Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs) : I move, That the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This is a day for some recanting and for some apology on the part of some people in this House who rushed out and gave their views about certain proceedings in the middle of the North Island and elsewhere, without waiting for the due process of the law to take its course. Now that the Solicitor-General has decided he will not authorise actions under the terrorism suppression legislation, I wonder what those members will say. They all knew, apparently, before everything ever happened, that the whole system would be unfair and unjust to people who had been picked up by the police. Now, today we know that that is not true. We know that serious charges still lie, but in the case of the terrorism suppression legislation, they will not. I hope that some of those members of Parliament who have been so cavalier about their responsibilities and so jaundiced in their view of our society, and indeed of this Parliament, will have the courage to come to this Parliament and say they were wrong.

Pita Paraone: They won’t.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I do not suppose they will, but it is time for some recanting.

The legislation we seek to pass is the culmination of an extensive review of the Terrorism Suppression Act that was commenced by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in 2005. It is not connected in any way to the recent events, even though many members of Parliament and other commentators have said as much. Recent events, to some extent, have diverted attention away from the substance of this bill. That is unfortunate, because the genesis of the bill does not lie in those events but is a product of several years of work, by the select committee and officials, to strengthen and improve the working of the Act, an Act that will obviously need further improvement.

This bill will not substantially change the way the Act operates; rather, its primary purpose is to make the Act more workable and to ensure that its provisions reflect New Zealand’s international obligations. The changes proposed will bring New Zealand law into line with that of other countries with which we share and enjoy the stability and security of fair and respected legal systems—one of which is to have, by reference from the Attorney-General, a finding from the Solicitor-General as to authorisation. By the way, I suppose a lot of people wrote to the Attorney-General and said that just in case the Solicitor-General makes a mistake and says we should go ahead with the Terrorism Suppression Act charges, he should override him. You know, when people make public comment, they really should be required to show a bit better knowledge of the law than that.

I want to take this opportunity to clarify the effect of the bill’s more contentious provisions, and to touch on the main amendments that will be made to the Act. First, the bill proposes amendments to the current process for designating United Nations - listed terrorist activities or entities. Considerable confusion has surrounded the scope of this provision, to the extent that some parties have claimed that the automatic adoption of the UN list of terrorists will affect the right of New Zealanders to support liberation struggles, democracy, and human rights overseas. I want to take this opportunity to make it clear that the UN list relates solely to al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorist entities. In order to comply with mandatory Security Council obligations, new provisions were required to ensure that under UN resolution 1267, which deals with al-Qaeda and Taliban activities, terrorists are automatically designated as terrorist entities under New Zealand law, and that those designations remain in force until entities are removed from the UN terrorist list. That will ensure that New Zealand complies with its obligations under the UN Charter. Under the law as previously drafted, that was not assured.

Responding to concerns that New Zealanders may be erroneously included on the UN list, the select committee has recommended that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, when exercising his or her authority to publish the UN list, includes information as to how a designated person or group can seek removal from the list. That recommendation will be followed. If New Zealanders were ever included on the UN list, the notice advertising the listing will set out the process for challenging the Security Council’s listing decision. In essence, the persons could apply to be de-listed directly to the focal point established for that purpose by the Security Council committee that maintains the UN list. Alternatively, they could ask the Government to submit a de-listing request on their behalf.

Turning now to the process for designating non - UN-listed terrorist entities, I would like to make clear that for the most part there will be no change to the current process. The Prime Minister is currently responsible for making interim and final designations on non - UN-listed terrorist entities. The bill will simply amend the process for renewing non - UN-listed designations after a 3-year period. The Prime Minister, rather than the High Court, will now be responsible for renewing a designation, if satisfied on reasonable grounds that the entity continues to be engaged in terrorist activity. That approach is consistent with that in similar jurisdictions whereby decisions at the renewal stage are made by the same office holder who made the original designation, and the same test is applied. As the committee itself has noted, decisions to renew a designation, like decisions to make an initial designation, involve judgments about national security and are more appropriately made by the executive than the judiciary.

When the select committee was considering this bill, it was careful to ensure that each amendment struck the appropriate balance between the preservation of civil liberties on the one hand, and the need to protect New Zealand’s national security on the other hand. When considering the appropriate process for renewing designations, we must note that the Act provides an important safeguard by virtue of the right to bring judicial review of designation decisions, which is preserved in section 33. The committee added a further safeguard by inserting a new provision that will require the Prime Minister to report to the Intelligence and Security Committee when a designation is renewed.

This bill will further enhance our counter-terrorism legislation by creating a new offence of committing a terrorist act. That offence is aimed at conduct involving terrorism that is at the very serious end of the spectrum, and, as such, it can be seen as being similar to other international crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity. The offence carries a high threshold, with the Attorney-General’s consent being necessary for prosecution. The definition of a terrorist act also sets a high threshold. To be classified as such, the action must satisfy the intention, purpose, and outcome elements of the definition. That definition will be interpreted strictly and in accordance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

The bill will also bring increased certainty to the provisions of the Act relating to terrorist financing offences, by repealing the avoidance of doubt provisions. Those provisions were designed to clarify the ambit of those offences; however, they have done the opposite of that. The provisions have created uncertainty by confusing the mental elements of the offence. Because of the way the provisions are drafted, they have the potential to undermine one of the key purposes of the legislation, which is to criminalise the intentional financing of terrorist acts. That would be inconsistent with both Security Council resolutions and our own position that acts of terrorism cannot be justified. Removal of those provisions will not compromise the right of New Zealanders to engage in or financially support peaceful protest activity. The Act’s very definition of a terrorist act expressly states that legitimate protest, advocacy, or dissent is not by itself a sufficient basis for inferring the intent to commit a terrorist act.

