Franks Stephen: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14254] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I have three questions for the Minister in the chair the Hon Judith Tizard. The first is about clause 7. There is an offence there of recruiting a mercenary but it does not use the definition of “mercenary”. It seems therefore to have none of the benefits of the exceptions in that definition. It seems for example that someone who recruits a mercenary to work for the United Nations is still caught by the offence— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: United Nations! 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: If the Minister would take a call and answer that would be great but if she cares to look at clause 7 she will see it actually does not use the defined term. It restates the offence as recruiting “for the purpose of taking part in hostilities in an armed conflict” for profit and it seems not to provide for the exceptions that have been provided in clause 5. Clause 5 very importantly says that someone is not a mercenary if the work is with the United Nations or a peace support mission humanitarian aid the detection of unexploded mines and so forth. Why have we left it an offence to recruit someone to go and explode mines but it is not an offence to go and explode them? 
I do believe that this is another instance of the hopeless work of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee chaired by Mr Dunne and dominated by the “nutty lefties” who are so blinded by their hostility to the profession of arms that they do drafting like this. I ask that the Minister seek the advice of her officials because it seems to me quite anomalous that recruitment is an offence to which the exceptions do not apply. It is quite possible that I have mistaken it and I would be glad to be told that I have because otherwise it seems ludicrous. 
I am also concerned to have an answer on extraterritorial jurisdiction to know whether it is possible that under the extradition treaty invoked in Part 3 someone can oblige the New Zealand Government to exercise its extraterritorial jurisdiction for the purpose of actually seizing and delivering someone who otherwise would not be taken. If this country is to be a haven for the sorts of freedom fighters whom in the past we have supported—the kinds of people who have stood up against despots and tyrants—we need to know whether under this United Nations treaty someone can force New Zealand to use the authority it is so foolishly asserting over its own people to pursue actions overseas that were not offences at the time or in the area where they occurred. It may be that there is a simple answer to that—I do not know. 
Now that I have got out those two questions I will go back to the bill. It is interesting that the offences of training a mercenary financing a mercenary and using a mercenary all relate to the defined term—clauses 8 9 10 and 12 all refer to the defined term—but not the offence of recruiting a mercenary. I suspect there has to be some explanation for that. It is very odd for it not to be qualified by the defined term. It may be that it was an accident of drafting or is due to haste. This measure has been brought in under urgency when it has been sitting around after being reported back by the select committee for nearly 6 months. Obviously urgency has struck. Does someone have to make a speech at the United Nations shortly? Does someone need an excuse to go there and shake hands at a cocktail party? What possible urgency does this bill have? Are we frightened that there might be some New Zealanders about to head off and we need to head them off? 
That would be the third question: why is this bill being dealt with under urgency? Why is it going through these stages under urgency? Is there some rational explanation or is it simply the Labour Government’s version of macho? When one does not believe in the armed forces one bullies people in Parliament—as the Labour whip attempted to do to Mr Ron Mark. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: A special cocktail party. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: It would be a very special cocktail party but the people would be mainly ugly. The member can console himself with that.