Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill.

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

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

It will be very hard for many of us to forget the tragic events of 15 March 2019 and the terrorist attack on the two mosques in Christchurch. On that day, a terrorist attack ended 51 lives and directly harmed many more survivors and witnesses. The impact of this attack on New Zealand communities, and in particular on our Muslim community, is immense, and we want to do everything that we can to prevent this from happening again.

The nature of terrorism has been changing. We are seeing more lone actors and small groups rather than larger organised terrorist groups, and this is a trend within New Zealand and overseas. We need to ensure that our laws can respond to that changing trend. Our counter-terrorism legislation, particularly the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002, was developed in response to international experience, such as the 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in the United States, and focuses on managing prominent terrorist groups. It therefore does not allow us to adequately respond to the range of terrorist activity that we see now. The New Zealand Government coordinates counter-terrorism activities to protect the safety, the rights, and the freedoms of New Zealanders, and our agencies need up-to-date legislation and a legislative framework to give them a mandate to better identify threats and disrupt events before they occur.

The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill strengthens New Zealand’s counter-terrorism legislative framework to better prevent and respond to terrorism and provides law enforcement agencies with clear legal authority to disrupt terrorism and terrorist-related activity. The amendments in the bill balance enhancing our ability to prevent, to disrupt, and to respond to terrorism to protect public safety with the individual rights and freedoms recognised in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

In response to the tragic events of March 15, the New Zealand Government commissioned a royal commission of inquiry into the terrorist attack to investigate all aspects of that attack. The royal commission produced recommendations to the Government to make changes across the system to protect the lives and wellbeing of those who make New Zealand their home. The royal commission highlighted the importance of regulatory stewardship and ensuring that our legislation remains fit for purpose. Recommendation 18 of the royal commission’s report was for the New Zealand Government to review all legislation related to the counter-terrorism effort to ensure it is current and enables public sector agencies to operate effectively. The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill is the first step in implementing recommendation 18 of the royal commission’s report.

The royal commission also highlighted the need to consider creating offences which relate to the preparatory behaviour of a terrorist before they attempt a terrorist act. Overseas jurisdictions, including Australia and the United Kingdom, have developed offences that are precursor in nature, but this is currently the gap in our legislation. The bill amends the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019 and creates offences in the Terrorism Suppression Act that may be broadly described as precursory in nature, including an offence of planning or preparing for a terrorist act. The bill brings New Zealand into line with the way that terrorism is criminalised in overseas jurisdiction with similar legal systems and enhances our ability to meet our international obligations.

If I can now take an opportunity to set out the key features of the bill. The definition of a terrorist act is the cornerstone of New Zealand’s counter-terrorism legislation, and it is important that it is clear and appropriately framed. Although there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism, our current definition aligns with definitions used in jurisdictions with similar legal systems to New Zealand and with academic commentary. However, our agencies identified aspects of the current wording that may present unintended difficulties in using it. The bill makes minor changes to that definition to ensure that it is clearer. The definition is made up of three key elements. It specifies the motivation required for a terrorist act—the person must intend to impact others—and what outcome they must be intending to achieve. The definition also has an avoidance of doubt clause. The bill amends the definition to modernise, to provide clarity, and to ensure that the threshold is set at the appropriate level.

In New Zealand, we don’t currently specifically criminalise the planning or preparation of a terrorist act. This is a gap that was identified by the royal commission as reducing our ability to intervene at the planning stage to prevent any harm from occurring. Jurisdictions similar to New Zealand—as I mentioned before, the likes of the United Kingdom and Australia—criminalise this type of behaviour, and I believe that New Zealand needs to take this step too.

