Franks Stephen: International Treaties Bill — Second Reading 
Franks Stephen: International Treaties Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:606;Page:3605] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I rise to support this bill which requires that the  treaty-making power of the New Zealand Government be made subject to clear democratic control. This bill is very similar to a bill that my colleague the Hon Ken Shirley prepared. Keith Locke and Ken Shirley’s bills sat in the member’s bill list waiting for the ballot for many many months. When Mr Locke’s bill was drawn the ACT party was delighted because our purposes in wanting to bring the treaty-making power under democratic parliamentary control are purposes that people from left and right can equally recognise. For example the Greens see current treaties like the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the globalisation moves typified by the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) as threatening and we might see a temporary advantage in not having to pass such things through the scrutiny of Parliament. We might think that there is reason to endorse the words of the Hon Lockwood Smith or the Hon Phil Goff who in effect have said that democratic scrutiny is awkward inconvenient time-consuming and potentially embarrassing and that they rather like it the way it is.  
What we heard from the National Party and Labour—assisted by Matt Robson of the Progressive party which was formerly the Alliance—was a set of pleas for privilege: the privilege of not having to explain oneself of not having to persuade people of not having to carry the country with one’s decisions of being able to be part of an elite group using the levers of the State and with other wielders of power covertly bringing into our law rules that New Zealanders would not approve of if they knew what was happening.  
We have a very good example of that. In 1989 New Zealand decided to formally abolish the death penalty. At that time there was significant debate about whether it could be entrenched. At the same time we were having a debate about whether we could in some way entrench our bill of rights. The Government decided after a lot of debate that it was not feasible to entrench in a politically acceptable way something as universal as the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act though its terms included fundamental human rights. The Government passed the bill abolishing capital punishment but then subscribed to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights knowing that that subscription—as far as legal theory goes—says that the New Zealand people can never reverse their decision on capital punishment.  
This is not a speech in favour of capital punishment. It is simply saying that cynical politicians like the Hon Douglas Graham who knew that he could not succeed in getting New Zealanders to say that there will never ever be an occasion for capital punishment used the treaty-making or treaty-accession power to try to put something beyond the people of New Zealand. Had that been debated in this House it would never have flown but he did it at the same time as we were adopting a bill of rights intended to entrench basic liberties. That is not unusual.  
The arguments raised by the Hon Phil Goff and endorsed by Lockwood Smith for not allowing Parliament the power to scrutinise were arguments to ensure just that outcome. For example we have the argument that disclosure of negotiating position is the problem. Does that really tell us that the United States does not manage to secure its negotiating position simply because it has to persuade the Senate before the President can ensure that a treaty will be binding? What about all of the other OECD countries with which we would like to be compared? It is really only a residue of the British Imperial system that has left us in a position where we can hear speeches saying—as Lockwood Smith did and as the Minister Phil Goff did with slightly less rancour—that it is stupid or foolish to attempt to ensure that New Zealanders cannot be bound by international documents.  
We have had a fair raft of foolish treaties and they are not something that Parliament should keep out of. We have had Prime Ministers with a rush of blood to the head who wanted to big-note it in international fora; Prime Ministers currying favour—possibly even for personal benefit—wanting to be known for things internationally once the little stage of New Zealand had become far too small for them. We have had treaties that have been promoted and brought into force with words that New Zealanders should not tolerate. In my time in this House I have seen the International Crimes and International Criminal Court Bill sign New Zealand up to words that in effect say that some of our war heroes were war criminals. 
Hon Matt Robson 
: They may not be war heroes if they are criminals. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Because of weasel words some of our war heroes are now war criminals. As the former Minister for Disarmament just interjected the bill makes them not war heroes but war criminals—people like General Freyberg and the men who managed to ensure that Malaysia was not Vietnam. They deliberately signed us up to words that very few New Zealanders had ever heard about—that declared in effect that we would rewrite history and make those men war criminals. Mr Robson was able to enjoy the plaudits of the representatives of countries that have absolutely no respect for our freedoms. He could go off to New York and be clapped for committing us to obligations that New Zealanders would not have stood for.  
My select committee has also seen the misuse being made of this issue. As President of the Court of Appeal in the Tavita case of 1994 Lord Cooke gave fair warning that the judiciary was salivating at the thought of being able to elevate international treaty obligations to a kind of superior law that could mean that it did not have to listen to Parliament. Lord Steyn who was here just late last year repeated that theme. He asked why the Court of Appeal had not used treaty obligations—international human rights law—to just forget about waiting for a Parliament that was not falling into line with his preferences. The Human Rights Commission appeared before our committee to tell us that its highest priority a year and a half ago was to turn housing into a fundamental human right—in effect creating in New Zealand the situation in the United Kingdom where 80000 Algerian and Iraqi so-called refugees are sitting in hotels at the ratepayers’ expense. That is a human right never voted on by the New Zealand Parliament but our Human Rights Commission thought it could use a vague reference to the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights as justification for turning it into an obligation in New Zealand.  
We believe that Parliament should debate these matters. A sort of ruthlessness seems to accrue to National and Labour when they have held power and the Greens have done this House a service by bringing this bill forward. We will support it and it will come back. We hope that next time the attitude of the other parties to this bill will not be dictated by such a cynical hunger for power.