Motions

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) Link to this

I seek leave to move a motion without notice on the two tragic attacks in Norway that claimed the lives of 77 people.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) Link to this

On behalf of the parliamentary Labour Party, I support that resolution. Today, as New Zealand parliamentarians, we express our grief and our sympathy for the people and Government of Norway for the tragedy that they have suffered. We grieve for the victims and for their families. They were so young. Looking at their faces in the newspaper yesterday, we saw that they were full of enthusiasm, full of life, and looking forward to the contribution that they might make to their country and their community. But that was stolen from them.

Like New Zealand, Norway is a small, stable, and peaceful country. This allows us, perhaps, to better understand the scale and the shock of the tragedy that has befallen that country with the loss of 77 of its citizens. Norway—again, like New Zealand—is a largely tolerant, multicultural country, where people live alongside each other and get on with each other. We can see that from the diversity of the young people who were gathered on Utøya Island for the Norwegian Labour Party youth conference.

We share with the Norwegians their abhorrence that someone could be so motivated by hatred of others on the basis of their ethnicity or their religion that they could commit an atrocity of this nature. At the funeral of the young woman who was the first to be buried, Christians and Muslims walked side by side and embraced each other as an explicit and moving rejection of what had motivated the killer. As Eskil Pedersen, the leader of the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party, said: “The gunman took from his victims their lives. But he can’t take away what they believed in: tolerance and anti-racism.”

Norway is a decent country. It is committed to a peaceful and more just world. It hosted peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It tried desperately to bring together the warring parties in Sri Lanka. The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Støre, and I worked closely together to pass the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo. It makes it even more of a tragedy that something of this nature could have afflicted a country so committed to peace.

We stand in solidarity alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg when he says: “We’re a small country but a very proud country. No one can bomb us to be quiet. No one can shoot us to be quiet. No one can ever scare us from being Norway.” Today, as a fraternal party of the Norwegian Labour Party, we offer it our support and our sorrow at the loss of so many of its young people. We offer to the people and the Government of Norway our support, our condolences, and our sympathy.

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) Link to this

This forty-ninth Parliament has, I believe, had more than the usual share of grief. We have stood in silence over tragedies in Haiti, Afghanistan, Chile, Australia, Tonga, Poland, and Japan. Here at home we have mourned Pike River and, of course, Christchurch. We know, all of us in this House, what it is to come together to unite in a moment of grief and pay tribute. Yet we have not encountered, these past 2 years, the depth of evil that characterised the massacre last week in Norway. Mr Breivik’s deed is in the category of major terrorism—a crime against humanity. It equates with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma bombing, Mohamed Atta with the twin towers, and the bombings in the Bali nightclub, on the Spanish train, and in the London Underground.

We know about mass sniper killings in recent times in the US, the Netherlands, Russia, and Britain. But those were mindless acts of deranged individuals. Last week’s killing of 77 innocent young people was anything but mindless. This was a political act. So not only must we grieve for Norway, we must respond publicly and with one voice to a political act of destruction with a political act of resolve. We must answer a paroxysm of death with an affirmation of life. The tribute we pay to the slain youth of Norway as they went about their engagement in a political party must be to reaffirm the very civic values they were expressing in their final moments here on Earth. If their lives are to have meaning above mortality, a legacy beyond their short span, it will be because we determine here as a nation to celebrate all that is uplifting with the human spirit. Let this nation now proclaim the human values these young Norwegians were living at their moment of death.

I know from personal experience how close we in the Antipodes are to those in the most north-eastern tip of Europe. I lived and worked for 3 years in Sweden and I visited Norway often. I worked closely with one of Norway’s most prominent leaders, Thorvald Stoltenberg, former Foreign Minister and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UN representative on the Yugoslav crisis, and father of the present Prime Minister. Mr Stoltenberg was a strong guiding light on the boards of my institute in Sweden and the UN Academy I directed in Jordan. It was in his house in Oslo that my wife and I met the Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, some 6 or 7 years ago.

On Saturday evening last I telephoned Thorvald to convey New Zealand’s concern over this event and our empathy for the Norwegian people. I said how much we admired the manner in which the Prime Minister was rallying his people, demonstrating to the world the sanity, stability, and tolerance that characterises his nation. Thorvald responded with Nordic simplicity. They were, he acknowledged, going through tough times, but they would emerge stronger for the experience, simply because they would refuse to be intimidated. Yes, he said on a personal note, he and his wife were proud of their son.