The bill also introduces a new offence of planning or preparation for a terrorist act, and this offence will ensure that making plans for a terrorist act is specifically criminalised in New Zealand. The new offence will give police the opportunity to effectively intervene when the person or a group is planning or making preparations to carry out a terrorist act. The offence will not reach further than is necessary, because it requires proof that the preparatory behaviours were done with the intent to carry out a terrorist act, whether that be a few hours or a few months away. I believe that in order to ensure that this offence enables early intervention, police also need the ability to use warrantless powers of search or surveillance where this is necessary. Terrorist preparations may quickly escalate into a terrorist attack, particularly where a terrorist wants to seize an opportune moment, so police must be able to intervene and stop this from happening.

The amendments to the terrorism financing offence framework update that framework to cover the changing nature of terrorism. The framework currently only criminalises providing financial support for terrorism. However, international experience has shown that terrorists have relied on a range of both financial and non-financial support to carry out their terrorist attacks. The bill criminalises material support provided to terrorist persons or groups, and the support that is criminalised includes things like offering advice, providing goods and services, and financial assistance. Currently, a person can be convicted of this offence if they intend for the support to be used to support or facilitate a terrorist act or if they know that it will be. The bill also introduces an alternative mental element of recklessness to the offence. Similar jurisdictions—including Australia and the United Kingdom, again—have also taken this approach. This means that a person who didn’t explicitly know that the material support being provided would be used to support a terrorist act can now be convicted of this offence if they perceived the risk that the support may be used to support a terrorist act and provided it anyway.

The bill also criminalises participating in weapons or combat training to prepare for a terrorist act or to enhance the ability of a person or a group to carry out a terrorist attack, and I consider that a separate offence ensures that receiving or providing of weapons or combat training will be clearly denounced as criminal conduct. Currently, it is not a crime to travel to or from or via New Zealand with the intention to carry out a terrorist activity. New Zealand’s existing mechanisms to prevent travel, such as cancelling passports, are not responsive and are not suitable in all cases. Because of this, police cannot effectively intervene to prevent a person from travelling for terrorism purposes. Having a specific terrorist travel offence makes it clear that New Zealand considers this behaviour as both harmful and criminal.

Control orders are court-imposed civil orders, and that places requirements—for example, for monitoring and restrictions on association—on individuals who continue to pose a real and public safety risk. Currently, the control order regime is only available for individuals who have engaged in terrorist activities overseas. This bill extends the control orders regime to apply to individuals who have completed a prison sentence for a terrorism-related offence here in New Zealand. The bill also contains amendments that improve the workability of the Terrorism Suppression Act. Although these minor amendments do not make a substantive change to existing law, they will provide clarity and improve coherence and consistency with the Terrorism Suppression Act.

I am confident that this bill will make a valuable contribution to New Zealand’s counter-terrorism effort. The bill is the first step in implementing the royal commission’s recommendation to review all legislation related to our counter-terrorism effort. The bill strengthens New Zealand’s counter-terrorism legislation to enable us to better prevent and respond to terrorist efforts. I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a call on this, the first reading of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill, that will be going to the Justice Committee. I don’t sit on that committee, but I’ll be watching the passage of this bill with interest. I have had a chance to read the bill tonight. It looks comprehensive. I’ll talk to some of the parts of the bill later on.

But I just wanted to state and put on the record for the House that the National Party will, of course, support this bill through first reading and to select committee. It’s important that we do that, because I think that in relation to matters of our national security, we do have a long and proud history in this House of the two major parties recognising that it’s incumbent upon this Parliament to take action to make sure that our population is kept as safe as possible, especially from external threats. That is why we’ll be working with the Labour Party and the other parties on the select committee to try and make this the best possible bill.

I’d like to go back to 2014, when I was chairing the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. The Prime Minister at the time, the Rt Hon John Key, asked me to ask the committee to pass the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill. It was a bill that we had to pass through in a truncated time frame because of information that had been received by SIS and GCSB that there was an imminent threat to Kiwis and the country. So I worked very closely, the committee worked very closely—in particular, I want to acknowledge the right honourable Phil Goff and David Shearer, who were both Labour Party members on the committee at that time, and there was a genuine bipartisan approach to making sure that that was the best possible piece of legislation that came back to this House and was then passed. I would hope that the Justice Committee will adopt and take the same attitude and the same approach in their work on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill.

