Borrows Chester: Walking Access Bill — In Committee; Cultural Property (Protection in Armed Conflict) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Walking Access Bill — In Committee; Cultural Property (Protection in Armed Conflict) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18582. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise to support the Cultural Property (Protection in Armed Conflict) Bill and I am very pleased to do so because it is certainly time that we acceded to the first and second protocols of the Hague convention that we originally signed way back in 1954 when the world was mourning the loss of cultural heritage that was destroyed in World War II. These days we cannot imagine the effect of the wholesale slaughter of soldiers and civilians that went on during those years from 1939 to 1945 and it was quite common when our parents were young to talk of young women who had lost their sweethearts during the war. Many of them never married and recently $1.5 million was gifted to Wellington College by 92-year-old Violet Dunn in memory of Tom Paul who was killed during World War II. She wanted to ensure that her beloved’s memory would endure by giving the money to benefit the school he attended from 1931 to 1935. 
Similarly we find it hard to imagine how people felt about the wholesale loss of cultural property during those years. The destruction of heritage buildings even whole towns and the artworks manuscripts books and scientific collections contained within was devastating. Whole museums libraries and galleries disappeared and with them the works that were inside. The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict was signed in 1954 because the high contracting parties believed that peace time was an opportunity to develop a future safeguard for cultural property. Interestingly this was not the first attempt at the convention. There had already been conventions signed at The Hague—one in 1899 which detailed the laws and customs of war on land and naval bombardment in time of war and another in 1907. These were followed by the Washington Pact signed in 1935 which particularly mentioned the protection of artistic and scientific institutions of historic monuments. But obviously none of these had worked. The 1954 convention focused on the protection and safeguarding of cultural property ensuring respect for cultural property particularly by any occupying forces and the protection and transportation of movable cultural property and the personnel who looked after it. The convention also details the use of a distinctive emblem to identify cultural property to be attached in time of peace. 
The first protocol was designed to prevent the exploitation of cultural property from occupied territories. It also requires each high contracting party to take into custody any property that is imported into its territory. The country is then responsible for returning that cultural property to the competent authorities in the territory previously occupied. 
The second protocol concerns measures to take in time of peace for safeguarding cultural property against the foreseeable effects of an armed conflict. It includes the requirement to prepare inventories to have emergency plans to protect structures and to remove movable cultural property. It also requires the designation of competent authorities to look after all of these measures. It also allows for a waiver in case there is an imperative military necessity. The waiver allows on the basis of imperative military necessity the ability to direct an act of hostility against cultural property if the cultural property has by its function been made into a military objective—for example a group of armed soldiers hiding out in a church and shooting their attackers—and there is no feasible alternative available to obtain a similar military advantage to that offered by directing an act of hostility against that objective. 
The rest of the bill details offences and penalties and detailed regulations about search seizure and forfeiture. It also outlines measures of compensation and the return of cultural property. I am pleased that National is supporting this bill. I hope that the use of its provisions will not be necessary in New Zealand or need to be used in reference to New Zealanders in other war-torn countries. 
Bill read a first time.