Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs: I move, That the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I wish to begin by thanking the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for its work on the bill. With the exception of one member—the Green Party member; and I acknowledge that—the committee was united in its support for the bill to proceed.

Before discussing the bill’s key provisions, I would like to note up front that this bill is not connected to the events of the last few days. The bill was introduced to Parliament in March 2007. It followed a review of the Terrorism Suppression Act undertaken by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in 2005. The committee identified a number of issues around the working of the Act and its compliance with our international obligations. New Zealand had also signed two new international treaties that required us to create new offences relating to terrorist attacks using nuclear material. The Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill contains the amendments required to address these issues.

I will address firstly the issue of United Nations terrorist designations. New provisions are required to ensure that terrorists listed under United Nations Resolution 1267, which deals with al-Qaeda and Taliban activities, are automatically designated as terrorist entities under New Zealand law, and that those designations remain in force until removed from the UN terrorist list. This change is required to reflect the mandatory nature of New Zealand’s obligations under the Security Council’s al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctions regime. The mandatory nature of those obligations is not well reflected in the Act as it stands at present. It is not an option for New Zealand to maintain a procedure that allows the Prime Minister or courts to second-guess the Security Council and refuse to implement a designation made under a Chapter 7 resolution. Nor is it necessary to maintain a process by which New Zealand is required to consider, individually, every inclusion on the UN list.

Changes are also required for reasons of practicality. Under the current procedure, all designations lapse automatically after 3 years unless extended by the High Court. With 420 designations due to expire at the end of November, it is clearly not feasible for the High Court to review this number of designations, particularly when the court does not have access to the evidence on which the Security Council based its initial designations. For policy, administrative, and evidential reasons, the current process is clearly inappropriate for UN list terrorists, and requires amendment. The changes proposed in the bill will bring New Zealand into line with virtually all other Western countries.

I turn now to the non-UN terrorist entities. Under the Act as it stands at the moment, the Prime Minister is responsible for making designations of terrorist entities that are not related to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The bill will not change that position. The changes it will make relate only to the extension of initial designations. The bill will replace the role of the High Court in extending the designation of non-UN terrorist entities when these expire after a 3-year period. Instead, the Prime Minister will renew a designation if satisfied on reasonable grounds that the entity continues to be engaged in terrorist activity. As the committee itself has noted, these decisions, like initial decisions to designate, involve judgments about national security and are appropriately made by the executive. That is consistent with the approach taken in Australia and Canada where decisions at the renewal stage are made by the same office holder who made the original designation, and the same test is applied. Although the role of the court in extending designations will be removed, the amended Act will retain judicial oversight over the designation process. Any decision by the Prime Minister to designate an entity, or a decision not to revoke a designation, will remain subject to judicial review. The select committee has also added a further provision, recommending that as a final step the Prime Minister report the renewal of terrorist designations to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

This bill will also repeal the “avoidance of doubt” provisions related to offences of financing terrorism. These provisions were included in the Act with the intention of providing clarity on the scope of offences in the Act. They have, however, had the opposite effect. The provisions create uncertainty by confusing the mental elements of the offences. Because of the way section 8(2) is drafted, it has the potential also to undermine one of the key purposes of the legislation—that is, to criminalise the intentional financing of terrorist acts—and would be inconsistent with both the Security Council resolutions and indeed our own position that acts of terrorism simply cannot be justified. The removal of these provisions will not compromise the right of New Zealanders to engage in or financially support peaceful protest activity, but the provisions as they stand cannot achieve the purpose for which they were enacted. They do not remove doubt; in fact, they create it. They were never intended to provide a defence for a person who intentionally collects funds to be used to commit a terrorist act or who intentionally makes property available to a terrorist organisation. There is no comparable provision in like-minded jurisdictions, or indeed in our own criminal law.

I also point out that the definition of “terrorist act” states expressly that legitimate protest, advocacy, or dissent is not by itself a sufficient basis for implying an intent to commit a terrorist act. Therefore, to the extent that a safeguard is needed to ensure that the Act is not used to repress legitimate protest activity, this is provided for in that definition. The bill will also strengthen the Act by creating a new offence of committing a terrorist act. Although the Act currently criminalises terrorist bombings and a range of other specific terrorism-related offences, it does not criminalise the commission of a terrorist act, per se. The creation of a generic offence is intended to reflect the gravity of terrorist offending, and to ensure that appropriate penalties can be imposed in appropriate cases if the actions fall within the definition of a terrorist act—that is, for example, if the actions were intended to cause death or serious injury, or major economic loss, for the purpose of inducing terror in the civilian population or to compel the Government to do, or not to do, something. These are not trivial matters, and this change is not made lightly.

The bill also addresses shortfalls in the Act by adding the mental element of recklessness to the offence of participating in a terrorist group. The addition of recklessness will maintain consistency with other offences in the Act. Adding this element will also expand the scope of the offence to include, for instance, persons with knowledge of a UN terrorist designation but no specific knowledge of a designation under the Terrorism Suppression Act. The test for recklessness sets a high threshold for a prosecutor to cross. For people to be deemed reckless, they must know there was a risk that a group was a designated terrorist entity or carried out terrorist acts, but they participated in the group anyway. It would also be necessary to prove that taking this risk was unreasonable, when having regard to the nature and the degree of the risk.

In addition to addressing shortfalls in the current Act, the bill incorporates amendments necessary to bring New Zealand up to date with its international obligations. The bill creates new offences involving nuclear and radioactive material that are required to enable ratification of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and comply with the recent amendments to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. In response to submissions, amendments have been made to better implement the international conventions. The new offence provisions were also narrowed to address concerns that the provisions could apply to legitimate protest activity.

The handling of classified security information was also raised by submitters. The committee did not recommend any change to the process in the bill, which involves the provision of a summary of classified security information. The recently introduced Immigration Bill proposes a special advocate procedure. Consideration should be given to the application of procedures for dealing with classified security information, following the adoption of that Act. Discussion of this legislation will raise issues regarding the appropriate balance between giving effect to our international obligations and maintaining respect for human rights and civil liberties here in New Zealand.

Despite some of the statements that have been made over the last few days, this bill is not intended to substantially change the way in which the Terrorism Suppression Act operates; rather, the primary purpose of the bill is to make the Act more workable and to update its provisions to reflect New Zealand’s international obligations. The changes proposed will bring New Zealand into line with other countries with similar legal systems, and will do so in a way that is both appropriate and necessary. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) : The National Party supports the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. Indeed, we have been calling for some time for amendments to make this country’s counter-terrorism machinery more workable. We have been calling for better precautionary use of that machinery as nations like Australia and Canada have used similar machinery to ensure that all sensible steps are taken to counter international terrorist activity.

This debate is given greater significance as a result of events of this month. Those events and the controversy that surrounds them in no way weaken our support for this bill or for the counter-terrorism machinery contained in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. The bill does not in itself, as the Minister has told the House, extend in any substantive way the powers of the State to act against the threat of terrorism. Those powers are contained in the principal Act of 2002. They include the sanctioning of steps by the authorities to intercept communications, weapons, and funds of groups designated as terrorist entities.

This bill streamlines the machinery by which designations of terrorist entities are made and renewed. The current provisions are, in many respects, unworkable and impractical. They provide for a lengthy process for the designation of terrorist entities under UN Resolution 1267, when it is obvious that we should merely follow the lead that has been taken by the United Nations Security Council in making such a designation.

With regard to designations made of New Zealand’s own initiative under UN Resolution 1373, the current procedures treat the renewal of designations as matters that are capable of being dealt with through a judicial process, according to a normal standard of proof in the courts. The reality is that the process of making and renewing terrorist designations must be a matter for the exercising of subjective judgment based upon intelligence information and other material, much of which cannot be allowed into the public domain.

