McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak to the Military Justice Legislation Amendment Bill and I suppose you could say I've been parachuted in from left field to some extent because I've certainly played no part in the earlier discussions on this bill. Given the speeches of the legal and military heavyweights who have preceded me I'll deal with a few different issues that I think are very relevant to the bill.I want firstly to commend the Ministers—the two previous ones and the current one—who have brought this bill to the House. I also want to speak briefly about the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee under the leadership of Simon O'Connor of which I've been no part and you can't blame the Parliament for not wanting me to be part of our foreign affairs discussion. I think I get to speak on this bill because I do have three of the major Defence Force bases in my Rangitīkei electorate—and I'm extremely proud of that—in the Linton Ōhākea and Waiōuru military bases. Also from the weekend on I will be able to lob a ball from my bed on to the Ōhākea base. I won't take that chance because they're pretty alert; so I won't be doing that but I do live very close to the Ōhākea base. I also incidentally was called up; so I'd be one of very few people in this House who might have ever been called up and when you see me walk you'll see why I never completed that service.The men and women who join our Defence Force join it knowing full well what they're going into. I would think that a hundred years ago you could very well have said they didn't understand fully what they were going into and certainly they didn't expect to end up where they ended up. So you can see why military justice law in those days was very different than what it needs to be now. This piece of legislation really brings the military justice system into line with the rest of our criminal justice system and it also enables members of the Defence Force to be treated in the same manner whether they're in the Defence Force military justice system or in the criminal justice system.I want to make the point here that this bill doesn't refer to mass disrespect or mass criminal offending in the Defence Force; it will be very rarely used. When you live where I live like all other men and women from time to time they fall foul of some sort of legislation on a Friday night and they inevitably appear in our justice system—the normal justice system. There are a number of cases now where members of our Defence Force have appeared in the normal justice system but there are specific areas where they haven't in the past. One or two of the things that I think are very important in this case is that there used to be no way that some of these crimes would ever appear on these service people's records—and when I say some" it's very rare as well. It would be that you could commit a reasonably serious crime in the Defence Force that would not appear on your record in the future. I think at the end of the day from a community-safety perspective and the safety of our people it's necessary that those people are treated in the same manner whether they're in the Defence Force or outside the Defence Force.So I think this bill as has been said before me does a pretty good job. It tidies up an area that historically has been untidy. It aligns the Defence Force legal justice system with the criminal justice system. It protects victims' rights and ensures that they are treated the same way whether they're in the Defence Force or out. As I think all three speakers have mentioned it reverses the onus of proof and that's an issue that's been much discussed in the Parliament in the time that I've been here whether it's in this bill or whether it's in other bills that we have dealt with. I don't think a firm conclusion as to the best way has ever been come to. Obviously the courts have ruled on this but I don't know whether a firm conclusion has ever been come to as to what the best way of doing that is but none the less this bill has standardised it.I want to congratulate the people who brought this bill to the House. I fully support it. I also want to make the point once again that I think the men and women who join our Defence Force are a huge credit to us. They go all over the world at significant risk to themselves. Whilst I think that our Defence Force has changed the way it operates internationally it is a huge credit to them that they can go out there into all those dangerous places and do what they do in the form of what we might perhaps now term "peacekeeping" rather than what we used to term "going to war" effectively. None the less the same risks apply to them. They are under pressure all the time and I think to bring them back here to New Zealand they need to be treated as almost I guess the heroes they are because they are special people.I've got no problem commending this bill to the House and I'm sure it will go through to its conclusion with unanimous support. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."