Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2)

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I seek your guidance on how you are will conduct the division of calls in this debate, because I express a concern on behalf of the Green Party that in Part 1 we received only one call. Although in terms of the size of the party in Parliament there may be an argument for that number, in this particular bill we are the only party against it.

There are three other factors that I think are relevant to the division of the calls. First, we are moving amendments and I was not given a chance in Part 1 to explain my amendments. I was not given enough time to do so. Secondly, it is not that the contributions of the Green Party have been ignored in the debate—in fact, a number of speakers in favour of the bill criticised either the Green Party or myself, or both. I think if we are to have fairness in this Parliament that has to be taken into account. Thirdly, I do not think that it was taken into account in the debate on Part 1, because people were voting on an amendment that had not been properly explained to them.

I thank the member for raising that matter. The Chair tends to give the calls proportionately to different parties and different speakers. I think that is the fairest way. I am conscious of the fact that you are on your own, and that you have amendments. In this part, certainly, I will try to give you more than one go at it, and I will tell subsequent Chairs to be conscious of that.

In examining Part 2 the clause that is of particular interest is really clause 6, and clause 6 is all about section 22 of the principal Act. Section 22 established designated terrorist entities. In fact, it established, from memory, 318 designations of terrorist entities. What the Labour Government rather foolishly did when it passed the principal Act back in 2002—which is why I am a bit critical—was to put into the law a provision that the High Court would have to review each of those 318 designations when they expired 3 years later. The end of those 3 years, from the passage of that legislation in 2002, comes up in October this year. Of course, that is a ridiculous situation.

I told the Government at the time we were debating the legislation back in 2002 that other countries do not temporarily designate terrorist organisations. I pointed out that countries like Canada and the European Union do not impose such limitations on their designations. But, no, the Labour Government here in New Zealand decided—I guess it was a very politically correct move—to designate those terrorist organisations for just 3 years, and to put into the law a requirement for the High Court to then review those designations.

Members should think about it: imagine the evidential requirements on the High Court to go about reviewing 318 designations. How many months would that tie up the High Court for? I struggle to think how long reviewing the designations would tie up the High Court. One would imagine the High Court would have to do it carefully, because I guess some of those designated entities are not that well known to New Zealanders and, therefore, a fair bit of evidence would have to be gathered to assess whether the designations should be extended.

Although clause 6 extends the designations for a further period of 2 years from the passage of this legislation, I would urge the Government to think through—National would be happy to help—a better way of handling the issue of designations. I would suggest that once an entity is designated, the onus should be on the entity to prove that it should come off the list. Then we would have the reverse situation.

There is a good reason why the United Nations designated those entities. They are not entities that New Zealanders designated willy-nilly; they are entities designated by the United Nations. Sure, we can add some, but if New Zealand adds additional ones there would have to be a good reason for it. I think a much more sensible approach would be that, if an entity believes that it should no longer be designated or is improperly designated, it would have to apply to the court to have itself removed from the schedule of designations. I would argue that that would make more sense than requiring the Crown to go through this ridiculous process of having to review 318 designations.

National will support Part 2 because the Government has not brought forward decent amending legislation, but as part of the review of this Act under section 70, I think the select committee should look very hard at a much more sensible approach to designation review. I think that such entities should be designated permanently, although there should be a procedure for entities that feel they are incorrectly designated—that is, if their activities are no longer terrorist activities. It is possible, I suppose, that a terrorist organisation could turn over a new leaf and, in those circumstances, there should be a mechanism for an entity to come to the High Court and make its case for removal from the list of designations.

I stress that National will support clause 6. Clearly, we have to because we cannot leave a situation whereby the High Court is facing, from October this year onwards, a shambles of having to reassess 318 designations. What is more, if the High Court cannot do it rapidly enough, some of those designations will lapse and that would be very unfortunate.

The points made by the Hon Lockwood Smith are well made. Firstly, it would be unacceptable to have 318 cases before the High Court, jamming it up. That is exactly why we are here passing this legislation. Secondly, the issues around the process of designation and removing entities do deserve good consideration, and that is what the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee is looking at now. We welcome the member’s input and the committee’s views.

Finally, I will comment on Mr Locke’s amendment, which seeks to omit the expression “2 years” and substitute “1 year”. That would shorten the time recommended by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in its report, and the Government will oppose that amendment. We could very well wind up in exactly the same position we are in now, whereby we would have to come back to the House to pass legislation to extend the time. Of course, that would be a nonsense, so we will be voting against that amendment.

My amendment, as the Minister has just said, would reduce the period of extension from 2 years to 1 year, and that was actually a recommendation made by the Human Rights Commission in its submission. It is concerned, and put forward a very detailed paper, about the weakness of the United Nations process. I can elaborate a bit: there have been incorrect designations because the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee, which processes these designations, does not have a proper interrogation process. It does not have a process for informing those so designated, which would allow them to make submissions. There is not due process.

Sitting suspended from midnight to 9 a.m. (Friday)