The National Party accepts that the appropriate authority to make and renew designations under UN Resolution 1373 should be the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service and is the elected official most fully and regularly briefed on security matters. We do have some concerns about the manner in which this process has worked under the original Act since it was passed in 2002, and I shall come to that a little later in these comments. That does not change in any way the fact that in terms of the design of our counter-terrorism machinery, the Prime Minister is the logical person to carry the responsibility for designations of terrorist entities under UN Resolution 1373.

In recent days there has been considerable comment—some of it highly emotive—about the actions of the New Zealand Police in arresting a number of individuals on charges under the Arms Act and the Crimes Act with consideration being given to further charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, presumably under section 13, which creates an offence of participating in a terrorist group. The manner of the police actions, and the public references to the prospect of charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act, have raised the stakes in this case well above the ordinary enforcement of the Crimes Act or the Arms Act.

My colleagues and I will not buy in to debate or speculation as to whether the police were justified in taking this course or whether their actions have generally met the standard that should be expected of them by this Parliament. At this stage of proceedings we cannot possibly know, and the members of the public and the members of this House who have been so critical of the police cannot possibly know, either. We owe it to the law enforcement authorities, to the public, and to ourselves to wait, to allow the facts to emerge in the courtroom, and then to make considered and professional judgments based upon those facts.

Having said that, I want to give some reassurance to the members of the public and the members of the House who have expressed concerns about these events. In providing the authorities with a tool kit to deal with the threat of terrorism, it is a brutal reality that this Parliament potentially overrides the civil liberties of some individuals or groups. This Parliament has done so because we have been persuaded that the threat of terrorist activity and the consequent danger to the safety of the public is such that we have little choice but to sanction some carefully considered intrusion into the civil liberties of some individuals or groups considered to be a risk to the safety of the New Zealand public. We can take some comfort in this regard from the fact that the steps we have taken are considerably less intrusive than those taken in jurisdictions like the United States or United Kingdom, where there is a perception of a higher level of terrorist risk.

From the select committee proceedings in relation to this bill, and from the commentary of recent days, it is clear that there will always be debate about where to draw the line in these matters. I personally remain comfortable with the evidence I have seen that we have the balance right in this country in this respect. But having provided this tool kit for the authorities to fight terrorism, it would be a very serious matter indeed if it was misused. At this stage it is, in my view, appropriate that members of this House should operate on the presumption that the police have raised the stakes in this recent operation because there has been good reason for them to do so, whilst remaining alert to any evidence that might emerge to the contrary.

As one who supports the need for strong, effective counter-terrorism legislation I accept that there is a particular responsibility on myself and others to scrutinise the actions of the authorities in relation to the use of this legislation when the facts are on the table to make such scrutiny possible. After those facts emerge and after such scrutiny is possible, if it does appear that the police or other authorities have got it wrong, then obviously there will consequences—very serious consequences indeed. But I believe we should leave the matter there until those facts emerge.

In reporting back the findings of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, the National Party has taken the unusual step of submitting a minority report to the House. It is an unusual step to take in relation to a bill that we support, but we have done so for very strong and good reasons. Since the original Act, the Terrorism Suppression Act, was passed in 2002 in the wake of the terrorist action in the United States, New Zealand has met all its obligations under UN Resolution 1267 and has duly designated as terrorist entities all 450-odd individuals or groups that have been so designated by the United Nations Security Council. However, in relation to UN Resolution 1373, which is the resolution that relates to non-Taliban or non-al-Qaeda - related terrorist entities, our track record simply does not stand up to scrutiny.

Since 2002 Australia has designated 88 individuals or groups as terrorist entities so that its enforcement authorities are licensed to employ the provisions of its terrorism suppression legislation to the supervision of those persons or groups. Canada has designated over 50 terrorist entities under similar provisions in its law. Yet, to date, New Zealand has not designated a single terrorist individual or group under UN Resolution 1373. In practice, that means that groups like the Tamil Tigers, Abu Nidal Organisation, al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, Hamas, Hezbollah, and many others are designated as terrorist entities in Australia, with their actions therefore circumscribed by the attention of the Australian authorities, but in New Zealand not one of those organisations is so designated under our legislation.

Even if we take the charitable view that there is no direct threat from terrorist activity to members of the New Zealand public, I think members would have to accept that Australia could not be said to be in such a situation. Clearly, the Australian Government apprehends that there is a risk of terrorist activity to members of its public. Clearly, members of the Australian administration have taken the view that these 88 groups should be the subject of some attention from its law enforcement authorities.

Given our proximity to Australia, and given the openness of our border with Australia, it simply does not make sense that New Zealand should be operating from such a different page than that from which the Australian authorities operate. So in supporting this legislation, National takes the opportunity to draw the attention of the House and the public to the fact that this tool kit for our authorities to deal with the threat of terrorism is only as good as the Prime Minister making the designations that the legislation makes possible. Those designations under Resolution 1373 have not been made in this country, and we say to New Zealanders that this legislation can only be as good as the Prime Minister who has the tool kit to be able to enforce the law.

DIANNE YATES (Labour) : I thank the member opposite, Murray McCully, for his support and I thank his party for its support of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. I also thank members for the comments that have been made, and for the comments made about recent events.

I also mention that the minority report from the National Party, which is included in the report back to the House, is not about the actual content of the bill but about the application of the bill. I also remind the House that New Zealand is a sovereign State, and is not necessarily governed by lists that are compiled in Australia. However, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee did include the National minority report about the application of the bill in the report back to the House.

We also included the Green Party minority report, which was concerned about civil liberties—as were all members of the committee. When we tried, as the Hon Murray McCully has mentioned, to achieve a balance between civil liberties and the protection of New Zealanders, we discussed a great deal the wording in section 8. We were assured by officials and by our legal advisers that the wording we have presented to the House does achieve that balance between civil liberty and protection of New Zealanders, and that the previous wording in there was unnecessary as a safeguard.

I wish to thank all those who made submissions on the bill. There were 35 submissions from interested groups and individuals, and the committee heard 14 of those submissions. We considered them very carefully and, as I say, there was considerable debate.

There were changes made to the bill in the light of New Zealand interests around the offences concerning the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. Those changes were made by the committee to ensure greater clarity, and to ensure that the definitions were those that were suitable for New Zealand and the policies of New Zealand around those issues. We also noted that there were changes—as has been mentioned by the Minister Mark Burton in his opening speech in this debate—that may be necessary to the Immigration Bill. The committee has written to the appropriate Minister to point out that those changes may be necessary.

Once again, we are concerned that New Zealand does respond appropriately to international terrorism, that we meet our United Nations obligations, and that we are a very good member of the United Nations and honour our obligations. We are probably a leader in countries that sign up to agreements and keep those agreements. We wish to say that generally New Zealand is a very good and compliant member. As members will see, the schedules to the bill give all the details of the implications for the conventions.

One of the additions that the committee also made was in the matter of transparency. To ensure transparency, clause 21, concerning renewing designations, was amended to provide that the Prime Minister must report to the Intelligence and Security Committee on the proposal of renewal. That was a change that the committee also made to ensure there would be greater transparency.

I can assure the House that the deliberations of the committee were rather long and serious. We had some very serious discussions with those who made submissions about achieving the appropriate balance for New Zealanders—I can say once again—between civil liberty, and maintaining civil liberties within New Zealand, and protection against terrorism. This was, as I have said, very much to do also with the collecting of funds and the legislation around the collecting of funds and—I think Mr Locke will agree with this—the discussion that we had reflected on what has happened in the past when New Zealanders have contributed to movements that have been involved in anti-apartheid and so on, and that New Zealanders should be free to contribute to these. We also wanted to make sure that people who might accidentally contribute to something—sometimes people are raising funds and New Zealanders will, when somebody comes to the door, give money to a collection—would not be caught up in any provision concerning terrorist collection of funding in that regard.