This bill will also incorporate amendments necessary to bring New Zealand up to date with its international obligations, by creating new offences involving nuclear and radioactive material. Those are required for ratification of the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, and to ensure compliance with recent amendments to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material.

I will close by saying that I commend this bill to the House, because it is required. It needs to be passed before 1 December 2007 in order to meet our international obligations. But I end this speech where I started, by saying that today is a good chance for some of my colleagues in this Parliament to begin to recant and apologise for their irresponsible, unparliamentary, juvenile, jingoistic, and insensitive behaviour in so far as the law enforcement authorities of this country are concerned. The Solicitor-General has commended the police for their processes and for the way that they went about their business. He said that in all of that no one was shot and no one was hurt. The police are to be commended for that. But it does not help when people out there—and many of them are Māori—are judged as being racist purely because they belong to a certain group that wears a uniform on behalf of maintaining the security and the defence of us all in this country. I think that before this debate is over we will find out whether some people are capable of admitting they were wrong. Maybe in the future they will remember this: before one rushes to judgment, one should get the facts.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I warmly support the comments of my colleague Winston Peters in his address to the House this afternoon, and on behalf of the National Party I rise to support the third reading of this legislation, the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill.

It has been interesting as we have gone through this debate that two parties have been highly critical of the events of recent weeks. It is quite clear that, as I said in the House the other day, all of us—all 121 members of Parliament—must support the police, the process, and the judiciary in this country, because if we do not have faith in those, then we have absolutely no faith in anything. I particularly side with Winston Peters’ comments, and I thank him for those.

This debate has the National Party’s support because we have been calling for some time for amendments to be made to this country’s counter-terrorism machinery to make it more workable. We watched colleagues in Australia deal with this issue more than 2 years ago, and we have watched colleagues in Canada doing the same thing. The issues we are dealing with are quite separate from the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, because in simple terms we are trying to bring ourselves into line with commitments that New Zealand representatives have made to the United Nations resolution process, and it is astonishing that it has taken us so long to get this legislation in place. I think the bill itself does not—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 2002 legislation, and have nothing to do with the legislation that we are now debating and, I hope, will pass into law in the next day or two.

The bill streamlines the machinery by which designations of terrorist entities are made and renewed. The current provisions are in many respects unworkable and also impractical. They provide a lengthy process for the designation of terrorist entities under UN Resolution 1267, whereas it is obvious that we should merely follow the lead that has been taken by the Security Council. As I have said earlier in this debate, the Security Council is the one part of the United Nations that works effectively.

With regard to the designations of New Zealand’s own initiatives 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 the normal standard of proof in the courts. But the reality is that the process of making and renewing designations of terrorist entities must be a matter for the exercise of subjective judgment, based on intelligence information. Having been involved in that area, and, certainly, in interpreting intelligence, throughout a good bit of my life, I can say that those documents would not stand up in a court of law, but what we are doing is filling ourselves in on a background, and building our knowledge and understanding of events, in order to make essentially subjective judgments.

That material cannot leak into the public domain in any circumstances, because if it did, we would not get future access to that kind of material. The National Party accepts that the appropriate person, the appropriate authority, to make and renew designations under UN Resolution 1373 should be the Prime Minister, of whatever party. The process in our community is to acknowledge the Prime Minister as the ultimate arbiter in this context. In New Zealand the Prime Minister is the Minister in charge of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, and is the elected official who is most fully and regularly briefed on security matters.

We have some concerns about the way the process has worked under the original Act since it was passed in 2002. Clearly, we are not alone in this, because David Collins, the Solicitor-General—and I quote from a press statement that I have just seen—was severely critical of the inadequacies of the legislation. He was referring to the 2002 base legislation. He said that it was “unnecessarily complex, incoherent and as a result almost impossible to apply to the domestic circumstances” of the particular case. In an ideal world I would say that the smart thing to do is to put this legislation on ice while we go back and study the Solicitor-General’s report, then sort this matter out properly, because, clearly, people have concerns about the 2002 legislation.

But we in this House have not had a chance to do that, and the reality is that we are up against a deadline. We have to pass this legislation before 1 December, because if we do not, we will be the only country out of about 196 countries that has signed up to this legislation through the United Nations, but has not put it into effect. As such, we would be perceived to be the weak link in the chain, and particularly a very weak link by our closer friends, if not allies.

Let me say that the select committee process went quite well. We had very good submissions from people who brought all manner of views to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. Submitters said that they were really concerned about the bill because they think it will infringe upon civil liberties, human rights, and those sorts of things. But, at the end of the day, we have to maintain ourselves as a cohesive society that is working in a fair way and with processes that have integrity.

I am a person who supports the need for strong and effective counter-terrorism legislation. I have lived in places like the Middle East, in Iran, and in other countries—even Papua New Guinea, where there has been a lot of what is effectively terrorist activity over a long period—and I think we have to maintain cohesion in this society by giving the executive and public servants the tools to do a really thorough job in this area to protect the interests of the majority of the community.

