Franks Stephen: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14262] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I was very sorry that in the debate on the last part the Minister chose not to answer the serious question I had raised as to the definition and in this part the question is material again. That is because I am not confident—and I do not have the background in this area of law but I am sure the officials available to the Minister do—that New Zealand is not setting itself up in clauses 15 16 17 and 18 to be deeply embarrassed. Members will recall the embarrassment for the British Government when General Pinochet was detained essentially at the request of as I recall a Spanish court at the instigation of activists in Spain and the last thing the British Government wanted was to be in head-on conflict with any of the factions in Chile. But in the end the British Government had enough international clout to do as it thought best for Britain and the British courts have enough reputation for being independent that—after Lord Hoffman was removed from the House of Lords bench—it was very hard to suggest that anything other than the most honest view of the law was being applied. 
But what if a similar circumstance were translated to New Zealand? For example what if the Chinese made a request to us if it is a party—and I am not sure China is a party but I will assume it is—to hold someone here who it claims has been a mercenary in Tibet or it claims is recruiting or raising finance to cause trouble for China in Tibet? How would that go with New Zealand? Why would we want to put ourselves into a position where there is an instrument that gives the other State the expectation that it can call on us to chase the people it does not like? What about the Russians in relation toChechnya the Indonesians in relation to Timor or Aceh or the Kanaks in New Caledonia? There are any number of people whom we have relationships with—for example the French Government—who might one day call on us to exercise powers under this legislation that we would much prefer not to have. 
I have not heard or seen any justification for this. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee’s feeble report does not tell members how it weighed those kinds of considerations—if indeed it did. There is absolutely no consideration from the perspective of New Zealand’s interests as opposed to some abstract interest of the international community so who is looking after New Zealand in relation to clauses 15 16 17 and 18? 
Then I saw that clause 21 means that this legislation is included for the purposes of the Extradition Act of 1999. Now I do not know whether that is a benefit—I come to this as any ordinary member reading these words for the first time—but I would have expected to be told and I believe that the Minister ought to tell members whether this does mean that China could call for the extradition of some poor soul who has offended it in Tibet or in relation to Tibet. So I do not think we should be voting for this. I despise the Greens and I despise them deeply in matters like this. Those members are very very prone to self-righteous speeches in this Chamber about looking after the benighted and those whom most Western World States consider to be terrorists. But when it comes to a bill in this Parliament that could be used to suppress freedom fighters or to harass people whose politics are unpopular with the Greens’ mates the communists—no; they are in there boots and all supporting it. 
I reckon members will see them vote for this thing unamended. They will vote for Part 3 because Part 3 is the bit they want. They want to be able to hand over people to ensure that the Governments they favour can claim the right to deliver up those who might offend them wherever they may hide. We may find it could be as embarrassing as somebody’s bodyguard coming with a foreign dignitary to New Zealand who is suddenly hit with a request that he or she be intercepted arrested and suffer the fate of General Pinochet. Whatever one may think of him it was a grave misuse of power to have arrested that man who had come to Britain for medical treatment for acts that were not illegal at the time he committed them in his own country and for which he had an exemption. To turn the law into an instrument of foreign policy like this when it could rebound on a weaker country that has got itself offside with the international community is stupid.