So we have been very careful around the collecting of funds and the supporting of democratic agencies. As we have said, and as the Green Party minority report says, funding to the African National Congress, for instance, would not be seen as an offence under this legislation. We were assured that that was not the case, but we note that the Green Party minority report wanted to make doubly sure on that regard. So, once again, I thank the committee for its consideration of this legislation and for the work that has been done. I also thank the officials who worked on this and all those who made submissions.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : I guess many people in the country will be asking why we have this bill, and why we are debating it now.

Rodney Hide: Yeah, I am.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: Those are perfectly reasonable questions to ask.

Rodney Hide: I want to know why National is supporting it.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I have to say, given the circumstances, those are proper questions to ask. But this bill is not actually related to current events. It is, in fact, all about designating international terrorist organisations.

I will explain to the member why I say that. The current designations of groups by the UN, mostly around al-Qaeda and associated groups, expire later this year, and if we did nothing at all, those designations would all have to go through the High Court. The only way they could be renewed under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 would be to go through the High Court. We could have had a normal High Court hearing, with the prospect of al-Qaeda members or some other international terrorists coming along, seeking a hearing, saying they are not terrorists, and so forth. Frankly, that is an untenable proposition, and I think even members of the New Zealand Māori Party would recognise that reality. Designating international entities as terrorists, particularly when nominated by the United Nations, is par excellence a function of the Government, not a function of the judiciary. That is why this bill is before the House, because those entities do need to be redesignated.

There was a lot of discussion in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee about who should do the redesignation. The initial designation was done by the Prime Minister, and that is what is being proposed now. But we have added an additional requirement: the Prime Minister must inform the Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. That committee is made up of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Anderton, and two members of the Opposition, those members being Mr Key and, indeed, Mr Hide. The committee does have an important oversight role.

We recognise that there is a great deal of public interest in the terrorism laws at the moment. That is to be expected, given that the police have used the surveillance and tracking powers of the legislation from 2002, which actually came out of the counter-terrorism bill of that time. In fact, those provisions were added to the Crimes Act. So when the police used those powers, they raised the question of whether there are terrorists in our country.

Terrorism strikes at the stability of the nation, because terrorism is no ordinary crime. Terrorists intend to overthrow the Government. They intend to create disorder. They intend to threaten the lives, and, indeed, the infrastructure, of the entire nation. So when the authorities raise the spectre of terrorism, those are the fears they convey into society. It should be, rightfully, a very high threshold that the police have to meet before they can invoke the powers of the legislation. Clearly, the actions of the police will be judged in the courts of this land, and by the public and by this Parliament. We acknowledge that, and we say as well that there is no prejudging of those actions. But I would say that the police need to be right on this issue, because of the very implications of what terrorism raises in society.

Parliament has dealt with the issue of terrorism on a number of occasions, and the powers that we have conferred give the authorities more powers than is conventionally the case. They now have much greater power to track individuals. They now have much greater power to surveil bank accounts and the like. Those powers are contained in the legislation, and approval for their use has to be granted by warrants issued through the District Court and the High Court.

I say also that those powers need to be carefully controlled. The New Zealand Parliament has not gone as far as other countries have gone—in particular, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. We have not allowed the police to detain suspects without a charge; we have not given the police any power to question people without a charge. Those fundamental rights of New Zealanders are protected. The police can detain a New Zealander only if they arrest the person. The police can arrest someone only if they charge the person with an offence. When the police charge a person with an offence, that person has certain rights under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which are given automatically. Anyone who is arrested must be brought before a court within 24 hours, and a charge has to be laid or, indeed, withdrawn. It is the courts, not the police, that decide who gets bail. It was the High Court in Auckland that refused bail to one of the people charged last week; it was the District Court in Rotorua that also refused bail for Mr Iti. The courts have done that, not the police. That is an important protection that all citizens have.

Tariana Turia: The police opposed bail.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I know that they opposed it, but the courts refused it. That is an important point. The defendants are able to put their cases before the courts, and they are making appeals on the issue of bail.

I want to make it absolutely clear that those fundamental rights of New Zealanders have been embedded in our law for literally centuries, and at no stage has our terrorism legislation overridden any of those fundamental rights. New Zealanders need that assurance, because there have been misstatements about that. It is easy to be alarmist, it is easy to raise concerns—and I do understand why those concerns are raised—but I say that we should wait to see the evidence.

I want to turn my attention to a particular offence. This bill creates a new offence, and I know that that will be the subject of discussion. It creates the new offence of terrorism: carrying out a terrorist act. That offence carries a sentence of life imprisonment. I will point out what a terrorism act is. It is defined in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 by a threefold test, and it is a cumulative test. Firstly, the terrorist act itself must have an ideological, political, or religious motivation. It is not an ordinary crime; it must have a very particular motivation. Second, the act must induce terror in the civilian population, or be designed to compel a Government to do something. Third, the act must be intended to result in death, to threaten the health and safety of the population—anthrax, for instance—or to threaten major economic systems. The intentional release of foot-and-mouth disease, for instance, would be a case in point. All three tests must be satisfied, and that is the important issue that I want to bring to the public point of view. In order to convict someone of committing a terrorist act, a jury would have to be satisfied that all three tests were met. That is a high threshold.

In conclusion, I say this bill is necessary at this stage. It is simply coincidental that it comes at this particular time. The bill is primarily aimed at international terrorists. But when issues of terrorism are raised domestically, the public are right to be concerned. They have a right to be satisfied that the threat is real, because terrorism strikes at the core of society. We must wait to see the evidence that the police have, but that evidence will have to be compelling or else there will be an accounting.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : This debate is important, because for the first time the police are considering laying charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act against several New Zealanders. This issue has brought home the debate. No longer are we talking about al-Qaeda and the like.

The fundamental problem with domestic anti-terrorism laws is that all serious violent offending is covered by our Crimes Act. We do not need a parallel set of laws called anti-terrorism laws where higher penalties are imposed simply because the offender has a political motive. That political motive may be shared by many ordinary, peaceful New Zealanders. It might be protecting Tūhoe land rights or saving a block of native forests. Why should we penalise it with a higher penalty? Why should someone trying to save some dolphins or some native snails, if the person ever happened to turn violent, be subject to more years in jail than a violent gang member with no social conscience would be? Also, those with a social conscience are designated as “terrorists” into the bargain.

Most environmentalists or supporters of Māori rights would never, in a million years, think of resorting to violence, and they would be in favour of any violent people being brought to justice, but by using the criminal law, not anti-terrorist laws that smear only their own political cause. The Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill sets up a new offence of engaging in a terrorist act, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. If this is passed, someone could potentially get a life sentence for even engaging in peaceful, civil disobedience, where one does not intend to harm anyone.

A terrorist act can be one where undue pressure is put on a Government by “serious interference with, or serious disruption to, an infrastructure facility, if likely to endanger human life:”. Greenpeace tried to get the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to narrow that definition so that it would catch only those people, in Greenpeace’s words, “with the intention of endangering human life”. But the Greens were the only supporters of Greenpeace in the select committee, on that amendment. As things stand, if this bill passes, those organising a hospital strike or a disruptive protest on the scale of the 1981 Springbok Tour demonstrations could be up for a life sentence for serious disruption of an infrastructure facility, in a way likely to endanger human life, even if they in no way intended to endanger human life.

