Search and Surveillance Bill

I move, That the Search and Surveillance Bill be now read a second time. The bill provides a coherent, consistent, and certain approach to our search and surveillance laws. It modernises the law of search, seizure, and surveillance to take into account advances in technologies and regulate their use. The bill also provides rules that recognise the importance of the rights and the entitlements affirmed in other enactments, including the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, the Privacy Act 1993, and the Evidence Act 2006. The bill ensures that the investigative tools available to enforcement officers are effective and adequate for law enforcement purposes.

I would like to commend the Justice and Electoral Committee for its thorough consideration of the bill, and for the sensible amendments it has proposed. The committee received 478 written submissions on the bill across two separate rounds of consultation—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! If members are having private conversations, please do it in such a manner as not to disrupt.

—and heard 29 oral submissions. I note that many submitters were concerned about the bill. In particular, many felt that the bill contained ineffective protections for human rights. The committee has vigilantly considered the concerns surrounding human rights, and has recommended a number of changes to ensure the bill strikes a more appropriate balance between these rights and law enforcement needs.

Two important areas where the committee has recommended amendments are examination orders and surveillance powers. The committee has recommended that the thresholds for the making of examination orders be raised to offending punishable by 5 years’ imprisonment or more in the business context, and offending either punishable by 7 years’ imprisonment or more, or committed by an organised criminal group in a non-business context. This means that examination orders will not be available for low-level offending such as trespass and disorderly behaviour. This was a major concern for a number of submitters.

Additionally, I have discussed with the Labour Party its proposal to raise the threshold for examination orders to offending punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment in both the business and non-business context. Doing so would substantially limit the types of offences for which examination orders are available. For example, it would exclude offences such as engaging in money-laundering and accessing a computer system dishonestly.

An offence like engaging in money-laundering often involves complex financial transactions, and the examination power will ensure that those who have been involved, such as an accountant, will assist to unravel the documents relating to the transactions. It is also important that examination orders should be available in the business context to investigate offences committed by organised criminal groups. Raising the threshold to 10 years would undermine the effectiveness of examination orders, the rationale for their existence, and the purpose of the bill.

The use of surveillance as an investigative tool has also been restricted. The committee has recommended that all audio surveillance and visual surveillance involving entry on to private property be restricted to the investigation of offences punishable by 7 years’ imprisonment or more, with exceptions only for some offending under the Arms Act. These forms of surveillance have also been limited to police and authorised law enforcement agencies. Only the Customs Service and the Department of Internal Affairs may apply to be authorised by Order in Council to carry out visual surveillance or to use interception devices.

To obtain authorisation an agency must have the technical capability to undertake these forms of surveillance and appropriate policies and procedures in place to ensure the integrity of the information obtained in the use of these devices. The bill expressly recognises privileges protected under the Evidence Act, such as medical privilege, legal professional privilege, and the rights of journalists to protect their sources. For instance, under the bill a journalist may refuse to answer questions or produce documents that would reveal the identity of a source. A journalist may also refuse to allow an item to be searched, by making a claim that it is subject to journalistic privilege. The bill contains a process for claims of such privilege to be determined by a court.

A further concern among submitters was a lack of appropriate safeguards. The bill contains a number of safeguards, which will mitigate the abuse of power by law enforcement agencies. These include requiring prior judicial approval for any law enforcement power unless there is sufficient reason for the power to be carried out immediately; a requirement that powers may be exercised only where there are both reasonable grounds to suspect relevant offending and reasonable grounds to believe the exercise of the power will obtain evidential material of the offending; detailed reporting requirements; and the ability to seek redress through the courts when the manner of execution of a search, a seizure, or surveillance is unreasonable.

These numerous measures ensure that there are sufficient safeguards that will prevent unreasonable or unjustified use of the powers in the bill. I will be tabling a Supplementary Order Paper that will give effect to a number of further technical and policy amendments, and I can advise the members of the House that as soon as that is ready I will get it available to the parties who have expressed interest.

One of the changes in the Supplementary Order Paper alters the commencement of the bill so that it will commence in two parts. As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamed and Others in 2011, the surveillance device provisions contained within the bill will commence on the expiry of the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Act in April 2012. This is to ensure that the police will be able to continue to utilise surveillance as a crime-fighting tool.

The main policy changes contained within the Supplementary Order Paper include restricting the determination of claims of journalistic protection made under section 68 of the Evidence Act to the High Court, where such a claim has been made following the execution of search warrants, production orders, or examination orders; amending Acts not amended by the bill as introduced to bring them under the regime established by the bill; enabling police to search for and seize firearms or dealers’ licences where there is an existing power to search for and seize firearms; and enabling police to search for and seize firearms where a police safety order is in force.

I believe that this bill strikes a necessary balance between law enforcement powers, privacy, and human rights. The bill ensures that the police and other agencies are able to investigate crime, whilst preventing unlawful search and seizure, and allowing the courts to examine the reasonableness of powers used. I believe that the amendments recommended by the committee effectively address the concerns raised, and once again I thank the committee members for the work that they have done on this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

I want to begin my remarks today by acknowledging the new Minister of Justice, the Hon Judith Collins, and wishing her well in her justice portfolio. I also want to recognise the consultative approach that she has adopted early on in her stewardship of the portfolio, and I think it is appropriate to acknowledge also that she has a herculean task ahead of her in trying to rationalise the workload that she has inherited.

It is, as I have said previously in this House, a difficult workload to have inherited. It is a grab bag of measures, frankly, some of which sit half—or not even half—completed. I think it will be important for her, with respect, to rationalise the workload that she has inherited. In doing that, I have already expressed to her privately that the Labour Opposition will offer its support for the sensible measures that are part of that legacy, although not all of those measures, because I am not sure, frankly, that history will be kind to her predecessor in the portfolio.

Mr Power was a popular member of this House and a charming member of this House, but frankly the backlog that now sits in the justice portfolio waiting to be processed is most undesirable. Frankly, also, the record reflects that Mr Power was not willing to consult on measures that he ought to have consulted on, particularly this one, the Search and Surveillance Bill, where it is undoubtedly desirable that there be a multiparty consensus on the powers of search and surveillance that the State ought to be able to exercise.

