Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Second Reading 
Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9147] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be voting against this bill. Although the bill has some good provisions it also contains several provisions that undermine our civil liberties. I was on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that considered the bill and I presented a minority report which I shall be explaining and elaborating on. 
For a start the Greens believe that to call this bill the “Counter-Terrorism Bill” is wrong because it includes several amendments to the Crimes Act the Summary Proceedings Act and the Misuse of Drugs Act that have no specific reference to terrorism. Members of the public who wished to comment on some of those amendments might not have known that amendments of that character were in the bill because of the misleading title. Also in the atmosphere of today where people do not like to be seen as soft on terrorism people might be reluctant to criticise the contents of a bill that is called the “Counter-Terrorism Bill”. The Greens did attempt unsuccessfully to have the bill split into two bills the first one concerning amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act which could have been called the “Counter-Terrorism Bill” and the second one amending the other Acts which could have been called the “Crimes Amendment Bill”. 
Perhaps the most dangerous change is the proposed new section 307A of the Crimes Act in clause 7 that could lead to heavy penalties for people threatening to engage in forms of protest action that cause “major economic loss to one or more persons”. Let us consider the current debate over the foreshore and seabed particularly over consents for marine farming. Various Maori spokespeople have talked about the possibility of taking direct action. Under this provision if Marlborough Maori even so much as threaten to conduct some protest on the water that might affect the establishment and functioning of a marine farm they could get up to 7 years in jail. The same applies to groups that threaten to pull out GE food crops planted after the moratorium is lifted. 
 Trade union strikers could also be hit by this law. Unions often threaten industrial action if negotiations break down. There is a so-called comfort clause new section 307A(2) which provides that threatening a strike “by itself” is not criminal. But that does not stop threatening a strike from being against the law if it will cause major economic loss. We all know that the aim of strikes is to cause the maximum economic disruption of a workplace in order to get the employer to negotiate more reasonably. Section 307A(2) is clearly a threat to the right of protest and free speech. 
The bill also has provisions enabling further intrusions on our privacy. One section gives police the broad power under warrant to put tracking devices on people or their cars in relation to any suspected offence. The police need only to suspect that an offence “will be committed” at some time in the future for a tracking device to be installed and it may be installed even prior to any warrant application. Given the technological sophistication of tracking devices and their small size and the ease with which police could install and operate them this could lead to substantial intrusion on our privacy not only for the actual target people but for any people they happen to visit. The Privacy Commissioner was aware of how intrusive tracking devices can be and suggested that at least it be made illegal for the general public to use them unless the person being tracked gives consent. He even provided the text of an amendment to the bill to this effect but the select committee did not accept it. The Greens will be moving the Privacy Commissioner’s amendment during the Committee stage. We do accept that tracking devices can be useful in society—for example for taxi-drivers to monitor their fleet—but this tracking is done and morally should always be done with the knowledge and consent of the drivers concerned. 
Privacy is being threatened also by the proposed new section 198B of the Summary Proceedings Act in clause 33. In this high-tech age we all have so much of our lives on the hard drives of our computers. All sorts of personal correspondence our innermost thoughts and much of what we have been doing over the past few years are recorded on the computer. Yet under this new section when the police are searching premises under warrant for any offence they can demand full access to everything on a person’s computer. Specifically this means that person has to provide any passwords or encryption keys to the police. As submitters to the select committee pointed out this goes right against the age-old common law right to avoid self-incrimination. 
The bill was supposedly improved in the select committee by the addition of a subsection that allows a person to withhold information tending to incriminate but this qualification was then rendered null by the next part of the section subsection (2C) which says that this right of refusal does not apply to information sitting on a suspect’s computer. This provision could lead to fishing expeditions to check for any evidence on people’s computers of criminal behaviour. The new section 312N of the Crimes Act and the new section 26 of the Misuse of Drugs Act could also lead to fishing expeditions because they allow communication interception warrants issued for one purpose then to be used to search for evidence on a wide range of offences. 
There is a part of the bill that is actually related to counter-terrorism and the Green Party supports those amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act that bring New Zealand into compliance with the Nuclear Materials Convention and the Plastic Explosives Convention. However we are opposed to other amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act on such matters as harbouring terrorists because they are based on a flawed process in the original Act for designating who a terrorist is. The designation process is done by a politician—the Prime Minister—not a judge using an overly broad definition of terrorism and even drawing on secret evidence that the person or organisation so designated is not allowed to see in any subsequent appeal process. 
The dangers of secrecy and labelling people as terrorists are illustrated in the current Ahmed Zaoui case. Mr Zaoui suffers in gaol and is not allowed information on the charges against him despite his being cleared by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority. This new bill even subverts this designation process allowing customs officers the right to seize material from people not yet designated as terrorists but whom they consider might become so designated. There is simply no demonstrated need to grant the Customs Service such a power. 
The Green Party challenged the definition of terrorism in the original Terrorism Suppression Bill when it was debated in the House last year. We said it could easily catch New Zealanders engaged in international solidarity work with West Papuans Acehnese or Palestinians whose use of arms may be deemed terrorist by those who rule over them. Nelson Mandela and Xanana Gusmao were once considered terrorists for using arms in their liberation struggles and the New Zealand Government of the day—the Muldoon Government—tended to go along with that definition. Who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter is often a politically vexed question and should not be left to a future potentially vindictive Prime Minister—as it is in the Terrorism Suppression Act. 
The broad definition in that Act which is applied to the amendments in this bill is also a threat to the right of protest or the right to strike in New Zealand. Under this bill there is no need for protesters or strikers to intend to cause death or injury by their actions for them to be defined as terrorists. Their activity needs only to be on the scale of the major protests that occurred during the Springbok tour or a strike in a hospital for it to be deemed to cause “serious interference with or serious disruption to an infrastructure facility if likely to endanger human life”. Members should note the word “likely”; the provision does not require an intention to endanger life. The actions also need to be political and to “unduly” compel a Government to do something. Governments often believe that activists are unduly compelling them. 
There is growing recognition in New Zealand and around the world that the so-called war against terrorism is being used for unjustified restrictions on civil liberties. We can see that in many countries we can see it at the US base at Guantanamo Bay and it is very disappointing to see the New Zealand Government going down that track with this bill. We do not need to undermine civil liberties in the fight against terrorism. To do so is to concede a point to the terrorists whose aim is to restrict civil liberties not increase them. I think that we should not under the guise of counter-terrorism—as in this bill—introduce general changes to our criminal law that restrict and undermine the civil liberties that we have long enjoyed: the right to avoid self-incrimination; the right to privacy in our life including today privacy of our computer files; the right not to be tracked throughout our travels; and the right to freedom of speech and protest without being subject potentially to designation as a terrorist by a political figure such as a Prime Minister under the Terrorism Suppression Act.