More weapons will continue to be thrust upon us so it's important that we continue to have these amendments come through as these weapons come forth.I was recently in the United Kingdom and I visited the Science Museum in London. It was interesting to see what one of the V2 rockets which was used in World War II as many people know towards the end of World War II. The technology from the V2 rockets was incredibly advanced at that time for the mid-1940s and that technology on the V2 rockets which were used by Adolf Hitler to terrorise people in the UK was then used for good to catapult people into space and on to the moon in the NASA program.So that's my final point that technology can be used for good can be used for bad. It's important that we have jurisdictions like the international court to monitor the aspect of weaponry as it develops. So thank you for the opportunity to share tonight.