Shearer David: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 29 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:361. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):Congratulations Mr Deputy Speaker on your elevation to the post of Deputy Speaker. I want to address an issue that John Key mentioned in his address earlier on and that was that before the election he was emphatic that New Zealand would not become involved militarily in Iraq against IS or the Islamic State. Immediately after the election however he changed his mind.Going to war is one of the most important decisions that any leader can take and it seems to me that with the coming G20 next month Mr Key wants to be part of that club of nations that has signed up to war in Iraq. When it comes to Kiwi lives the security of New Zealanders a sizable amount of money not to mention the limits that we place on ourselves of things we cannot do because we are involved in that particular theatre we need to think very very carefully. A sound rationale for New Zealand’s involvement in my opinion has not yet been made and it should not be—it should not be—triggered by a desire to foot it on the world stage.We have to ask ourselves a number of questions. We have to ask ourselves what a deployment of our forces would achieve and what success would look like. On that we have absolutely no clue. Air strikes are the main tactic the chief tactic yet every military analyst around the world agrees that air strikes actually will not defeat the Islamic State. That will require boots on the ground. So the war that we might send our forces to even the experts agree actually has no chance of being won. It is a half-war. It is the imperative to do something—to do something even if it is stupid as somebody said—just because it appears on our TV screens.As air strikes continue naturally what we will see is IS becoming more skilled at hiding within civilian populations bombs will inevitably hit civilians and support for any action that we are involved with along with our allies will turn against us. And what will our forces do there? Well if it involves the SAS it is likely to advise and train on air strikes and how to direct them. But we all know from our experience in Afghanistan what that means—that it will not stop there that our troops our forces are likely to be there on the ground working directly alongside Iraqis.Another question: what is the exit strategy and when should we leave? Well if we do not know what we want to actually achieve then it is impossible to know when the job is done and when it is time to go. So frankly any deployment is unlikely to have an exit strategy.Another question: do we need to help our allies? After all everybody else seems to be there according to Mr Key so why not us? Well what the Government does seem to be saying is that we are not somehow facing up to our responsibilities and we are somehow deserting our allies. Let us remember that the Iraq War began within the Bush administration for ideological reasons. Our traditional allies joined in—the US the UK Australia. They all played an active role. But we were different. We did not join in. We chose not to.I want to say that there is a rule that has often been used and it was used by Colin Powell during the Gulf War called the Pottery Barn rule. The Pottery Barn rule simply says “You break it you own it”. With Iraq Powell said to President Bush: “You will own the Iraqis’ hopes their aspirations and their problems. You will own it all.” He said privately: “But if you break it you will own it.” The US is right now owning what has not worked by its support of the Iraqi Government and its military. But that does not logically flow through to us in New Zealand.Another question: should we be involved because IS is after all a threat to New Zealand? John Key said yesterday that IS will rain carnage on the world. Really—I mean really? Is IS about to bring terror and mayhem into our neighbourhoods? No. No IS is sophisticated. It reaches out to local people and asks them to take up arms. We need to take care about the radicalisation of fringe members of our peaceful and productive Muslim community here in New Zealand. A study by the Royal United Services Institute in the UK showed that “… there is no longer any serious disagreement that the UK’s role in the Iraq war increased the radicalisation of Muslims. … Far from reducing international terrorism … the 2003 invasion [of Iraq] had the effect of promoting it.”If the cause is right then we in New Zealand accept the risk. But we should understand that a deployment of forces in Iraq could create greater insecurity in New Zealand. Mr Key also argues that this is an international a regional and a local problem. No this is a conflict that is and should be regional. It is we who are making it international and trying to internationalise it. So let us not use the politics of fear to justify a deployment that simply does not stack up. IS is not threatening the world; it is brutish nasty and it uses terror and atrocities as weapons to dominate parts—parts—of two countries.Let us remember what Tony Blair said in 2002. He and his Cabinet declared that Iraq posed an imminent threat to Britain. That is laughable today. That is laughable today but it was rhetoric that was designed to justify a war and we should take care not to exaggerate what IS may threaten in order to justify military action ourselves.The Middle East does have one law that we should adhere to and that is the law of unintended consequence. The region as I know is hugely complex the situation is immensely fluid and the agendas are multiple. We are deluding ourselves if we believe that we are going to make a measurable difference by putting our people on the ground. Western interventions historically have commonly ended in disaster. If the US knew how Iraq would end when the conflict began when the US went in there 10 years ago you wonder whether it would have actually invaded had it known that. My answer is almost certainly no.We have no idea of how this will end or what consequences might occur. Neutralising Islamic State for example is likely to strengthen Syrian President al-Assad a man who thinks little of gassing his own people. Thanks to him nearly 200000 people—Syrians—have died in the last 3 years in the war that he began. Already many Muslims are hostile to more Western interference as they see it against them.What should we do then instead? We should all detest IS its tactics and its agendas. We feel minorities should be protected. The US air strikes did in Iraq enable the minority Yazidis to reach safety because the US-trained Iraqi army was so hopeless to protect them itself. The strategy to deal with IS needs to be broad. For example there is much less focus on cutting oil shipments from IS areas through Turkey than there is on air strikes and on shutting off the arms supplies that are coming in and feeding it.We need to identify clearly when our job is done and when it is time to go something that we have no measure of at the moment. We should stop speaking of a global threat when it is clearly not. We should accept that our involvement might bring—might bring—greater risk to New Zealand. And we should make up our minds not feel an obligation to blindly follow along behind others.Instead what we need to be doing is using our place on the United Nations Security Council to organise a UN resolution to achieve a truly international response against the abuses by IS. We should continue to increase our humanitarian assistance. We have an obligation to do that. We should look carefully at whether there are actually more deserving areas in which to spend the very limited forces and logistics that we have. Boko Haram in Nigeria commits equally atrocious abuses as those that are committed by IS.Can we for example or should we contribute to the stopping of the spread of Ebola? Kiwis as ever are always willing to do the right thing—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.DAVID SHEARER: Could I finish the sentence? We have put ourselves in harm’s way. We should not move and desist from doing that again but it should not be a decision that is rushed because of a meeting of the G20. Thank you.