Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2)

Obviously, clauses 1 and 2 relate simply to the title of the bill and to the commencement date, which would be immediately after the legislation receives the royal assent. That is important because of the designations we have just been discussing, which expire in October this year. It is really important that this legislation comes into force prior to that, because otherwise we will have no list of designated terrorist organisations in New Zealand, and we certainly would not be consistent with our obligations to the United Nations under Resolution 1373 were that to be the case.

I would like the Minister to give us more guidance on the issue of the designation of terrorist organisations that I was asking him about a moment ago. It is quite important, because why do we have this provision in the legislation if we do not take it seriously and do not make sure that our designations are up to date and consistent with the thinking of like-minded countries around the world? That does not mean to say we all have to designate the same organisations, because, obviously, as a sovereign nation, we have our own view on those matters, and that is absolutely right and proper.

But I pointed out to the Minister, and I think it was news to him, that, in fact, 420 organisations are now on our list of designations, the number having originally been 318. When the principal Act was passed we had 318 designations, and that was the United Nations list. The United Nations updated that to 420, and New Zealand did likewise. I understand—and I certainly stand to be corrected by the Minister if I am wrong on this—that we increased our number of designations by almost 100, to have 420 organisations on our list. Members may or may not realise that the Prime Minister has the power under the principal Act to add designations to the list. It is important that that power is taken seriously. It is important that we monitor the emergence of new organisations around the world and update our list. There is a matter that the Minister did not give us guidance on. I pointed out that I understood—the last I heard—the United Nations had 433 organisations on its list. So my first question to the Minister was whether we have updated our list to cover the full 433 organisations on the United Nations list.

The next thing is that under the principal Act, countries like New Zealand are at liberty to add further organisations to the list. We do not simply have to comply with the UN list of designated terrorist organisations. We can say that we in this part of the world are very concerned about such and such an organisation, and if we have good cause it can be added to the list. There is a process that can be gone through: there can be an interim designation, and then a final designation. In fact, some countries around the world do that. My understanding is that the European Union has more organisations designated on its list than the United Nations has. The European Union is a group of countries with sophisticated institutions. Therefore, if the European Union has designated organisations that we in New Zealand have not, it invites questions about whether we have looked at the additional organisations that the European Union has designated, and, if so, why we have not incorporated them into the list that we are now extending the duration of in Part 2 of the bill. Have we looked at the additional organisations listed by the European Union? Have we looked at the additional organisations listed by the United Nations? When do we plan to update our list?

I also asked before whether, if we were to update our list, those designations would go beyond the 2 years of the extension provided for in this bill, or whether they would go for the full 3 years stated in the principal Act. I guess this amendment will supersede the principal Act, and I imagine that any new designations that are added would terminate after the 2 years’ extension that this bill is applying.

There are some issues here that would be of interest to people in New Zealand who are genuinely concerned about our security. There is a question as to whether our list of designated organisations is up to date. I think we should be advised of the answer to that. There are issues about whether we should stick to the UN list or whether we should go beyond that.

I wish to speak very briefly in place of my colleague Dail Jones, who is unable to be here today, to affirm New Zealand First’s support, again, for this bill in its present form, and to note how important it is to this party to make such provisions as the bill makes overall. We have shown particular interest over several years in people who come and go from this country, as the House knows, and this matter of international and national security is important.

I have been listening with some interest to the matters discussed in this debate. I have heard the word “red” being used in this House. That takes me back almost 40 years to Professor Robert Chapman, in political studies—and the term was becoming outmoded then. I have found it rather strange to hear last night and this morning the term “red”, which pertains to a previous world. It is particularly strange, when the Prime Minister has just come back from China and when our primary produce sector is dependent on wool and other exports to Russia, the former USSR, to hear in this House a viewpoint almost frozen in time on what “red” means.

Certainly, this party is in 2005. We are looking at the dangers that exist and that were demonstrated so dramatically by the events of 2001. New Zealand First is looking forward to the passing of a bill that in its amended form ought to give us greater security protection at the border in years to come.

I think the last comments by the previous speaker are valid. There has been too much name-calling in this Committee in the discussion on this bill. It does not help when people say, as members have said about the Greens and about me in particular, that we support terrorists. None of us in this Committee support terrorists. Whenever any terrorist outrage has occurred, the Green Party has been at the forefront of condemning it, from September 11 onwards, as every member knows. The question is how best to fight terrorism and how not to breach human rights in the process. The question is how a country is to move from a situation where there has been a civil war, in which terrorist activities have been conducted on both sides, such as in the Sri Lankan civil war—in which there has been a ceasefire since late 2001, which is very good—to a real, peaceful, long-term settlement. The United States designation of the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organisation has hindered that process. A donors’ meeting held in New York, attended by representatives from countries all around the world, to give donations for reconstruction during the ceasefire to both the Tamil Tiger side and the Sri Lankan Government side, was held up because, under the designation, the United States would not let a Tamil Tiger representative attend.

