Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 13 March 2023.

As we are all aware, the nature of terrorism is evolving at a rapid pace. Threats are increasingly coming from radicalised individuals acting alone, often having been exposed to, and influenced by, extremist material online. We’ve seen the devastating results these evolving threats can have here on our own shores. In particular, I want to acknowledge the impact of the terror attacks on victims and the wider community, and, in particular, our Muslim community here in Aotearoa.

Our goal must always be to ensure we can effectively manage and respond to the specific risks we are seeing right here at home. Following the 15 March 2019 terror attack in Christchurch, the royal commission of inquiry recommended that the Government review our counter-terrorism legislation to ensure it is fit for purpose. This bill is the next step in our response to that recommendation. It clarifies and strengthens our counter-terrorism legislation in two ways. Firstly, the bill amends the scheme for designating terrorist entities in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. These amendments will clarify how the scheme applies to designated terrorists who are imprisoned in New Zealand. Secondly, the bill amends the regime for imposing control orders in the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019. These amendments will strengthen the control orders regime and include some lessons learnt from the one control order made, to date, in New Zealand.

I’ll start by setting out the key elements of the amendments to the scheme for designating terrorist entities. Under this scheme, the Prime Minister is empowered to designate a group or an individual as a terrorist entity if the entity has carried out or participated in a terrorist act. Once designated, restrictions are placed on that entity’s use of personal finances and property to prevent them from financing terrorism and to prevent others from providing funds or support to the entity. In this way, the scheme helps to prevent further terrorist acts and contributes to meeting our international obligations to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism.

Currently, our designation scheme does not specifically address the situation of a designated person who is in prison. This creates ambiguity in how the scheme applies to people in that situation. In particular, it’s not clear how the Prime Minister’s powers to revoke and renew a designation apply. It is crucial that the Prime Minister’s powers, with respect to designated and imprisoned people, are clear. This is because being in prison does not, by itself, prevent a person from supporting terrorism—for example, it does not prevent a person from using their financial resources to support others to carry out terrorist attacks.

To ensure the Prime Minister’s powers are clear, the bill makes three amendments with respect to people who are both designated and imprisoned. First, while a designated person is in prison, the bill removes the ability for that person and other interested parties to apply for the designation to be revoked on one of the currently available grounds—that is, where the application is made on the ground that the person is no longer involved in acts that would make them eligible for designation. They will still be able to apply for the designation to be revoked on the ground that there was no proper basis for it to be made in the first place. Secondly, it pauses the expiry of the designation while the person is imprisoned. And, finally, the Prime Minister must review whether the designation of an imprisoned person is no longer justified, at least once every three years while the person is in prison. As part of this review, the Prime Minister must seek information from the designated person and, where relevant, take this information into account. These amendments are important to ensure the designated scheme can operate effectively to prevent further terrorist acts, while also ensuring the rights and the freedoms of designated people are protected.

I want to acknowledge that this bill includes amendments to the designation scheme that will have retrospective effect. It applies the new law to existing designations of imprisoned people and to any applications to revoke an imprisoned person’s designation that have been made but not determined before the amendments take effect. In addition, the bill validates previous decisions by the Prime Minister to refuse an application to revoke the designation of an imprisoned person. This Government is keenly aware that legislation with retrospective effect should only be introduced where there is a strong justification to do so. We’ve carefully considered the issues and feel strongly that retrospectivity is necessary to protect public safety. If the amendments did not have retrospective effect, the ambiguity in the current law could result in an imprisoned person’s designation expiring or being revoked despite them continuing to pose a risk of involvement in further terrorist attacks. As such, we consider the retrospective application of these provisions as justified.

I now turn to the second part of the bill, which proposes amendments to strengthen and improve New Zealand’s control order regime. Control orders are civil orders made in the High Court on application by the Commissioner of Police. They apply to individuals in the community who meet the definition of a “relevant person” and who present a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activities. I want to be clear that a control order can only be imposed if the High Court is satisfied that the two-stage test set out in the legislation is met. Firstly, for people already in New Zealand, the individual concerned must have a history of relevant terrorism-related offending; and, second, they must continue to pose a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activity.

A control order imposes restrictions that aim to prevent these individuals from engaging in further terrorism-related activities. In this way, they are similar to other post-sentence orders for serious sexual or violent offenders, such as extended supervision orders and public protection orders. The High Court can impose a wide range of restrictions as part of a control order; these can range from regular report-ins with police through to more stringent restrictions such as residential requirements, curfews, and electronic monitoring. However, every restriction must be directly related and proportionate to the specific terrorism risk of each individual.

As I have mentioned, the nature of terrorism is evolving. To respond to the specific threats we are seeing and to pick up on several lessons from making New Zealand’s first control order, we are proposing four targeted changes to strengthen the control order regime. First, the bill provides for a wider range of objectionable publication offences to qualify as relevant terrorism-related offences for the purposes of control order eligibility; secondly, the bill provides for sentences of home detention and community-based sentences for terrorism-related offences to satisfy part of the eligibility test for a control order; thirdly, the bill provides judges with greater discretion when setting control order restrictions; and, fourth, the bill changes the current automatic name suppression requirement so the court can more effectively strike a balance between preventing the glorification of terrorism and reassuring the public that a known terrorism risk is being appropriately managed. These changes will give police the option to apply for a control order in respect of a wider range of people who pose a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activities.

Finally, I just want to stress that the changes the bill makes to the designations and control order regimes—these are necessary. They will strengthen the tools we have to ensure we can better protect our communities from known threats of terrorism, and, at the same time, the amendments carefully balance the rights and freedoms of those individuals they may apply to. To provide clarity as to the Prime Minister’s powers with respect to designated and imprisoned persons as soon as possible, I am proposing that Justice Committee report on the bill to the House after four months. The public will have the opportunity to share their views on the bill at select committee, and I look forward to the Justice Committee’s consideration of the bill. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s my pleasure to stand and take a call today on the first reading of the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill.

Can I, firstly, acknowledge the Minister, who, on this side of the House, we feel that, when it comes to matters of national security, the default setting should always be trying to work in a bipartisan way, certainly amongst the two major parties, because there is, fundamentally, nothing more important than the safety and protection of our country. So I want to thank and acknowledge the Minister because she did involve us, she did provide a briefing to myself, Paul Goldsmith, and Chris Penk, on the draft copy of the bill, and there was a good conversation had with the Minister and her advisers. We made one recommendation that we felt should be made to strengthen the bill, and, in a later meeting, that change was made. I want to acknowledge the Minister and thank her for doing that; it makes it much easier for us to support this bill. We want to support the bill because it’s important that we do work together on this.

