Carter Chris: Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill — Procedure Second Reading Third Reading 
Carter Chris: Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill — Procedure Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:659;Page:8484] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Labour Party to say we support the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill and do so with a sense of ownership of it. My departed colleague the previous member for Wellington Central the Hon Marian Hobbs was a passionate advocate for this legislation. Indeed she introduced it into the House. She was a tireless international worker in this area. I have to say that the Labour Party leader Phil Goff in his previous role as foreign Minister was also a tireless advocate for this legislation. As the Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control has just acknowledged in her presentation New Zealand took a leadership role in the world and we can be very proud of that. The passage of this legislation today with the support of all parties in the House is something that all New Zealanders can feel satisfaction and pride in. 
As the Minister said cluster munitions have caused enormous harm around the world. Indeed one of the contributions from the Labour side this afternoon will be from David Shearer the Labour member for Mt Albert—one of our newest MPs—who has worked in the Lebanon Afghanistan and Iraq. He will no doubt talk about the effects of cluster munitions that he has seen and about their long-lasting impact on civilian populations particularly children. I know that as a result of the conflict that took place in the Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel many children in the Lebanon have suffered horrific injuries from playing with these small and shiny objects which are found scattered across their country. Those children have not been alone in being the victims of these evil and insidious munitions. 
I remember that last year when I visited Cambodia in my role as the then education Minister I saw firsthand the effects of landmines on young children. They had lost limbs. At this point I want to compliment Mr Chhour a Cambodian refugee who came to New Zealand in the 1970s and who has been extraordinarily generous in providing artificial limbs for many of these children. Cluster munitions cause the same problems as landmines. In a way they are even more dangerous than landmines because they look so innocent. At least a minefield can be cleared. Finding these small shiny objects which are often very attractive to children can be extraordinarily difficult in places. We have over 20 countries and territories where these weapons have been used and where they lie in wait for the unwary—most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan and I am sure Mr Shearer will talk about that. 
Why was this legislation not dealt with through the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons? New Zealand is one of the countries that became very frustrated with that slow and bureaucratic process. I know that another of my Labour colleagues the new member for Wellington Central Grant Robertson who was a New Zealand representative at the UN may well talk in his presentation and I do not want to pre-empt his speech about why New Zealand and six other countries including Norway Austria the Holy See and Ireland—a gang of seven if you like—got together and thought we had to move things along. We thought they were going so slowly we would never get there—that we never going to get an international treaty that prohibited the use of cluster munitions. So New Zealand working with those other six countries set up what was called the Oslo process which set an objective of having legislation like the legislation that we will pass today adopted globally. We then went on to two more conferences in Lima and Vienna. Finally last year here in Wellington we had a conference where I think 82 countries were represented and over 400 delegates came. Mr Goff in his role as foreign Minister opened the conference. Out of that conference came this legislation. It makes me really proud as a New Zealander to be a part of a process that sees this legislation which was worked on across the parties passed in this Parliament to make the world a safer place. Thank you.