Many submitters to the select committee were also worried about the removal of the “avoidance of doubt” clause, whereby one would not be in trouble if one’s donation to an organisation was “for the purpose of advocating democratic government or the protection of human rights.”, even if the organisation one was donating to had engaged in some terrorist activity as broadly defined in the Terrorism Suppression Act—that is, if one donated to an anti-apartheid cause yesterday, or for a democratic Palestinian state today, then one would not necessarily fall foul of the Act, even if some African National Congress or Hamas members had been engaged in violent acts. The “avoidance of doubt” clause also recognises that we are in politically fraught territory and that one person’s terrorist can be another person’s freedom fighter. It all depends on where one stands politically.

For example, earlier this year, a self-confessed State terrorist visited New Zealand, and an Auckland judge ordered him to be arrested for war crimes under the Geneva Conventions Act. His name was Moshe Ya’alon, who is a former Israeli defence chief who admitted ordering the bombing of a civilian neighbourhood in Gaza, killing many people. The police, to their shame, point-blank refused to obey the judge and arrest him. Instead, they declared they would wait for the Solicitor-General and Attorney-General to consider whether the prosecution should proceed. That consideration was either a model of bureaucratic efficiency or a travesty of justice. At 1 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, the Solicitor-General received from Auckland a big box of legal submissions and detailed evidence. In a few hours he had speed-read and assessed them all, recommended that the prosecution not proceed, and forwarded them to the Attorney-General, who signed them off by 5 p.m.

State terrorists, particularly if they are aligned to the American superpower, are off our police and Government radar. Tūhoe and local environmentalists are seen to be easier targets, which is not to prejudge the current cases before the courts until we have seen the evidence. Anti-terrorism laws seem to bring out the worst in police forces, here and overseas. There is no way that the police had any justification or legal right to stop and search every vehicle going in and out of Tūhoe country, and to photograph everyone into the bargain. All sense of proportion and respect for people’s rights seem to have been lost in our rush to join in the war on terror.

But there is a better way: do not politicise the issue with anti-terrorism laws. If people have committed arms offences, or other offences, under our Crimes Act, then charge them with those offences. If any offenders had a political motive, then I am sure there are many, many New Zealanders who would be setting them straight—their families, their friends, and their colleagues in political movements.

We who are activists on environmental and social issues can use what is happening today to rededicate ourselves and all our organisations to peaceful campaigning, to inoculate ourselves against any temptation to use violence. We have a wonderful tradition of non-violent protest in New Zealand. Sometimes it stretches into the realm of civil disobedience, as when a peace flotilla confronted US nuclear warships in Auckland harbour. I think some of the people in this House were on those boats. We probably would not be nuclear-free today without those mass non-violent protests, some of them against the law, that took place in the 1970s and 1980s.

The big protests against the impending Iraq war back in late 2002 and early 2003 helped ensure that we did not join George Bush’s disastrous invasion of that country. Although we did not join that war, our Government has been an all-too-willing recruit into Mr Bush’s so-called war on terror, which has undermined human rights across the world. This bill is another expression of that. It puts more powers into the hands of the State, operating in secret, and it reduces due process and the role of the courts.

If this bill is passed, the Prime Minister not only will be in charge of designating terrorist groups but also will be reviewing those 3 years later, when previously the High Court had the review role. The designation and the review 3 years later will not be a transparent process, because a lot of the classified information will not be shown to the affected person or group.

The select committee did make one concession in relation to the designation process. It said that after the Prime Minister makes a designation he or she must report it to the Intelligence and Security Committee in Parliament. The problem is that that committee—and I asked a written question about it recently—has met for only 2 hours and 38 minutes in the 2 years since the election, unless it has had a meeting in the last week or two.

Due process is even more undermined by a provision in the bill to automatically put UN designations on the New Zealand list, even when our Government has clear evidence that the people or groups concerned are not terrorists. It is just silly to take out of the existing Act a provision that evidence contrary to the UN evidence can be taken into account. Following UN Security Council resolutions and recommendations does not mean that we should abandon our adherence to all the other international human rights standards and stop giving people a chance to prove their innocence.

The Green Party will be voting against this bill as it is a serious attack on our human rights, reinforcing and extending what is already bad in the Terrorism Suppression Act. However, the Green Party does support one part of the bill—that is, the provisions implementing our adherence to the nuclear terrorism convention and the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material.

I am most disappointed that the Government did not listen to the overwhelming majority of submitters opposed to the bill, including expert submitters from the Human Rights Commission, who said that this bill should not proceed before a proper review of the existing weaknesses in the Terrorism Suppression Act, and other expert submitters from Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and the New Zealand Law Society. The Law Society said that it was stupid to set up a parallel set of terrorist offences, which would only make it confusing for judges in our courts to decide whether to prosecute on terrorism charges or on charges under the Crimes Act. It will be very confusing, and, as I said earlier, it will be prejudicial to many people to have this set of terrorism laws.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) :Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tātou, itēneipō. The report back from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill could not have come at a more pertinent time. Last Friday I fronted up to the community that has been forced into the national spotlight. It is small, rural community under siege, accused of being a breeding ground for terrorists.

The valley of Rūātoki in my electorate has now assumed a distinctive classification in the national psyche as the place targeted with allegations of terrorism. The community came out in force on Friday—tamariki, whānau, teachers, bus drivers, and caregivers—all forming a hīkoi to the Whakatāne police station. Some of these people wore placards stating: “I’m innocent”, “I’m a hunter, not a terrorist”, or “Don’t point the gun at me—I’m under five”. In one particular case a placard caught my eye. It stated: “State violence to Tūhoe: yet another generation, 1866, 1916, 2007”.

The statement on that placard is at the heart of the discussion on this new Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. The Terrorism Suppression Act is being reviewed in three ways: first, in a political context, as the laws to repeal sedition are being overthrown, and while Tūhoe await the Waitangi Tribunal report on their claim; second, in a social context, best summed up by a young Tūhoe mother who, describing her inability to leave the Rūātoki valley, and the appearance of the black-garbed officers, talked about “being terrorised when we were innocent”; and, third, in a historical context, carved out in Tūhoe tribal memory by the confiscation line that marks the site at which they were punished for their supposed rebellion against the Crown by the confiscation of all their lands in 1866.

Our party, like others, supports the notion that we take terrorism and the protection of our country very seriously. But in the case of the actions we have seen in the last week or so, I want to make one simple point about the longstanding impact that the police raids have had on Māori psyche. A couple of weeks ago a game was played and lost and a nation mourned. The stages of grief immortalised by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross were described on national radio. The sportspeople were treated to grief therapy. New Zealanders psychoanalysed every last moment of the 90 minutes of pain, critiquing the role of the ref, reviewing the build-up activities, and assessing the state of national identity as they moved through the process of loss. The trauma was taken seriously. The national heroes had suddenly tasted defeat, and New Zealand reeled in shock.

This is a useful example to show how the collective spirit of nationhood works in success and in the crushing overwhelming sense of loss. You see, for tangata whenua, what happened last Monday, 15 October, was even more traumatic and sinister because it was much more than a game; it was an armed and terrifying invasion of a community. It was an action that has carried a negative stereotype of Tūhoe to the nation as a tribe of terrorists, and that has left trauma, horror, bewilderment, and fear in its wake for people in that community, who wonder whether their house will be next.

The hurt that has been caused through the impact of the anti-terrorist Operation Eight has brought to the surface historical parallels that must be considered in any debate on the suppression of terrorism, rebellion, and political activism. The use of the 2002 Terrorism Suppression Act has forced Tūhoe back to the memory of the 1863 Suppression of Rebellion Act. As the events unfolded last week, we heard Tūhoe people talking of having been there before—referring to the massive confiscation of some 181,000 hectares of land from the supposed rebel tribes of Tūhoe, Te Whakatōhea, and Ngāti Awa in 1866. They were labelled rebels because of their stand against Government atrocities.