I think that—in fact, I know that—collectively, as a country, we were left in a state of paralysis and shock for moments on hearing about the terrible terror attack in Christchurch. It was really a time for us as a nation where we lost part of our innocence, because up until that point, me included, probably many of us thought that we’d never have to face a terror attack on our soil, and a terror attack that could come from anywhere, from any corrupted ideology, as we witnessed and were confronted with in Christchurch.

The thing that I like about this bill—one of the things that I really like about this bill—is the fact that they’ve covered off, and the Minister has covered off, through clause 10, the ability to shut down financing for terror networks. This is an area that is not always focused on. We’re always very focused on human intelligence, surveillance, and interventions through warrants, physical interventions, when, in actual fact, one of the major disruptors and a real disruptor that we should not ignore is that of financing, because many of these organised terrorist cells rely on a steady stream of finance to be able to plan and execute a terror attack. So I’m pleased to see that there is a focus on finance in this bill.

The other point that the Minister raised, and I agree with, is that often a country’s security services, whether it be the GCSB or the SIS—and I want to acknowledge both of those services and the leadership within them; they are world class. They are services that, as a country, we have come to rely on and trust. And there has to be a high level of trust that’s given because they’re dealing with serious matters around individual rights and privacy. They are given a big licence. With that licence comes accountability and responsibility, and I think that everyone in this House, or certainly myself, acknowledges the fact that we have got a world-class intelligence service in both our SIS and our GCSB.

These types of bills are critically important in terms of making sure that people’s rights, as much as possible, are protected. Yes, it’s incumbent upon all of us in this House to make sure that New Zealanders are protected from external threats, but it’s also important that, as far as possible, we protect individuals’ rights around privacy. Those will often be a lot of the debates and the discussions that will happen throughout the select committee process.

The other point that I just wanted to address quickly is the point that the Minister raised around the police being able to respond quickly. We have seen a major change in the way these terror networks and often individuals—and we were a victim of this ourselves in this country—operate. You may get some terrorist cells that operate with a very, very high degree of sophistication. We saw the Twin Towers as a clear example of that, where you had individuals that were planted in the States years before, that went through genuine commercial pilot training, were accepted in the communities and the societies that they lived in, and then they flew commercial airliners into the Twin Towers—a lot of finance, highly organised, and a very sophisticated attack that rocked the entire world. But then you’ll come back to a very basic terror attack where it might quite simply be an individual that is completely corrupted with an ideology, that gets in a truck and drives into a crowd of people.

So the one thing that the agencies that are tasked to protect us—and here in New Zealand it’s the police, it’s our customs, it’s our SIS, it’s our GCSB. The one thing that we can give them is the ability to be flexible and to be able to move quickly, and if they come across information or they need to respond—because I can tell you now that the person planning a terror attack, or a terrorist cell that is active, is not restricted. They don’t have to be compliant with regulations. So it’s actually really important that we give our police the ability to be able to respond and act quickly if a sudden threat becomes apparent to them, and there seems to be some effort in this bill to be able to do that.

So I am pleased to be able to stand in support of this bill. We will be watching very carefully as it makes its way through the select committee process, in terms of any changes that need to be made. But in terms of national security, the National Party feel very strongly that it is a responsible position to support this bill through the first reading and to the Justice Committee for select committee process. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I feel very privileged to rise to speak on this very important bill. Before I do so, I’d like to thank the Hon Mark Mitchell for his collaborative and positive view. I, too, would like to start my speech by remembering and acknowledging the 51 shuhada who lost their lives in the March 15 Christchurch terrorist attacks.