I just want to come back to a time only five or six years ago when we saw the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq, and the tragedy that that caused. I want to acknowledge our New Zealand Defence Force—we have the defence Minister in the House tonight—and the incredible work that they did in making sure that we did our bit and supported the defeat of that corrupted and extremist ideology.

I want to support the Minister’s comments that although we’re a small nation down the bottom of the world, sadly we lost our innocence when we had the horrific attacks at the mosques. I was in Christchurch today, our beautiful garden city, on a beautiful summer’s day, and a gorgeous place to be, but do you know what? There’s very deep scars that will run through there for a very long time because of what we had to face as a nation, with those attacks.

Then, of course, we saw the attack at the New Lynn mall. It reminded us that, actually, these terror attacks can come from anywhere. They’re obviously twisted ideologies and they can appear through very sophisticated attacks involving explosives and firearms, right through to very low-tech attacks where they may just pick up a knife or use a vehicle. We have to be vigilant.

I want to acknowledge our security and intelligence agencies that work very hard to make sure they try and keep us safe, but we all know, and it’s no secret, that we have people on the watch-list. So we have to continue to be vigilant and do what we can to be able to move and make the changes necessary.

So I acknowledge the Minister, as the incoming Minister, that she’s taking this seriously, she’s looking at the royal commission recommendations, and she’s prepared to take the action to start to work through those. So it’s very easy for us to come into the House tonight, acknowledge her, and acknowledge the importance of this legislation.

It does have to go to select committee, because I think that we do have to hear from submitters, we do have to hear from our agencies, and we are going to want to make sure that we return this bill in the best possible shape to make sure that we do maximise the protections and the changes and the amendments that are contained within it.

I just wanted to make a very brief acknowledgment of—I went back to a time when, as a country, we were having to focus and deal with the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and ISIL, which, although it was long way away from our borders, Kiwis like to travel, and we felt that it was probably inevitable at some point that a Kiwi would get tied up in that. But one of the things that we had to respond to very quickly was returning foreign fighters. At the time, I was chairing the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, in which two very senior members of the Labour Party were on that committee: David Shearer and Phil Goff. I want to acknowledge them because, again, it was a bipartisan approach and the three of us worked very hard over the period of about two weeks to get legislation in place and through the House quickly so that we could respond to that threat of anyone wanting to return from overseas as a foreign fighter to our country.

The legislation amends the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. The Minister spoke about the designation. We feel very strongly that these are a good, pragmatic, and practical response to the designation. I can’t think of a loophole that’s more important to close than one that would allow the designation to expire with someone convicted of a terrorist act whilst they’re in jail or in prison. So that’s one of the loopholes that is closed with this piece of legislation.

Very quickly, I do want to touch on these and go through them. I know the Minister’s already touched on them, but I did want to go through them myself, if I’ve got time. There are a couple, especially around the control orders, that I wanted to talk through.

But “while the entity is imprisoned, no application for revocation of the designation can be made (by the entity or by a third party with a special interest) on the ground that the entity is no longer involved in any way in acts of the kind that made, or that would make, the entity eligible for designation”. I think the Minister used a very good example that although someone may be in prison and incarcerated, there’s still a possibility that any funds offshore or any funds sitting in an account could be accessed, could be used to help facilitate, promote, or help acts of terrorism.

The “expiry of the designation is paused while the entity is imprisoned”. This is just good, pragmatic common sense—that that designation is actually paused while the person is in prison. I believe that the backstop is still there because the Prime Minister has to still review that periodically, or every three years, to actually reapply that designation.

If I come very quickly to the control orders, which amends the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019. Again, these are good, practical changes. “The Bill—expands the eligibility criteria to include a terrorism-related New Zealand offence involving a broader definition of specified objectionable material”. I think, in this modern age, we do have to move quickly and we do have to acknowledge that the world is changing rapidly. I think that this is a good change that recognises that.

The bill “expands the eligibility criteria to include people sentenced to home detention and community sentences (it is currently limited to people sentenced to imprisonment) and allow sentence conditions and control orders to exist concurrently for those offenders to ensure consistency of risk management”. This is a massive loophole that someone that has a community sentence or is on electronic bail can’t have a control order applied to them. So this is a good one. I’m amazed that we’ve had to go back and actually do this and that it wasn’t already dealt with in the original legislation.

The bill “allows for greater judicial discretion in the setting of control order requirements, to ensure that they can be more closely tailored to risk”. Again, being able to move quickly, have some flexibility, and be agile in terms of applying these control orders. That’s another very good recommendation.

The bill “provides for requirements of the following kinds in more detail: requirements that the relevant person reside at and remain at a specified address; and electronic monitoring requirements”. I think the electronic monitoring requirements one, at the moment, is very relevant because we’ve seen a big increase in sentencing that now involves electronic monitoring. So we’ve got a lot more people now in the community that have a bracelet on, that are being electronically monitored. The reality of it is that we also have got a large number that are absconding, that aren’t actually adhering to the sentencing rules around the electronic monitoring. So I think this is a really important loophole to close so that the police have actually got the ability to be able to track and monitor and respond far more quickly.

Hon Scott Simpson: They take the bracelets off.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yeah, that’s right they take the bracelets off.

So I just finish by saying that we do support the bill. We are looking forward to it coming to select committee. I think there’s still some work that we can do to strengthen it. But, fundamentally, we acknowledge the Minister. We acknowledge the fact that she is responding to the royal commission and is taking some positive steps forward in starting to work through those recommendations. They are important—they are important for the safety of our country and they are important in terms of sending a very clear message that New Zealand is not a place to come and that you’ll easily get away with trying to perpetrate some type of terrorist attack. It’s important that we continue to support and make sure that our agencies that are there to protect and look after us have got the legislation that’s usable and that they can use. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This bill, the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill, is the next step in the Government’s work to ensure that our counter-terrorism legislation is, in fact, fit for purpose. Right at the start, I’d like to acknowledge that it’s good to see comradery from across the House on issues of national importance such as counter-terrorism. So I’d like to acknowledge the member who has just spoken, Mark Mitchell, and it’s great to see that, at times when national security is paramount, this House is able to work together.

