Mark Ron: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mark Ron: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2210] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 Firstly I put on the record that New Zealand First will support this bill’s referral to a select committee. Secondly I indicate to the House that in the eyes of some of us this bill is another example of how the Government has taken it upon itself to be involved in all sorts of protocols and all sorts of negotiations with a little body called the United Nations which is made up of all sorts of funny little committees with all sorts of funny people appointed by all sorts of funny little Governments that will enforce upon us protocols procedures and laws that it deems appropriate to us. 
Dr Richard Worth 
: And the cost. 
RON MARK 
: Yes. The honourable member Dr Worth is quite correct to mention the cost of administering these protocols. And for what end? 
We saw in this House the Government signing up to a UN protocol to prevent the illicit trade in small arms light weapons and ammunition. To what end? New Zealand as indicated by its own investigations and the investigations of other internationally recognised bodies has no illicit trade in small arms light weapons and ammunition. The weapons being traded in the South Pacific are in islands like the Solomons and Vanuatu and places like that where there is civil unrest civil disorder and civil war. Funny that—weapons tend to be traded illicitly in places where there is civil war and no amount of legislation or signing up to funny little protocols from the United Nations will change that. The irony is that the people who are involved in those activities are most often the people who do not sign up to these protocols and who do not in any way whatsoever take part. 
When one looks at this bill one has to ask oneself: “Who will listen?”. The only things I can see in this bill are things we will do to ourselves. Well pray tell me where in this country are people being denied their human rights being denied representation being denied their civil liberties being locked up in prisons or being tortured? Mr Power is quite right in saying that a number of structures procedures and systems are in place to prevent that sort of thing from happening in our country. When something inappropriate does happen there is protection. When for example the emergency response unit infamously known as the “goon squad” was operating in Christchurch’s prisons those people had the protection of members of Parliament the Ombudsman and the prison inspectorate. 
There are procedures that allow whistleblowers to blow the lid off such things. All it requires is a Government to listen and to act. The tragedy in that case was that duly elected Governments—one National one Labour—prevented the inquiry into the “goon squad” from happening for 4 years. It was only persistent attacks by New Zealand First that forced the Labour Government to commission an inquiry which was done very well by Ailsa Duffy QC. And that is the point. We do not need some of us would argue to impose on ourselves a whole multi-tiered layer of more committees. We do not need to hold ourselves ultimately accountable to some little tinpot committee inside the United Nations in order to police ourselves. We do not need a National Preventive Mechanism and a Central National Preventive Mechanism with all the quangos secretaries and duly appointed people on high salaries to do that. We do not need it. 
Once we do sign up what will we do about it? It is all very high and mighty and pious of the New Zealand Parliament to sign up to some UN protocol and tell the world that we are here to stamp out torture. What will the Labour Government do about China the day we sign this? I will ask again. What will the Labour Government do about China when it has ratified this agreement? What will we do about Falun Gong? What did we do in East Timor? What will we do about Zimbabwe? Some of us would advocate that Mugabe should have been declared a terrorist a torturer a murderer and a thug years ago assassinated and gotten rid of. Some might have argued that the UN should have sent in a force when the white farmers were being dispossessed of their lands and their assets run off their farmlands tortured and murdered. What are we going to do about such things? I know: we will make another speech. 
The families of a lot of dead people in Zimbabwe will be comforted by the fact that New Zealand will sign this protocol and will implement internally in New Zealand a National Preventive Mechanism to monitor itself and a Central National Preventive Mechanism to monitor that! That is all meaningless. It is all “touchy-feely” feel-good nonsense. It is like the protocol and the convention against mine warfare. Pray tell me: on the day that one of our soldiers is attacked and killed or a unit of the New Zealand Defence Force is wiped out by people who came through a defensive position because there was no minefield to protect it and on the day that those soldiers are brought home in their coffins what will we tell their parents? We will say: “At least we complied by the UN convention against mine warfare. We didn’t use mines to protect them.” That will be really helpful! 
The point is that we are not the problem. Generally speaking Western countries with democratically elected Governments are not the problem. The problem is the very countries that Western democracies seem too gutless to deal with such as Nigeria Zimbabwe a plethora of Muslim States Somalia and Ethiopia. I can just see it. All the Somalian refugees in this country will be leaping up and clapping their hands with glee when Labour announces that it has ratified this agreement. Like hell they will! They know that back in Somalia and Ethiopia not one thing will change. But the Government will have on its next election pledge card: “This is what we did. Praise us and thank us and vote us back into power again.” 
New Zealand First simply says this: we know what the intent is and we know what the problem is. We will support the bill’s referral to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee so that there might be a free and frank discussion and so that we might get right down to the nitty-gritty and the nuts and bolts of how a country can prevent torture and terrorism in other countries that it does not have control over. The one thing I do know is that the Greens will give a speech here attacking the Americans for what is happening in the prisons at Guantánamo Bay. They will do that but I doubt very much that left-wing politicians in this country have anything serious to say about what they will do about China. A country can attack its mates and friends with impunity but dare it bring this legislation this protocol to force against China? I doubt it. It is all wind and words and meaningless fluff that at the end of the day New Zealanders will pay for in dollar terms to no effect whatsoever.