Tag: Global Affairs

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully must press Indonesia to accept responsibility for the execution of New Zealand journalist Gary Cunningham in 1975, Green Party MP Keith Locke said today.

Keith Locke questions the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade on why no Minister will meet the Dalai Lama during his visit to New Zealand next month.

Keith Locke's General Debate speech on his proposal that New Zealand accept some of the 78 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees on the ship Oceanic Viking, who sought to enter Australia.

The final report of Tonga’s Constitutional and Electoral Commission recommending a democratic form of Parliament for Tonga is welcome news, said Green Party Foreign Affairs spokesperson Keith Locke.

Human rights activist Rebiya Kadeer will visit New Zealand from October 12 to 15 and will be hosted by Green Party MP Keith Locke. She will be speaking at public meetings, visiting Parliament to meet MPs, and talking with other interested people and organisations.

Keith Locke questions the Minister of what the government is doing to support the rights of people in Sri Lanka's IDP camps.

5. KEITH LOCKE (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Has he received any advice on whether a law curtailing women’s rights in Afghanistan has been “brought into line with the expectations of the international community” as he was promised by Hamid Karzai; if so, what was that advice?

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. That matter is the commitment by the Government of special forces to Afghanistan. The Green Party is strongly opposed to the Governments decision to send the SAS back to Afghanistan. We do not want our soldiers fighting and dying in an unjustifiable war that is not helping the Afghan people. It is very important that we have this debate today, because we as a Parliament should always debate the sending of New Zealand combat troops overseas to participate in foreign military conflicts. We should never lightly risk the lives of our soldiers, and we should never lightly participate in armed conflicts, which inevitably result in much death and destruction and have a huge impact on the lives of local people.

In around two weeks time the government will make an important decision on whether to send New Zealand's SAS troops back to Afghanistan. The government has in front of it a very significant foreign policy decision. At stake is whether New Zealand continues on a path towards a more independent foreign policy, constructively engaged in peacemaking and peacekeeping, or whether it falls back into a more subordinate role in a Western alliance structure led by the United States.