The Government is working to strengthen our counter-terrorism laws to make it harder for those people who are known threats to undertake terrorist acts. The changes that we are making in this bill will improve the effectiveness of the control orders Act. It will also expand the criteria for those high-risk individuals who can be covered by the restrictions, which limit their ability to undertake such an attack. The Government is always seeking to strengthen the terrorist designations, and, in this specific bill, it is making it explicit that it covers individuals who are in prison.

The proposed changes to the designation and control order schemes are in line with the Government’s overall commitment to implementing the recommendations of the royal commission’s inquiry into the Christchurch attack. It’s important that that work continues, but, alongside of that attack, we’ve also seen more recent developments, with the attack in New Lynn last year. Both of these attacks serve as a continuous reminder to New Zealanders of the devastating consequences to individuals and our communities from any terrorist attack. These are important amendments as we look to keep New Zealand as safe as we possibly can in a continuingly evolving global climate. Our goal must always be to ensure that we can effectively manage and respond to the specific risks we see in New Zealand, and also emerging risks.

Firstly, this bill amends the scheme for designating terrorist entities in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. These amendments will clarify how the scheme applies to a designated terrorist, particularly those who are imprisoned here in New Zealand. Secondly, this bill amends the regime for imposing control orders in the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act. These amendments will strengthen the control orders regime in place currently, and also include some of the lessons we have learned from the only one control order that has presently been made in New Zealand to date.

What this bill does overall is, following the terror attack in LynnMall supermarket last year, where the individual responsible was a known threat to New Zealand security—and Cabinet sought a review on how the control order scheme could further be strengthened to prevent such instances from occurring in New Zealand’s future. This bill amends the regime for imposing control orders in the Terrorism Suppression Act, and these amendments will strengthen the control orders regime as it operates now, and also include those lessons that we have learnt from the one as made, to date, under the existing legislation.

This bill includes the following changes to the regime: it expands the eligibility criteria for those who can be covered by a control order, and includes if the person has received a conviction for objectionable material and publications that promote torture, extreme violence, or cruelty. This is in addition to the current criteria, which includes a conviction for objectionable publications that promote terrorism. In addition to this, the bill expands the eligibility criteria to include people sentenced to home detention and also community-based sentences. It also allows sentence conditions and control orders to exist concurrently for those offenders, to ensure that a consistent approach to risk management is always in place, to make sure we’re protecting the safety of New Zealanders. It also allows for greater judicial discretion when setting control order restrictions, to ensure they can be more closely tailored to the risk once it is scoped, in order to mitigate that risk.

It also provides, in more detail, requirements for the following kinds: a requirement that the relevant person reside and remain at a specified address, and that also electronic monitoring requirements are in place if required. It makes name suppression requirements more flexible than they currently are, so that an appropriate balance can be struck between preventing the glorification of terrorism activity, while also reassuring the public that known terrorism risk is being appropriately managed for the wellbeing of our community.

This bill amends the scheme for designating terrorist entities in the Terrorism Suppression Act. The designation scheme was initially brought in to stop New Zealanders from providing financial support to those overseas in terrorist groups, in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Now, as the terrorism landscape has evolved, our laws also need to change. For the first time since the scheme was introduced, we have a situation where a designated terrorist entity is, in fact, imprisoned, and imprisoned here in New Zealand.

Overseas, we have seen examples of how imprisoned terrorists continue to attempt to influence and incite others from behind bars. We are seeking to further reduce any ability for designated entities to be glorified or to support others in carrying out such acts of terrorism. This bill amends the Act so that, in the case of a designated person who is in prison, no application for revocation of the designation can be made on the grounds that the entity is no longer involved, or in any way, carrying out the terrorist acts. It also requires the Prime Minister to review the designation every three years, to determine whether it remains justified. In making this assessment, the Prime Minister must consider relevant information provided by the designated individual.

Following the March 15th terror attacks on Christchurch, the royal commission of inquiry recommended that the Government review our counter-terrorism legislation to ensure it’s fit for purpose. This bill is the next step in our response to that recommendation. As chair of the Justice Committee, I look forward to the submissions that we receive and to working alongside all members of that committee to do our best job possible to bring this back to the House for the second reading. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is actually a pleasure to be able to stand up and support a piece of legislation. It’s been a reasonably confronting and hostile day as we’ve dealt with other issues—

Hon Scott Simpson: Contentious—other contentious matters.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —contentious issues—whereas here on this matter, the House—I’m not sure about the Greens, but the House is more or less aligned in their thinking around counter-terrorism acts, because, I mean, there is no more fundamental duty for any Government than to defend and protect its citizens as best as it can. You know, we do have a lot of argument and disagreement around justice policy more broadly—not so much on the outcome, of course, which is to keep New Zealanders safe, but lots of disputes about how best to go about that. If I could characterise things, this Government does tend to be more focused on the rehabilitative needs of the perpetrators of crime; we tend to focus a little bit more—we acknowledge that’s very important, but we also need to acknowledge the needs of the victims of crime, for justice, to denounce the act that has been carried out, and, thirdly, to show that serious crimes have serious consequences. That is highly, sort of, debated, particularly in the context of youth crime and ram raids at the moment.

But when it comes to counter-terrorism, I think there is much more of a meeting of minds in that nobody defends the acts involved, of course, but we are determined to do everything we can to keep our citizens, our New Zealanders, safe, as best we can. Now, we all acknowledge that the threat of terrorist acts is very difficult to predict, and we all in New Zealand, of course, think very often of what happened in Christchurch. Nobody expected something of that scale and barbarism to occur in our country, but it did. The threat is real, and no Government can promise to avert every such incident, but we can and we should make sure that we are best prepared, that we have both the legislative settings correct, to give ourselves the best chance to keep New Zealanders safe, and also that we have the physical assets in place, in terms of police and security agents, in that sense.

Now, this piece of legislation, the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill, we are supporting, and we want to hear at the select committee any concerns raised. The two elements of it, as has been widely canvassed already: amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act in order to deal with the situation where, under the designation scheme, somebody in prison—it only lasts for three years, but, if you’re in prison at the moment, it can’t be extended, and it needs to be, for obvious reasons. That was just something that hadn’t been thought through originally.