Today, I’m not only speaking to you and to the House as a member of Parliament, but also as a Muslim who sat there in horror and grief. I felt any sense of security I had in our country disappear on that fateful day. In our attempt to debate the counter-terrorism legislation bill today, we must not forget to remember why this bill is being introduced into the House in the first place. The Minister went into details, I am not going to go into that, but the royal commission of inquiry into the terrorist attacks on Christchurch clearly came up with the 44 recommendations, which this Government proudly accepted and agreed, in principle, to implement—particularly number 18, which recommended our Government review legislation related to the counter-terrorism efforts, including the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002 and the Intelligence Security Act 2017.

While the report did not find the attacks could have been stopped or prevented, it was outlined that there was a disproportionate amount of surveillance to minority groups, specifically to Muslims. Just as the report has recommended, our legislation needs to adapt and reflect the changing nature of terrorism. For far too long, terrorism has been unfairly coupled with Islam and Muslims. This was the first time myself and many others heard terrorism finally being used to describe the lone wolf or the white terrorists, white supremacist terrorists. We have watched overseas the rise of white supremacy and the disregard, the subsequent disregard, of the terror and the fear that their actions have caused to so many communities. We need to recognise the surge of lone actors rather than the terrorist groups, and our laws need to respond to that in order to enable public sector agencies to operate effectively.

To highlight this, I want to share with you a mini story of what I have experienced a few years ago. While I agree with the Hon Mark Mitchell on the good work that the agencies have done, but also I’ve really—while I was active in my community, as a leader in the refugee and the Muslim communities, I was approached several times by NZSIS and was spoken to over coffee and asking for collaboration with me to find out more about the internal state of my local Muslim community. At that time, this really made me feel uncomfortable and caused me to decline and question the intention behind it. Looking back now, I see that clearly it was an inefficient use of their time. This bill asks us to build the clarity for public agencies, mandating them to undertake the counterterrorism operations, to focus on identifying and dealing with the real threats.

In the last few months, I had the privilege of accompanying Minister Little and Minister Radhakrishnan, and we conducted over 30 hui around the country. We heard from the Muslim youths, men, women, and panethnic and pan-faith communities who posed a common question: what will the Government do to make us feel safe? And today, I stand here and I remember those faces and words.

We have heard a lot of cynicism about the bill in the media—that it is not going to do what it is intended for. These sentiments are misplaced and do not reflect the voices of the community that were consulted in those huis. So, in fact, it was an unfortunate disregard of those who suffered from the terror attacks. New Zealand should be a place where all people feel that they can openly express their identities, culture, and beliefs, and to feel valued and accepted and safe, without fear of violence. Our laws should act to ensure just that. With that, I highly commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

I rise as a member of the Justice Committee to commend this bill to the House and in the hope that I, as a member of the Justice Committee, will get the opportunity to work on and investigate what is a really important bill. This bill is only a piece of the puzzle. As my colleague has just said—44 recommendations. This Government has wholeheartedly and openheartedly accepted our responsibility to action those in principle. This is our start. This is our first pou in the ground.

I was a mum of an eight-month-old baby when the Twin Towers went down and when the world rocked to that terrorism. I remember sitting in front of the television with my eight-month-old on my knee and thinking that the world was ending. We came home a couple of years later to New Zealand. We came home having watched the continuation of a pattern of organised large-scale terrorism across the world, including the return of terrorism to London. It was a relief to get here. I remember my disbelief, therefore, on that sunny Friday afternoon on 15 March, driving home through Maunu in Whangārei, switching on the radio and hearing, while my children were in the back of the car, there had been this appalling shooting of numerous people in a mosque while they sat and prayed.

I thought this must be a family violence murder. My only explanation was this must be one of those appalling femicides of which we have far too many in this country—even one would be too many but we have appalling rates. I thought this was some estranged man taking out his rage on his ex-partner and his children and their community. I could not conceive that what we had faced, what the world was facing, had finally come home to little New Zealand. But so it was. And it is, I think, indicative of what we so often—and Mr Mitchell across the House said we lost our innocence that day. But listening to my colleague Mr Omer, I am reminded that others had had their innocence stripped earlier. And those of us who were able to stand in our white privilege had been comforted and supported and we had not noticed, perhaps sufficiently, what was going on in the world: that it is not just large organisations, it is the lone wolf—although I’m not sure why we say “the lone wolf”; the lone rat.

