Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2)

I was speaking about the question of the extension under this bill of the designations that were made shortly after the original Act was passed in 2002. The initial designations were basically from the United Nations on Taliban and al-Qaeda entities. Under this bill they would be rolled out for another couple of years. There are two criticisms of that, and they were made quite strongly by the Human Rights Commission in its submission to the select committee.

The commission wondered why the Government, knowing that those designations were expiring—and there was a renewal process involving the courts—had not made the applications to the High Court to begin the process of renewing those designations. That could easily have been done. The Government should not at this point, particularly with the review of the whole Terrorism Suppression Act in Parliament, push out the designations. It is not a good process.

A lot of the discussion today has been to say that the High Court could not do this, it would be too much work, the High Court could not do anything else. In fact, the High Court could work out how to do it, and what staff it would retain to do the checking. But there is a provision in the original Act that the evidence from the United Nations be deemed as sufficient if there is no other countervailing evidence. So it would be a matter of going through and checking whether any countervailing evidence is available. In several cases there would be. It is just as easy for a court to carry out that process, with the proper advice, as for politicians to do it, with the proper advice.

A number of other countries have addressed this issue. Sweden addressed it, because certain of its citizens who are of Somali origin were put on the US list. Sweden asked the US for information on these citizens. All it got was a set of press clippings—a bit like the Security Intelligence Service and Ahmed Zaoui. When the Refugee Status Appeals Authority wanted information from the Security Intelligence Service on him, all it got was a bunch of press clippings. Those Somalis had suffered because there were problems with their assets being seized by the European Union and all kinds of things, based on this false information.

One of the problems with the UN designation system is that it is based on information provided by Governments. There is no proper checking, there is no notification of the personal entity designated, there is no procedure for them to challenge that designation, and in the case of those Swedish people of Somali origin, there was no way forward for them, other than through the Swedish Government, because only States can take a case to the Counter-terrorism Committee. So unless the State backs them up, and Sweden did in this case, they are left out on a limb.

I think we know the way the United States operates on these questions, and I refer to all the people rotting at Guantanamo Bay without due process. The United States Government operates a very loose process when determining who is or who is not a terrorist or a terrorist entity. There are a lot of errors in the system. The first Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill, which was originally part of another bill—we are dealing with the No 2 bill today—was designed to allow the Government to take off entities that had been designated, and I think one or two have been taken off.

We do not need to make up for the weakness of the Government in not putting forward to the High Court a designation process for the 318, or thereabouts, designations that took place 3 years ago and will expire on this October. I think the whole question of due process lies at the bottom of all this, and it has been commented on. Very good comments have been made by leading justices in the House of Lords, and by Kofi Annan himself. They make the point all through that if we undermine civil liberties in the name of the fight against terrorism, we actually only create more terrorists.

I believe that there is agreement among everyone in this House to do the most to fight terrorism in all its forms. We should do it in a way that respects due process, because otherwise we get into this horrible situation of creating more terrorists. Of course, unfortunately, because of the US invasion and all the mayhem that has followed, Iraq today is a seedbed for more terrorists. When some of those people go back to other countries we will have an even greater danger. Doing things in a way that does not violate conventions, be they conventions on human rights or conventions against invading other countries, actually undermines the terrorists. Terrorists survive only by being able to draw a certain amount of support among people—support that enables them to carry out their horrific acts against people.

Just to elaborate further on the Swedish case that I referred to, I point out that the Swedish Government filed an unsuccessful request with the 1267 Committee of the United Nations to have these people removed from the UN list. It was only after prolonged efforts with the United States, that the United States joined Sweden in requesting the delisting of two of the three individuals and they were taken off the list. There is one Somali still on that list, because the United States would not cooperate. So we are in bit of a mess. The Human Rights Commission indicated that we have to listen to all the critiques. Kofi Annan’s high-level panel that he set up a year or two ago, headed by Australian Gareth Evans, came out with very strong criticisms of the UN designation process too. So we should not treat this designation process as sacrosanct. We cannot just postpone all the designations, and everything will be sweet. We have to look at due process if we are to truly combat the terrorist threat.

There are a whole lot of criticisms around the world of the way anti-terrorism legislation has been applied. In my second reading speech, and in some of the discussion that followed, there was talk about Guantanamo Bay. I think that that is a case study of the worst situation that operates. People have been rotting there for years, without access to due process. Bit by bit they are being released and sent back to their home countries. Some of them have been tortured in one way or another, while in Guanatanamo Bay or in other countries—at Bagram Airbase, for example.