One koroua spoke of the hunt for Tame Iti having parallels with the pursuit of the Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki. Te Kooti was hunted by the Government of the day in a relentless scorched earth campaign in which people were killed, homes destroyed, lands and stock ruined, and an iwi starved and deprived by the impact of Government actions. Another kuia spoke of a day in 1916 when the then Police Commissioner John Cullen and some 70 constables, armed with rifles and revolvers, marched into Maungapōhatu and arrested Rua Kēnana on charges of sedition and resisting arrest. The sedition charges were later thrown out.

Now there is yet another generation. The perpetuation of injustice, generation after generation, cannot be forgiven or forgotten. To those who say that this was all way back I say: “Remember the foreshore and seabed legislation of 3 or 4 years ago.”

I find it deeply worrying that the definition of a terrorist act in the principal Act that is under amendment here—the intimidation of a population in a situation of armed conflict that causes serious injury to civilians not involved in the hostilities of the situation—so specifically describes the actions of the police in Rūātoki.

The reason we are now considering this bill to amend the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 is that we are told that certain provisions of the Act are inconsistent with New Zealand’s obligations under the United Nations charter and the United Nations Security Council resolutions on terrorism. The bill is designed to bump up compliance with international counter-terrorism obligations—obligations that give effect to a number of mandatory resolutions relating to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban. It is fascinating that the executive, although unable to sign up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples just 2 months ago, now expects us all to be very scared about the consequences of not signing up to these other United Nations charters and resolutions.

The Māori Party is particularly concerned about the extension of national designations recommended in this bill. We are concerned that the independence of the High Court jurisdiction in the continued designation of terrorist entities is removed in favour of a determination by the Prime Minister. We believe that the process of review of designations would become less independent and even more vulnerable to political interference. There is also the risk of enabling greater influence from other nations, such as the United States.

We agree with the submission from the Global Peace and Justice group that if such a provision were to proceed, then independent scrutiny of cases would be minimised, as, in effect, the Prime Minister will become judge and jury. At least with the courts there is the ideal of independent scrutiny, which, if absent, can be appealed for.

Another key objection from the Māori Party rests with the creation of a new offence of the commission of a terrorist act—an offence that becomes punishable by up to life imprisonment. The Law Society brought forward its concerns that terrorist activities are not clearly defined in the bill, the interpretation being more about motivation and intention rather than defining the actions committed in the actual terrorist offence. It is here that the recent events give us particular cause for concern, when we consider the likelihood of double jeopardy.

By the police detaining suspects under the Summary Proceedings Act and Firearms Act, while they then search for evidence for another crime to fit the definition of the Terrorism Suppression Act, there has been considerable speculation that the police are at risk of placing the defendants under double jeopardy—being charged with one crime but detained for the purposes of another. That is unlawful, as I understand it. The terrorism suppression legislation makes it quite clear that the Attorney-General’s consent is required before a charge may be laid against a person. The time period is not specified, yet natural justice must surely act against unreasonable delay in challenging a continued remand in custody.

Finally, I want to refer to the codes of secrecy that have led to such uncertainties around this week. Many of the submitters noted their concerns in the bill about issues of procedural fairness and about the human rights of designated persons in relation to the use of classified security information in court. The key message coming through from this week has been to query why people have been remanded into legal custody without being given reasons for the deprivation of their liberty—a legal right dating back to the Magna Carta. But it appears that no reasons have been given as yet, despite repeated requests by legal counsel.

We think it is important to note that although the general emphasis of this bill is focused on the threat of international terrorism, the assumption that tangata whenua have been making this last fortnight is that it very clearly can also be applied to attack the activist cause across our domestic law. This bill seeks to create a climate of fear around anyone who supports liberation struggles and the fight for justice, democracy, and human rights, whether in Aotearoa or offshore.

This Parliament, and the citizens of this country, must be alert to the fact that any concept of democracy and free speech in Aotearoa, given the events of the past week, is very much at risk. This bill is a fresh attack on our civil liberties, our human rights, and the continuing story of injustice against injustice in opposing indigenous rights. We in the Māori Party oppose the bill in our strongest rejection of this Government yet.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I rise on behalf of ACT to oppose the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. We should reflect calmly and soberly in the wake of terrorist attacks and think very carefully about our response. We cannot fight terror by terrorising our own people. We cannot defend our freedoms, which we cherish, by adopting fascist policies. We oppose terrorism because we all wish to live in a free and open society. That means a society in which there is a rule of law and we are ruled by rules, not by men and women. With our anti-terrorism legislation we have the rule of men and women, because a body of people can declare an organisation or a person to be a terrorist and that is it. Once a person is declared a terrorist, that person is a terrorist.

The amazing thing about what this Parliament is signing up to is that it is not even our own Government—as bad as that would be—declaring who and who is not a terrorist. It is an outside agency—

Dr Wayne Mapp: Al-Qaeda!

RODNEY HIDE: Mr Wayne Mapp says: “Al-Qaeda!” Actually, declaring al-Qaeda a terrorist organisation has not sprung its members out of their cave. Mr Wayne Mapp says that we have to pass this bill because maybe Osama bin Laden will turn up in court and challenge his terrorist designation. I think it would be quite good if he did, because then we would arrest him.

Jumping up and down about bogeymen, as scary as it is, and then giving a response like this is not appropriate. How can it be that we are signing up to a group of people, not elected by New Zealanders, who can declare the ACT party or the National Party, or the Green Party for that matter, to be terrorists? Everyone will sit here and say: “Oh well, that would never happen.” Well, why allow for it to happen? Why allow that to happen, in this Parliament? We are supposed to be protecting the people of New Zealand.

Then we have the situation where the Prime Minister, on his or her own bat, can declare someone or some group to be terrorists. The assets of that person or group are frozen, and that is it. I have huge respect for Helen Clark’s integrity. I do not think she will misuse that power. However—and I know this will be a shock to the Labour Party—she will not always be the Prime Minister, although I know Labour members are working hard on the Electoral Finance Bill to make that a possibility. We should ask ourselves this question in this Parliament. We remember Sir Robert Muldoon. What would he have done with this legislation? What would Sir Robert Muldoon have done with this legislation? Are we seriously suggesting that the man who used the Economic Stabilisation Act to freeze everything in the entire economy to try to beat inflation would not be above declaring those in political protest movements that he did not agree with to be dissidents? Indeed, would he not be above declaring people who opposed the Springbok Tour to be terrorists? Would that not fit the definition in this bill?

Why are we giving that power to our Prime Minister? Why are we surrendering this power to an overseas agency, over which we have no sway and no say? Let us track down criminals, let us incarcerate those who offend against our person and our property, but let us not indulge in a political witch-hunt, and the opportunity for a political witch-hunt, where people, not the law, rule and where a person can declare someone essentially illegal and does not even have to say why. How do we challenge it? Under this law, one cannot.

I think in New Zealand we live in a big village. I think we live in a village that is remote from the world’s troubles. We think of our Government as the fellow or the fellowess next door. We cannot imagine our political leaders misusing their powers. So we find ourselves very relaxed about passing enormous, awesome powers across to our Government and saying: “Well, we need this because there are terrorists.” Someone who stands up for our basic rights—like the Māori Party, the Green Party, or the ACT party—immediately gets accused by the parties that do not have an argument of somehow harbouring terrorists or going soft on terrorists.

We do not want to concede awesome powers to our political leaders. We do not want to have a country and to live in a country where we can be declared guilty without a trial. We do not want to live in a society where the Prime Minister can declare someone to be persona non grata, without actually having to charge that person, and where there is no recourse, simply on the basis that the legislation would not get misused and simply on the basis that we have this awesome threat called terror.