This bill takes the formulation of terrorism as we understood it following 9/11, when it was aimed at those large organisations, and it looks to that lone rat offender. I particularly want to pick out one example, because I think there has been some concern at times expressed that there is no need for some of this legislation and, particularly, the new offence of preparation. So I just want to take us to section 72 of the Crimes Act, because it is necessary that we have clause 9 inserting new section 6B, which is the new offence of preparing to commit a terrorist offence. That is not covered by the Crimes Act section 72. The Crimes Act section 72 covers attempts—and attempts are a very, very limited class of activity. They are immediate and proximate to the act or the actual offence. And they are explicitly not only in preparation for the commission of the offence and too remote to constitute an attempt.

This bill is necessary. I commend it to the House. I hope it will become an Act. I look forward to the process of select committee investigation. Sadly, I regret that it is necessary but I look forward to us creating a society that is more aware of our lone problems and that brings us together in a more cohesive, tolerant society that I believe New Zealanders want and deserve. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Point of order, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I hope you’ll give me some latitude. I didn’t want to interrupt the speaker’s speech, but I just wanted to address one issue that she raised. I may have taken it out of context, I’m not sure, but she referred—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! This is not strictly a point of order, unless the member can—

Well, it’s a point of order in the sense I’m just trying to put some context around it, Madam Speaker. The speaker referred to—I felt that she was reflecting back that I’d spoken about white privilege and—

I’m sorry, the member will resume his seat. That is not a point of order. Thank you. That is a debateable motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to begin by acknowledging the context that has been raised again and again in support of passing this legislation, which is the suffering of the victims of the Christchurch terror attack from almost two and a half years ago now. So we do stand here in a nation where 51 innocent lives were lost in our Muslim community, targeted because they were seen as being different, targeted because of their faith, and targeted by a white supremacist far-right nationalist terrorist. And, of course, the suffering of their family members, those that were injured, and the mental harm that went with that. So I want to centre that harm, but I also want to say, and recall, that the institutions that failed those victims that day are yet to be reformed.

So we stand here in a context where institutions that we have entrusted to keep our communities safe, all of our communities safe, failed that day. There’s been a royal commission inquiry. That royal commission came back with damning findings of prejudice in our national security and intelligence agencies, in our police force and—we have to call a spade a spade—essentially, we saw that racism existed in those institutions. We know now, some two and a half years on, that nothing has changed within the institutions that we are entrusting with the administration of the powers being sought to be granted by this bill.

We know, and I attended the select committee—the oversight committee for the SIS latest hearings that looked specifically at the changes that were made in reaction to the royal commission findings—and found, breathlessly shocked, that there still remains not a single white supremacist or far-right nationalist group or person added to their lists as a terror threat other than the Christchurch terrorist. So it seems we are broadening the powers given to an institution that will not see a white-nationalist terrorist as a threat unless he has gone on a rampage, killed dozens of people, gone to court, been convicted, sentenced to life, and, then, they will add him to their list.

To broaden the powers granted to that institution and the definition of what we call terror before we can be assured that that institution is not still riddled with the kind of prejudice that allowed the March 15th attack to happen and go unchecked is callous. The Green Party does not support the use of a tragedy like the March 15th terror attack to broaden the powers of a national security agency that sees, and continues to see, the Muslim community, Māori, and other communities of colour as terror threats while it leaves white-nationalist threats unchecked. We do not support legislation that broadens the power of the police force to hold people after they’ve served sentences, as this legislation does with the control orders regime, which just a month ago was found to be targeting Māori children by photographing them without an ounce of evidence or a reasonable belief that they’re involved in any crime at all.