I think we also have to have faith in our select committee process. The committee has worked very hard to scrutinise the submissions made to it, and the reports of its advisers. In particular, I thank ex-colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for doing a very good job in advising the committee. If we did not get this right, there would be consequences, and I think those consequences could be very, very serious for our community. But members may recall that in the committee’s report back to the House the National Party took the unusual step of submitting a minority report to the House. It was an unusual step to take in the context that we were really supporting the bill, but we did so for strong and good reasons. The original Act was passed in 2002 in the wake of the terrorist action in the United States. New Zealand met all its obligations under Resolution 1267, and duly designated as terrorist entities all 450 entities, individuals, or groups so designated by the Security Council, but in relation to UN Resolution 1373, which is the resolution that relates to non-Taliban or non - al-Qaeda terrorist entities and individuals, our track record simply did not stand up to scrutiny. We are putting that right in this process today.

As I said, Australia and Canada did this some years ago. Given our proximity to Australia—our closest neighbour and friend, with virtually a common border between our two countries—we had a responsibility to our trans-Tasman neighbours to have done this a long time ago. The Australian Government has already classified groups like the Tamil Tigers, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other such agencies as terrorist entities in Australia. Clearly, the Government of Australia would have done that only if it was seriously concerned about those people. Our community needs to be asking why our Government did not get on to this at a much earlier date. But New Zealand is now on the path to putting this right, and the New Zealand National Party is totally supportive of the Government’s actions in this regard. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) : The Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill has basically three main elements. The first is matters dealing with the financing of terrorism; the second is in relation to the possession of radioactive materials; and the third, and perhaps the most important in the New Zealand context, is the fact that designations will in future be carried out by the Prime Minister, thereby avoiding the problem that this bill has to pass by 1 December to deal with, in that a very large number of such designations will lapse at the end of this month. One of the reasons for the very large number of designations is that a lot of the groups designated appear under a very large number of different names in various parts of the world. Those who are followers of Monty Python will recognise the syndrome in that regard. There are also a number of minor matters in this bill.

I think it is very good that we are debating this bill today and the principal piece of legislation, the Terrorism Suppression Act, because of the announcements made by the Solicitor-General at 4 o’clock this afternoon. There has been much hysterical huffing and puffing over recent weeks about the Terrorism Suppression Act. Indeed, the key aspects of much of that huffing and puffing contained a strong element of contempt for the rule of law. We have heard demands from people that the Government should be telling the police what they should be doing in terms of their investigations, the way in which they carry them out, whether they carry them out, and whether any charges should be laid. We have seen continual attacks on the police, often on the basis of extraordinarily flimsy evidence, and, indeed, contradictory evidence, from those making the complaints in the public arena.

We have seen calls for political control of the process of the consideration of the laying of charges. This afternoon I received a letter from a large number of people that told me that I should overrule the Solicitor-General if the Solicitor-General chose to lay charges. It strikes me as extraordinary that people who object to the Prime Minister designating as terrorist entities groups that have already been listed as such by the United Nations—it is not a kind of random list that the Prime Minister makes up as she or he goes along—should on the other hand turn round and say that a Cabinet Minister should overrule the Solicitor-General when it comes to issues of the rule of law and the laying of charges. That is political interference. Telling the police what to do is political interference. That is what happens in countries like Fiji and Pakistan. It is not what happens in countries like New Zealand.

We have also seen many people, including, I am afraid, some members of this House, in effect casting judgment on matters, in the absence of evidence, that are properly the precinct of the legal system to consider and decide upon. This House does not try people and find them innocent or guilty. That is a matter for the courts.

I want to refer to what the Solicitor-General actually said, before there is a great deal of misinterpretation of his announcement, which I am sure is about to occur within this House. He said, and I quote: “Having considered in detail all of the available evidence, I am very satisfied that the Police had a sufficient and proper basis for investigating the activities in question under the provisions of the Terrorism Suppression Act. The Police have, in my opinion, also acted very properly in referring the evidence to my office so that I could make an assessment as to whether or not charges should be brought under the Terrorism Suppression Act.” He then deals with some issues that I will come back to in a minute. He goes on to say: “In summary, the key reason why I am not prepared to authorise prosecutions under the Terrorism Suppression Act is because I am of the view that at this stage there is insufficient evidence to establish to the very high standard required that a group or entity was planning or preparing to commit a terrorist act as that term is defined in the legislation.”

That is quite crucial. What the Solicitor-General is saying to us is that those people who claim that this Act is some kind of means by which the Government can suppress legitimate and peaceful protest or dissent were and are talking rubbish. The Act actually has a very high threshold before any kind of charge can be laid. Indeed, the Solicitor-General points to the fact that there are problems with the Act that make it difficult to lay such charges, in part because it deals with an international terrorist context. I will be taking seriously his suggestion of referring the Act to the Law Commission, and will refer the Act to the Law Commission for its consideration in that regard.

I think we need to note that the Solicitor-General also goes on to say: “Some may try to interpret my decision as a criticism of the Police. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my view, the Commissioner of Police and his officers have acted entirely appropriately in referring the evidence to me. … I wish also to stress that the Police have successfully brought to an end what were very disturbing activities. That the Police did so without a single shot being fired, injury or loss of life, is a tremendous reflection on the professionalism and integrity of the New Zealand Police.”