I believe that with the passage of these measures—and New Zealand obviously is not alone in passing such laws—the terrorists are winning. In waging their terror, the very freedoms that we are trying to protect are being eroded by our Governments in response. We should reflect on why we do not want to live under the Taliban. We should reflect on why we do not want to live in a society where we do not have basic human rights and where we cannot stand up for what we believe in. We should reflect on why we not do want to live in a society where rulers can just declare us to be guilty. And then we should ask ourselves: “Why oh why are we passing this bill?”.

RON MARK (NZ First) : Well, that was interesting. Can I say for a start that New Zealand First does find it somewhat ironic that we are debating the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill at this moment, and that we will shortly follow that with the third reading of the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill, which will seek to do away with the offence of sedition. It would be nice to think that the concerns that people have for the security of New Zealand might well have been part of the discussion we had yesterday in the Committee stage of the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill. It seems that New Zealand First is on its own on that bill, but not so on this one. We support the passage of this bill. We believe that it does enhance the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002. We understand the reason for the amendments to this bill that have been put forward. It is the need to ensure we are compliant with international counter-terrorism obligations, including the provisions that cover the designation of United Nations - listed terrorist entities, the extension of national terrorist designations after 3 years, the freezing of the assets of a designated entity, and new offences involving nuclear materials.

It is interesting that we should be seeing legislation in that respect. It was not so long ago that I was reading books and seeing movies about fictitious attacks on Western democracies using small nuclear devices. People I have spoken to, some of whom are in this House, seem to share similar views that people then looked at such possibilities as being a nonsense, as fiction and fantasyland. These days it is taken as a given that such potential exists, and it needs to be countered or catered for.

I want to take the moment right now to point out, because people tend to forget, when they launch into vitriolic attacks on the counter-terrorism legislation and the actions of the New Zealand Police—and by innuendo make statements that are derogatory of and inflammatory about our security agencies—that these agencies are staffed and manned by personnel who in the main are New Zealanders. They are men and women, mums and dads, sons and daughters, aunties and uncles—they are Kiwis. So New Zealand First wants it on the record here that we give our respect and thanks to the men and women who staff our security services in New Zealand, be they with the Security Intelligence Service, the Government Communications Security Bureau, or the New Zealand Police, or be they members of the Special Tactics Group, the armed offenders squad, the Special Air Service, the counter-terrorist action groups, or the Royal New Zealand Army, Navy, or Air Force. We want it on the record, because we do not view those New Zealanders as irresponsible, as irrational, or as people who would act against the interests of their nation.

Tariana Turia: What are you looking at us for?

RON MARK: Well, I am looking to my right because it is the Greens, the Māori Party, and the ACT party that are vehemently against this bill, and two parties in particular have made some rather strong statements about the men and women of our security forces. By innuendo, they have deemed them to be the types of New Zealanders who would specifically and deliberately set out to do ill to Māori without good cause, and to do ill to any New Zealand citizen without good cause. They bring all Māori who serve in those organisations into disrepute. Let us be clear: the SIS is not staffed just by middle-class, white Pākehā.

Tariana Turia: It’s not the SIS.

RON MARK: Well, the SIS is involved in the security services, and there are Māori in there. There are Māori in the Government Communications Security Bureau, and there are Māori in the SAS. We all know about that now, do we not? We know it very well. So let us be very mindful, when we denigrate, criticise, and ridicule the police in particular, of what it is we are saying. Let us also be mindful that many of those are Māori who have affiliations with many tribes. They are, as I am, tauiwi. I have whakapapa going back into Whakatōhea, as well, through my grandmother on my mum’s side, but I do not share some of the views that come out of the mouths of people and are trumpeted around this House as being the views of all Whakatōhea people—they are not.

But let us also look at the aspects of this bill that put the responsibility firmly with the Prime Minister in designating who is and who is not a terrorist, which, in the eyes of Rodney Hide, is alarming. But Rodney Hide needs to look at the National Party’s minority report in the commentary on the bill. What I see in that report there is more alarming. The fact is that the Prime Minister has designated no one—no one, I tell Rodney Hide—nobody. Far from a situation that that member has just espoused here, where the Prime Minister is capable of designating the ACT party a terrorist organisation, the real concern New Zealand First has is the concern, so well expressed in the minority report by the National members, that the Government has designated nobody.

Rodney Hide: What about me, in Epsom?

RON MARK: Well, Mr Hide may be somewhat misguided in some areas, but he is not a terrorist. He terrifies some of his political opponents, but he does not terrify me. The need to actually specify what a terrorist act is, is smart; it is essential. New Zealand First has no issue with that. We point out, though, that terrorist acts, by their nature, must have a political motivation. For those who are challenging the police and making some rather outlandish statements about what they perceive as over-the-top reactions from certain people who have information available to them about activities up in Tūhoe land, there is a political motive and background.

I was of the clear belief that the motivation, the goal, of some Māori is to have sovereignty over New Zealand, to achieve self-determination—to take back the land, and rule as an independent nation—that is a political goal. What is interesting is the fact that no one has ever challenged these people, to have them explain how they see themselves achieving that political goal. Is it by diplomacy? Is it by political activism? Is it by force of arms? The evidence that we are reading in the paper today would suggest that some people have given other people a clear impression that they intend achieving that political goal by force of arms. Some members may want to call that the activity of freedom fighters. Some members may want to sit in this House and envisage themselves as being a sort of replication of Sinn Fein in supporting their IRA mates out on the street, but I say that that is terrorism.

You see, we are unique in this part of the world. We have enjoyed 150 years of democratic rule. We have seen many changes of Government, and many of them have had hotly contested and fiercely fought election battles—and I think of the 1990 election as an example—but we have never ever in this nation witnessed an uprising or attempt to take control, power, or sovereignty by force of arms.

Some would argue that if the police and the intelligence agencies throughout New Zealand have evidence that some people see that as a means—whether or not they are capable of doing it—there is an obligation to act. Let us be clear: some political parties in this House would be the first to string up the police if something did happen and it was found that the police had had intelligence but had not acted on it.

That brings me to Mr Ross Meurant, in my final minute I think I might have. Mr Ross Meurant astounded the nation by saying that he was brainwashed and that he believed that the police were overreacting and that their intelligence was misguided. He made a number of statements. This is the same Ross Meurant who in a post-protest meeting in Hamilton, where protesters against the Springbok Tour actually breached the fence, berated and belittled police commanders for failing to act on the intelligence they had that clearly pinpointed the part of the fence the protesters were going to target and breach. This is the same Ross Meurant who chastised, criticised, and demonised his commanders for not acting on the intelligence they had.

I say to Mr Meurant that as time moves on, some people’s memories get a little fuzzy and—to be kind—maybe that is what has happened. But I say to everyone in New Zealand that they should not judge the police hastily. We have a Police Complaints Authority, and as a democratic country we have a process to hold people to account and to examine their actions after the fact. If they are found wanting, no doubt we will hold them to account, but right now we need to support the intelligence agencies and the police as they go about the work they have been given to do. New Zealand First supports this bill.

JILL PETTIS (Labour) : This is an important bill, and I acknowledge the contribution made by other people in the House this afternoon, and the very serious way in which this bill has been debated. A lot of rather extravagant claims have been made over the last few days in regard to what this bill might mean. One of the funny things about human nature is that we seem to hate a void, and we feel we must fill it—fill it sometimes with inaccurate statements while we are waiting to discover the facts. I am a bit disappointed that a degree of that has happened in New Zealand over the last couple of days.

Some of the claims that have been made about what the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill will do have not been accurate. Those of us on this side of the House have participated in protests for as long as we can remember. Some of us have taken our children along to protests, as well, and some of the people we protested with in the past have made claims over the last few days suggesting that this amendment bill will mean they will no longer be able to protest, and could be arrested and prosecuted as terrorists.

