Jones Dail: Counter-Terrorism Bill — First Reading 
Jones Dail: Counter-Terrorism Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4624] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 One of wonderful things about having been away from Parliament for 18 years is that one understands how ineffectual Parliament can be and how highly Parliament thinks of itself. This bill is probably one of the classic examples of that. Here we have the Labour Government trying to legislate away our problems. This legislation will in no way resolve the problems that New Zealand faces today yet somehow the Labour Government thinks that if it puts up a bill all our problems will go away the terrorists will go away and everything will be sweet and rosy. What a load of nonsense that is! 
Whether or not this bill is passed—and New Zealand First will support it—we do not have the means to counter terrorism in New Zealand. The Labour Government has made sure that our defence forces have been run down so severely that we could not prevent an incident like September 11 from happening in New Zealand. We do not have a plane fast enough to catch up with any plane that may be flying into the Beehive and we do not have a plane capable of shooting down a plane that may be attacking the Beehive. What a load of nonsense this legislation is! The public of New Zealand want action not just another Labour Government piece of paper saying that the Government will legislate terrorism away and there will be no more problems. Is that not the typical Labour way of doing things! If we have a problem Labour legislates for it and believes that is the end of it. That is absolute nonsense. 
This bill has been lying around since 17 December 2002. It has no real link to the present state of affairs. This bill came out of the events of September 11 2001 did it not? That is going on 18 months ago and finally we are getting some more legislation on this issue. That shows the importance the Labour Government gives even to its usual stance of trying to legislate away a problem. This bill refers to the benefits that it will give us. On page 12 of the explanatory note of the bill I see that the benefits include “the safety and security of New Zealand and its citizens”. We are talking about safety and security and the problems that New Zealand would face if it were the victim of a terrorist attack. 
I would suggest that the statements made by the right honourable Prime Minister that a Gore presidency in the United States would have had a different consequence for Iraq— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will come back to the bill. 
DAIL JONES 
: That is very important because I believe that that statement is more dangerous to New Zealand in a terrorist sense than would be a suicide bomber. That statement has caused more damage to New Zealand than any suicide bomber could possibly cause. It has damaged New Zealand’s international standing and its relationship with the United States the United Kingdom and Australia more than any suicide bomber could possibly do. In that sense in that verbal smart academic sense the Prime Minister has been more damaging to New Zealand than any suicide bomber could possibly be. She sits there smugly thinking that was a nice slick remark to make the type of thing that one could say with a glass of Chardonnay in one’s hand at Auckland University but really it is more damaging than a suicide bomber would be. The consequences of that comment will last longer than anything we are trying to protect ourselves from with this legislation. The Prime Minister does not understand that and Mark Peck did not understand it. Wayne Mapp quite correctly made that point. We have to watch what we say not just try to legislate away a problem. 
We do not support the situation in Iraq of course. We take the view that if we get rid of Saddam Hussein—he might even be dead already but the Iraqis are still fighting—we must ask what we will get in his place. We will get another dictator not democracy in Iraq. Democracy in Iraq is impossible. One has to live in the Middle East or in South Asia as I did—I was born and brought up there—to know that we will not get democracy in Iraq. The best that will happen in Iraq will be the replacement of Saddam Hussein by another type of dictator at someone else’s behest. We will not get anything decent in Iraq so we just have to remember whom our friends are. Although we are disagreeing with the United States and Britain at the moment we have to look to the future and that is what the Prime Minister has failed to do. She has the responsibility to make sure that her smart alec words do not do us future damage. But she is doing that. Anything that is in this bill is totally destroyed by the way in which the Prime Minister has behaved in terms of her smart alec remarks recently. 
Some of us have links with what is happening in Iraq. My grandfather was in Basra in 1917 and my maternal grandmother was on many hajj trips so I have close links with the Middle East and with the situation there. New Zealand First has made it quite clear that we do not want to see the United States Australia and Britain going in there to try to find weapons of mass destruction that do not exist. Such weapons do not seem to have been found there yet; we will all wait and see whether the coalition ever finds any. But I say the smart alec remarks of the Prime Minister defeat the purpose of this legislation. 
This legislation highlights the way in which we are moving away from our traditional ties. I well remember the lectures on foreign affairs given by Professor Sinclair in 1961 in his course on the history of New Zealand. We did not have much in the way of foreign affairs in 1961 and he was always trying to comment on whether we were breaking away from Britain. I think the events we saw in the House last week were probably the final cutting of the umbilical cord with the United Kingdom and the Labour Government does not recognise that. The Minister of Defence does not recognise that; he cannot see that we are definitely now an isolated nation. We have to be careful what we say and I say we do not have to start attacking the President of the United States. We all have our views as to whether George Bush should be re-elected but those should remain our views. We should not especially at the highest echelon make the type of remarks that the Prime Minister was making which were totally inept. 
We have to look ahead to the future. This bill is just part of what we are looking at for the future of New Zealand. I see nothing from the Labour Government that tells us where New Zealand will go from here. Are we just to rely on the United Nations? New Zealand First is looking ahead; we have given close consideration to our view on Iraq. But New Zealand must take the next step and I think Wayne Mapp was trying to ask where we are to go to from here. There has been no response from Labour to that. We have had the Minister of Defence chipping away and making smart remarks similar to those of his leader. We have had Mark Peck asking what Wayne Mapp meant. What Wayne Mapp said was very very clear. We say that we should not go around attacking the United States—or Britain for that matter. All of us might say that Tony Blair is playing a very close game in a difficult situation. 
This legislation is just a counter-terrorism bill. I note the comments from the leader of United Future that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee will look at it very closely. The bill is just symbolic of the state of affairs New Zealand faces today. When I studied international law one thing that became very clear to me was that international law supports winners. All that international law does is to support winners. If Hitler had won the Second World War the Germans would have somehow found a way of justifying what they did. International law is all about supporting winners and we have to be very very careful of where we go in this very difficult world. 
This bill does nothing for the future of New Zealand in the very difficult state in which we find ourselves. The Labour Government would not have a debate on the Iraq situation in this House. It was forced into a debate. It would not put up a motion to the House; it was forced into the debate. This Government has no regard for the future of New Zealand. It was a minor Opposition party—I am sure the member concerned will not mind my saying that because it highlights the fact—that forced a debate on Iraq. It was ironic though that a member of that minor Opposition party whose ancestor fought so valiantly in the Second World War did not have a vote cast on her behalf in that debate. I thought it was quite ironic that ACT which put forward the motion did not put forward the vote of the descendant of that former soldier who is I believe a member of the ACT party. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask the member to come to the bill please. 
DAIL JONES 
: I will just get back to the point. I appreciate the Speaker’s indulgence. New Zealand First will support this bill but let us not exaggerate its significance. The bill is just a piece of paper. It will not stop a suicide bomber who wants to— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Commit suicide. 
DAIL JONES 
: Commit suicide yes. I am pleased that we have some improved security arrangements in this building. I look forward to more of them.