It was Thorvald who once told me that of all the countries in the world, he thought Norway and New Zealand were the closest. We shared geographic isolation. We knew the sea. We were small in number yet large in spirit. Our people were rugged individualists yet we cared one for another. To this day I take his observation as one of the greatest compliments my country has been paid.

The Norwegian massacre is not just a national tragedy; it is a global tragedy. All of humanity shares in this together. Norway is leading the world in its display of national commitment to global tolerance. Let us all support her in embracing the seven global values that have been identified by our Governments at the UN General Assembly: freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, human rights, respect for nature, and shared responsibility. By embracing all faiths, by celebrating our common human values, we shall convey the true response to the Norwegian massacre and validate those who fell. Let us incorporate that tolerance, that wisdom, and that understanding in our own parliamentary work here in this country today and hereafter.

Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Leader—ACT) Link to this

It was with disbelief and horror that New Zealand and the world learnt the devastating news of the bombing in downtown Oslo and the subsequent shootings on the island retreat of Utøya, which claimed 77 lives. I, along with my colleagues in the ACT Party and this House, express our deepest sympathies to the people of Norway, which, with a population of 4.5 million, is not much bigger than New Zealand. More specifically, we send our thoughts and prayers to the families and friends of the 77 victims whose lives were cut so tragically short that day. We know that words will not ease the sorrow, but we hope that you will find some small comfort in the knowledge that we here in New Zealand stand beside you in this time of tragedy.

In the aftermath of this horrific event, the people of Norway, which is home to the Nobel Peace Prize and known for its peacefulness and liberalism, have shown the world how to face adversity with courage. Norway’s Prime Minister addressed his country in the aftermath of this attack and was not intimidated. He has vowed that he and his countrymen will not bow to the will of a madman, that his country will fight back with more democracy, and that 22 July will be a very strong symbol of the Norwegian people’s wish to be united in the fight against violence and a symbol of how the nation can answer with love.

It is a sad reality that tragedies such as this can strike even the most peaceful of societies. But what we can all learn from Norway is that the best way to honour the lives of those who die at the hands of such violent and repulsive people is to fight for and preserve the greatest aspects of humanity: peace, tolerance, and democracy. Thank you.

Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

Tēnā koe e Mr Speaker. Today marks another occasion in the life of this forty-ninth Parliament when we stand shoulder to shoulder to share the collective grief at the loss of life on such an immense scale. The massacre on the island in Oslo unfolded on 22 July, exactly 5 months to the day since the Canterbury earthquake robbed our nation of so many lives. And so we feel that sense of tragic futility that comes in the wake of a disaster of such a scale.

But we have another special connection to the events that played out in Norway, which comes through our relationship to Sharidyn Meegan Ngāhiwi Svebakk-Bohn, a young woman described as beautiful, caring, and vigorous, a young woman mourned by her grandfather Rex Matthews of Kahungunu, who lives in Porirua. She was a mokopuna who is also sadly missed by the people of Tūhoe.

Sharidyn, known as Sissi, was, from all accounts, thriving in the activities of the youth camp on Utøya Island. She had turned 14 just 5 days before being shot down at the camp by Anders Breivik, who stands accused of killing 77 people in the bombing and shooting rampage. She was a young woman robbed of experiencing the fullness of life, and someone described as a courageous young lady who took every challenge with ease. She was a child who had been nurtured by her family to care for others, to be a proud tuakana to her sisters, and to make an energetic and compassionate contribution to our society. Our sympathies are extended to her parents, her two younger sisters, and the wider whānau, whether they are here at home or in Norway. Rest in peace, Sissi, and all those who lost their lives that fateful day.