Some of the evidence that was relevant to what the Solicitor-General was considering will, of course, come out in the consideration of the charges under the Firearms Act. Some of the evidence will not come out under those considerations—that is, evidence under interception warrants, etc., which, of course, are not relevant to the Firearms Act charges. That evidence will never see the light of day. All I can say, having read some of that evidence as Attorney-General, and having been advised by the Solicitor-General, is that I believe that what the Solicitor-General said is absolutely correct—the police had a reasonable basis on which to refer matters to the Solicitor-General.

Let us not pretend that we are dealing with a brutal and repressive police force acting at the behest of the State, and in an uncontrolled and unjustified fashion. That is not what the Solicitor-General has said. Anybody who claims that this statement is some kind of vindication of all those involved is misreading what the Solicitor-General said.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : I rise in support of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. I have to say that I agree with a number of the comments already well put by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and other speakers.

I think some points worth making are that new provisions are required to ensure that terrorists listed under United Nations Resolution 1267, which deals with al-Qaeda or Taliban activities, are automatically designated as terrorist entities under New Zealand law. I find it quite surprising that when the Parliament follows the United Nations, which we are a part of and have been signed up to for a long time, if it does not suit some sides of the House and some organisations outside the House then we get all sorts of criticism. Funnily enough, when the Parliament decides not to follow the United Nations line in respect of something else, the argument goes the other way. It always seems to come from the same side of the House. I think it is something that shows an entirely inconsistent nature, and it is inconsistent with belonging to an organisation such as the United Nations. Of course, no doubt they will make the same arguments in Opposition.

This legislation is about the security of our country, and I think we need to look at the way the law works in respect of charges that are wished to be brought under the terrorism suppression legislation. It is not unusual for a search warrant to be sought under the Summary Proceedings Act, which is targeted at certain offences and crimes committed under a number of various other Acts, and whether it be the Arms Act, the Terrorism Suppression Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act, the Crimes Act, or any other Act, it needs to be stated on the application. The fact is that the search warrant is sought. It is the empowering document that allows the police to act in a certain way. Bearing in mind the evidence that the police appear to have had, it is not surprising that they acted in a way to combat the most severe retaliation that was reasonably expected, given what they knew, for instance, about what arms or restricted weapons were held.

I find it ironic that although people have insisted that all these weapons were required for pig hunting, nobody seems to have come up with an innocent use for a Molotov cocktail, in spite of the fact it appears that a number of the charges to have come out of these executed search warrants relate to the possession of restricted and unlawful weapons, which included Molotov cocktails.

I also want to make the point that it is only 2 years since the police had a roadblock in the same area in the central North Island, where they were searching for gang members. A school bus was searched and hiding under the seats on the bus were the gang members sought at the time, trying to get through the roadblock.

So I believe, from what little I know—albeit that I am not privy to all of the circumstances involved at any one time—that the police have a mandate to act reasonably, and to appear to have acted reasonably on the face of it. What happens, of course, is that once a search warrant has been executed and arrests have been made, charges are brought, people are held on bail or remanded in custody, and that is that. But under this legislation it is required that no charges be brought under the terrorism suppression legislation until there is the authority of the Solicitor-General. We see that in other legislation, too. It is not surprising. If we want to charge someone with perjury, for instance, we have to have the authority of the Solicitor-General before we can lay those charges.

I guess most recently we have seen the charges brought in respect of allegations against a member of Parliament, which needed to have the authority of the Solicitor-General before they could be laid, before information could be laid before the court, and, later, indictments presented. But what do we do in this situation? For instance, if we find that charges under the Crimes Act or the Arms Act are upheld due to eyewitness evidence that weapons were held on a particular day at a particular time, then charges could be laid under the relevant Act. If we then get the permission of the Solicitor-General to lay further charges, some charges may be withdrawn and other charges preferred. That is just the way the law is done.

What do we do when we find people who are a threat to society, either a terrorist threat or just a criminal threat, in relation to possession of unlawful weapons? Well, they must be held on something. It will not be a situation whereby the police will allow these people to go about their business while the police seek further advice and lay charges at some time in the future by trying to find these people and deliver a summons upon them or by asking them nicely to turn up to court on any particular day.

The fact is that the charges that the police believe were substantiated by items and evidence found in the execution of the search warrant present a serious threat to people who are moving in those circles—people who were in the bush, or people who were just generally going about their lawful duty. As an average citizen of this country, I was disturbed at some of the television footage I saw of the way that average New Zealanders were being approached on what appeared to be a public road. So charges are laid and people are remanded in custody. That is how the law operates, and that is how it will continue to operate until it is changed. It is in this House that those changes are made, if support is given for them. I believe that the police acted entirely appropriately. In fact, the law demanded that they seek the permission of the Solicitor-General to lay further charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

I also note that the definition of a terrorist act states expressly that legitimate protest, advocacy, or dissent is not, by itself, a sufficient basis for implying intent to commit a terrorist act. What that means is that New Zealand’s long legacy of being an international advocate for lawful protests and for citizens’ rights, not only within its own country but also around the world, will continue. This legislation takes nothing away from that.

The support of this legislation is reasonable, given the society that we live in and given the international environment we live in, too. We are finding now that as there is a global interest in various terrorist groups, New Zealand is becoming more and more a focus for people transiting through to other countries or coming to New Zealand to take the heat off them. When we speak to the police, we are finding that more and more at our borders these people are ingressing our country, and during the period that they are staying within our borders they have the opportunity to progress or to elevate the activities they want to carry out—hopefully in someone else’s country.