We were assured—and this was really important to us last term in the terror legislation—this wouldn’t happen once the full review happened, and it has happened. It’s here in this bill. We do not support importation of the definition of terror or terrorism related crimes from foreign jurisdictions where protesters and dissidents may be targeted through that kind of law. We see, again, in this legislation that control orders may be applied to people returning to New Zealand after having served a sentence of imprisonment or having been convicted of terrorism related crimes overseas. Now, we know that there are many jurisdictions overseas where terror is defined as dissidency, terror is defined as belonging to a religious minority group—as it might be in my home country of Iran; the teachings of the Baha’i faith might be seen in that light.

We know that New Zealanders may travel to Hong Kong to protest the Draconian application of laws and changes in law by the Chinese Government in their home State, and they may be seen as terrorists. We also know that there are jurisdictions overseas where, even if the definition of terror accords with ours, that due process would not apply, that convictions may be entirely unsafe. And I want to remember as well—because the memory of the 9/11 attacks has been invoked in this House tonight and I stand here as a Middle Eastern woman—that this type of legislation, these broadening of powers for tyrannical institutions that operate with prejudice have resulted before. It happened here in New Zealand after 9/11. We pandered to the George Bush era war on terror rhetoric and we held an asylum seeker without charge or trial for some two years when the SIS wouldn’t release information pursuant to which he was held. That was Ahmed Zaoui. That was under the jurisdiction of a very popular, very powerful Labour Party Prime Minister.

So we fear for our communities. It was Māori that raised the voices of the Muslim community and our migrants of colour after the Christchurch terror attacks and said, “Actually, this has happened here before. White supremacy does exist here.” That is what we need to address. Until we have the kind of reform that we need in our institutions, in the police force, and in the SIS that actually assure us that our communities are not going to be targeted, that our rights are not going to be undermined, this type of legislation has no place in this House. So, with regret, the Green Party will not be supporting this legislation. We want our communities to be safe. We stand against violence, against terror, but this is not the way to go about it, because we do not trust the prejudice riddled institutions that are getting this Draconian power today.

I stand before you today as the member for the ACT Party supporting this piece of legislation, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill, through its first reading. We do have some reservations, but we believe that these can be addressed through the select committee process. Legislation of this nature needs to be analysed with the utmost care. Very few pieces of legislation have such powers to suspend people’s liberties as our terrorist-suppression legislation does. And, while ACT believes that such legislation is justified, the onus is firmly on us elected lawmakers to make sure that the problem the legislation is seeking to solve is well defined, that the provisions are justified, and that we are also balancing infringements on liberty with the needs of suppressing the risks of potential terror acts.

To that end, we continue to trust in a robust and consultative process of lawmaking and that it can be undertaken here by allowing the full time to be set aside for the select committee to hear and consider submissions. One would expect that there are a number of non-terrorist groups who may feel compelled to submit on this bill with concerns of being unduly caught up in what they would deem as innocent activities. While we work through how to upgrade our terrorism laws, we must ensure that we do not do so at the expense of civil liberties.

ACT recognises that the threat of terrorism is more complex than it was in 2002, when the Terrorism Suppression Bill was first introduced, and much of this bill provides some sensible updates to this legislation; hence, we are supporting it. However, we do have several reservations, as mentioned before. Our primary reservations relate to the seriousness of some of the provisions that are contained in the bill and ensuring that the powers we are enacting are used well. For example, as mentioned before, there are suggested suppression orders which allow for wide-ranging restrictions on the liberty of certain persons. There are also provisions allowing warrantless searches for preparatory offences. We would, by default, also allow for wider and less accountable searches. And, by making changes to surveillance laws, we would be allowing surveillance for lesser offences than what is already the status quo. If we change the definition of “terrorist act”, we could potentially lower the standard that must be passed that authorises those search and surveillance powers. There are good justifications made by officials in relation to these powers, but they are of concern simply by the nature of what they do. All lawmakers should take an interest in law that seeks to widen the power of the State and ensure that it is being used well.