The Human Rights Commission has recommended to the select committee that before sole reliance is placed on UN-sourced designations, as designations that may be extended without substantive review, ministries administering the Terrorism Suppression Act carry out an analysis of the UN procedure used to list and delist individuals and groups designated, and note the strengths and shortcomings identified in those procedures, particularly with the observance of political rights. The select committee, it hopes, will report that it is able to determine the importance of domestic High Court review of the designations.

It is a pleasure to take a call this morning on Part 2. I just wonder whether the Associate Minister of Justice can help me with my understanding of the legislation. As I understand Part 2, it is about providing an extension of time to a schedule of organisations that have been identified as terrorist organisations. If the Minister can confirm that for me, I would be grateful. I then would like him to explain to me how organisations are recognised and placed on that schedule. That is the second question I would certainly be grateful for his help with. I see he is busily digging out the original Act, which will be helpful.

But the third and most vital point is that Part 2 extends, as I understand it, the principal Act’s original expiry date for the list.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Quite right.

The Minister in the chair, Rick Barker, will then be well aware that, in the original legislation, the House determined that the list, once developed, would expire. I assume it takes considerable time to develop a list of terrorist organisations. I would hate to think that organisations doing good work around the world, perhaps for humanitarian causes, are inadvertently or incorrectly placed on this list. But the surprising thing to me—and I would certainly appreciate the Minister’s help on this—is that, the list having been developed, the original legislation has an expiry date so that, at the end of 3 years, suddenly that list effectively just evaporates. It seems to me a nonsense that an organisation like al-Qaeda could be placed on a schedule as a recognised terrorist organisation—and there can be no doubt—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: They turn good.

I think it will be a long, long time before Osama bin Laden turns good. Keith Locke may well believe that, and he is welcome to explain why he thinks Osama bin Laden might turn good. But the important thing for the Minister to explain is why the Government ever developed the notion that the original list would suddenly reach an expiry date. I would certainly appreciate the Hon Rick Barker seeking a bit of advice, rising to his feet, and answering that.

The final point I want clarification on is why we are extending the date, in this amendment bill that is now being rushed through under urgency to cover up the original mistake made by the Labour Government, for a further 2 years only. I know that member will not be in Government, or in Parliament, then, but why will we, on the expiry date in the amendment legislation we are passing today, have to look at passing another bill? These organisations are placed on the list after due diligence and a lot of hard work, and we will suddenly find that they reach an expiry date after which the list effectively evaporates. It just seems to me—

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Ask your colleague next to you.

I have certainly taken the opportunity of asking my colleague next to me, the Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith, and there would be no doubt in my mind, having listened to his contributions and the odd contribution from the likes of the Hon Steve Maharey last night, that Lockwood Smith knows more about this legislation than anyone else in the Chamber. There would be no doubt about that. But I fail to see how the Minister can suggest that it is his responsibility to sit there, not be prepared to answer questions throughout the Committee stage, and expect that those questions should be satisfactorily answered by an Opposition member, Lockwood Smith. If the Minister is acknowledging that he does not really understand—

💬 Hon Rick Barker: If the member had listened to Lockwood Smith’s speech he would have got the answers.

The Minister says I should have listened to Lockwood Smith’s speech. I was not here in time to hear it, but if the Minister is really suggesting that he and Lockwood Smith should change position, maybe that is the most satisfactory solution. Well, that will happen shortly. But if the Minister intends to answer in that way the questions that I have legitimately raised—the Minister has acknowledged that; he says they are good questions—

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Very clear.

Even the Minister can understand them, so they must be particularly well espoused by myself.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Clause 22 answers your question.

There is no clause 22 in Part 2.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: It’s in the principal Act.

He is now suggesting we go back to the principal Act. Well, the Minister should really explain that himself.

I would appreciate the Minister in the chair, Rick Barker, giving the Committee a little guidance on where things are at currently with the designations. Although Part 2 of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) extends existing designations, I would appreciate from the Minister a bit of an update as to where things are at. When the principal Act was passed, as I recollect, there were 318 designated terrorist organisations.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Still are.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: My advice is that New Zealand now has 420. As I also understand it, the United Nations now has 433. This is quite important, because if there are 433 organisations considered by the United Nations to be terrorist organisations—I know Keith Locke may not consider them to be, but if the United Nations thinks they are, then that is quite important—at what stage will New Zealand’s list be updated? We are extending the existing list for 2 years, but I would appreciate advice on whether our list has been updated yet to pick up the full 433 designated terrorist organisations that I understand are on the United Nations list.