I believe that the statements by the Solicitor-General today have been encouraging towards the police and have supported that they acted appropriately. I believe that this is legislation we need because we are part of a peaceful United Nations and there are conventions that we need to abide by, and adopting this legislation is, in a timely way, supporting the rule of law internationally. I look forward to supporting it.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : There has been a great victory today. A great cloud has been lifted off the Tūhoe people and off people who are active in social, environmental, and peace causes throughout the nation, who were fearful that they had been smeared by these raids and these charges being placed under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

Of course, this is not the end of the story. There is now an agreement, and I welcome it, by the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General to review the Terrorism Suppression Act. That is exactly what the Human Rights Commission called for at the select committee, and exactly what I put in an amendment 2 days ago in this House and that was turned down by Michael Cullen and others. I am glad that at last we are having a review of that unjust Act.

It is a disgrace that we are proceeding with a vote on this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill, because, if we are going to review the Act, why make the original Act worse, as this legislation will? Dr Cullen said that it is all about the rule of law. He said that the accused people—presumably people like members of the Green Party and the Māori Party—are somehow against the rule of law.

The very reason the Green Party is against this bill and similar terrorism legislation, including the Terrorism Suppression Act, is that it undermines the rule of law. It does this in several ways. It undermines the rule of law by confusing our existing system of criminal law. Over many years, we have established crimes of murder, rape, kidnapping, property damage, etc., each with their own maximum penalties. That is all swept aside if the offender is deemed to have a political or religious motive for such criminal activity. Exactly the same crimes, if they are deemed to be committed under the Terrorism Suppression Act and as having a political motive, are subject to a single maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

As the Law Society said, this terrorist labelling would “have the potential effect of greatly increasing the penalty imposed on persons who are convicted of committing a terrorist act where the underlying criminal act is relatively minor”. Some of the underlying criminal offences in the Terrorism Suppression Act are indeed minor. Someone does not need even to intend to hurt anyone or damage property. One of the actions that can theoretically lead to life imprisonment under this amending bill for committing a terrorist act is “seriously disrupting an infrastructure facility in a way likely to endanger human life”.

Greenpeace suggested that at the very least this provision should be amended so that there had to be an intention to endanger human life, otherwise some of the non-violent disruptive protests that Greenpeace itself occasionally engages in could be defined as terrorism. The select committee turned down Greenpeace’s suggested amendment, as did Parliament when I moved a similar amendment during the Committee stage of the bill.

Let us look at what one might call a lesser crime in the Terrorism Suppression Act—not the actual committing of a terrorist act but of participating in a terrorist group. That has a maximum sentence of 14 years, whereas the exact parallel offence in the Crimes Act—participation in a criminal organisation—has a maximum sentence of 3 years. This means that if a person participates in a group campaigning for Māori land rights, and that group has planned or done something criminal, then he or she is up for 14 years inside. But if a person is in a criminal gang that shoots people or beats them up or terrorises a neighbourhood, then his or her maximum penalty is 3 years. The extra penalty for terrorism charges is the extra penalty for having a political conscience of one type or another.

It is ironic that in the same month in which we have wiped from the statute book the sedition laws that punish people for their anti-establishment views we are tightening up terrorism laws that provide an extra punishment for lawbreakers because of their anti-establishment political views. I think it is right to use the term “anti-establishment”. For example, when farmers openly defied the law and introduced the calicivirus—and that could qualify as terrorism under the Terrorism Suppression Act; that is, it involved, in the words of the Act, the “release of a disease-bearing organism,”—no charges ensued, because the Government sensed that the farming establishment was on the side of those who released the virus. But when the charges involve Tūhoe people quite vigorously asserting greater Tūhoe autonomy, there is a much greater possibility of terrorism charges being laid—although, of course, in the end, thankfully, they have not been.

Clearly, there is a highly charged political context around the current charges, with New Zealand First accusing the Tūhoe leaders and Māori Party MPs of promoting apartheid. That is why it is so wrong for political leaders—like the Prime Minister in the case of the Terrorism Suppression Act—to be designating terrorist groups, which is why the Green Party is opposed to an amendment in this bill that means that the Prime Minister will not only do the original designating of terrorist groups but also review those same designations 3 years later, taking away the review role that previously lay with the High Court. Any Prime Minister’s judgment is clouded not only by his or her own political views but by practical politics.

If our Prime Minister were to designate any international body as being terrorist on the basis of three things—how many innocent civilians it had killed with explosives, how many people it had kidnapped and held for years, and how many people it had tortured—then under any objective consideration the first body they would designate as being terrorist is the United States Government. But because of the economic and political power of the Bush administration, our Prime Minister is unlikely to do that—although she might prove me wrong.

The next way that anti-terrorist legislation undermines the rule of law is that the charges often involve secret, classified information that those who are accused are not allowed to see. Sometimes under the Act they will get a summary of the evidence and the accusations against them, but this is not guaranteed. In the immigration field, Ahmed Zaoui had great difficulty in clearing his name after secret accusations of involvement with terrorism were laid against him. It took him nearly 5 years of legal struggle to get the Security Intelligence Service to come clean on what it had on him, so that he could prove his innocence, which he did.

Anti-terrorist laws also encourage excessive surveillance of legitimate political dissenters and protesters, and a general overreach of police powers. We have seen both in the latest raids. The police went beyond their legal rights when they ordered the Tūhoe people out of their cars and asked them to stand by numbered cards and be photographed. There may also have been excessive surveillance involved in the lead-up to the case. There are indications that this may have been the case in the many raids on the homes of political activists who were not charged. The surveillance net may have covered them.

