Graham Kennedy: Passports Amendment Bill Customs and Excise Amendment Bill New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: Passports Amendment Bill Customs and Excise Amendment Bill New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 09 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1263. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):This legislation has had a tortured life as it has gone through Parliament. Although the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee collaborated to good effect this masked an underlying lack of political consensus that should have been a precondition of its passage. Three parties it seems are opposing its final adoption. I just want to make some quick points in response to the four points that the Minister made in his comments on the third reading.With regard to the first point he stressed that this was simply temporary legislation to which we would respond: “Yes true. But that is part of the problem.” It is creating constitutional precedent and qualitative change is often justified in this way—on a temporary basis subject to subsequent review. With regard to the fourth point that one of the primary motivations is that New Zealand should be a good international citizen and that there is no room for moral ambiguity yes I agree with that as well. But it is equally important that we are not artificially clear-sighted in our moral self-perception and self-regard. There should be no room I suggest for moral superiority whether it is on the part of those promoting the bill or those opposing the bill.The main problem—the reason for the lack of consensus that I spoke of—has been twofold: a lack of transparency over the source itself of the legislation the reason for it and a studied imprecision and a lack of logic in the reasoning through to the final product. Because the Government chose to oppose without any responding explanation the Supplementary Order Paper that the Green Party put forward which would have defined the central concept of “foreign terrorist fighter” and advanced a statement of purpose explaining the bills there will tonight be changes to three Acts on New Zealand’s statute book that will allow new intrusive powers with no explanatory statement for the historical record no statement of purpose of fact and no definitions entered.We pride ourselves in passing this legislation efficiently but we lack the efficiency to clarify the central concepts in them. At the end of the day the Prime Minister may feel comfortable with this piece of legislation but most New Zealanders are not and he leaves a legislative dog’s breakfast as part of his political legacy. The committee chairman a decent man to whom I want to pay tribute kept describing the process as “truncated” as recently as half an hour ago. “Aborted” might be more accurate if we are talking about the democratic process. No piece of New Zealand legislation addressing constitutional rights such as those of privacy of the person and dignity of the individual as we have witnessed these past 2 weeks should ever be subjected to this procedural abomination.What we are doing tonight is passing unprecedented powers of surveillance by the SIS based on an increased threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the Middle East which potentially intrudes into the ultimate bastions of privacy of all New Zealanders. This legislation claims to target foreign terrorist fighters planning to return to New Zealand fully radicalised and to engage in acts of physical violence but it stretches beyond that. It will now be possible for the SIS without ministerial warrant and at the decision of the director to plant a camera for 24 hours in the bedroom of any New Zealander who may be suspected of facilitating an act causing major environmental damage motivated by an ideological cause and aiming to unduly compel the Government to abstain from some act. That action by the citizen which may have nothing to do with ISIL in the Middle East whatsoever falls within the definition of the actions justifying those SIS powers. This is wrong. I am aware of the avoidance of doubt subsection and that does not change the fact.It is a sorry day for New Zealand. Yes the world is a tough place. Yes ISIL is brutal. Yes we must ensure New Zealand’s national security is safeguarded but no we must not panic and overreact to the realities out there that have existed since the Munich Olympics of 1972. And we must ensure that we do not get dragged into a higher level of threat than is natural for New Zealand through undue association with larger powers that have less regard for inter-civilisational dialogue conflict resolution and peaceful settlement. The Green Party concludes that although these issues are difficult and complex it was right to have opposed the introduction of the bill in the first reading 14 days ago and right to oppose its adoption in the third reading tonight.I invite the Prime Minister once again to recall Ben Franklin’s observation that “those who are prepared to give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” That comment was made in another age and in a different context and yet it speaks to us tonight. I invite all of us to reflect on John Rawls who in his A Theory of Justice argues that “Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others … the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests”. The Green Party will vote against this legislation.