The second area, though, is around amendments to the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act. As my colleague Mark Mitchell mentioned, the Minister of Justice, who, quite rightly, was conscious of the desirability of bipartisan support for such legislation, did engage with us, and we’re grateful to her for meaningful engagement, because we did have some concerns with the original proposals that aligning certain clauses together could have led to an unintended impingement of, sort of, free speech, fundamentally. The Minister did listen and did amend what was brought to the House in order to ensure our support, and we’re grateful to her for that. We don’t think it diminishes the Act in any way, shape, or form, but it doesn’t muddy the waters, as it were, when it comes to the very important element of free speech in our society and not confusing opinions that we don’t like—some people don’t like—with terrorism itself.

So what this amendment does—these control orders impose restrictions on people in the community who pose a real risk of carrying out terrorism-related activities. It may limit an individual’s rights to freedom of movement and expression—can only be imposed, however, when the High Court is satisfied that the two-stage test has been carried out and, in this case, that the person has been convicted of a specified offence related to terrorism and that the person continues to pose a real risk.

The point of this bill is to extend the control orders regime to expand the list of specified offences related to terrorism to include the range of objectionable publication offences—again, it doesn’t take too much imagination to think of some of the objectionable publications that occurred in relation to the horrific Christchurch act—enable control orders to be an option where a person has been sentenced to home detention, that’s been mentioned; and also to allow greater judicial discretion in the setting of those control orders; and making name suppression requirements more flexible and clarifying protocols for management of electronic monitoring of the conditions. So things that more or less make sense and will enable that regime to work effectively.

Of course, we hope—we hope—that there will be very few people indeed who are captured by these control orders and by this legislation. We hope that New Zealanders are safe from terrorism in the years ahead. But, of course, we have to hope for the best but prepare for the worst, and that’s why this legislation is important in putting in place a framework so that those people who have been convicted of terrorism-related offences can be monitored effectively in the community if required over time, in order to keep our New Zealanders as safe as we can.

So, without further ado, I just would like to again thank the Minister for the genuine engagement on this issue. I think it’s an approach that they might like to consider in a couple of other areas, particularly electoral law, and that may be an opportunity for them to think about that. But on this area, we stand with the Government and we support the passage of this bill at its first reading.

I first want to acknowledge our Minister, the Hon Kiritapu Allan. Congratulating a Minister on the task of bringing such a sensitive and difficult bill to the House is probably not to recognise the seriousness with which we take this particular piece of legislation. And I want to acknowledge the Opposition; it has been a contentious day, today—we think a wonderful day—it is good to know that we will have your constructive support as we go through the issues that will arise as we discuss this bill in the Justice Committee, of which I am a member.

This bill, as previous speakers have said, is a response to the evolving nature of terrorism. I remember, as I’m sure all other members of the House do, finding out about the bombing of the two towers; I was sitting with my 8-month-old on my knee. I remember where I was when the Christchurch mosque attacks were broadcast over the radio; I was driving that same child—now a late-teenager—home from school. Terrorism has changed; our response also must change.

So whereas when we passed the Terrorism Suppression Act, we envisaged organised groups as the threat and so our response was to control the flow of money and material support to them. Now, what we have is these isolated, individual offenders, and the tools we need to keep our people safe from such isolated offenders are different.

So this bill does two things—well, two broad things. First, it amends the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and it clarifies that where that designated terrorist entity is, in fact, a person who is in prison, that person will not be able to try to raise the designation from themselves whilst they are in prison. In effect, the impact of the bill will be to suspend the ability to revoke the designation until that person leaves prison. And that is really important because the designation enables us to keep the control orders on, which prevent them getting the publicity that, unfortunately, these people often crave.

The other part of the Act is to amend the regime for imposing control orders—again, Terrorism Suppression Act—but this time it will extend the ability to put control orders where you have people, as we have, unfortunately, had, who have committed offences in the past but not sufficiently serious ones to tip us over into the ability to put control orders on them. So we would now be able to put a control order on a person who was convicted of a range of other offences, including offences promoting extreme violence, and we would also be able to keep control orders on someone who had only a sentence of home detention or community detention.

I look forward to discussing these matters with the Justice Committee. I look forward to hearing from the many thoughtful submissions I am sure we will have. And I commend this bill, in its first reading, to the House.

Golriz Ghahraman: Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): You’ve made me lose your name now, which is a terrible thing.

Hon Members: Golriz Ghahraman.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Oh, Golriz, I’m sorry. I apologise, Golriz, I know you perfectly well.

I apologise for the abrupt entry into the debate, Madam Speaker. Counter-terrorism obviously is a matter that’s close to all of our hearts, in particular in this Parliament and across our nation after the deadly tragic events in the Christchurch mosques that happened on March 15th in 2019.

I know that we all—and we always have—aim to protect our people against violence, and terrorism is the worst of violence; it is a hate crime, and it aims to terrorise a community, with far-reaching implications. It hasn’t always been the case that Parliaments and Governments have brought laws under the umbrella of counter-terrorism that have actually done that; that have actually kept those particular marginalised communities safe or addressed the truth kind of actors in the realm of counter-terrorism. We have had a royal commission inquiry into those events and we’ve learnt a lot. A review of the actions that resulted from the royal commission is due out just next week, and so we’ll hear again from those communities, from the experts, from the agencies, and—hopefully—act as a result of that.

I’ve been asked about this bill a few times by media in the lead up to it, and sometimes the question has been, “Is it weird that the Government is bringing back this tweak?” And, obviously, the Green Party has not always been quick to support things that come under the umbrella of counter-terrorism, because we do have serious concerns about due process and we do have serious concerns about rights issues that are often suppressed there. But I certainly don’t have an issue with Governments bringing counter-terrorism legislation back to this House to tweak things that have gone wrong or to fill voids in the law that we’ve learnt are necessary to be filled. So, in that spirit, I do welcome a Minister reacting and responding to things that we’ve found out were missing in our laws that may have made our laws a little bit less safe or affected the efficacy of our counter-terrorism regime.