It is concerning that many people are now worried about what they might say in their texts and on their phones, or what they might write on their computers. It is disturbing that several computers were taken away in the raids—one from a visiting Swedish lecturer who was staying at the home of two Ecoshow organisers, whose computers were also taken.

New Zealand is not on its own here. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative has just published a report called Stamping Out Rights, which shows that the police in virtually every Commonwealth country have overstepped the mark as they participate in the so-called war on terror—often seriously overstepping the mark. We saw a couple of days ago a police report on the shooting dead of the innocent Brazilian, Mr de Menezes, in the London Underground on the grounds that he might be a terrorist.

Policing under terrorism laws is fraught with difficulty. If we had had these laws during the big civil disobedience protests in 1981 against the Springbok Tour, then there could have been even more division, bitterness, and injustice than there was at the time. There is a much better way to go about things, which is to have respect for political activists and not treat them as the enemy or as the breeding grounds of terrorism.

People like me who have been involved in these movements for years know that they are made up, in the overwhelming majority, of very good people. If people step outside the bounds and go in the direction of violent or criminal activity, then there are plenty of people to pull them back into order. If that has happened to some people in this case then there will be plenty of people who will counsel them. We do not need the heavy hand of the State. We do not need these repressive terrorism laws to achieve it, and we do not need Prime Ministers prejudicing the evidence, as Helen Clark did a couple of days ago, or Michael Cullen did today by insinuating that there was serious evidence here that he will not disclose and that he says will never be disclosed. He should not prejudice those people’s future, as well. Thank you.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa e te Whare. Over the past couple of days comments I made about this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill seem to have generated some heated debate from politicians, both inside and outside of this House. I thought I would recap on those comments so that the House is absolutely crystal clear about what I actually said. Here it is: “I will not sit quietly by, while State forces terrorise my people. If this requires of me that I speak out against the rule of law that would impose terror on Māori communities in this country, then I will speak out. I will speak out against it in this Chamber, on television, in newspapers, and anywhere else I possibly can.”

I stand by those comments today, in spite of all the personal abuse I have had from someone who called for, and signed up to, a code of conduct, which states that “we will debate the issues raised and refrain from personal attacks”, and who then, twice in as many weeks, has issued press releases abusing me as a person and insulting my position as a member of Parliament. I stand by those comments, because they reflect the feelings within many Māori communities all around the country. I stand by those comments because they reflect the feelings of New Zealanders who are proud to stand up for their rights and to respect the right of all other New Zealanders to do so, as well. I stand by those comments because neither I nor the Māori Party will allow our views to be silenced by those who think the only good Māori is a dead one. I stand by those comments because unless someone has changed the rules in the last couple of days—and I know that some of the petty little players in this House have been desperately climbing on to the “Let’s do whatever we can to shut this Harawira up and get some media for ourselves.” bandwagon—I have the right, as an elected member of this House of Representatives, as do the rest of my colleagues in the Māori Party, to speak freely on any issue that affects this country and its citizens.

So let us look at what this whole terrorism thing means. What exactly is terrorism, and who are we talking about when we call people “terrorists”? People in this House say that the Taliban are terrorists. My question is: is that the Taliban that was funded by the Americans to throw the Russians out of Afghanistan, or—as if there are two different groups—is that the Taliban that turned around and then said: “And now you Yankee warmongers can get out of here, as well.”? And Saddam Hussein—is that the Saddam Hussein who was bankrolled by the Americans in the war against Iran, or is that the Saddam Hussein who told the Americans to get out of his country? Or is it the terrorism of the United States Seventh Cavalry, operating under a clear mandate from their masters in Washington in the 1870s to crush everything that stood in the way of land-hungry settlers, and to round up, hunt down, and kill where necessary any natives who stood in their way?

When we talk about the fight against terrorism, I recall attending a conference in Canada last year, the United Nations Expert Seminar on Treaties, Agreements, and other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Peoples, where I was given the picture I have here, of Geronimo and some of his warriors carrying guns, with a caption at the bottom that reads: “Homeland Security—Fighting Terrorism since 1492”. I ask whether that is the kind of fight against terrorism that we are talking about here. Or is it the terrorism of those people who lied to the whole world about weapons of mass destruction, which were never found, and about the link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, which was never proved, so that those people could invade Iraq to get control of the oilfields?

When a member of this House characterises terrorism as the importation of deadly diseases, the murder of innocent civilians, and the wholesale theft of a people’s lands and territories, is he referring to the terrorism of the colonial invasion of Aotearoa? Because people would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see those very terrorist activities in our own history.

When we think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill, all I ask is that we put aside the blinkers of red, white, and blue and be honest about the reality of terrorism in all its forms. The Māori Party is no apologist for the regimes of either the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, but neither are we so blind as to vote for a bill clearly designed to punish those who would challenge injustice in Aotearoa.

Nicky Hager, author of The Hollow Men, has said that since the passing of the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002, people taking part in ordinary protests have found they are being subjected to much heavier policing. He said that the police are now routinely removing computers, charging people in a manner well out of proportion to the original activity, and using far more Draconian measures against people exercising their legitimate right to protest. He even pointed out that protesters had been charged with wilful damage for writing in chalk on the footpath outside Marian Hobbs’ office—for Heaven’s sake!