I have no desire to give further air time to the vile racism and murderous intent executed on that horrific day. The global condemnation of this massacre has an unfortunate consequence of drawing attention to the ideology the gunman sought to promote. I want to instead focus on the message that the Prime Minister of Norway expressed, and that was a message of restraint. Jens Stoltenberg called on political leaders to show restraint as they react to the savage violence meted out on the 77 victims of the bombing and the youth camp attack. His words are very insightful, and I will quote them. He told the Norwegian Parliament that the 22 July attacks gave reason to contemplate “whether we could have expressed ourselves differently. That goes for politicians, for editors, in the canteen and on the Net.” The judiciary and even the court of public opinion will make their respective judgments about the actions of the confessed killer and the appropriate sentence he should receive. What we have a responsibility to do is to focus on the families bereft of loved ones, the community feeling as if their sense of peace and stability has been irreversibly threatened, and the global nation as we respond to the profound grief and sorrow experienced in Norway just 10 days ago.

The Māori Party joins with others in this House to express our utmost sympathy to the families associated with this dreadful day in the history of Norway. We acknowledge too the particular loss for the Labour Party, which connects to its colleagues across the globe. We resolve to continue to promote the values that we have inherited that are found in tikanga and kaupapa Māori, as a means of supporting us or finding a pathway forward during times of duress. These kaupapa remind us to place value on unity through diversity.

Nā reira, Sissi, koutou ngā mate o tērā parekura, tae noa ki ngā mate o tēnei wā, a Whetū Tirikātene, ngā wāhine rangatira i mate mai i tēnei wiki, haere koutou i te mōhio, ka arohatia tonutia e mātou nei ngā mōrehu, haere atu rā, haere.

[So to you, Sissi, and the victims of that calamity, including the deaths of the moment: namely, Whetū Tirikātene, and the noted women who died in recent weeks, journey on in the knowledge that we, the remnants, will always love you. Farewell, depart.]

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) Link to this

I join with colleagues in the House in expressing profound sympathies to the people of Norway. How moving and poignant this tragedy has been for those of us who have spent our lives encouraging young people to believe that politics can make a difference for the better, and to believe in the politics of hope. Among the many tragedies and outrages of these killings towers a brutal truth: they died because of politics; they died because of hatred. They were at a summer camp conceived to nurture a new generation of young people, and they were targeted because they symbolised the future.

The attacker was, of course, deranged. Atrocities are always the work of a perverted mind. Therefore, the atrocity is not a reflection on mainstream political ideas. Right-wing extremism is not the same as conservatism, and it is unhelpful to confuse the two, and offensive to collate the resulting possibilities. There are vital lessons for mainstream politics, nevertheless: that we should challenge hate speech and the politics of hate wherever we see it. Those who set out to divide one group of people from another are always wrong. When hatred and racial divisiveness are seen as deeply abnormal, the obsessions and ravings of extremists will stand out more obviously. The more abnormal their hatred becomes, the more it is obvious that we need to intervene.

Just because the attacker’s ideas were twisted, we should not say that his actions were isolated. It is too complacent to just dismiss him as a madman. We do not make that claim about jihadist terror. If it is offensive that the murderer in Oslo used Christianity as a justification for his crimes, we should use our feelings of offence to understand how offensive it is to Muslims when the extremist haters of al-Qaeda use their religion as a perverted justification for hate crimes too. In both cases, a toxic mix of political and religious hatred results in people using a perverted interpretation of their religion as a justification to commit unspeakable crimes.

However, it is wrong to believe that this hatred is conceived in a vacuum and that it is just a case of one person gone crazy. Atrocities are brewed in a sewer of hatred. Many commentators have noticed the rise of an especially ugly form of racial divisiveness across Europe. It objects to the presence in Europe of large Muslim communities. Those promulgating these views cannot expect to promote an ideology of hatred, call it Christianity, and then pretend to be surprised when that ideology descends into criminality and mass murder.

We have been fortunate in New Zealand to be spared the worse excesses of racial hate politics and the return of neo-Nazism, but we are not immune from it, and we need always to be vigilant. We should not be cowed from discussing sensitive issues just because they touch racial boundaries, but we also have a responsibility to make sure we err on the side of love, not hate, on the side of welcoming, not dividing, and on the side of peace, not violence.

The ideas of love, tolerance, and peacefulness have always been the underlying values of progressive politics of all shades. Those are exactly the values the mass murderer hated and tried to destroy. That is why Labour parties, progressive parties, and social democrats around the world feel that a part of us was attacked on that summer’s day in Oslo. But we know this too: no haters can ever succeed, because they cannot kill ideas. They cannot kill values. They cannot kill humanity.