This legislation has a protracted history. Labour introduced the original Search and Surveillance Powers Bill back in 2008, following a Law Commission report. The bill, as the Minister has said, was extensively modified via the select committee process, in which the Labour team was led by my predecessor as shadow Attorney-General, the Hon David Parker. I want to also pay tribute to Mr Parker for the diligence that he showed in that exercise. As the Justice and Electoral Committee report from November 2010 shows, his work contributed to a much better bill emerging from the committee than what entered it. In singling out Mr Parker for praise, I want to join the Minister in congratulating the other members of the select committee on the work that they did.

It is clear that this is a much better bill. There are significant modifications to the proposed surveillance device regime, better regulation of the more intrusive forms of surveillance that were originally proposed, a reduction in the warrantless surveillance period, better rules over the retention of data, stronger reporting requirements for surveillance device warrants, and better controls over examination and production orders. So it is absolutely the case that Parliament did what it is expected to do via the select committee process on this measure. It did look at the detail. The parties worked together and they did produce a better bill.

But Labour left the select committee process with three issues that it remained concerned and dissatisfied about. As soon as that process ended back in November 2010 Mr Parker wrote to Mr Power, and he said: “These are the three issues that we need you to address in order to get multiparty support”—that is, Labour support as well as National support—“for the legislation. First of all, there needs to be an exemption for the news media for production and examination orders. The powers relating to the Serious Fraud Office concerning production and examination orders ought to be brought into line with the powers that are going to be conferred on the police by this bill. And the thresholds for the availability of production and examination orders in respect of the offences they would apply to should be raised generally from 7 to 10 years.” So those were the three issues.

These are important issues, particularly in the time in which we sit now of declining media freedoms. And concerns have been raised earlier, for example, in question time by my colleague Clare Curran: concerns about apparent political influence at New Zealand On Air; concerns around turning Television New Zealand, through less than transparent means, into a commercial broadcaster rather than a public broadcaster, a State broadcaster with those characteristics; the resourcing of Radio New Zealand and the adequacy of that; concerns about deals done with private broadcasters like MediaWorks, involving a senior Minister; and, of course, the tea tapes. All these matters are matters of concern relating to the climate of media freedom in this country, and they are matters that we cannot ignore. They are matters that are directly within the purview of this bill, and they are matters that really have to be dealt with if we are going to make progress here.

Consideration of the bill became more urgent last year because of the Hamed decision already referred to by the Minister. The legislation had been languishing on the Order Paper for a year when the Supreme Court decision forced Parliament to act late last year in those dying days of the last Parliament, when we put in place an interim regime, which is due to expire next month.

So, clearly, we are in a tight time frame to deal with this problem, but it took Mr Power a year, a full year, to give Mr Parker a substantive reply to the three concerns he raised.

💬 Hon David Parker: It wasn’t received until after the election.

It was not received, as Mr Parker said, until after the election, and essentially he put the burden on Mrs Collins to deal with these three concerns.

The Minister and I met yesterday. She wrote to me today, and I accept her good-faith attempt to try to resolve these problems, and in passing I should say that, in respect of at least two other measures I can think of, I appreciate the approach she has already shown in this portfolio. She is willing to stand back and take a look at whether a measure is really necessary and whether or not it really commands stakeholder support, and if it does not, she is willing to give it another look. That is something that ought to be said for the record.

The problem we have with this legislation is that, as I have said, we are in an urgent legislative phase here, because of the expiry of the interim Act next month. We still do not have a Supplementary Order Paper, even though I acknowledge the Minister’s commitment to share it when it is ready, but as the Leader of the House signalled before question time, we could be 5 days away from the Committee stage.

So we have the problem, really, over the issue of media freedoms, which is that even though the Minister says she will ensure that it is a High Court warrant that will be required for a production or examination order against the media, rather than a District Court warrant—and that is a great step forward—there is still the problem that the police will have the material in their possession in the interim while the order is being applied for and while objections are being processed, and journalists and their sources are going to know that. They are going to know that the enforcement authorities of the State can see that material before a judge can pronounce on its admissibility, because a copy can be kept to prevent its destruction. Until we can get that fundamental issue dealt with, as I have said to the Minister, we do have a real issue.

I think on the other two matters that are outstanding the Minister has given an undertaking about reporting on the Serious Fraud Office powers, which I know she has consulted her colleague about, and will give that careful consideration. On the issue of the threshold of 7 or 10 years, I am not sure that that is so much of a problem. We can have a schedule of offences in the bill, and we would know what was in and what was out, and that would get around the objection that has been raised.

If this measure proceeds past a second reading, I hope a satisfactory Supplementary Order Paper can be produced and considered in time, and that, if it is, we can support the measure. But meanwhile, without a Supplementary Order Paper to consider, with the Committee stage maybe 5 days away, and without addressing the objections that Labour has consistently raised now for over a year, it is impossible for us to support the legislation in its current form, and we will be voting against the second reading of this bill.

I would like to thank Mr Chauvel for his acknowledgment of our new Minister of Justice, the Hon Judith Collins, and the very demanding role she has assumed and the huge workload that she has inherited. I too wish her well in that. This bill, the Search and Surveillance Bill, is, of course, one of those very important measures that she is now charged with progressing through the House.

I would also like to begin by acknowledging the work of my predecessor, the Hon Chester Borrows, as chairman of the Justice and Electoral Committee in the last Parliament, and those members who sat with him on that committee, because they were very, very busy, particularly in light of the Hamed decision late last year, immediately before the election. I was not a member of the committee at that stage, so I acknowledge the work that others on it did as they heard the submissions and contributed to the deliberations. I agree that they have produced an important and better measure as a result of that work.

Both the Minister and Mr Chauvel have mentioned the Supreme Court decision in Hamed v R, which called into question the lawfulness of a number of the situations in which covert video surveillance is currently used. This is an issue, clearly, of significant public interest. We need to get it right. The Supreme Court stated that standard search warrants could not be relied upon as a lawful authority to conduct covert video surveillance and that this needed to be regulated by a proper regime. This is provided for in the bill in the surveillance device regime.