This country is faced with the terror of silence, from those who would silence the voice of radical protest, vocal dissent, and genuine opposition, and from those who would tell us: “Wait, just wait! The police know what they are doing.” Yeah, right! Then there are those of us who would sit silently by, muttering about how those so-and-so’s deserved it, but secretly terrified that our children might be the next ones to get picked up. I am reminded of those famous words from Pastor Martin Niemöller, who said of the Nazi purges of the Second World War: “First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. And then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak out for me.”

So, no, we will not be terrorised into silence on this, or on any other issue that so hugely impacts upon our people. And for all those who think that the Māori Party stands alone, I urge them to listen to some of these testimonies: Archdeacon Hone Kaa, along with the Anglican Church itself, has criticised the authorities for their actions and said that “there is no excuse for women, children and the elderly being subjected to terror”. The Rev. John Thrupp of the Presbyterian Church has spoken of the overwhelming hurt and sense of anger amongst the people of Ruātoki—innocent people being held at gunpoint, children being frightened out of their wits by police with guns, and kids being stranded by the police arresting their parents. There is Te Teira Davies, a highly respected Ringatū minister, who was arrested. For Heaven’s sake, he was taken from the college where he works and questioned for daring to know Tame Iti. Mate, you know, people can call the Māori Party whatever they like, but when the church starts criticising police action, we know that something is wrong.

When members of this House criticise the Māori Party and the Green Party for standing against State terrorism, I have to ask all of them in return whether they really think it is acceptable behaviour for the State to use armed and masked gunmen to blockade communities, to smash into people’s homes, to hold innocent people at gunpoint, to frighten children with guns, to arrest and hold people without bail, and to suppress all information on those cases. Any freedom-loving New Zealander—Māori, Pākehā, Pasifika, Asian, or whoever—would be horrified by the call for us to simply sit back and say nothing about the overkill of the recent police terror raids and the denial of basic human rights to our fellow citizens. We are not blind, we are not dumb, we are not deaf, and we will not be silenced.

They say that denying legal rights to terrorism suspects is normal in dictatorships, but in countries like Aotearoa, with a history of political tolerance and non-violent protest, it is a development that we must rage against with all our might. On 29 March this year I said in this House that the Māori Party would oppose the use of terror to impose one-eyed, nationalistic misconceptions of religion and governance on any people, whether committed in the name of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda or in the name of George Bush and the United States of America. Today I repeat that statement. The Māori Party will oppose terrorism in all its forms, be it international terrorism or State terrorism, and we will stand alongside our people whenever our lands, our communities, and our people are threatened.

Me mihi atu au ki te iwi o Tūhoe, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

• [My greetings and thanks to the Tūhoe people, and to us all.]

RON MARK (NZ First) : It was very interesting to hear the previous speech by Hone Harawira, and it makes me truly shudder with fear as to what sort of country I live in that we now have people in this House believing the sort of rhetoric they espouse. It also makes me wonder, if the Māori Party is truly serious about some of the fears its members have expressed about what their children and the people within their communities have been exposed to through the actions of the police, which have now been adjudged and determined to have been entirely appropriate, what they will do inside those same households now.

The honourable member Mr Harawira talks about the trauma of young children seeing firearms. Well, we all know the realities. Many young Māori children live in homes all over this country where illegal firearms are a matter of course, but, of course, every time one raises the issue of terrorism by gangs, the very same member stands up and leaps to their defence. The very same member says we are terrorising the gangs by daring to pick on them. I did not see this member stand up and talk about—

Hone Harawira: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have never talked about the State terrorising the gangs.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. That is not a point of order.

RON MARK: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your assurance. This member has been here for 2 years. In that time he has collected well over $220,000 of taxpayers’ money, because he is representing an understanding of the Standing Orders. He knows that—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?

RON MARK: My point of order, Mr Speaker, is that yesterday he did not like my speech, so he chose a path of deliberately interrupting it with points of order.

Hone Harawira: Point of order.

RON MARK: He is trying it again, and he is doing so on the back of a speech he gave about people denying others the freedom of speech. Could you please deal with this man, Mr Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Mark, but I found it impossible to decide what the member was going to raise before he stood up and took a point of order. The minute I saw that it was not remotely like a point of order, I discontinued it.

RON MARK: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This is the point. We seem to have one set of standards on one side of the House for those who want to be dissidents and activists, and who want to give the nation their form of lawful protest. Mr Locke is a great example. Today we had a demonstration out in front of Parliament. People did not have the right to stand up and speak on the steps, but because they are who they are—the great holy peacemakers of the nation—they got to break the rules. The security guards sat back and did nothing except advise them that they did not have permission to speak on the steps. Mr Locke’s answer to that was that common sense prevailed—that they were allowed to make their speeches and they were not pulled to account and thrown off the steps.

Imagine if Garth McVicar did the same thing in this House. Imagine if members of the Sensible Sentencing Trust turned up here without the right authorities and chose to exercise exactly the same course of action that these people did. Would we see Mr Locke standing up there and defending their right to break the rules to have their say? Not on your nelly! Because there are two standards from the Green Party and the Māori Party on issues such as this—there is one law for everybody else, and there is another specific law for them. They argue that freedom of speech gives them the right to say whatever they like, however they like, whenever they like.

Keith Locke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a point of misrepresentation. I would hold the same rights for Garth McVicar as for anyone else.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Sit down.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for raising that, but it is not a point of order.