That is the practical consequence of that sort of provision, and that is why it is wrong to move from the situation under the existing Act, where one is prohibited from funding terrorist acts, to a situation where one is prohibited from giving money that one knows will benefit a terrorist entity that carries out, or has carried out, terrorist acts. That applies quite directly to groups like the Tamil Tigers, given the background of the United States designation and the way it is half-treated as correct in New Zealand by some Government agencies, because of the way the amending clause in the bill is expressed. The report back from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the bill states: “However we are now satisfied that neither the intent nor the wording of the provision catches the funding of legitimate human rights, humanitarian or democratic groups acting solely in this way.” The word “solely” was put in specifically to cover groups like the Tamil Tigers, which in the past has conducted some terrorist activities, or the African National Congress, which did conduct terrorist activities, or people like Xanana Gusmao, whom we now hold in high respect, but whose organisation did carry out terrorist activities that affected civilians.

Rightly or wrongly, when we are dealing with movements that reflect a nationality, like the Tamil Tigers—and I am critical of the lack of democracy promoted by the Tamil Tigers—how can we move forward, as Norway and many other countries are trying to move forward, the situation in Sri Lanka, if we try to stop and criminalise anyone who is part of that process? That includes aid organisations like Oxfam and Unicef, which I saw in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka when I visited, helping to build different social structures—maybe including the police force and the court system of the de facto Government. Overseas agencies that we widely respect were helping to move the process forward towards the establishment of a democratic Sri Lanka, where everyone can live together. This bill is specifically geared to stop that sort of thing from happening. That is the reality. It will not just stop people from funnelling funds through front organisations for al-Qaeda.

Of course, when we are talking about al-Qaeda the issue is quite easy, because nobody here gives the slightest bit of support to al-Qaeda. Everyone wants that organisation to be destroyed. Everyone wants the maximum police action taken against that organisation and against any real front organisation for it—we all agree on that. But if we go the other way and forgo human rights in prosecuting campaigns against terrorism, we actually work in the terrorists’ favour. As Lord Hoffman said in the House of Lords: “The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these.”—laws that breach human rights—“That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.” Do we want to give the terrorists such a victory today, by bringing in laws that will inhibit us in helping places like Sri Lanka or parts of Indonesia to move towards social justice and a peaceful resolution of conflict?

I rise to take a brief call to answer some of the questions raised. Firstly, David Carter asked how organisations get on the list. They are designated to be put on the list by the Prime Minister, as stated in clause 22 of the principal Act. Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith was correct in identifying that 318 organisations were on the schedule at the beginning. That list has been updated, and the number for New Zealand currently stands at 420. As he correctly identified, extra organisations have been designated by the UN. Those are under active consideration by New Zealand. We do not simply accept them for what they are; we have to make our own assessment of them, and that process is going on.

Once on the list, organisations stay there for 3 years. What happens after that? Lockwood Smith made mention of the review of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to look at all those issues, and to come up with some suggestions about how we might improve the process. So it is the intention of the Government, in the light of that review, the committee’s experience, and our experience, to come back with legislation that will be more enduring than what we had. That legislation was an instant reaction to a situation that had occurred. The world had to take some action, and we did so.

We want now to make sure we are compliant with UN resolutions—which we are—and that we have legislation consistent with the New Zealand framework, and with our attitudes and lifestyle, whilst at the same time ensure we are compliant with UN resolutions. All those things are under consideration, and I am sure that the New Zealand Parliament will pass legislation on this matter again, and that it will be very sensible legislation.

I rise to speak in the debate on the first clause of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2), and to say that members have to realise—and I think most members do—that the world faces a difficult situation in deciding how to combat terrorism and what action should be taken. What the world has decided—and I use the word “world”—is that one measure is to designate terrorist organisations. The United Nations, an organisation of which I am often very critical, has designated a number of organisations as being terrorist.

We then had the matter raised by the Green MP that it is most important, in fighting terrorism, that we do not give up our human rights. That is an argument towards which the ACT party in particular is extremely sympathetic. But then I look at the bill to see whether there is any substance to that argument, and I find it extraordinary that Mr Locke cannot actually produce that substance. Instead, he told us about what the United States has done in Guantanamo Bay, and what Britain has done.

We all know that British laws are much, much tougher than this legislation. Britain has had problems with the IRA for the last 30 years. They have people letting off bombs in the Tower of London. There is a power in British law whereby people can actually be held without charge. [Interruption] Now the member is interjecting on me. I just point out to him that he is wrong in using those examples to then tell the public that that is what this Parliament is doing in this bill.

When we look at the bill, we find that there is a provision in clause 4 that deals with people who knowingly—“wilfully”—give money to a terrorist organisation that they know is carrying out acts of terrorism. According to Mr Locke, that is a violation of human rights. What human right? There is no human right of being able to give money to other people to kill people. In fact, there are no human rights unless we have a system of order. So Mr Locke is completely wrong on the first point he raised.

His next point was about the listing of terrorist organisations, which raises an interesting discussion as to whether that is a matter for the administration or for the courts. I say to Mr Locke that he ought to listen. Every lawyer in Parliament has said that that is not a matter for the courts. That is not what courts are set up to do. They are not equipped to do it; they do not have the staff and the like; and it is actually a matter for the administration. Those are the facts.