In regard to the events that took place and were carried out by the police in recent times, I repeat that those people who have been detained have been detained on charges stemming from the Arms Act, not the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill that we are discussing this afternoon. We all hope that accurate information about those events will come out soon. I point out that the definition of terrorist acts expressly states that legitimate protest, advocacy, or dissent is not by itself sufficient basis for inferring an intent to commit a terrorist act. Therefore, to the extent that a safeguard is needed to ensure that the legislation is not used to repress legitimate protest activity, it is provided for within that definition.

I think we, as members of Parliament, have to be very responsible in what we say at times like this. Although legislation like the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill attracts controversy because it is not the usual run of the mill bill that we consider in New Zealand, we as MPs must ensure that we are not being mischievous in deliberately misrepresenting what the bill really does. Those who misrepresent the bill do so, I suggest, in their own political interests, rather than in the public or New Zealand’s interest. This bill does an awful lot less than what a lot of people in New Zealand over the last week have thought it does. This bill is not like laws that are passed in other countries; this bill does not create search or arrest powers. This bill does not allow indiscriminate phone tapping. It does not allow people to be detained for indefinite periods of interrogation or lengthy periods of incarceration without charge; that will not be allowed in New Zealand under the provisions contained in this bill. The bill does not permit the use of secret evidence in terrorism prosecutions, and it certainly does not prohibit the media from discussing what is going on. We just ask for responsible discussion about what is going on.

I also have to say that terrorism offences in New Zealand are treated the same as other offences. The same criminal procedures are used and the same conditions under which people are arrested for other activities apply under this bill, as well. So, despite all of the colourful phrases and predictions we have heard over the last few days, I assure New Zealanders that they can continue to protest in a peaceful and orderly way—as they do 99.9 percent of the time. They can continue to do that. I know that protests are planned in various parts of New Zealand this Saturday; I think there is to be one on my own patch. Those protests will carry on the same on Saturday as they did last week, and as they did the year before, and the year before that. New Zealanders will continue to be allowed to protest in a peaceful and orderly way, just as they always have. This bill is not what it has been made out to be by some people over the last few days, and I suggest that people breathe through their nose, as they say, and consider this bill in a responsible way. Thank you.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) : I am pleased to speak in support of the second reading of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill, and I want to echo some of the comments made by Jill Pettis, the member who has just resumed her seat. I have been appalled in recent days to see the linkages made by some groups between recent police events and the likely imminent appearance of this bill before the House. The suggestion that any Government of New Zealand would conspire with the police to arrest significant numbers of New Zealanders simply to create a climate that made the passage of a particular piece of legislation desirable was not even what happened back in 1951—the heyday of those sorts of things—and it certainly would not happen today. I am appalled that there are groups in our community that have sought to play the conspiracy card the way they have done over recent times.

Ron Mark: Loonies.

Hon PETER DUNNE: My colleague to my right says “loonies.” I would probably not use that word, but I would not disagree with his use of it in respect of at least some of those people. Their actions are not only inaccurate in terms of the current situation, but they completely ignore the history of this legislation.

I will take a moment or two to share with the House what has actually happened here. In the wake of the atrocities in the United States in September 2001, the Government passed a Terrorism Suppression Act in 2002. At that time, the Government indicated that certain provisions of that Act would need to be reviewed by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee during the life of the 2002-05 Parliament, to put in place more permanent legislative provisions in respect of those issues. During that Parliament, I was the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that undertook the review that led to this bill, which, when it is passed, will be known as the Terrorism Suppression Act 2007.

The process has, therefore, been a very long one. The select committee in the 2002-05 period, when it undertook the review, sought submissions from people on the way in which the previous legislation—the 2002 Act—was working. Then, as a result of those submissions, the committee made a report to this House and to the Government of the day that eventually appeared as this legislation, which I note was sent to a select committee in March of this year. That select committee received some 35 submissions, 14 of which were heard orally. In addition, evidence was provided by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Crown Law Office. Everyone who has had a legitimate interest in this legislation and in any imposition it might make on their human or democratic rights has had not one but at least two opportunities to be heard, to state their concerns, and to have those concerns heard by two different foreign affairs, defence and trade committees and two different Parliaments prior to this legislation emerging in the House today.

When one looks at the scope of this bill, one sees that it deals with a number of very significant areas. It talks about the designations of United Nations - listed terrorism entities. It talks about the extensions of national designations—those designations that might apply to national organisations. It talks about a freezing of assets and forfeiture regime, new offences being instituted involving nuclear material, and the use of classified security information in court. It also brings into the principal Act a significant number of international agreements, which are referred to in the schedules.

I think that we have been through a very considered and careful process here. As I said in an earlier debate on one of the earlier pieces of legislation relating to counter-terrorism, we will never get it absolutely right—that is the nature of the beast. We have to make our best efforts at the time. In New Zealand there will always be the suspicion that because we are not an immediate terrorist target or a hotbed of international terrorism—despite what some may say about recent events—we can somehow take a more lax attitude than other countries.

I submit to the House that whatever the outcome of the recent police activities might be, they should serve as a due warning to people that any sense of laxity is, in fact, misplaced. We are lucky. We are not facing an immediate threat. We are not under risk. But that does not mean we have no need to act responsibly. The whole process since September 11, as far as I can ascertain in respect of New Zealand, has been about ensuring that our domestic environment puts in place laws that strike that traditional balance between protecting the rights of the individual to free speech and dissent and ensuring that the security of our nation is not put at undue risk. I see the provisions in this bill as being a further step down the path of providing those protections.

It is unfortunate that there are some who choose to see—and they are mainly outside this House, thankfully—the passage of this legislation as being some sinister plot to try to overtake their liberty and impose fresh limits on their freedom. The reality is that it is too late after a significant terrorist event to say: “If only we’d had legislation in place that would have prevented this. If only we had known of the existence of these organisations. If only we had acted at the appropriate time.”

In the last couple of years—I cannot remember precisely when, but other members may—there was a suggestion in Australia that various nuclear plants of theirs were a target. It seemed extraordinary. It did not eventuate thanks to the vigilance of the Australian police and security services, but we should just imagine for a moment what the consequences might have been had those attacks occurred. Now, members may well say that that does not apply in New Zealand and that we do not have nuclear facilities in this country. But we do have nuclear material. There are people who are capable of developing such material here and using it for adverse purposes. So I think the provisions in respect of this legislation in so far as they relate to that are important as well.

I have read with interest the minority view expressed by the Green Party. I have a huge respect for my friend Mr Locke, and I know that although there are some issues we do agree on and we work very well and closely together on, there are some we disagree on. But I would never doubt for a moment his sincerity or his integrity in pursuing those views. I think it is important that he continues to be an advocate for democratic and human rights, even in a climate where, perhaps, there may be a majority of this House who are inclined to scoff at his views. Having said that, however, I do not agree with the conclusion that he reaches in his minority report. I think he is taking it too far. I think he is reading too much into the bill in terms of its import, but I do believe that it is important that he is there to state the case, and I acknowledge his contribution in that regard.

So I simply reaffirm United Future’s support for this legislation. It is critical. It is important that it be passed, and it is part of securing New Zealand’s long-term future. This is not about dealing with contemporary events; this is actually about making sure that some of those events that we might fear never come to pass. As I said before, it is simply too late after they have happened to say “if only”, and no one in New Zealand would thank this Parliament if it placed our country in that position.

TIM GROSER (National) : Life, even parliamentary life, can be full of surprises. Like other members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee who put a lot of time into this bill, I thought, until the events of last week, that this would be pretty much a slam dunk, politically—pretty much a routine piece of parliamentary politics because of the very large measure of agreement between the two major parties on what the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill sets out to do. But through a piece of spectacularly bad timing, entirely fortuitous and entirely coincidental, we find that it has become a matter of some real controversy in our country.