We are supporting this bill to select committee today, and that’s because it does identify some valid and concerning gaps in our law—one of them being that the Christchurch terror perpetrator may fall short of being able to be designated a terrorist under current law. That’s concerning. Having said that, the reason the select committee process will be essential in this is that we need to hear from experts and from the communities that are most impacted by both terrorism and counter-terrorism legislation—because often there’s a crossover. We know that the Muslim community in particular, for example, experienced oppression as a result of past counter-terrorism laws that came in through the so-called war of terror, and also they were increasingly the targets and the victims of white nationalist terror, most devastatingly on March 15th, when the Christchurch terror attack happened. So we need to hear from those communities and we need to hear from the experts so that we are not engaged in overreach that impacts people’s rights and we’re not leaving anything out. In particular, I know that one of the gaps in practice that was identified by the royal commission was that we weren’t designating the right people and we weren’t watching the right organisations in terms of what modern terrorism looks like today. So those are the types of things we need to hear from communities on.

The types of concerns that we have as the Green Party are things like whether or not the orders regime is going to be extended to apply to people who are not duly shown to be engaged in terrorism, for example. The proposed change is, for example, to look at material that’s distributed or posted that’s not just terrorist material but also dangerous in other ways—for example, encouraging torture. But we want to know that that is right. We want to know that we’re not capturing material that falls outside of being actually dangerous, for example, because it is important to protect both freedom of speech and freedom of expression and freedom of publication and communication—especially in communities that are often seen as being “potential terrorists” that are sometimes actually the most marginalised communities—but also to uphold the spirit of what counter-terrorism law is about, which is to keep our communities safe from violence. The balance is really, really important.

So that select committee process is going to be really, really important. It is valid to bring back counter-terrorism law, it is valid to look at the orders, it is valid to look at the designations and the definition that we provide in law that allow those designations; we need to know that we are reacting responsibly to the current climate when it comes to terrorism. But it is also important that we don’t let go of our due process standards, that we don’t let go of the rule of law and the human rights regime that we hold so dear, that will protect us and keep us aligned with the values that New Zealanders expect us to be aligned with.

So for those reasons, the Green Party will support this bill to select committee. We will engage meaningfully with that process, and we hope that the bill is improved in that process so that we can continue to support it and make New Zealand and the world a little bit safer from modern terrorism.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand to speak on behalf of the ACT Party to the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill. I’d like to start off by thanking the Minister of Justice, Kiritapu Allan, for calling us in for a briefing and a discussion about this bill before it was presented to the House. That is very much appreciated. Just as my colleagues across the way here—National—have made recommendations in regard to the bill before it was presented, we agree with those, and we do thank her for that opportunity so that we could come to the House and support the hearing of this bill, initially, in the first reading.

The bill is an omnibus bill that will change two pieces of legislation: the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019. The changes are going to introduce a single, broad policy around terrorist designations and control orders. The change to the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 will allow the Prime Minister to designate individuals as a terrorist entity. Currently, the legislation refers to organisations such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban; rather than individuals, the amendment will allow the Prime Minister to designate either as a terrorist entity.

Lone actors with terrorist intent have shown themselves here in New Zealand. We have one currently incarcerated for the heinous crime that he committed on 15 March 2019. He does not claim to associate with any particular group or terrorist entity. His actions on that day were an individual’s terrorist attack against the people of New Zealand. This amendment will allow a Prime Minister to, therefore, designate any person who attacks our communities as a lone actor—like the Christchurch terrorist did—to be a terrorist entity, because there are reasonable grounds for the Prime Minister to act upon. In this case, he meets all of the criteria of a terrorist entity. He’s been convicted of murder, attempted murder, and terrorism. He’s carried out and participated in a terrorist attack. This designation also means that third parties cannot deal with an entity’s property, nor can they make property or material support available to that entity.

Because we are dealing with an individual as an entity, the current law did not allow for instances where that entity may be incarcerated here in a New Zealand prison. Currently, clause 35 of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 states that the terrorist entity designation expires after three years unless the Prime Minister makes a further order based on their belief that the entity still poses a risk to society. This bill seeks to amend clause 35 so that there is no expiry of the designation, nor can there be an application to revoke the designation if the entity is serving a sentence in a New Zealand jail. The designation itself will be paused for the time the individual is incarcerated here. In fact, almost everything goes on hold except for the Prime Minister needing to review the settings once every three years. If the Prime Minister decides that the restrictions are no longer necessary, then they can revoke the designation themselves. But this would be done in the future by review with assessment, rather than reapplication on potential revocation.

So, in summary, the changes to the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 will, effectively, mean an individual can be named as a designated entity. The expiry of a designation is paused if the entity is in jail. The three-yearly review is retained, but the grounds are amended. The designated entity will still have the ability to challenge the designation and its ongoing status, but this will be done through a review process rather than a revocation one.

The second piece of legislation that is to be amended is the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019. We’ve only had one person issued with a control order, and he went on to injure six people, three of them critically, in a supermarket stabbing in New Lynn, Auckland, last year. His motivations were Islamic State of Iraq and Syria inspired, and we understand that the legislation prevented him from being retained in prison, and so he was under heavy surveillance at the time of the attack. This enabled a response from police within 60 seconds of the attack in the supermarket. Within that time, though, six people were stabbed. And the realities are that we cannot have our police watching some individual for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for extended periods of time.

I pause here to reflect on our gratefulness to the New Zealand Police that they were watching this man on this day back in September 2021. We thank police for their quick actions, which, no doubt, saved many lives.

So the changes to the control orders will add some new definitions which include and allow control orders on community-based sentences and electronic monitoring, as well as post-detention conditions and residential requirements.

Additions to section 6 will expand who is eligible for a control order so that those that have been convicted of a terrorism offence in New Zealand, and have received a home detention sentence or a community-based sentence, will be captured in this Act. Further additions to section 6 will ensure that the conditions I just mentioned will continue, even if there is an application for appeal against conviction, or a sentence is suspended because of the filing of a notice of appeal, or applications for leave to do so. However, it doesn’t all run one way. New clause 28 will allow for the discharge of a control order if an appeal by the offender is successful. It also allows for a new control order to be applied for.

This bill is also seeking to expand what we determine as a specified, objectionable publication held by the offender to include publications that promotes or supports acts of torture or the infliction of extreme violence or extreme cruelty, infliction of serious physical harm, and where it encourages acts of terrorism. The bill, when it amends the Act, will allow a judge to make orders specific to the individual the order is placed upon, tailoring the order to that individual—for example, when making an order, a judge must consider how an order’s requirements will affect the person’s personal circumstances. An amendment here allows the court to consider the person’s ability to actually comply with those orders made against them.