I realise that some organisations come off and others go on, and that is a continuous process, but I think it is quite important, while we are looking at this issue of extension, that we give a little bit of thought to how we make sure we are right up to date with which organisations are terrorist. I realise we have a little bit of an out in that, because—and I am not sure that members realised this when we were debating Part 1—in fact, funding terrorist organisations is illegal whether or not they are designated. I do not know whether a lot of members picked up that fact when we were debating clause 4—

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: That would account for why the Greens are so concerned about it.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: The Hon Richard Prebble says that in jest, but there have been members of the Green Party who have done some pretty crazy and outrageous things around New Zealand. Their actions may or may not have threatened life or limb, but they have certainly been terrorist in their intent in terms of the damage they have sought to do to other interests around New Zealand.

But that is an important issue. I think the Committee should understand that terrorist organisations do not have to be designated for it to be illegal for people to finance them. Part 2 extends the list of designated organisations, and I would appreciate the Minister’s advice on where we are at, at the moment, with our designation work. What are we extending, in terms of our numbers? I think the Minister would agree with me that it is not the 318 organisations that were originally designated that we are now extending. I would think it is the 420 that are on the list, but I would appreciate the Minister’s guidance. If the United Nations has a further 13 organisations on its list, and we bring them on to our list, will they be automatically taken through to the full extended time of the designations that we are extending now? I am happy to take my seat if the Minister could clarify those points for us. I would appreciate that.

It is with some sense of anxiety that I stand to take a call on this bill, which I had not heard of until about 11.30 p.m. last night, when I happened to tune into the radio and heard a contribution from the Green member Keith Locke. It sounded quite reasonable and quite considered, and was certainly backed up with quite a bit of information, but then I started listening to what he was actually saying. I was reminded of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center that took place in America, and I asked myself what Keith Locke’s position at that time was. I was very careful to listen to some of the detail in some of the contributions that came afterwards, and I was reminded very clearly that at that point in time he gave no unequivocal condemnation of that event. [Interruption]

I say to the member who is interjecting, with whom I have travelled overseas to places where this kind of tyranny takes place, that he cannot have it both ways. There may be some concerns about the way the United Nations establishes its list, and there may be some concerns about how countries like the United States impose their view, as it were, but at the end of the day he has to decide which camp he is in. He cannot have it both ways. At the moment we are here in the Chamber debating legislation that will shore up the list of organisations around the world that New Zealand recognises as having been terrorist in the past, or may potentially be terrorist. Maybe we will get one or two of them wrong. Maybe a mistake will be made. Maybe the Minister or the Government will make a mistake—it is quite likely with this Government. But, at the end of the day, we have to decide where we stand.

If one thing is absolutely clear to me in this debate, it is that the Green Party is not actually green, at all. That member, in particular, is not green, at all. The Greens are very, very red. They are hard red. They are not green on the outside and red on the inside. On these issues they are as red, as anti-American, and as anti-development as can be. That is exactly the kind of stuff that caused the problems that led to the major conflicts we have seen around the world.

💬 Keith Locke: What about the American Green Party?

I say to the member who is interjecting—and I am sure he has hoards of information that he will give to the Committee during this debate about the rationale around why the current Government in New Zealand is committing some kind of heinous crime against some poor, unheard-of organisation in some dark corner of the world—that we have to make a call on some of these things. Occasionally, we will not get it right. I suspect that, with the member’s proposition, we would end up in a situation whereby we would get it wrong far more often than under what is currently proposed to do.

I ask the Associate Minister of Justice, when he takes a call to answer some of the questions from my colleague the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith, who has studied this legislation and knows the detail of it, to spell out whether it were possible in the future, going forward, under—God forbid—a future Labour Government, that he would end up doing a deal with those people. I think the public of New Zealand deserve an answer to that. As we move into the next election we are looking at who is on the political landscape. I say to anybody who might be listening that one thing that is absolutely clear in this Parliament is that the Green Party is not green. It is hard red. It is as far red as it can get. I suggest that those listening should take a lot of notice of what Mr Locke was saying and go and study the detail. I do not like the sound of it, at all—not one iota.

I also say to the Minister that if the 420 organisations that he has identified are registered on the list, and if the United Nations is more or less in agreeance with it, why is Part 2 revisiting the process by which that list is established? That is something I clearly have no understanding of, at all. There could be a simple explanation for it. Why are we revisiting that at this point in time?

I move, That the question be now put.