To prevent a number of ongoing criminal investigations that used surveillance from being jeopardised at that time, the Government enacted the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Act, which was the measure Mr Chauvel was speaking about a few moments ago, which for 6 months, until the middle of next month, suspended the effect of the Hamed judgment. We are now not far away from the expiry of that particular piece of legislation. So this Search and Surveillance Bill seeks to strike a balance between the need for effective law enforcement tools and protection of the rights of citizens, as set out in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

The existing police powers are more than 50 years old, and it is very important for the House to take that fact into account. This is an area where there have been very significant technological developments. In fact, the technology available to us now is such that even our parents would not recognise it, and certainly not our grandparents 50 years ago. The law during the intervening five decades has developed in a very piecemeal fashion, as it has attempted to respond to those developments. That is why the Law Commission concluded, in its 2007 report, that search and surveillance powers should be consolidated and updated. In particular, the commission called for a bill to bring order, certainty, clarity, and consistency to the sprawling mass of statutory powers for search and surveillance, which were scattered, or are scattered, throughout the statute book. The Law Commission also identified a need to address the glaring gaps where the law has failed to keep pace with the changes in modern society.

It is important to understand what the bill’s surveillance regime actually covers: interception devices that can intercept communications, which are also known as audio surveillance, tracking devices that can detect where a thing is located or whether a thing has been opened or tampered with, and visual surveillance. Only a judge may issue a surveillance device warrant, if he or she is satisfied that the conditions are met. The degree of intrusiveness of surveillance will depend on the circumstances. For example, video surveillance will not always be more intrusive than searching a house under a warrant. However, there are significant privacy concerns with regard to visual surveillance, including trespass and audio surveillance, so these methods should be limited to cases of serious offending.

There is no doubt that audio and visual surveillance are important tools for investigating crimes. However, because they are also recognised as involving significant privacy concerns there are a number of safeguards necessary for their use. Visual trespass surveillance and interception devices are available only to investigate offences punishable by 7 years or more of imprisonment, or for certain firearms offences. The only agency that will be able to undertake visual trespass surveillance and interception will be the police, at first. The Customs Service and the Department of Internal Affairs may be allowed to conduct trespass surveillance in future, once they have been properly trained in its use and authorised under the bill.

It is my view that New Zealanders understand the need for this consolidation and updating of our search and surveillance legislation, and that they will agree with and be reassured by the safeguards contained within it. It is an important measure, and I acknowledge the work of the Minister, her officials, and those members who have brought it to this point.

For a start, can I repeat the thanks that have been expressed by my colleague Charles Chauvel for the way in which the National Party conducted itself at the Justice and Electoral Committee. The committee was chaired by Chester Borrows. The Search and Surveillance Bill is one of the most complex and difficult pieces of legislation that I have considered in any select committee since I have been in Parliament. It is one in which the select committee took very seriously the proper balance between the protection of civil liberties and the necessary powers to be afforded to State agencies to investigate criminal conduct.

The need for an update of the law had been made clear by the Law Commission. There were various powers in New Zealand that were being exercised by the police in an unregulated form, because the original legislation passed in yesteryear did not cover some of the new technologies that had been developed since. So it was clear that there was a need to update the search and surveillance legislation.

I do not have time to go into the detail of the many changes that were made at the select committee. With the cooperation of the Minister of Justice and members of the select committee, suffice it to say that other than issues that Charles Chauvel and I have been talking about today, we are satisfied that the bill represents an appropriate balance between powers that are needed by the State and civil liberties that we need to protect for our citizens for them to be free from unreasonable search and surveillance by State agencies.

But we are left with some very serious issues, and I want to put on record what I think has been a deliberately political and improper dealing with the concerns that have been raised by me on behalf of the Labour Party. While the bill was at the select committee it became abundantly clear that the issue of Serious Fraud Office powers needed to be addressed. Why? Because at the time when this was at the select committee, or thereabouts, the Serious Fraud Office, without a judicial warrant, exercised its powers against the National Business Review to seize—or to claim a right to seize—records relating to the National Business Review investigation of the South Canterbury Finance failure. It became absolutely apparent that this was a problem that needed to be fixed. It needed to be fixed by changes to the Serious Fraud Office powers to make sure that it can exercise its powers only if it goes to a court and gets a warrant. At the moment it does not need to go to the court to get a warrant, and that is the fundamental problem that we have with the Serious Fraud Office powers.

This issue came to light because when the prior Labour Government was considering these issues, at that time we were proposing a merger between the Serious Fraud Office and the organised crime unit of the police. There was a discussion as to what powers should be carried forward from the Serious Fraud Office to the police. At the time, the Law Commission recommended to Cabinet that none of these powers for examination orders and production orders, which are an undermining of the right to silence, should be carried forward to this new unit.

There was some public disquiet about those powers being taken away from the Serious Fraud Office at the time when it was being merged with the police. So with the approval of my then Cabinet colleagues, I as a member of Cabinet went to see a number of Queen’s Counsel, mainly in Auckland, about whether these powers were needed for the Serious Fraud Office. The advice that I received was that we were naive if we thought that some of these powers were not necessary for the Serious Fraud Office, and therefore the advice was that these powers should carry forward for the Serious Fraud Office in some form. There was also a universal—but for one person—view that the Serious Fraud Office abused its powers because it used this non-warranted route for normal investigations, which should be carried out either through normal investigative processes or though the police in ways that get warrants.

So it was the view of the Law Commission, as well as the senior lawyers involved and the Labour Cabinet, that we needed to carry forward these powers of the Serious Fraud Office to this new joined agency for both the police on serious crime, and the Serious Fraud Office in respect of its serious fraud problems. We reached that view because we realised that some of the most pernicious organised crime and gang crime is even more serious, or at least as serious, as the crime that is dealt with by the Serious Fraud Office, and if those powers were justified for the Serious Fraud Office, we could not see how we could say they were not justified for the police.

Then we had the situation where the National Government was elected. It had campaigned against the Serious Fraud Office being merged into the police force, and we accept that is its right, but then we had the carry-on of the new powers for the police, including the derogation or undermining of the right to silence through production orders and examination orders through the police. We agreed at the select committee that that needed to be surrounded with very careful protections of civil liberties, the most fundamental of which is that you have to get a warrant from a judge.

The problem remains in respect of the Serious Fraud Office, because it does not need a warrant. It was outside the scope of the Search and Surveillance Bill. We said we would cooperate with the Government to bring forward another bill to make sure it happened. We said that we would cooperate through the Business Committee to make sure that parallel legislation could be introduced to this House. It is easy to do. We did it this very day in the House in respect of some of the Māori settlement legislation earlier today, so it can be done, Minister, and it can be done easily, as it was done this very day in respect of settlement legislation.