All of us are shocked by the horrifying violence in Norway. On behalf of the people of my electorate, Wigram, members of the Progressive party, and my colleagues in this House I say that we stand with the people of Norway in our sympathy and in sending our deepest condolences.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) Link to this

In a world that has perhaps seen just about everything, there is an inevitable tendency to view tragedies, as they emerge, as being part and parcel of the world we live in today. We are all afflicted by that awful complacency. But this particular tragedy—the wholesale slaughter of vibrant, innocent, fresh-faced young people—stands out above many, and cries out for a response.

It is easy to say that this was the act of a lone, crazed gunman in pursuit of a particular ideological dream. That may be so, but the reality is deeper. The events that took place that particular day in and around Oslo are so unspeakably rare and unusual as to evoke within us all a sense of asking whether it could happen here. Our initial response is to say: “Of course not. We are a benign and tolerant society. We do not have those sorts of divisions.”, yet the same thing could be said and was being said about Norway. So while we mourn the deaths of those who were so callously slaughtered, and while we extend our sympathy to their country, to their political colleagues, and to their families on their inordinate loss and wonder how on earth that gulf in their lives will be filled in the short term, we need to reflect upon the implications for so-called good and decent societies like ours and Norway’s around the world.

Intolerance and prejudice, wherever they fester, have to be looked on as totally unacceptable, and we have to redouble our efforts in the wake of this sort of tragedy to ensure that those elements do not come to prominence in our society and in kindred societies elsewhere. Just as the shock and the horror of what happened in Norway was because no one could have possibly contemplated such events occurring in that country, we must be mindful lest a similar form of understandable complacency lead to our having similar misgivings in the future when events occur much closer to home.

This is a wake-up call for all. It is not a call for witch-hunts or a call for meeting intolerance with more intolerance, but it is a very strong call to all of us to do what we can to stamp out the root causes of intolerance and prejudice, and of anger and hatred in our society. I believe that the greatest tribute we could pay those who fell so wantonly in Norway is to make that commitment: to ensure that their lives were not in vain and that their memories are spurs to us all in the free and democratic world to be tolerant, to be just, to be free, and to be open in the future. That is what they thought they were about on that particular afternoon. Their lesson to all of us should not be in vain. Our sympathy for their country and their families is immense and profound.

HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) Link to this

Tēnā koe e te Kaiw’akawā. Tēnā tātou katoa e te Whare. Hoi nō, taku reo tuatahi i roto i te Whare i tērā atu wiki, he āmene atu ki te Tiriti o Waitangi, taku kōrero tuatahi hei rangatira mō te Rōpū o Mana, he mihi atu ki te hunga kua mate, rātou kua w’etūrangitia, kua ngaro atu i a tātou hākoa, kai tērā taha o te ao. E tika ana kia mihi atu ki a rātou me wā rātou w’ānau e tangi tonu ana i tēnei wā. Nō reira, e ngā mate, haere koutou, haere koutou, haere koutou.

E mea ana te kōrero, mate ana he tētē kura, ara mai rā he tētē kura. I tēnei wā, ko ngā putiputi kua mate. Rātou kātahi anō kua puāwai. Ngā whakaaro rangatira, ngā wawata hou kei roto i a rātou kua mate i te rā nei. Nō reirā, he tangi nui tēnei ki a tātou katoa roto o te ao me te mea anō hoki e tika ana kia mihi atu ki tērā o wā tātou kōtiro nō Kahungunu. E Pita, me mihi atu ki a koe i whakamārama mai i tērā ki a mātou, kia mōhio ai mātou hākoa kua tawhiti atu, kei tērā taha o te ao, he mate e pā ana ki a tātou o roto o Aotearoa. Nō reira, me mihi atu ki a rātou kua ngaro atu me te mea anō hoki i te mea tū ana au, e tika ana kia whakahokia mai taua mihi ki roto i a tātou, te mihi anō hoki ki ngā mate roto i a tātou o Aotearoa nei. Tērā o ngā wahine, he pou o te reo Māori, a Katerina Mataira, i mate atu, i ngaro atu ki roto o tōna marae i Ōhinewaiapū i tērā atu wiki, haere e te whāea.