The risk is always that if provisions are not used well or are ill defined, people who are not intended to be affected by these provisions end up being harmed by them. I well note, for example, the concerns that have been raised around the actions of our security services in the past towards the Islamic community—similarly, concerns from Māori communities who have in the past felt unduly targeted. In my own career, I have been involved in a community that has been subject to undue vilification following the unconscionable actions of one person. I have already been contacted by people involved in legal sports, such as recreational firearms use, who are worried that the provisions of this bill could target them. We need to have a fulsome debate that addresses concerns such as these and clearly defines the types of problems this bill is seeking to solve. We have to make sure that we get this right.

Now for the bits that we think need work and why. Making it an offence for web-based fund-raising tools could mean that foreign terrorist fighters or lone actors are more likely to be captured. The suggested new laws around material support would include transportation, accommodation, and stockpiling of resources. We join the concerns that the current frameworks are not satisfactory but add that a robust select committee debate needs to be had to ensure that there isn’t the unintended capture of an innocent person framed as being a potential or perceived terrorist for their normal activities.

This bill also wants to criminalise the planning or preparation of a terrorist act. In order to facilitate proving this, there is a provision to apply warrantless powers of entry and of search and surveillance. We can see the obvious benefits of being able to disrupt terrorism-related activity in this way, but we do believe the standard that currently needs to be met will be lowered, and this is of concern to us. The lowered standard could be abused by officials to the detriment of the innocent. Yes, we recognise that there are some safeguards against misuse of a warrantless search, including it being used when a serious or imminent threat is identified, and we also recognise that this power could only be exercised when a warrant could not have been readily obtained. But this change does have human rights implications, and there are concerns the law could be abused. But, again, we believe that this can be addressed through the select committee process.

We’re looking forward to participating in the debate, ascertaining what the new definition of a terrorist act would, could, or should be. Bandied around are descriptions of fear or intimidation. We believe that would set a much lower standard and unjustly capture unintended persons. We will argue that the standards need to be kept high, and we believe that the current descriptor of terror does that. There are powers proposed in this bill to cancel passports and travel documents. Our view is that this may not enable intervention in some cases—for example, where a person holds a dual or foreign passport. We must also consider that if we prevent travel of a suspected terrorist, are we going to be creating a domestic security issue? Nevertheless, the offence would enable police to prosecute individuals and manage their risk according to the outcome of that prosecution, and we’re interested in the views of the community here.

Now that I’ve outlined some reservations, I would like to speak to the elements within the bill that we do agree with. We support the clearer wording around the financing of terrorism. It allows for prosecution for earlier intentions prior to an act of terror being commissioned. It also criminalises travelling to and from New Zealand for the purpose of supporting terrorism. While we do have some existing laws that capture some of the behaviour leading up to a terrorist event, we note that there is currently no specific offence in New Zealand law for travelling here to undertake terrorist activities. The reality is that people travelling to fight for terrorism purposes is a global problem and one that will not go away even with restricted travel being experienced right now. Eventually, people will be on the move once borders begin reopening around the world, and it would be prudent to prepare this legislation on terrorist financing before it does. This all modernises the legislation that we currently have, and it will better reflect as well as manage the risks that we are facing today.

Therefore, with so many questions but a knowledge of the need to update the 2002 Act, we support this bill through the first reading and into the select committee stage. In doing so, we request that full time be allocated to allow submissions from all interested parties to take place in a manner that is not rushed but thoughtfully contemplated. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to take a short call in relation to this bill, which is a very important bill, but also one that is clearly borne from tragedy. I do want to acknowledge the 51 shuhada who were lost on 15 March 2019 but also those who are injured and for ever changed, both physically as well as emotionally. I want to acknowledge their whānau and all those who continue to be affected by the loss.