I wrote to the Minister of Justice in November 2010 in respect of these very issues, and I laid all of this out. I did not get a reply until after the election. At the time, because of delays, I speculated both to my colleagues and to the press that this was effectively an act of political subterfuge, and it was the real intention of the Government to reply so late in the piece that it could just push this legislation through after the election without addressing the very serious issue of media freedoms.

Media freedoms are absolutely essential to clean democracies. If you do not have free media, free of intrusion from State agencies, you cannot guarantee the long-term strength of your democracy. There are a number of things that are piling up in New Zealand that show that this Government has a poor record in respect of media freedoms. I do not have time to go through some of the attacks on civil liberties during the last 3 years, but I do have time to note to members opposite the abuse of the Prime Minister’s position, by calling in the police to hound media sources after the tea tapes went wrong. That was wrong. That was an attack on media freedoms. I do have time to recount the fact that under this Government the Serious Fraud Office, without a warrant, went into the National Business Review and put it at risk of prosecution, fines, and criminal penalties because it would not hand over its records about the press’s investigations into South Canterbury Finance. I do have time to report how terrible it is that we have the Prime Minister’s Helensville electorate chairperson appointed to NZ On Air and trying to interfere with the timing of programming leading up to the election, when that Mr McElrea tried to stop the airing of a documentary on child poverty. I do have time to talk about Minister Joyce doing a sweet-heart deal with one of the commercial companies in respect of frequency fees for—

💬 Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Point of order, the member Simon Power.

💬 Simon Bridges: Well, almost, but not quite: Simon Bridges. This has absolutely nothing to do with the bill. The speaker has strayed very wide of the mark of this bill, and what he is saying is irrelevant.

Speaking to the point of order, I am emphasising why media freedoms in respect of both the police and the Serious Fraud Office need to be dealt with in this bill. This is clearly within order, and I would request the right to continue.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is a debatable issue.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. So against that background—

💬 Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was not a debatable issue. I was asking you to rule on a question of relevancy.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I have ruled on the question of relevancy: it is a debatable issue.

So not having had a response from the Minister during the period prior to the election, what turns up the day following the election? The day following the election I get a letter from the by then ex-Minister of Justice Simon Power, effectively saying they were not going to do anything about it. They did not even have the decency to point out the date of the letter that I had sent them, because they were so embarrassed that that letter was sent over a year prior.

This is very, very important legislation. We should have agreement across the House in respect of search and surveillance legislation. It ought not to be an issue of political controversy, and yet we have the Government refusing to move on the issue of whether the Serious Fraud Office needs these powers. It says now in this latest letter that it will look at how often the Serious Fraud Office is abusing or using these powers. I say that I do not need to know any more. I know that the Serious Fraud Office marched into the National Business Review and without a warrant from a judge said “Give us your records.” That is wrong. That can be fixed by this Parliament, and unless it is fixed by this Parliament or we get an agreement from Judith Collins that she will fix it—we will accept an undertaking that she will fix it in the next little while—you have got a scrap on your hands with this, because it is wrong. It is wrong, and the problems in respect of media freedoms need to be addressed.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Tēnā koutou. I am pleased to take the opportunity for the first time to speak to the Search and Surveillance Bill. The Green Party’s view on this proposed legislation was formerly represented by our now departed colleague and friend Keith Locke—departed in the parliamentary sense, of course—but I am pleased to pick up the cudgels from Keith and to endeavour to do at least half as good a job as he has done on what is a very complex and far-reaching piece of legislation.

It is to be acknowledged, as it has been, that the Justice and Electoral Committee clearly has taken its responsibilities seriously. I do not know how often committees open up a second round of submission. Clearly this committee chose to do that, to its credit. If one looks at the list of submitters, the depth, the quality, and the range of the submissions that were made, largely in opposition to the original draft of this bill, I think one can see there very clearly why the step was made to have a much closer look. Generally we will acknowledge that the committee process has delivered a better bill, but still not one that is sufficiently advanced that we can support it. We still consider that this bill, on the whole, represents a major erosion of civil liberties. We do not concede that the extreme steps taken in this bill are warranted in the current climate that we have in this country, and we will continue to oppose this bill.

There are a number of examples, issues, and provisions we could take. I will focus on just some of the more serious, and clearly the issue of examination and production orders come to the fore in that list. These are clearly a violation of a traditional, long-held right to silence, a right for people not to speak, with some exceptions. There are virtually no exemptions in this bill. People who may be required to give evidence against a suspect could be close family members, friends, spouses, civil union partners, or people living in the nature of marriage. We believe that that spousal relationship or its equivalent has an integrity—almost a sanctity—that ought to be recognised and honoured. It is unacceptable that a spouse can under this legislation be obliged to give evidence against their partner in ways that could lead to prison sentences. It is compromising a relationship that ought not to be compromised by anything we do in this House. It is unacceptable and we continue to argue strongly against that.

We are concerned, similarly, that production orders can be enforced by a whole host of State agencies other than the police, Customs Service, or indeed the Serious Fraud Office. It is instructive to look at column 2 of the schedule, and just to start ticking off the number of individuals, the various officers, and the appointees of a whole host of Government agencies that would have the power to enforce these orders. We think it goes far too wide. It will enable all sorts of abuses; it will almost invite abuse by agencies that the average New Zealanders would think have no part in investigating the privacy, or compromising the privacy, of New Zealanders.

We note that some of the offences where an examination order may be deemed appropriate include such things as intentional damage. It is not desirable that people damage property, but these charges of intentional damage are often linked to civil disobedience, to peaceful, non-violent protest. In the course of appropriate people asserting their right to protest, intentional damage is not an uncommon charge that is brought, and although it is fair that people should suffer the consequences if that is deemed to have occurred, we do not believe that in that context a person exercising their right to protest should be left vulnerable to these orders at a later date. Again, there seems to be no end point at which that liability to these examination orders would halt.

The question of a dissenting group who might be deemed by police to be an organised criminal group also opens the way for an examination order to be granted. Not wishing to comment on an issue currently before the court, but we are extremely uneasy about the apparent ease with which a group of individuals might be described or deemed to be an organised criminal group. We think that has yet to be tested by the courts, and we think it is a step too far at this point to have that as a provision of this bill. Clearly the provisions of this bill move us much closer to what could be called a surveillance State, with extensive provision for visual and for audio surveillance, for tracking people, for intercepting their communications, and for looking at their relationships, and we think that is many, many steps too far. There is simply not the need in New Zealand society for such extraordinarily invasive measures to be applied.