I am not going to rehearse National’s position on the events of last week. I think Mr McCully in his intervention put our position in very, very clear terms. We are withholding our judgment, and there is every good reason to do so. But although I did not write down Mr McCully’s precise words at the time, there was also contained there an implicit challenge. That challenge is this. If the legal process is now to unfold as it should in a country of our type, and we find it was not done in terms of the letter and spirit of the law, we will expect to hold people accountable for it. That is the way the system works, and that is the way it should work. So we just want to park that issue on the side and come back here in this debate to the real substance of the issue. Because when the events of last week have played out—however they play out—I suspect this will become, in the long run, a relatively small political footnote in the history of New Zealand. What will remain is a much, much bigger issue of international terrorism.

I have to say that I am simply astonished at some comments that have been made, not just in the House but outside the House, at the way and the speed with which people have forgotten exactly what is the nature of international terrorism. The defence of the realm in classical political literature is meant to be the No. 1 responsibility of any State, and I believe that is still the fundamental bedrock reality behind this legislation. Like many, I have no doubt that for New Zealand in the 21st century the defence of the realm is threatened more by this issue of international terrorism than any other conceivable direct, strategic threat. So although I talked about this being a piece of routine legislation until it got knocked off the rails by the events of last week, I did not mean that I thought this was not an important issue. No, I think this is a very, very important issue, and it is very important to get this right for precisely the reason that Mr Dunne has just reminded us. There will be no takers, politically, or in any terms of human reaction, for any politician in any political party that could be held accountable after the event for not having taken this issue seriously.

Listening to some of the comments of people, I sort of wondered whether these people think that Osama bin Laden follows the Marquess of Queensberry Rules here; I mean, giving them all the evidence so that they can sift through it in a reasonable way. This is simply naivety of the highest order. What we have here is a situation that actually has been around for centuries and centuries. For centuries there have been obscure bandits and warlords like Osama bin Laden, and they have carried out their terror inside a localised community for obscure reasons, which we and our predecessors were totally unaware of. But married to the modern technology of globalisation these hate merchants have been able to project their message of hate into a nightclub in Bali and into the twin towers of New York, and they will do it again. Of that I am absolutely certain.

This is not war conducted by the rules of the Marquess of Queensberry, and, I am sorry, a State needs to defend itself with coercive power to survive. That is the ultimate responsibility of a State. That is why the Labour members and the National members of the select committee took this issue very seriously, indeed, while always having a discussion about where the balance between preserving the coercive powers of the State to preserve itself, including the security of New Zealanders, and civil liberties lay. This is actually a very fragile balance, and when it breaks down it can break down unexpectedly, markedly, and, I believe, in any society. We saw it in Los Angeles in 1965 with the Watts riots. We saw it in Paris in 1968. I have actually seen something not as dramatic but of a similar process in a street called JalanDiponogoro, where the New Zealand Embassy in Jakarta lies. The moment the Suharto regime started to lose control, I saw the process of people running amok, and let me tell members that there is only one word to describe it. It is scary. It is seriously scary to see it up front.

This issue of preserving the ultimate security of the State requires coercive power, but in a society like ours it has to be disciplined by a very high test to preserve the civil liberties on which our system rests. If we look at the submissions we received, we see that they were overwhelmingly from good people who were looking at the issue legitimately in terms of only the civil liberties side of the equation. That is exactly what one would expect. Standard political theory tells us that when the public interest is so diffuse we will not find lobbies that come together necessarily, except in times of real crisis, to put forward the general public interest in maintaining the security of the State and the security of the people who live in this country. So it was really up to the politicians to provide the counterbalancing arguments. As a conversation essentially developed across the table of the select committee, it was very clear that there was a very high degree of concern that we absolutely get the balance right between the coercive power of the State on the one hand, and the need to deal with this extraordinary threat of international terrorism, using the powers of globalisation and civil liberties, on the other hand.

I think it is a commonplace thing to say that terrorism, like water, always seeks the weakest link in the chain. There are only so many things we can do to stop a terrorist act. Ultimately, if somebody with a suicide bomb walks into a certain place in New Zealand, I do not suppose that there is anything we can do about it. But what the theory of counter-terrorism rests on is prevention and trying to send a very clear message that one—in this case, our country—is not the weakest link in that chain. What we know about international terrorism is that it is a borderless activity. It pays no respect to borders. It pays no respect to human liberties. It will use the existing legal frameworks and processes that societies like ours have built up over centuries for their own advantage, and naive people in some of our communities will no doubt lend political support, completely unwittingly, to these people. We must make sure that this country is not the weakest link in the chain. This bill is a part of that process.

There has been a lot of confusion, in my opinion, in this discussion over the issue of the designation of terrorist organisations. Let me just give members my own particular take on it. We have these two resolutions. One resolution came out of the political history of September 11. It used the political impetus of a crisis to get international agreement on a particular set of terrorist organisations and some international cooperation around the politics of the moment. The idea that New Zealand would not be part of that is, to me, almost inconceivable. So what this bill has done is remove, possibly, a theoretical possibility, but in situations like this we have to look at things in extremis—the extreme possibility that the procedure agreed on at the time, and in the haste of that appalling event, could have led New Zealand to be in breach of a Security Council resolution. I find it inconceivable that people have problems with that. So that is the fundamental purpose of this bill. That is what this bill is tidying up, and I am absolutely certain that we are doing the right thing.

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) : That speech made by Tim Groser, in which he congratulated and praised the speech made by Opposition spokesperson Murray McCully, will not do his promotional chances in the National Party any harm at all—

Hon Member: How are yours going?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: —I do not need to worry about mine. I was pleased to hear that speech. I agree with virtually everything the member said, including the very high level of agreement, apart from that of the Green Party, on the major aspects of the bill.

I do not want to go over all the old arguments that have been made, but I will just make three broad comments at the start. I agree with the member for Ohariu-Belmont in that this bill was the product of quite a major review of the Act, so the implication that somehow this bill has sort of popped up out of nowhere because of the events of the last week is just plain silly.

The second issue we grappled with quite considerably in the select committee concerned the balance—which the member who has just resumed his seat talked about—between the right of people to protest in a democratic community and the right of the broader community to come down very strongly against those who want to commit acts of terrorism against it. That balance was quite openly debated.

Thirdly, I want to make it absolutely clear that this legislation, as that member also said, is to do with timing in Parliament. It has nothing to do with the events of the last week.

The select committee has made a couple of really important changes. The renewal of the designation process was something we spent some time on, and now it has been recommended—if I remember rightly, the recommendations were from some National members—that the renewal process be taken to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I think that was a good suggestion. In the end, I think there is potentially some transparency in that, which would involve all party leaders in Parliament.

We also looked at the new offences involving nuclear material, and we said they were too broad. It is a bit disingenuous for the Green Party member to make comments about the fact that this will mean that people cannot protest against ships carrying nuclear waste. In fact, I will read from the committee’s commentary on the bill: “We were concerned that the proposed new offence of committing an act against a nuclear facility in clause 13(3) was too broad, and could apply, for example, to protest action against ships transporting radioactive waste through the Tasman Sea.” So we actually listened to what the member said, made changes, and narrowed it down, yet he still wants to criticise the committee—

Keith Locke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is misquoting; I said no such thing.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: Well, notwithstanding that, the member could have at least said that the committee took some positive action on some of the comments that were raised.

Finally, there is an issue about the new immigration bill. There are some processes in there relating to classified information and decisions to be made under that legislation. So we decided that once that immigration bill had been passed, we should look at the relationship between it and this particular legislation. I support this bill and commend its further progress in the House.