The bill will also allow the court to make orders as to where a person may reside, how long they must remain at that address, allowing the use of electronic monitoring, consequences for tampering with an ankle bracelet, allow post-detention conditions, and place upon them residential requirements. Effectively, this part of the bill is seeking to ensure that where a person is of concern to our society as a terrorist risk, our courts can establish control orders that can be unique to that individual in its conditions and can be used as ongoing controls once an incarceration sentence has been served.

Another change this bill will achieve is in regard to the automatic name suppression of the identity of the offender. Amendments will allow the courts to make an order that does permit the publication on an offender’s identity if the court so wishes.

We lost our innocence as a nation back in March 2019. The horrors that New Lynn faced just last September 2021 has shown us all that the New Zealand as we knew it has changed. And while we don’t agree that laws should be made off the back of one terrible person or event, we do recognise that changes are needed to upgrade us as a country to deal with common threats that we are increasingly facing. We must remember the two violent terrorist acts we are amending our laws for were not carried out by us, but by foreign national terrorists. Our laws and amendments must reflect how we react and prevent such acts from occurring.

ACT supports this bill at its first reading. We want to ensure the safety of all New Zealanders as we move from these dreadful events. However, we are mindful that making laws off singular incidents has not benefitted Kiwis in the way promoted by this Government in our recent past. So we look forward to the select committee process so that we can hear from our communities as to their thoughts on their proposed changes. The ACT Party does support this bill to its first reading.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a brief call on the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill. I just want to start by acknowledging the Minister of Justice, who introduced the bill to the House this evening, and her contribution. But I also want to acknowledge all parties. We’ve now heard a contribution from all of the parties in the House and it would appear that there is unanimous support for this bill to pass its first reading and go to select committee.

I’m sitting here amongst colleagues who are on the Justice Committee and I think that that is a great start for us in terms of this piece of legislation. The Hon Mark Mitchell sitting across there, Nicole McKee as well—we will be sitting on the Justice Committee welcoming submissions. And I acknowledge the contribution from the Green Party, in particular, hoping that those experts in this area will, hopefully, present—possibly, also those who have had direct experiences; we may also have the privilege of hearing them submit too, and I think that that will really strengthen the process in the proposed legislation that we’ve got here. So I look forward to working constructively and I hope that we are able to work through that together and report back in the short time frame that we’ve got—just four months, as I understand it.

I also want to acknowledge as well that we have MPs in the room who were in those electorates where those terrorist attacks occurred. We have Deborah Russell, the member for New Lynn. That attack happened at LynnMall. But in the House, we also have those MPs from Christchurch who, I think, more than others in the House, have had that direct experience, contact with victims, and so will be welcoming this proposed legislation.

It comes as a result of the recommendation from the royal commission that we review our legislation, that we identify whether it is fit for purpose or not. And tonight we have two proposed amendments to two pieces of legislation, which, I think, as a result of the two most recent events that we’ve had—we’ve identified our legislation isn’t, in fact, fit for purpose, that there are gaps in it, and that there is more that we could do to strengthen that legislation to protect New Zealanders, to protect our communities, and to protect the public.

I won’t go into the detail of what has been proposed, because I think I’m speaker number six or seven. It has been well traversed by those who have spoken before me. But I do just want to acknowledge those members that are in the House tonight who have been supporting and working through these issues in their communities. I hope that this legislation does go some way to ensuring that it is more fit for purpose and that it will provide better protection for our communities. I look forward to the submission process and working on it as a select committee. I commend the bill to the House.

Simon O’Connor—five minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Look, there is no higher duty for the Crown to protect the subjects or citizens of the Realm. So it’s really important to find that bipartisan—if you will—support across the House. And can I echo Willow-Jean Prime, who’s just sat down, that it is actually really good to hear that all the parties, as far as we’ve heard, are going to be supporting this bill, which enhances our national security and, importantly, our ability to respond to terrorism and also to try and prevent terrorism.

Look, terrorism is nothing new, unfortunately. How we learn and adapt to it is something which is always evolving and changing, which, amongst other reasons, is why we support this bill. We do see this as an improvement. But to echo others as well, it’s positive that this will go to select committee so that some experts can look towards it.

New Zealand’s, unfortunately, suffered terrorism: particular communities—and we think particularly of our Muslim brothers and sisters who suffered so tragically in Canterbury, then, in more recent times, the attack in New Lynn.

Sadly, terrorism across the globe continues to be a major, major problem. Islamist terrorism remains the biggest—particularly in Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa—but we are, unfortunately, seeing in the West a growth of what could be put as far-right or white nationalist terrorism. While not anywhere near the same numbers, its invidiousness in society is a significant, significant problem. And, as I say, we’ve experienced it here, so New Zealand finally has understood that we’re not exempt from it.

Look, this law does two positive things through two pieces of legislation. One is through the Terrorism Suppression Act, and long and short, it, basically, says you no longer have to be part of an organisation. So, often, we think of terrorists, we think of the likes of—I put the Taliban, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, for example. You don’t have to be a member of an organisation anymore; an individual who does terroristic acts. I think it’s going to be important to tease out in select committee. I think there should be, rightly, always a nervousness in this House where, in effect, a law—an aspect of the law—looks towards just a singular person. And the nature of terrorism is also quite specific, although very difficult to define, but it’s an action that drives a political means. So it’ll be really important to understand, and I want to really stress: it’s good that we capture individuals. We think of the person responsible for what happened in Canterbury; we want to capture that, but we want to make sure it doesn’t go too much broader.

The terrorism suppression control orders are also being updated—or proposed to be updated—here, really importantly, to make sure the person is not simply in prison. We understand a number of people who could require control orders could be on a community sentence or otherwise, and I think it’s important to capture that. I think the heroism of all those involved in New Lynn shows that there are still learnings and gaps that this intends to fill. So this is a positive step forward.

I will just make a plea, though, in the broader sense, to the Minister and to the Government, seeing we are talking about counter-terrorism, terrorism, and designations. It’s well past time that New Zealand put the political wing of Hamas on the designation list, along with the military wing.

