Franks Stephen: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Second Reading 
Franks Stephen: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9152] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to comment on the second reading of the Counter-Terrorism Bill as it has been reported back from the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. The ACT party is not represented on that committee and the bill has been a very long time in gestation. I hope that in the Committee stage ACT will hear an explanation of some of the elements that are not fully explained in the commentary on the bill. While we are as concerned as any in the House—and as blunt—about defence matters and that primary duty of the State to defend its citizens we are also very aware that freedoms can be lost in the course of defending them. 
It is part of the objective of terrorists to so provoke democratic and free states that they repress their citizens or engender in their communities a loss of the values that so many terrorists hate including a loss of the respect for the individual and the view that the individual has rights that must be upheld for human dignity even at the cost of the collective. In saying that I am distinguishing our position from that of the Green Party. We share some of the same concerns but we come from a very different place. We may end up voting with the Greens on some elements of this bill because we are concerned about its implications for freedom but it will not be because we want to see the kinds of movements and groups that the Greens want to defend prosper and flourish. 
We will not be voting in favour of liberty in that provision because we think for example that strikers ought to have a privileged position and be more immune from the consequences of their actions than anyone else. We hope that the Committee stage which this bill is about to go through will explain why it is that even in the post - September 11 environment international obligations under conventions can appear to panic this House into allowing law to be passed that is not fully defined. 
The Terrorism Suppression Act which part of this bill refers to and amends incorporates offences by reference. Some of them are incorporated in a way that could be injurious to the legitimate freedoms of New Zealanders. We have to remember also that there are tyrannies that have been overthrown only by force and that there are tyrannies that New Zealanders have helped to overthrow by force. When I read through the definitions in this bill of a terrorist act it appears to me that there are things we honour New Zealanders for participating in that could now become matters on which a foreign State that does not respect our values or citizens could seek an extradition warrant. Mr Locke mentioned the struggle in East Timor and there have been many other struggles where violence—whether or not we dislike the necessity for it—is ultimately what the people had to resort to. It seems to me that in this bill we compound or endorse some of the faults of the Terrorism Suppression Act passed last year and I am sorry the select committee did not take the opportunity to revisit those provisions in a slightly less-fevered environment. 
We are concerned that there are some elements that deliberately extend the draconian provisions of that Act into our normal criminal law. There is something about terrorism that tends to produce the view that Mr Dunne just espoused. I think he said that he was impatient and he thought it was time to move on what was discussed in this House in respect of the Sentencing Act. Hate crimes generated the same kind of attitude. That may be because they are so irrational—or are so irrational to rational people. The victims are selected at random. They may have done nothing whatsoever to earn or to excite the attention of offenders and it may be that there is a special kind of evil about that which is quite properly reflected in the sentence. There are amendments to this bill to do that—to make the 17-year minimum sentence for aggravated murder for example available for what are defined as terrorism offences. 
I am reminded that Mr Goff refused to treat the hate-crime amendments to the Sentencing Bill as provisions for terrorism but now we have a definition that is very close to the hate-crime definition and we are doubling up already. We introduced special classes of people in the Sentencing Act who became entitled to special treatment. The groups given the special protection of the hate-crime penalties were obviously deemed to be more worthy of protection by the law than those who were not—and that was random. Now we are compounding that by amending the same section in the Sentencing Act in order to make the terrorism provisions apply when that could have been done in the first place. Mr Goff should have explained why it was not and why the law is not now rationalised. 
ACT will be looking to know what members of this House think is meant by the words “unduly compelled” in the definition of coercion of a Government which is part of the definition of terrorism. What is it that is “undue”? We will want to know why the “threatening harm to persons or property” definition has been amended to take out the reference to “known” and simply leaves the reference to “belief”. We will want to know why preventive intervention is now proposed in relation to the seizure of property and how we will protect New Zealanders from that approach—in other words: “We will get you for what we think you might be thinking.” How will that be prevented from infiltrating into other areas of our law? Just this week there has been a suggestion that we should be adopting the Australian approach to the seizure of assets whether or not they are involved in the commission of crime and that has been related to drug offences. 
On the other side I am interested to know why tracking devices are treated with such detailed attention. When a police operation is permitted to track people without any kind of express permission and when the police can use the expensive way of tracking—of humans taking over from each other when following people—I ask why we are so worried about tracking with a device. If it is a matter of intrusion into someone’s personal property or house there is an element of unlawful interference but if the tracking device can follow in a way that does not involve some other otherwise unauthorised operation I ask why there is all this attention to tracking. Certainly I do not share the Green member’s suggestion that the Privacy Commissioner’s urging in that regard should be picked up. The Privacy Commissioner is an enemy to freedom in many respects in this country and a grave nuisance. Nor do I share the concern about self-incrimination and I will look forward to hearing the argument on that topic. 
The ACT party wishes that we did not have to be hesitant about this bill but we think that there are evils to be addressed. The Government has been dilly-dallying. For example I have asked a series of questions of Ministers about whether security concerns have played any part in dictating our immigration policy. As far as I can tell from the answers the answer is “No.” We have populations in this country who may well be seen as potential harbours for terrorist activity and it appears that the Government has absolutely no concern about allowing the numbers of those people to be increased. We will look forward to the Committee stage for explanation.