We are concerned that judges will be given the power to issue warrants for as yet untried surveillance techniques or mechanisms—those novel forms of surveillance perhaps not even developed yet or invented, dare I say. Is it conceivable that we might have a monitoring device disguised cunningly as a teapot, which would be acceptable at some future time? We believe that if novel forms of surveillance, of monitoring, of tracking are to be included in the arsenal of weapons, that matter should come to this Parliament. It should not be left, with all due respect, to the judiciary. It ought not to be its role to make decisions that ought to be the domain of this Parliament, particularly given the severity of some of the sentences that are considered in this bill.

The point is well made that some of the existing legislation that this bill seeks to amend, and in some cases to repeal, is sometimes 50 years old, and we know that technological advances have been extraordinary. We see technology advancing almost by the month, certainly by the year, and five decades is too long a time. That, however, does not in any way justify the provisions of this bill that would enable the use of very easily concealed surveillance devices. Tracking devices now can be very small. Devices that can intercept people’s communications equally can be very small, and can be remote from the point at which information is found. Facial recognition technology, and all of these technologies—arguably, yes, Parliament needs to have some serious thought about how we can manage the existence, the reality, of these technologies. This bill fails to do that. All it does is seek to utilise existing and, indeed, yet to be developed forms of technology in ways that we do not think are acceptable in a free and liberal democratic State.

I have made the point that we are very concerned that there is a very long list of State agencies that would be given powers under this bill, and it is important to note that very few of these State agencies have any forms of independent complaint authority. If a person has a concern with the actions of the police, for example, about whatever matter, then there is a clear line of accountability through the Independent Police Conduct Authority. Any citizen can take a complaint to that authority with a fair expectation it will be heard. Many of the State agencies listed in this bill have no such remedy for citizens who feel that their rights have been compromised or abused, and we ask the question: where are those people to go if, indeed, they feel they have been mistreated by these agencies?

One of the most offensive surveillance warrants made possible by this bill is that which will allow State agents to trespass into a private home in order to insert surveillance equipment that can spy on people’s kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms. This is beyond the pale. People have a right to expect their homes to be inviolate. The notion of these representing only very serious crime and criminal offending is not borne out by the fact that some of the provisions of this bill could be imposed on people who have been found guilty of relatively minor offences against the Arms Act. The Greens are no friends of weapons. We are on record many times as being very conservative on the availability and use of weapons and firearms, but it is possible, for example, that somebody found guilty of ownership of an air gun or a replica pistol—which are not desirable things, indeed, and the ownership of which constitutes relatively low-level offending—could be vulnerable to this legislation. It is not necessary legislation. We will oppose its progression through the House. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Search and Surveillance Bill. It has had, as we have heard, a long gestation period. I want to acknowledge the work done by the Hon Simon Power—gone but not forgotten—and the Hon Judith Collins, and the excellent work done by the Justice and Electoral Committee—

💬 Simon Bridges: I was on that.

—which gave the bill intense scrutiny. I hear a cry from my colleague in front of me, the member for Tauranga, that he contributed. He was, I believe, the deputy chairman under the Hon Chester Borrows, who was the chairman of the committee.

💬 Simon Bridges: Who’s deputy chairman now?

Good question—well may you ask. The aim of this bill is to implement the Government’s decisions on the legislative reform of search and surveillance powers, which are based on that 2007 eponymous Law Commission report. We aim to provide—and we believe that the bill does—consistency, clarity, and certainty to the law about search and surveillance, which is currently a noodle soup of statutes scattered throughout the law book. We are trying to find a balance and strike a balance, to avoid accusations like those we heard in the previous speech from David Clendon of there being a surveillance State. We see the need to strike a balance between effective law enforcement tools and protection of the rights of citizens under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

I think it is pertinent to make just a brief observation on how we will achieve this. There is a specific purpose clause, and it provides that the purpose of the bill is “to facilitate the monitoring of compliance with the law and the investigation and prosecution of offences in a manner that is consistent with human rights values”. How will it do this? By “(a) modernising the law of search, seizure, and surveillance to take into account advances in technologies and to regulate the use of those technologies; and (b) providing rules that recognise the importance of the rights and entitlements affirmed in other enactments, including the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, the Privacy Act 1993, and the Evidence Act 2006;”. Finally, it will do this by “ensuring investigative tools are effective”—this is all about our giving police the tools they need to keep our citizens safe—“and adequate for law enforcement needs.”

I commend this bill to the House.

The people of New Zealand need to ask themselves a very important question in relation to the Search and Surveillance Bill: are they willing to give up some important personal rights and freedoms in exchange for better law enforcement? Few would agree, I think, because the price is too high. People do not know that it is happening. It is up to us in this House to see that it does not. New Zealand First strongly opposes the bill. It does not protect personal rights, and the benefits of better law enforcement cannot be bought at the cost of compromising important personal rights and freedoms. Parts of the bill will start New Zealand down the road to a police State. It is no exaggeration that the bill will do that. Some accuse the previous Labour Government of wanting a nanny State. Does this National Government want to move from a nanny State towards a Nazi State? If the Government is careless about compromising personal rights and freedoms, then this House cannot be.

The purposes of the bill, for what it was intended, are right and proper, but it goes much too far. It partially abrogates some very important personal rights and freedoms. Reform of search and surveillance was needed. It consolidates and improves these powers, which are current in 69 different Acts; it removes many inconsistencies; it codifies existing case law; it clarifies powers that too often are unclear; it provides regulation for high-technology devices used in surveillance; it seeks to ensure judicial oversight where it is needed; it places issuing functions for warrants in experienced hands; and it provides for public reporting of the use of powers and other safeguards. But these are not enough, especially given the intrusive nature of some of the powers; the scope for abuse of personal privacy; the limitation on the right to silence; the scope for abuse of the use of private information and access by a great number of State agencies, not just the police—and this can be extended further by Order in Council—and the lack of sufficient and effective objection procedures.