And in light of recent events in Iran—the oppression of the Iranian people, particularly of women—and also the Iranian sponsoring of drones which are terrorising Ukraine, I want to make the call very loud and clear that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should be placed on the terrorist designation lists in New Zealand. While this potentially is outside the scope of the bill, I think it’s important at this first reading to renew that call from myself, my constituents, those in the community that I represent across New Zealand who do want to see New Zealand step up like other countries and place, as I say, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps onto the designated list and also Hamas—as I said, not just the military wing but the political wing. These are terrorist organisations and they should be called out as such in New Zealand legislation.

And with that, I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill. I am surprised the Māori Party doesn’t choose to take this call, which is usually theirs, on this important legislation.

I do want just to recognise the work that the Minister, the Hon Kiritapu Allan, has done, and the select committee will do, in respect of this bill, and just recognise the very delicate balance between the rights of freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, and a whole lot of other freedoms that are deeply embedded in this society, and held dear, and the fact that this legislation constrains and restricts those freedoms. It does so, and Mr Goldsmith talked about the philosophical differences around punishment in our respective parties, but I do want to focus on the fact that this legislation has nothing to do with punishment at all. It’s entirely protective. It may be triggered in some instances by individuals’ wrongdoing, and we’ve heard about control orders being triggered by non-custodial sentences, but the fact of the matter is that these steps, these constraints on the freedoms of people, are because they are a real risk to the community.

It behoves the select committee to look very carefully at this, but we absolutely need to be constantly maintaining this legislation, because the world does change, and is changing, and the kind of reach that people can have has changed over time. So things like designation and the ability to, essentially, suppress the communications of people, their freedom of speech, is really important, because what we have seen is that terrorism and extremist views go hand in hand. For that reason, these orders are very important, and we absolutely don’t want to create a situation where someone who might be in prison can still become the focal point of extremist views.

This is good legislation. It’s very heartening to see that it’s got widespread support, and I’m really looking forward to the work that the select committee will do to build on this fantastic work of the Minister. Kia ora, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Mālō ni. I’ve taken the opportunity tonight to listen to the contributions of my colleagues around the House on what I am pleased to say is a relatively bipartisan issue. It’s one that I’m pleased is coming to the Justice Committee, on which I sit, and I have faith that that committee will consider this bill and these issues very carefully, having done so with a number of other counter-terrorism initiatives that the Government has brought into effect in the time that I have sat on the committee. I know that people around the Justice Committee will also join with me in thanking Minister Kiri Allan for introducing a bill which at its first reading we agree strikes a good balance between what my colleague Duncan Webb referred to as a delicate balance between the importance of protecting and giving safety to our communities and upholding the rights of the individuals we’re talking about tonight.

I agree with Simon O’Connor’s point on the importance of finding bipartisan agreement and the committees being a good place to do that on these issues, and it will be good to have discussions both with submitters and with our advisers, particularly on the control orders part of this bill. I think it’s been useful for the committee to have considered regimes that are similar to this, and one issue that I will be carefully thinking about—and I would encourage submitters to help us to understand—is the effect of these control orders, and international examples where control orders have been upheld and challenged in the courts. That will be an important thing for the committee to consider and to get right in this legislation. While we see other jurisdictions around the world having had control order regimes which, essentially, the courts have found to go too far, we need to take heed of those examples and make sure that these are lasting, enduring pieces of legislation which work for our people and have the intended effect.

The second point that I think will be important for the committee to consider—and it is one that I will be thinking about—is one that the Minister alluded to in her speech around how terrorism is being influenced increasingly by online extremism, and how we are taking action here to make sure that someone who is imprisoned is not able to be the focal point of online extremism but also, more generally, how we can build bipartisan and cross-partisan support for more action on online extremism and the pipeline to real-life extremism.

This is just a short call from me, but I want to say thank you to the members who have given contributions tonight. It has been very good listening to all of your thoughts, and I look forward to debating this with you in committee.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Like others who have spoken in the debate so far, I have enjoyed the contributions across the House. Others have noted the importance of a nonpartisan approach—I join those who, on this side of the House, starting with the Hon Mark Mitchell and flowing through all of our contributions, and those from the other side of the House, starting with the Minister of Justice herself, and others from other parties too, noted the importance of that. So I just add my acknowledgment and thanks to the Minister for engaging with us at an early stage of the process. I think it’s a sensible thing to do, actually—frankly, it’s the practical thing—but it’s also the right thing to have done.

So our support extends not only to the bill itself, in terms of the substance of what it is looking to achieve, but also in terms of process. So the Minister has flagged that a relatively short process will be undertaken—or that she’ll be proposing to the House that the select committee examine the bill for four months. It’s not indecently short, and there will be plenty of opportunity for the Justice Committee to do its work, examining the particular provisions of the bill, hearing from members of the public, expert and non-expert alike, and that’s appropriate. Too long a time frame would cause difficulties in relation to a particular designation that has already been made.

Not to put too fine a point on it, others have referred to not only the events of March 15 2019—tragic as they were, obviously—but also the particular implications in terms of a person who is currently incarcerated as a result of that day’s actions.

Others have spoken about the two different main aspects of the counter-terrorism legislation: the designation of terrorist entities, and the control orders. If time allows, I might offer a couple of thoughts in that regard, as well, but I won’t repeat that material for the sake of it.

I’d actually rather go ahead to considering the question of how this bill might be considered to be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA). Others have, of course, spoken in that space already, either explicitly so or in more general terms, and it’s right that others across the House, again, from all parties, have acknowledged the need for balance, and, of course, that’s often a useful way of looking at laws that are in the realm of what we might think of as human rights, and certainly those protected in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act were obliged by that Act itself to conduct some sort of a balance, which is to say, considering whether the ultimate policy aim is such that the limits on the rights within the bill could be considered a justified limitation.

Interestingly, on the subject of the Attorney-General’s report, I have been refreshing my phone for the last couple of weeks, in the hope of being able to read that once the bill had been introduced. I refreshed it as recently as question time, I think; I sneakily did that today, and still didn’t find a copy. I recklessly did so again at 8.03 p.m., some 10 minutes ago now, and found that it had been uploaded. So I have had a very cursory speed-read of that and made some even more cursory notes on the documents in front of me—this is the legislative statement, but, of course, the discussion of the NZ BORA rights are so much more interesting even than that. So I’ll offer some thoughts in the space and look forward to that ongoing discussion that the Justice Committee will have. I’m not a member of that regularly, but if I speak nicely to the senior whip, I might find myself subbed on to that committee for the consideration of this bill—maybe as a slight indulgence after I’ve done my penance as court spokesperson for the various courts-related bills that are going through that at the moment.

