When Parliament takes a break, the MPs don’t always head home to work in their electorates and constituencies. Sometimes they head off overseas, and not for fun.
They travel with colleagues and even political foes to swap their role as domestic MPs for one on the international stage. These MPs are not the senior cabinet ministers who usually deal with international diplomacy – they are backbenchers from both governing and opposition parties working together to represent New Zealand.
Recently a meeting in Bahrain of the International Parliamentary Union (IPU) included four Kiwi MPs led by Vanushi Walters (Labour - Upper Harbour), and including Scott Simpson (National - Coromandel).
The House talked with them both about what that all means. Before we get to which NZ MP recently took on Russia, some background.
The IPU Assembly banner goes up on the conference centre in Bahrain. Photo: IPU
IPU: A United Nations of parliaments
“The IPU is an organisation of parliamentarians from around the globe” says Scott Simpson. “Something like 150 nations are represented, they meet twice a year. So a great opportunity to intermingle with parliamentarians from democracies around the world.”
I suggest that while the United Nations gets all the attention as the international assembly of governments, the IPU is the equivalent grouping of parliaments (with delegations often including opposition voices as well).
“Yeah, I think that's a good way to frame it,” says Walters, “and in my view, it's a real advantage having a cross-party delegation from all those parties meeting together. But essentially, we do discuss a lot of the issues that presented the UN as well. So things like peace and security, human rights, environmental issues.”
Not exactly a beach holiday
There's little time for leisure at these things. The most recent IPU meeting was in Bahrain but Simpson notes that no-one saw much of the country.
“You fly to the destination, get on a bus, go to the hotel, then go from the hotel to the convention centre… hotel to the convention centre… hotel to the convention centre… for about three days, and then back on the bus to the aeroplane and then back home.”
Convention centres are possibly worse places to spend time in than airports. “In Bahrain's case, the auditorium was a grand, windowless building. So once you're in the building, you're in the building.”
Scott Simpson (centre) at the IPU meeting in Bahrain. Photo: supplied
If not a junket, then what?
Obviously there is a point to these meetings though, so what did they actually do in Bahrain? Vanushi Walters:
“Every IPU meeting has an anchoring theme, while we talk about a number of different issues. The one for Bahrain was around fighting intolerance, and looking at inclusivity. And so that was the core for a lot of the discussions I had. Sharing ideas of what other parliaments are doing to ensure the rights and protections of some of their minority groups.
“I had the privilege of speaking for the New Zealand Delegation on how we addressed the horrific events of March 15. But also the steps we’re taking in terms of ensuring women's rights and the rights of our LGBTQI community. And it was just wonderful to be able to speak to other parliamentarians about how they're promoting those rights, because I think it really then starts to influence what we could be doing next.”
This is Vanushi Walters’ natural territory. She has a masters degree in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University and was previously at both the Human Rights Commission and a member of Amnesty International’s international board.
But most backbenchers have another passion that arises from all the time spent in select committees reviewing legislation and government spending – accountability.
“A lot of conversations I had were also about ‘what systems do you have, what committees do you have in your parliament? Who ensures that the laws we're making are fit for purpose? And how do we keep our executives accountable?’”
Scott Simpson says that New Zealand compares well to the other IPU parliaments in this regard.
“We stack up pretty well. I think things that we often take for granted here in New Zealand are not necessarily obvious or present in other democracies. For instance, we've got a 50/50 gender split in the New Zealand Parliament that’s actually unusual in most parliaments around the world. But the opportunity to see how other Parliament's work and how they operate is a real eye opener.”
He came with a particular focus on environment, oceans and fisheries, and water.
“One of the side-issues for me was my interest in oceans, marine space, environment, climate. And there are several workshops-within-workshops, themes that can be sort of a subset of the main theme of the assembly.”
Vanushi Walters at the IPU meeting in Bahrain. Photo: supplied
Chosen as David against Russia’s Goliath
But underneath all that idea-sharing and cooperation there can also be rancour on international issues. At every IPU meeting, alongside the agreed topics, there is a debate on an “emergency resolution”. At Bahrain that issue was Russia’s attempted violent annexation of Ukraine. There was real tension around this at the meeting, Scott Simpson says.
“To have a Ukraine delegation there, and a Russian Federation delegation there. You get a sense of the tensions, particularly in Europe, they are very real, they're very present, and they're very dominant in terms of the way that some of those nations are thinking at the moment.”
Before an emergency resolution can be debated and voted on by the combined IPU, it must first be drafted by a small, specially elected committee with members representing different groupings of countries.
Vanushi Walters was on that committee, representing the Twelve Plus Group of countries. Ukraine particularly asked that she take the role. The Twelve Plus Group actually includes 47 countries comprising Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Being selected to front that grouping (with one Canadian MP) in an international forum was no small thing, and yet it went entirely unnoticed by New Zealand media.
The countries that make up the Twelve PLus Grouping Photo:
“So I was one of two members of what's called the Twelve Plus Grouping”, says Walters. “I was asked by Ukraine to sit in the room and assist in the drafting process before that resolution went to a vote. It was a very tense process, in many ways as you can imagine. We also had Iran in the room, South Africa, Oman, Jordan, Chile, Canada.”
“So there were eight of us who sat in a room for something like five or six hours with a five minute break, just discussing line-by-line, this emergency resolution, which essentially was condemning Russia's invasion.”
She is playing it down. I'd heard from others that Walters was something of a champion in getting the resolution drafted, agreed on and over the line in the IPU vote. She's not prepared to accept any glory though.
“I don't think that’s down to one person. I've heard it many times of many Kiwis who are operating in that space.”
New Zealand MPs at the IPU meeting in Bahrain: from left: Dr Anae Neru Leavasa, Vanushi Walters, Simon O'Connor, Scott Simpson. Photo: supplied
Cross-party team NZ
Walters says that something else that impresses other countries is how New Zealand politicians always operate in a unified way, regardless of political affiliation.
“I've also heard that people are quite impressed by the way that we work cross-party whenever we are in those international spaces, which is something that we should be really proud of.”
Party-differences-be-damned Scott Simpson is quite evidently proud of what Labour MP Walters achieved for the IPU delegate team and for New Zealand. He also points out that Kiwi MPs are very unified at these events.
“We tend to act on the international stage as ‘New Zealand Incorporated’. And we tend to leave the domestic politics behind when we leave the country. We put a forward-facing New Zealand face to the forum, into the work and the endeavours that we're trying to achieve.”
Unity under intimidation
It must make international postures easier if the home team is unified, but that doesn’t prevent intense opposition from foreign actors. Walters and Simpson both say that there was significant pressure from Russia and its allies. Bullying really. Walters explains how some of that worked at recent IPU meetings.
“The Russians had quite a large delegation in Rwanda. And I think there was probably particular interest in those who were participating in the drafting committee. And so what I found was then, when I stood to speak, on a few occasions, I was being filmed by either Russia or Belarus or one of their allies, and was approached a couple of times by individuals who wouldn't tell me where they were from, and then revealed that they were Russian.
“The new experience was the physicality of some of the intimidation in the room. And it wasn't just Russia, it was Iran as well, who would literally stand, come over to where you were sitting, and stand over you and start demanding that you not say certain things. So, while I've been in international forums before, that was certainly surprising.”
Simpson agrees, saying “that kind of physical intimidation is not something that we're used to. And yes, it's unusual, I would have thought that in a forum such as that, to see those sorts of things occurring. But it's a sign of the fraught difficulties that the world is facing in many places around the world today. And it's a sign of the tension and the frustration in the anger, but also, I think of the defensive position of those that seek to intimidate.”