The bill is a very large one, but there are four areas of particular concern. In my view, the most important of these is the provision for examination orders in a non-business context. Currently only the Serious Fraud Office can require a person to answer questions, compulsory examination, in serious fraud cases—a business context. But apart from the Serious Fraud Office power, the law has protected the right to silence since the abuses of the Star Chamber in the 16th century. The right to force people to talk or face prosecution is a short distance from interrogation with force. I want to remind the House about the origin of the right to silence, because it is an extremely important right that we must keep in mind here. In the Star Chamber in the 16th century, people were forced to make an oath in which they were required to swear truthfully to answer questions put before them, without knowing what they were being accused of. This created a “cruel trilemma” as it was described, and the accused were forced to choose between, on the one hand, perjury if they lied to protect themselves, contempt of court if they refused to answer, or, thirdly, betraying their natural duty of self-preservation if they were forced to speak. The rejection of the procedures of the courts of Star Chamber eventually resulted in this right to silence principle and that right has remained enshrined in the common law tradition inherited from England, and in the United States it is expressed in the Fifth Amendment to the constitution.

These rights evolved and operate in Anglo-American jurisprudence—through rights expressed, in one case, in an entrenched constitution, and, in the other, in Acts of Parliament, which unfortunately, as in this case, can easily be changed. In Australia and New Zealand, where police officers are still required at common law to inform an arrested person that they do not have to answer questions, but that whatever they say can be used in court in evidence, it is a very important right. The right is recognised in key international human rights documents, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The European Court of Human Rights has held that “the right to remain silent under police questioning and the privilege against self-incrimination are generally recognised international standards which lie at the heart of the notion of a fair procedure”. In France the French code of criminal procedure makes it compulsory that when an investigating judge hears a suspect, he must warn him that he has the right to remain silent, to make a statement, or to answer questions. In the United States the Fifth Amendment to the constitution codifies the right to silence, and following Miranda v Arizona in 1966, the Supreme Court has ruled that suspects questioned while in police custody must be told of their right to silence, including during the execution of a search warrant.

Clauses 31 and 32 of the bill would allow a senior police officer to apply to a judge for an examination order in a business context on reasonable grounds, where there is reason to believe that an offence punishable by more than 5 years’ imprisonment has been committed, and that is similar to the Serious Fraud Office right in serious fraud cases. So the police could then question a person and require answers. It is arguable whether even the Serious Fraud Office should have such a right, even with judicial overview, but it is a serious step to extend this to the police. But clauses 33 and 34 extend the police powers even further, to any non-business case that, as clause 34(a) states: “(i) involves serious or complex fraud that is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 7 years or more;” or “(ii) … an organised criminal group as defined in … the Crimes Act …”.

This opens up a wide area for police for the use of compulsory examination, and it should be opposed for that reason. It goes too far and fails to achieve the desired balance between the need for police powers to fight serious crime and the need to protect personal rights and freedoms. It is easy to lose those rights incrementally in these ways. The line may have already been crossed with the Serious Fraud Office having compulsory examination rights, but at least the Serious Fraud Office is specialised; the police are not. There are requirements in the bill for reporting, but they are not likely to be effective and we are likely to get on to a slippery slope, so that the use of these powers becomes routine. Nor is the fact that the police would have to apply to a judge for an order a sufficient limitation either.

Another area of concern is the power to be granted to enforcement officers for production orders. This is OK as far as it applies to a requirement by police for a person to produce a document in the same circumstances that apply to search warrants. If the circumstances are sufficient for a search warrant, then they should be sufficient also for the production of a document. But one concern arises in cases involving telecommunications network operators who would be able to obtain call-associated data as well as the content of the message or document itself if it is stored in the normal course of business. Clauses 69 and 70 provide for an enforcement officer having the right to apply for a search warrant to apply for a production order, and an enforcement officer is one listed in the schedule to the bill. The concern there, of course, is that there are a lot of those agencies referred to in the schedule of the bill, and more may be added by Order in Council.

So you have to ask the question: when will it stop? How many people, ultimately, will get those sorts of powers? It really just goes way too far. The freedom of the press is also an issue. Clause 130 recognises privilege for many groups of people, and the rights of journalists are protected amongst them, but—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but his time has expired.

It was a good speech, it was a learned speech, from Denis O’Rourke, and I empathised with him when he talked about the Star Chamber. Sometimes when I listen to Green members in this House I feel like I am back there. But I do want to put his mind at ease, because very much the intention of the Justice and Electoral Committee—and I was on it—in relation to this bill, the Search and Surveillance Bill, was not to increase State powers but simply to rationalise them, to modernise them, and to consolidate them. I am not going to stand here with my hand on heart with this 259-page bill—which, I agree with David Parker, is an incredibly complex and a difficult piece of work—and say that it absolutely, in every single case, does not increase any State power whatsoever. But that was certainly our intention when we came to it, and I think we tried to stay very much true to that.

I do want to just return to the Hon David Parker’s speech. I do not want to sound a dud note, but it is a bit rich to have a member from the Labour Party lecturing this side of the House about media freedoms and press freedoms when Labour’s stated policy, from Clare Curran, is to absolutely increase regulation and State sector control of the media. So if the media are listening to this—and maybe some of them are—just remember which side of this House has actually stood up for freedoms in the past and which side actually has as its stated policy to increase State control of the New Zealand media.

Turning to this bill, I am not going to take very long at all on it. I do not want to talk about the substance. Frankly, as I said, it is complex. It was some time ago that the select committee sat, but just to talk about—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Oh, you mean you’ve forgotten.

—pretty much—the select committee process, I do want to say that some can be cynical of the process, but in regard to this bill, and then the special committee that was set up to deal with the ramifications of the Supreme Court decision in Hamed, it was a first-class process. I think it proved that all parties—the Labour Party, the Green Party, ACT, with Rodney Hide, and the National Party—could come together. We could come together at short notice with some urgency and we could take advice. We applied our minds to the situation we were presented with, and I think, if I do say so myself, the committee did a first-class job.

I come back, just in summary: this bill does not intend to increase State powers; what it does intend to do is to update the law, consolidate the law, and rationalise it.