Then we heard the Minister say that New Zealand does not automatically take all the United Nations’ designations of terrorist organisations, and that we still look at the data before adding them to the list. But there is an idea that we should go along with listening to the Human Rights Organisation New Zealand—paid for by the New Zealand taxpayer—defend 413 terrorist organisations, as no doubt it would. We have already seen the debacle that occurred with regard to Mr Zaoui. The designations are not a matter for the courts. I therefore ask Mr Locke, given that he cannot put up the arguments on this bill, why he is putting up that point.

Mr Locke asks why people are questioning his motives, and the reason is that we have studied him. We have seen him for the last 40 years, and the only consistent position that he has had for 40 years is that he is anti-American.

💬 Keith Locke: I support the American peace movement—

Oh, he supports the American peace movement. America has 300 million people, and I am sure he can find within America some people who have similar views to his own. That does not mean that he supports the United States and its institutions. He says he supports the American people, but the American people actually voted for the present President. But no doubt Mr Locke would say, according to his warped view of the world, that that vote was rigged, as well. If we look at his record in Hansard, we will see—even in this debate—that he has been unable to put together his argument without dropping into his anti-American rhetoric, and that is why members say that he is not a Green but a red.

I rise to speak in the debate on the title clause. I too have some serious concerns about some of the comments that have been made by the Green MP, because, in listening to some of those comments, it seems to me that the member is saying that some terrorist activity is OK. The Greens are saying that if they believe in a group’s cause, then it is OK if some terrorist activities have been undertaken, and that that can be forgiven. So the Tamil Tigers can be forgiven, if, in the past—

💬 Keith Locke: When did I say that?

Just in his last speech, the member said that if an organisation has taken part in some terrorist activity in the past, but has gone on to good freedom fighter - style work, then that is OK, and that all that terrorist activity can be forgiven. I say to Mr Locke that this is my summary of his speech. This is my interpretation of his comments. I find some of those comments very, very frightening. It seems to me that if the Greens believe in a cause, then terrorist activity undertaken by that cause is OK. If the Greens believe that one has gone on to see the light—

💬 Keith Locke: I wish to make a personal explanation on the accusations that I have in this Parliament supported terrorist acts. It is important to explain—and it may be that the member has listened to but misinterpreted what I said—that the Green Party and I have condemned every terrorist act committed. We never justify killing and murdering civilians, kidnapping, hijacking, or blowing up buildings like on September 11. We never do that, whatsoever. The distinction that we have tried to make, and that I have tried to make in Parliament today, is that even though organisations, like Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, or the Tamil Tigers, have committed terrorist acts in the past—acts that we condemn and will continue to condemn—that does not necessarily mean we want to smash or ban the African National Congress or those who support it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I just want to remind that member that it is a personal statement.

I am none the wiser as a result of that contribution. It still seems to me that if a group has been involved in some terrorist activity in the past, and that if that group goes on to rejuvenate itself and see the error of its ways, then that terrorist activity is somehow overlooked and the organisation is then accepted by the Greens.

We cannot get into a situation whereby we look at the legitimacy of each and every cause, because we will all debate that and have different views—well, the majority of the House will have the same view. But the Greens, I am sure, can go through those 420 groups on the list and start to debate whether the causes are valid or should be supported.

I do not think we have the luxury of doing that over a period of time, so I find some of the comments that have been made by the Greens frightening, and I think that New Zealanders who are listening should be concerned by some of their comments because, potentially, that party could form part of a new Government. When we hear that kind of thinking, it should be very frightening to people.

I am still not 100 percent comfortable with parts of this bill, because I am unsure about whether it will achieve what it intends to achieve. It is very clear that if people send money to a group that they know is involved in terrorist activities, that is wrong. If they send money to a group that even potentially might be involved in terrorist activity, that is also wrong. However, this bill says that groups have to be already carrying out or participating in terrorist activities, and we know from history that some groups are set up specifically to do things in the future, so then those groups will not be captured by this legislation, because they are not already carrying out or participating in terrorist activity. They intend to do so in the future, which is why they are raising money, but technically under this bill we will capture only the groups that have already carried out one or more terrorist acts. So I am concerned that that part of the bill will not apply to groups that have been set up specifically to undertake terrorist activity in the future.

A whole range of activities have been raised by this bill. Our side supports it, and we think that it is important we do more to stamp out terrorism and to ensure that over a period of time we have a good working system that allows terrorist groups to be identified.

I have one other concern, on which the Minister might perhaps like to take a call to explain. I am unsure why the expiry of the designation is after 3 years and why it is automatic in this legislation, as opposed to being part of a conscious, managed process where names are taken off the list.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Ayes are?

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Ayes are 60; the Noes are 49.

Yes.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question will be put.

With a majority of 60—out of 120?

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member knows that that is not a point of order.

Well, it is a fair question.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not a fair question. It is not a point of order; the member knows that.