Brownlee Gerry: Ministerial Statements — Islamic State Conflict—Government ResponseText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Ministerial Statements — Islamic State Conflict—Government Response[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:622. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Defence):This debate this afternoon is somewhat unusual in so much as it is usually the case in a ministerial statement that only the leaders of parties of more than six members are able to make a contribution. The Business Committee made a decision yesterday that it should be a broad debate because of its nature. That was a decision made unanimously by all members of the Business Committee. I do want to make that statement so that those who might be observing the debate realise that all of Parliament recognises the gravity of the announcement made by the Prime Minister today.We are having this debate because the Government is responding to a threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. I think what is missing a little bit in some of the commentary this afternoon is that this is an organisation that respects no boundaries. This is an organisation that has declared a caliphate and that has a big reach into countries throughout the world calling on disaffected people who would want to somehow support it to engage in terrorist activities. The numbers that were given by the Prime Minister in his speech today—somewhat unusually I might add—indicate that its reach has reached our shores as well as the shores of many other countries. So for us to turn a blind eye and say that we are a country that respects freedom and we are a peace-loving country that respects people’s abilities to do whatever they like would be to put at risk the lives of New Zealanders without recognising that those whom we seek to protect—in the case of the contributions made by one party here today—would be the very people who would seek to destroy the freedoms that we have.I just have to make a comment about the headline that is currently running on the Fairfax website. It says that we are at war. I think that is an extremely irresponsible headline to have run. I think that the four journalists who have attached their names to it need to reconsider the offering that they are putting in front of the public in light of the full speech that they listened to given by the Prime Minister. This is not a war in a conventional sense at all. This is about New Zealand taking some steps to protect New Zealanders here in our own country. When it comes to the objections that people might want to raise about military personnel looking at what we might do in regard to capacity-building in Iraq let us be clear that legitimate Governments in all countries around the world contribute to our general security. New Zealanders travel a lot. New Zealanders are in many countries throughout the world and in all of those places if this organisation is allowed to run rampant then their security is compromised.There have been suggestions today that some of the information that has come out has been in the form of a hint. I think Annette King said it was a drip-feed with a small amount of humanitarian aid and the Rt Hon Winston Peters suggested that it was lacking detail yet at the same time called for caution. That was also the theme from Annette King. In a way they are both right because this has been an evolving situation. If you went back 12 months this is an organisation that no one had really heard of. Yet in that short period of time the reign of terror that it has inflicted upon the world is such that has never been seen before.I wonder how anyone can promote the idea that there can be an organisation in the world that respects no boundaries that encourages domestic terrorism at large that videos and promulgates its activities—killing and beheading innocent people etc.—and that can somehow not be considered a threat to us here in New Zealand.I do though want to thank the Labour Party the New Zealand First Party the Māori Party the ACT Party and United Future for saying that they will support those extra moves for us to deal with the intelligence community throughout the world. My colleague will speak further on that. We will also engage in diplomacy whenever possible to try to make a difference. But in the end it is going to be the countries that are most affected by this and initially Iraq that need to stand up and do the business of putting this group of people—I hesitate to use the terms “ISIL” or even “Islamic State” because it implies that all those who are followers of Islam are somehow marked by this. That is not something I believe or that anyone in this Parliament I am sure would believe.This terrorist organisation does need to be stopped and a first port of call it would seem would be for Iraq itself to be able to have the strength to overcome the oppression of these people. We do have some people in the Middle East who are looking at what we might be able to do to assist with that. I reject the statement by Winston Peters that a decision has been made. It has not but without good information without on-the-ground intelligence and without a decent assessment of what is possible we could not make a decision. It would be I think remiss of us to simply rely on information that we got from others. Yes we have some people who are going to make some inquiries on our behalf and I think that that is totally appropriate.I just make the point that we do have to be a great deal more vigilant given what we now all know from the Prime Minister’s speech this morning. We will have to make some law changes but we do have to be incredibly careful that the caution we now start to take in expanding that vigilance does not start to impinge upon the freedoms of law-abiding New Zealanders. I think conversely law-abiding New Zealanders would expect us to keep their lives free and safe from this sort of threat.