So just thinking about the rights and freedoms. It probably almost goes without saying, but I will say it nevertheless: we have no patience, of course, for a particular individual who conducted such atrocities in mid-March of three years ago. But nevertheless, it’s right to turn our minds to the question of rights and how those are impacted, not least of all because they can apply to others, as well as that particular individual himself.

So with that obvious disclaimer, we are interested—certainly I’m interested—in sort of understanding how this can fit with our existing regime of human rights. Others have raised—I think, from the Minister onwards—the prospect of retrospective aspects of the legislation—or “retroactive” as it’s categorised in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Minister described, in her contribution—and echoing the same points made in the legislative statement—there are three ways that there is retrospective effects in relation to the TSA—that’s the Terrorism Suppression Act—amendments, so this is the designation regime. So I won’t go through those; the Minister’s done a good job of explaining how that is the case. But, in summary, it’s the fact that we’re going to have a regime apply to the designation in relation to someone who’s already been incarcerated—so, to that extent, it’s retrospective.

But what we’re not doing, I’m pleased to say, is creating an offence on the statute book that makes an act criminal today that wouldn’t be criminal tomorrow. So we often talk about retrospectivity in a reasonably general way, and the short version of our way of looking at it is that it’s not a good thing, but there are ways of considering whether it could be reasonable, and, of course, there’s different aspects. In this case, what we’re doing, nearly, in this bill, is saying that someone—in this case, one particular individual—has already committed a crime that was a crime—to say the least of it—at the time, has suffered certain consequences, namely incarceration, and to have a different regime applying to the designation of that entity, that person, as a terrorist, is, I think, ultimately, consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

I’ve sort of surprised myself a little bit in coming to that conclusion, but I thought about it quite deeply over the last couple of weeks. I think I’ve reached the conclusion, perhaps, for a slightly different reason than the advice from Crown Law to the Attorney-General had. I’ll do my best to characterise that accurately—and, again, with that disclaimer that I’ve just literally read it for the first time, and quite quickly at that. The advice of Crown Law—which was given by Crown Law by the Ministry of Justice because it’s a justice bill—is that the Terrorism Suppression Act amendments are civil in nature and that judicial review proceedings are still available, so there’s sort of some ability for a person who might object to the way that their matter is being handled to sort of have that interrogated.

Then, in relation to the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act, the argument there is that the courts still have the ability to modify or revoke an order. But, more importantly, that overarching point is that public safety is such a high policy aim that if we’re going to limit some individual rights along the way, in the name of that greater good, then that’s a justified limitation.

I think these are good arguments, but I also wonder if we might consider that—well, first of all, that obvious point in relation to section 26(1) of NZ BORA, “Retroactive penalties”, we’re not making an offence now that which was not an offence at the time that the action or an action took place.

If anything, the prohibition on double jeopardy might be said to be engaged—that’s section 26(2), so that says, if you’ve finally been acquitted or convicted or pardoned, then you shouldn’t be tried or punished again. I think this is such a relatively small punishment relative to the incarceration of a person who’s undertaken such a horrific attack as was the case on March 15 that it might almost be viewed in the manner of a concurrent sentence or an aspect, even, of the original sentence. I know it’s not exactly that, but I’m just sort of trying to grapple with the fact that instinctively it feels as though this is a justified limitation. But that’s something that I’d certainly be open to further arguments and thoughts. There will be others across the other side of the House who might have different views, again, even than those of Crown Law and my own views on the matter.

Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that even if this bill were—and I think this is an important point for us as a Parliament—inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, it is sufficiently important that Parliament should pass it anyway. So, for that reason—sort of as an additional layer on top of all the other key reasons that others have articulated really well already—I join others on the National Party and other Opposition parties, indeed the Government parties, in saying that we support the Government in bringing forward this legislation. That’s not to say that there can’t be really interesting and helpful discussion at select committee; we look forward to that. But for me, trying to avoid any doubt, we do commend this bill to the House. We support its passage.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on this bill, the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill. I won’t say it’s a pleasure to take a call on it, because these are serious matters and I think we’d all wish to live in a world where these types of laws were not necessary, but, as we know and as other speakers have traversed, that is not the reality of the situation in the world at the moment, or indeed in New Zealand.

I want to acknowledge the Minister of Justice for bringing this bill to the House and for recognising the need for the changes to our laws. These, as I said, are serious matters but they have been addressed seriously and responsibly, I think, in the legislation that has just been drafted. I also want to acknowledge members around the House for their constructive comments and praise of the Minister’s approach in this bill. I think it shows New Zealand that we take the responsibility of their safety—which is paramount—extremely seriously, as we should in this House. So I want to commend members of the House for that. I also want to just acknowledge the fact that this is dealing with quite unusual and serious matters, but I do think the Justice Committee, with their four-month—I think—period of time which they’re considering it will do justice to considering the various elements of the bill, and, no doubt, discuss all the different elements to ensure that when the bill comes back to the House it’s in the best possible shape it can be.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge those who have been affected personally by the attacks in New Zealand on 15 March, especially our Muslim community, and also those survivors of the LynnMall attack. I’m sure the thoughts of the whole House are with those victims, the survivors, and their families as well.

In relation to some of the comments that my colleague Chris Penk on the other side of the House was mentioning, in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act compliance, I think this is a particular area that I’m sure the select committee will look into. I also had a brief look at that report prior to speaking today and saw the conclusion that it wasn’t inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but also share the view that, obviously, there is a trespasser on rights at a prima facie level probably in this in this bill. But probably working through that logic, it’s likely that that would be justified within the scheme of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which, as we know, does allow justified limitations on various freedoms at times. And I think that that is illustrated perfectly in this bill.

These are tough issues, but I think that they’ve been addressed very well by the piece of this legislation. I won’t go through all the changes that have been made to the designated terrorist entities or the strengthening control orders as these have been traversed at length. But I do thank those who have worked on this bill, and I commend it to the House.

The question is, That the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to Justice Committee