Ko tō tātou kāinga tēnei is a response and report to the royal commission of inquiry terms of reference in to the terrorist attacks, and the meaning of that is “this is our home”. The purpose, as the report itself said: “The country needed to know what had happened, and why, and what should be done to reduce the risk of future attacks.”

I want to speak very briefly to a few parts of this bill which respond in part to recommendation 18 of that report—firstly, the clarifying of the definition of “terrorism” or a “terrorist act”. The new definition proposed by this bill is one that advances an ideological, political, or religious cause carried out to induce fear in a population. So this is rather than using language of “terror in a civilian population”. This is important because using “terror” as part of the definition itself is recursive or circular.

When we look to other jurisdictions, what we see is more akin to what’s been proposed in this bill. For example, in Australia, they define in part a terrorist act as “intimidating the public or a section of the public”; the word “intimidating” is used. The UK also includes the word “intimidates” in its definition. In the US they use language of “intimidate or coerce”. So this will help our law become more clear.

The creation of a new offence to criminalise planning or preparation for a terrorist attack is another element of the bill. This remedies a gap in the law that was referred to in the case of R v S. Now, a few people here have mentioned or made the argument, not tonight but in statements before this debate, that section 175 of the Crimes Act already in part addresses this issue. Section 175 is about conspiracy to commit murder, and I suspect that most of us in this room would agree where actions are planned and prepared for that are similar to those carried out on March 15, that signifies something significantly more than murder. There is an intent to induce terror and the purpose of advancing an ideology or political or religious cause. I am a member of the Justice Committee so I won’t take up more of the House’s time tonight. I am looking forward to receiving some submissions as part of that committee. I commend the bill to the House.

Rawiri Waititi—five-minute call.

Oh, what?! Tēnei te mihi atu ki a tātou i tēnei pō. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. We acknowledge that the impetus of this bill was based on the horrific terrorist attack on the Muslim communities in Christchurch on 15 March 2019, and our aroha and solidarity remains with our Muslim whānau always. However, despite this context, we strongly oppose this bill, which seeks to make our already flawed counter-terrorism legislative framework even worse. It would widen the net of potential terrorist activities even more, making it even more likely that Māori and others are wrongfully accused under these laws.

Planning and undertaking terrorist attacks is already illegal under standard laws. Additional anti-terror laws are unnecessary. We also know that security agencies such as the SIS and the GCSB have traditionally been far more focused on Māori activists and peaceful Muslim citizens rather than actual terrorists such as white supremacist groups. Changing this would be the single best thing the Government can do to prevent any future attacks. It’s pretty simple, really: focus on the right people and use the laws we already have to protect our communities. Instead of pushing for more Draconian laws, bureaucrats in our security agencies should be reflecting on why they were targeting completely the wrong people.

The Crown has weaponised fears around terrorism to target and vilify tangata whenua and has used anti-terror laws to criminalise our people, as we saw with the Urewera raids. As the MP for Te Waiariki, I am reminded often of the terror that was instilled in Tūhoe from those raids. Young children had their school bus boarded by heavily armed officers, and whānau were locked in garages without food and water. The elderly were made to lie on the floor for hours on end. In another display of State aggression, the Crown wrongfully tried to prosecute the Urewera Four with anti-terror laws. In the end, the Crown failed in using those laws and instead drummed up firearms charges. It’s likely that the Crown would have tried to use the new provisions in the bill relating to weapons training and planning preparation, which may have ensured their success in demonising Tūhoe whānau, who were only practising their mana motuhake on their land, on their whenua, as they have done since time immemorial.

Te Paati Māori opposed the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 despite being in Government, and have a strong track record in opposing policies dressed up as anti-terrorism measures that undermine the human rights and civil liberties that all parties in this House claim to hold dear. We are proud to continue that track record of opposition tonight and vote against this legislation. The Government needs to refocus on the drivers of violence and hate in our communities, such as white supremacy, racism, and bigotry in all its forms. Te Paati Māori do not support this bill. Tēnā tātou.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.