Tērā noki, te wahine rangatira o Te Rōpū Wahine Māori Toko i te Ora, a Meagan. Kua mate atu, kua ngaro atu ki roto o Mōhaka. Me tērā o wā tātou nei kuia o te Whare, a Tini Whetū Mārama Tirikātene-Sullivan. E tika ana kia mihi atu ki a ia, kia maumahara atu ki ngā mahi e mahingia ana e ia me tōna pāpā, me ōna kaupapa katoa mō te Tiriti o Waitangi. Mihi atu ki a rātou kua ngaro atu i a tātou i tēnei rā.

Hoki mai ki a tātou anō rā e te kanohi ora, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Greetings to us all, the House. My first words in the House the other week were to affirm the Treaty of Waitangi, and my first address now, as leader of the Mana Party, is to pay a tribute to those who have died, passed on, and gone from us, even though they are on the other side of the world. It is fitting at this time that they are acknowledged, with their families who continue to mourn them. So to you, the dead, farewell, depart, journey on.

There is a proverb that says that when a fern frond dies, another rises up in its place. It is the flowers, in this case, that have died. They had only just blossomed. The revered thoughts and new aspirations inside them have died today. So this is a huge tragedy to all of us in the world. Further to that, it is fitting, as well, that I pay a tribute to one of our young ones of Kahungunu descent. I acknowledge you, Pita, for explaining that to us, and making us aware that despite the distance—and it is on the other side of the world—the tragedy affects us here in New Zealand. So we must pay our respects to those who have gone; and at the same time, it is fitting, as I stand here, that I bring that tribute back here among us and acknowledge the deaths amongst us here in New Zealand. I refer to that one of our women, Katerina Mataira, pillar of the Māori language, who died last week and is gone from her marae of Ōhinewaiapū. Farewell, aunt.

To Meagan, as well, president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League: she passed away, gone from Mōhaka; and also Tini Whetū Mārama Tirikātene-Sullivan, one of our elder woman members of the House. It is fitting that I pay a tribute to her, and recall the work that she, and that her dad did, including all her policies relating to the Treaty of Waitangi. Today I acknowledge those who are gone from us.

So in coming back to us once again, I say greetings to you, greetings to you, and greetings to us all .]

Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this

Across this Parliament we share in Norway’s mourning today. Right now in Norway, at 4.30 a.m., parents will be sitting by hospital beds. As the Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, said: “Many are weeping. Hearts are bleeding.”

Norway is famous for its peacemaking and its peacekeeping role around the world. It is known as a stable and compassionate society whose leadership on peace and disarmament is recognised and respected the world over. We are very alike in our size, our geography, and, more important, our values. I remember being welcomed to the Norwegian Parliament during the Speaker’s tour in 2007 with colleagues from a range of parties across this House. The overwhelming impression—again, across a range of parties—was one of mutual respect. We had and have a lot in common. That such a destructive event should happen in Norway is almost beyond comprehension, but comprehend it we must.

In standing with the Government and the people of Norway at this time, we pay a tribute to the responses of the leaders, who are calling not for revenge or hatred but for more democracy, more humanity, and more compassion, but not with naivety. An attempt to wipe out a generation of political leaders is profoundly shocking. We in the New Zealand Labour Party feel it deeply because of our close ties with the Norwegian Labour Party and its youth wing. Our MPs know their MPs; our youth leaders know their youth leaders. But this sentiment is shared across every political party in this House. As Ella Hardy, president of Young Labour New Zealand, said: “Through the last week we have shared our message of solidarity and empathy with our brothers and sisters in Norway. They died for their belief in social justice, anti-racism, and tolerance. They died trying to make the world a better place. Let racist ignorance be ended.”

Dignity and democratic values have emerged through the intense grief of the Norwegian people, but special words are needed for the young. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said them: “I want to say this to all the young people here. The massacre on Utøya was an attack against young people’s dream of being able to help to make the world a better place. Your dreams have been brutally crushed. But your dreams can be fulfilled. … I have a simple request to make of you. Get involved. Care. Join an organisation. Take part in debates. Use your vote. Free elections are the jewel in the crown of democracy. By taking part, you are saying a resounding yes to democracy.” That courage and that conviction can never be defeated.