Q+A’s Panel Discussions With Paul Holmes, Dr Therese Arseneau, Sandra Lee & Wyatt Creech.

The panel discussions have been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS led by PAUL HOLMES

Response to LT. GEN. JERRY MATEPARAE interview

PAUL Any surprises in what Lt. General said? We're at war in Afghanistan, should we be, Mr Creech, as part of protecting our strategic interests?

WYATT CREECH – Former Deputy Prime Minister
Well part of our longstanding responsibility in fact most of the wars we've been involved with have not been directly New Zealand related, but part of a bigger community of nations, that we form part of and we like to contribute towards. So while our contribution is small it's left New Zealand as a very respected nation in the world because we are prepared to play our part, that’s why we're there.

PAUL Is that a good point Sandra?

SANDRA LEE – Former Cabinet Minister
Yes I think it's a valid point, and New Zealand governments from both sides have been historically quite emphatic to make the point that we punch above our weight if you like, because we seem to have found our way to every war, anywhere at any given time in New Zealand history, but in fairness in the case of Afghanistan I still hold to the view politically that New Zealand did have a genuine role to play there, and I think that the contribution that they're continuing to make is important.

PAUL Jerry Mateparae sees it and he mentions this exact phrase in his speech that’s going to be delivered later today, and he said it during the interview 'doing our bit'.

THERESE ARSENEAU – Political Analyst
And that is certainly I think the major point, and also it's one of those situations that’s not black and white, it's grey isn't it, that absolutely we have international obligations and the question is whether stabilising Afghanistan will make the world a safer place, you know it's a very dangerous region. The problem, you know the grey part though comes from really important questions like are we actually propping up a corrupt government. Is it a winnable war, I'm not so sure on that, Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires, and if we learnt anything in Gallipoli it was that, you know if we're gonna risk New Zealand lives we have to make sure it's not in a futile effort, we have to make sure that the risk is worth it.

PAUL And I suppose do we learned from Vietnam that you can throw what half a million men into a very small country ...

THERESE And we're still a foreign invader in their minds.

PAUL Yes, and if the regime is crooked you're always it is not going to be won.

WYATT I think the thing about New Zealand's position is that because we are such a bit player, a lot of the big decisions about where you move, and Gallipoli was a classic case in point, it was really British decisions that we were implementing, we have to go along with and if they turn out to be dreadful mistakes we sort of get caught up in it at the operator level, rather than at the strategic decision maker level, and we're part of an international community as Sandra says, looking at Afghanistan, if it can be stabilised it's in the interests of the world.

PAUL One thing about the last six months though and particularly perhaps since we went back, the SAS went back to Afghanistan, is there has been a huge improvement it seems in relations with the United States, would you agree with that?

SANDRA Yes I think that’s true, how we maintain that will be very interesting though, because in terms of Afghanistan and the Middle East in general but not only, doing our bit we're good at in this country, but having any real influence over all the constitutional nuances after a war, we have very little influence over, and I think the New Zealand perception is that sometimes the United States can be very heavy handed in that arena, so yes military exercises with them coming up soon, and there's a logic to that, but having said that I think a lot of New Zealanders will be watching very carefully what comes out of Afghanistan and all the rest of it.

PAUL Wyatt, as Deputy Prime Minister you would never had commented on the SAS would you. What do you make of this new openness about what the SAS are doing?

WYATT We as a matter of convention have never commented on what those sort of forces are doing, not because we are against talking about what they're doing politically, but because it was felt that if you did disclose much in the way of information about them you were putting them at risk, so it was to protect them that that convention was in place and I think we should always try to protect our soldiers wherever they're service abroad.

THERESE And it is a fine line isn't it, absolutely, you know the case in point was that photo, that wonderful photo of Willie Apiata, but if it put his life at risk at all then really it's not worth it.
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In response to BRENDAN O'CARROLL & DENIS BOUNSALL interview

PAUL I should tell you before anything else that Mr Bounsall will be 90 years old next year.

Your response to Denis's stories.

THERESE Incredibly moving isn't it? I mean to put it into context, hearing of the incredible sacrifice at Gallipoli first up and to hear Denis who gosh I wish I was as articulate as he is, and it's the scale of the sacrifice, and for my generation who never really faced that, I mean I think it explains why people still honour ANZAC Day with such emotion, because we've never been asked to serve or to make those sorts of sacrifices, it's just incredibly moving.

WYATT My take on it was the way we look at war, we're seeing it from a general officer's point of view as big units moving around, this one goes here and it goes there, but at that level it reminds you yet again that war is a ghastly business, what they see, the wounds, the injuries to the people, doesn’t matter what side you're on, it is just a revolting place to be, and when he talks about the stench of dead animals, I remember reading about the stench at Gallipoli of rotting human bodies, they weren’t even able to recover their own bodies, and they had to live with it.

PAUL Apart from Gallipoli where the stretcher bearer was immensely important of course and Simpson and his donkey, Simpson was a stretcher bearer who eventually got a bullet I think in the back, and as never decorated actually but is legendary, but he was mentioned in despatches, but apart from Gallipoli had you heard much about the role of stretcher bearers?

SANDRA Well you hear a bit about them, obviously Gallipoli in particular, because the New Zealanders at Gallipoli were given the hardest mission of all in taking the whole of Chunak Bair and the point that I wanted to make was I think with Gallipoli people went away, colonials looking for the OE, for Mother England, King and Country, but the way they fought at Gallipoli really defined New Zealand as a nation and just picking up on his point about New Zealand males being soldiers in their spare time anyway, that’s what distinguished the New Zealand troops at Gallipoli, they fought and took their orders from British high command, they knew they were put on a suicide mission, but they decided to fight their way to the top of that hill on New Zealand terms.

THERESE But it led to the Balfour Definition Statue of Westminster so that by the second world war Britain didn’t declare war for us we declared it for ourselves.

PAUL Yes we declared it and they were under our command.

ENDS

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