The history of this bill, the Search and Surveillance Bill, has been well traversed by various members who have contributed to it. It started with a Law Commission report. It was followed up with a bill that was introduced that, unfortunately, was not dealt with before the 2008 election. That was discharged and then a new bill was introduced, and that is the bill before us now. It was referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. I was not on that select committee at the time—I am on that select committee now—but I do want to acknowledge the elevation of the then chair of that committee to his new position as Minister for Courts. I think it is a well-deserved appointment, and I know from speaking to colleagues who were on the Justice and Electoral Committee in the last term that they too feel that it was a really well-deserved appointment, because of the role that he played to facilitate engagement of all parties around that table and to try to get bills back to the House in a better shape than the bills as introduced. I think this bill is a case in point. It is definitely a better bill than the bill that was introduced; however, there are still a few outstanding issues that we do want to raise, and they have been very able raised by my colleague, our shadow Attorney-General, Charles Chauvel.

The one good thing about the role that Chester Borrows has played, and now plays in his new position as Minister for Courts, is that he, like the new Minister of Justice, has shown he is willing to engage in a very meaningful way, even after legislation is back in the House, and also when dealing with issues relating to his portfolio as they impact on constituency MPs. I say “meaningful” because the Minister of Justice’s response to Charles Chauvel’s approach in the short time that she has been Minister and he has been the shadow Attorney-General contrasts with that of the former Minister of Justice, who actually took an entire year to respond to the letter that the former shadow Attorney-General wrote to him in, I believe, 2010. In fact, the reply was not received by our former shadow Attorney-General until after the 2011 general election, which I believe is actually quite a travesty of process. I think it is not something that should be encouraged in this Parliament, to have ministerial correspondence outstanding for such a significant period of time, especially when it deals with such a fundamental issue.

I want to repeat something that my colleague Charles Chauvel said, and that is that legislation like this cannot afford to go through Parliament by a mere one or two votes; it really does require substantial support in the House for it to have meaning. It is an important piece of legislation. I do not say that for all pieces of legislation. With search and surveillance, where we are dealing with fundamental human rights, it is important that we ensure that substantial agreement is able to be accorded throughout Parliament. I do not think that there is much between us on this particular piece of legislation.

I just want to comment on some of the issues that were raised by the member Denis O’Rourke for the New Zealand First Party, because a lot of what he said related to matters that are not actually covered in the bill. It is relevant to the bill, because the absence of any amendments to the Serious Fraud Office legislation is certainly relevant to the implications of an approach that we were adopting. Our former Attorney-General David Parker talked about how when we were in Government that was going to occur, with the Serious Fraud Office function merging with the functions of the New Zealand Police, therefore making sense that, in fact, the Serious Fraud Office provisions would stand as they were, without being amended, and allow for the police provisions to match an amended set of provisions for the police once that merger had occurred. So that is why the legislation, as originally introduced by us, did not include the Serious Fraud Office, and that is why there were some tighter restrictions around the provisions relating to police powers to obtain examination orders.

I think that the select committee has got it right for the police, but the fact that it has not got it right for the Serious Fraud Office is actually a feature of the legislation. The fact is that without the unanimous agreement of this House, we really cannot address these concerns in the Committee of the whole House. We would have to have an instruction to the Committee of the whole House that an amendment outside the scope of the bill would have to be agreed. An amendment outside the scope of the bill at this late stage in the piece I do not think would be a good process. The reason I do not think it would be a good process is that we actually have not heard specific evidence at the select committee on that particular issue. So perhaps I could just simply restate again the suggestion that has come from our two members who have spoken previously on the bill that perhaps this is an issue that the Minister responsible for the Serious Fraud Office could take on board.

We acknowledge that the Minister of Justice has reported to us that the Serious Fraud Office will be requested to provide in its annual report to Parliament the number of examination orders made in the period covered by the report, and the number of persons charged in criminal proceedings where the collection of evidential material relevant to those proceedings was significantly assisted by an examination conducted under an examination order in the period covered by the report. They are good measures, but I think the Minister could take on board the need to go back and reflect on whether this is an area where there could be some further improvement. I think you have heard indicated on this side of the House that we certainly would be willing—and I think other parties would be willing too—to facilitate the passage of legislation actually bringing the powers of the Serious Fraud Office into the same context or the same arrangements as provided for police in the Search and Surveillance Bill.

I just want to also comment on the Serious Fraud Office’s view on why it should not be covered by this bill, when it was raised with the previous Minister of Justice, Simon Power. I think I would like to put that on the record, because I am a little bit concerned that its view is a little bit self-serving. This is a quote from a letter of 25 November, which was received on 28 November and signed out by the then Minister of Justice, the Hon Simon Power, who was the Minister of Justice when it was sent but not when it was received: “The SFO’s view is that their powers were enacted in the SFO Act with agreement by both sides of the House 20 years ago, and have operated with relatively little controversy since. Accordingly, the SFO does not consider that an ad hoc change to one very specific provision in its Act is desirable and could potentially have an adverse impact on the effectiveness of its wider operations. Coming at a time when the SFO is seeking to enhance its responsiveness to serious financial crime, the Minister responsible for the SFO and the Director of the SFO consider any proposal to change its powers would be more appropriately achieved as part of a more comprehensive policy development process in relation to the SFO itself.”

I think that that does perhaps give us a way forward, and I do encourage the Minister now responsible for the Serious Fraud Office to take on board the recommendation, certainly from many members of this House, to have some limits placed on the powers of the Serious Fraud Office. I do think that to rely on the facts that it was enacted 20 years ago, when our thinking on some of the human rights issues may not have been as advanced as it is today, and that it has operated with relatively little controversy since, shows that it forgot to notice the controversy surrounding its own use of its powers with the National Business Review, as my colleague has pointed out.

The last thing I just want to mention very quickly is that this does make an important point in relation to press freedom. We rely on the media being able to report on things that need to be brought to the public’s attention. I know that in the financial markets area this is absolutely vital, and I would not want to think that people would not bring things to the media’s attention—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but her time has expired.

I am pleased to speak to the second reading of the Search and Surveillance Bill. I am a new member on the Justice and Electoral Committee. I know it was a very complicated bill and the previous committee did an excellent job. I would like to wish the new Minister of Justice, Judith Collins, well in her role, and also the previous chairman of the committee, Chester Borrows, in his new role as Minister for Courts.