Keith Locke: When I was making my point of order Winston Peters interjected. You are supposed to hear these points of order in silence and I am still being intervened with on my point of order. I think you have got to take some action in this case.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, I did take action. I said to you that that was not a point of order, and I think the Rt Hon Winston Peters was simply trying to assist me in coming to that decision.

RON MARK: And that proves my point again. Mr Harawira says “we’re not thick”. Well, excuse me, hello! Is that $250,000 of wasted tax money or what? It is not wasted just on one of them, we have two behaving in the same way! I mean come along and talk to me about the waste of taxpayers’ money and the inability to deliver healthcare to children. We have blown a quarter of a million dollars on just two of them in 2 years. And it is not a case, actually, that they do not understand the Standing Orders, they do not understand the laws of this land, they do not understand the laws and the rules that pertain to this House, how it is run, and how it is operated. The fact of the matter is they do not want to, because they believe that they are the moral beacons of this nation.

Keith Locke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the member should withdraw the remark that we do not understand the Standing Orders. We take offence at that.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I will not accept that. I will not instruct Mr Mark to withdraw what he said.

RON MARK: Excuse me, I am just lost for words. How many times does this member have to assist me?

We are talking about legislation that is designed to protect democracy, to protect the citizens of this nation against people who would use extraordinary means to deny that privilege—extraordinary means. I used to have a little business and I had about 28 staff working for me. One of my staff members said to me: “Ron, you’re always at work. Why do you do that? I arrive at work and you’re already here. I leave work you’re still here. I can come back late at night and you’re still here. Why do you do that?” I said: “Well, it’s simple. I have a little philosophy: extraordinary results demand extraordinary effort.” I would apply the same philosophy to the issues we face in terms of security, the threat to this nation, and the issues that this bill attempts to deal with.

The threats that we face internationally from terrorism are extraordinary and they require extraordinary legislation to empower our police, our intelligence agencies, and the judiciary to deal with those. We understand the threats that this legislation might bring, and the threats are very real so we put in place extraordinary checks. And this debate that we have been watching played out in the media, and the commentary that we have heard, actually, is quite astounding. The one thing that these people—these critics—have failed to recognise is that the legislation that was enacted by the police actually required that the police get authority from the Attorney-General before charges could be laid. That is extraordinary.

What is even more extraordinary is that the Attorney-General decided not to exercise that power. He chose to expand it; to pass that role to the Solicitor-General, a more independent body who is outside politics and outside the Government. Today we have his decision. And far from the accusations that have been made by the people on the left—who are seated on my right today—far from what they were asserting, the Government has done everything it could to ensure that the right people, the appropriate people, adjudicated on this issue and made the right determination and thus they have.

What are the extraordinary circumstances we are facing? I could say that what is extraordinary is having a member of this House, a man who has taken an oath to uphold the laws of this land, who has given his allegiance to Queen Elizabeth and the Crown—and I can understand that because Māori have a relationship specifically and personally with the Crown, through the Treaty of Waitangi—who would want to undermine that relationship. Why would Māori ever seek to undermine that relationship? They might have their gripes with the Governments of the day, but their relationship and association with the Crown is specific, particular, and personal.

But not this member. He sees nothing wrong with standing up on national television, on Native Affairs and saying: “If they tried this sort of—expletive—”, and the fact that he has to resort to that sort of language gives an indication of his intellectual powers—“here in New Zealand, we’d be out in the streets with guns.” He did not say “they would be”. He did not say “some might be”. He said “we”, implying himself, did he not, I say to Mr Hone Harawira. So what are we to deduce from that?

Hone Harawira: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

RON MARK: Here he goes again. Those are the words, and they there on the website—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Have you a specific point of order, Mr Harawira?

Hone Harawira: It is about the mispronunciation of my name, Mr Speaker. Could I ask him to pronounce my name properly? Is that appropriate?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That goes for all of us; yes.

RON MARK: In that respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like him to refer to me as Ron Mark as opposed to “Marks” and “Maaka”. That would be nice because that is my name. But never mind.

I would say to that member—who, again, has just demonstrated exactly what I am saying—that it is one thing for people to espouse freedom of speech for themselves, but it is another thing for them to defend and protect the freedom of speech of those who do not agree with them. Some people need to understand that. If we have a short, overweight, pot-bellied Māori with gelatine in his bum, shaking it on TV, saying one thing—well, the public are quite right to dismiss the person lightly and say that the language of incitement he is using is of no great threat. They will say: “Look at him. Who could take him seriously?”

But when a member of Parliament stands up and says something, it is a completely different thing. That member of Parliament does not need to carry an AK-47. His words are his weapon, and the power that he exercises through the written media and through television has a far greater impact on those who feel themselves disenfranchised in society, or belittled, or disempowered. His power is far greater than that of a short, tubby man with gelatine in his bum.

New Zealand First supports this legislation for all the right reasons. We thoroughly oppose those who would advocate for their own freedom to say what they want while denying the rest of us our freedom to say what we want.

DIANNE YATES (Labour) : I rise to speak on the third reading of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. I thank everybody who worked on the bill, particularly those who took part in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee consideration. We have heard a lot of speeches from members who were not on the select committee. I particularly want to thank the select committee members and staff for the work that was done on the bill.

I note that we had 35 submitters on the bill, and that we heard 14 of those submitters. We took a great deal of notice. In fact, the committee acted very, very carefully on this legislation. We looked at the balance between protecting New Zealanders against terrorism and making sure New Zealanders are safe—

• Debate interrupted.