This legislation updates old powers and old law—over 50 years old—which well and truly needed to be done. It is quite timely that it will be enacted. Importantly, there are new powers, but they are balanced by safeguards that protect human rights, such as requiring independent authorisation before exercising search powers. Enforcement officers must justify the reason for search powers to be used, and those officers must be neutral. There are also detailed reporting requirements for all concerned—that is, the issuing officer and the chief executive of the relevant agency in Parliament. Importantly, the Act will be reviewed in 2016 and amendments can be made at that stage. And, importantly, this bill does not impact on New Zealanders under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

There are other safeguards, which we can debate in the House when we have the Committee stage. I certainly commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the Search and Surveillance Bill. As the three previous speakers on the Labour side of the House have mentioned, this bill has had a long gestation period. It began under a Labour Government in 2008, sparked by the Law Commission report in 2007. On this side of the House we still support the continuing reform of the law in this area around search and surveillance, because we think that the legislation has become outdated. But in its current form we will not be supporting this bill to the next stage, because we have some substantial concerns around three areas, which have already been highlighted by Charles Chauvel, David Parker, and Lianne Dalziel.

I will be focusing, because of my past, on the press freedom aspects of our concerns. We would like to see some specific provisions in this bill inserted to protect the freedom of the press and the confidentiality of their sources.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: This member caused a lot of this bill.

I know Mr Williamson would like that too, from a number of the stories he may have fed to the media that I was aware of when I was a journalist, so I am sure that Mr Williamson may want to keep his anonymity in that respect.

Over time our minority report put forward our concerns, and also letters that David Parker sent to the Minister in the previous term of Government laid out our concerns about this bill. We are seeking three main amendments, which relate to both examination and production orders. The first, of course, as I have already spoken about, is that the media should be exempted from examination and production orders. As Lianne Dalziel has mentioned, there are Serious Fraud Office processes for examination and production. We believe that these should also be the same as for the police, and that the threshold for the police to make use of the examination and production orders should be lowered.

In terms of media freedom, I think it is a good thing that a High Court judge will now be involved to deal with objections around the production and examination order applications against the media. I know this was a live issue, certainly, in my time. I think there was suspicion that the police may come knocking on our door at Television New Zealand (TVNZ) for some tapes. I cannot remember the specific issue, and someone else in the House may be a bit more learned in the legal area, but we understood that the police could not serve a search warrant in Parliament Buildings, so very quickly we removed the tapes from our Lambton Quay office and put them into a safe cupboard in our press gallery office to make sure that the police—I do not know whether they are still there. They may be; someone may have forgotten about them. But this is certainly a live issue that the media takes very seriously at the moment.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Obstruction of justice.

Maybe the Minister Anne Tolley is going to be sending the police around now, just to see if they are there. Maybe it was pertaining to National Party issues, so maybe, if they are back at the TVNZ office on Lambton Quay—they were not able to get their hands on the tapes at that time.

We also believe that there should be some better protection for material that may have been seized under these orders but is still in the possession of the police, which may be in dispute. We believe that under the current legislation there are not enough protections around in that department, but we are hopeful that there is going to be a Supplementary Order Paper at some stage, and we are expecting one, where some changes may be made in that respect to make sure that there are better protections for information, tapes, or documents that may have been seized from the media but are still in dispute.

As we all probably know around this place, the protection of the media’s sources and material is a major pillar of journalism, and to risk that is a serious risk to the level of freedom of the press at the moment, so we are on the side of the media, and we have spoken to many of them who want to make sure that in this legislation there are protections in place for them to make sure their sources remain anonymous.

This is important legislation and we do believe that some of the measures in it are worthy of our making sure they are passed, but because of the three areas of concern that we have at the moment, we are not willing to support it unless some serious changes and significant changes are made. So we are hopeful that that will be done. I think we have had some signals from the Minister of Justice that those changes will be made. We still wait to see the shape of those, but we are hopeful that because we do not think there is a huge chasm between our concerns and the ability—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member; his time has expired.

The Greens oppose this bill. This bill is downright excessive. Media freedom is essential, as is a citizen’s right to silence, and a reasonable expectation of privacy. Clause 108 allows the forensic copying of material from personal computers of those who are not actually accused of a crime. The bill lacks controls over privacy of material beyond those specified in a search warrant. Clause 119 allows use of other material, and this range of material can be found anywhere on a computer, not necessarily the material that is the subject of that search warrant. And, worse, clause 101(4)(k) allows hacking by police.

Under the Operation Eight situation that was under another bill, but with similar types of powers, there were innocent people who had their computers confiscated for many, many months. Transferring that into this situation, the other material on that computer that was totally irrelevant—if any was relevant to the issue at stake there—would be held by the police and could be looked at in a way that is a total invasion of privacy. Not only this, but the bill allows very broad powers to require the spouses, friends, and colleagues of a suspect to answer questions or produce documents, or maybe face a term of imprisonment if they decide not to cooperate.

My own experiences in advocacy in non-governmental organisation association and networking make me very alarmed at the suggested provisions. Some spurious accusation or politically motivated investigation could have my computer, or my colleagues’ computer, hacked, or my friends, a girlfriend, and their friends quizzed. And not only this—

💬 Scott Simpson: What’s her name?

Too many. Not only this, but these production orders can be enforced by a range of State agencies other than the police. So would it be the Ministry of Economic Development looking out for Solid Energy because of the Happy Valley protesters, or maybe Scion or Plant and Food Research, when direct action has been used to point out significant environmental shortcomings, or even significant non-compliance in those organisations, that risks New Zealand’s biosecurity and, in fact, international reputation? My colleague who was here earlier, Catherine Delahunty, was under surveillance from the age of 14 as a student activist, by the SIS. This bill would allow that sort of thing to happen under police situations. This bill brings the scenario into the power of the police and other unrelated State agencies.

I have been accused in this House of being an ecoterrorist—a term that should never be used in this House. Terrorism relates to harm, physical injury, and/or even death. The issues that I was involved with were absolutely genuine, and I have faced no charge, and nor has my colleague been charged. But because of the activities, we could come under this sort of bill. There are many in the non-governmental organisation world who are absolutely concerned for New Zealand who would come under this. The Greens will oppose this bill.

It is my privilege to stand and support the second reading of the Search and Surveillance Bill. Briefly, I would like to touch upon a point that was raised during the select committee process. It was to be ensured that the cultural and religious beliefs of the person being searched be adequately respected and protected. Thus, clause 120(1A) was inserted to require all officials to take care of sensitive issues during rub-down searches and strip-searches. This was the point that I wanted to touch on during this contribution. I commend this bill to the House.