Faafoi Kris; Dean JacquiCOUNTER-TERRORISM LEGISLATION BILLSecond ReadingHon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill.SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I move That the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill be now read a second time.Can I also take this opportunity again to acknowledge the victims whānau and communities affected by the events of 3 September. We and this House continue to send our thoughts and our prayers as they continue their road to recovery. Of course too we will never forget the attack in Christchurch on 15 March 2019. As we all know that attack took 51 lives and affected many more. The impacts of these attacks on the New Zealand community has been immense and we must do everything we can to try and prevent such events from happening again.It is clear from the actions that have happened in New Zealand and overseas more recently that the nature of terrorism is changing and our laws need to change in order to respond to it. Across the world we've seen more lone acts or small groups rather than larger organised terrorist groups and as we've seen New Zealand is not immune to these events. This is why the objective of this bill is to strengthen our counter-terrorism laws to better prevent and respond to the threat and risks of terrorism. It provides our enforcement agencies with clear legal authority to disrupt terrorism-related activity and hopefully before it occurs.Can I acknowledge the Justice Committee which has reported back on the bill and made some changes. I thank the committee for its diligent and efficient work in consideration of the bill and everyone who has submitted on the bill at the select committee stage. I understand the committee received 81 submissions. The committee as I have mentioned has made several changes to the bill and some technical changes to improve clarity.The bill tackles a number of extremely complex issues and by the very nature of counter-terror laws consultation on the bill was necessarily limited. Consulting any earlier than strictly necessary could have exposed gaps for exploitation in our counter-terrorism system which would have created another avenue for national security risk. But I do want to acknowledge that it is crucial the powers in this bill are not used disproportionately against any group of New Zealanders. Once the proposals in the bill were sufficiently developed the bill was made available for public consultation and this minimised risk to our national security to the greatest extent possible while allowing for informed submissions to the Justice Committee on specific legislative proposals from anyone who had an interest. It is a challenging balance to ensure the safety of all New Zealanders and to develop the policy and also this legislation.As I mentioned the committee recommended changes to the definition of a terrorist act". The definition of a "terrorist act" is the cornerstone of our legislation. To be a terrorist attack a person must intend to cause some level of apprehension in a population. The committee considered whether this level should be intimidation fear or terror and the committee I understand unanimously has recommended intimidation. Cabinet agrees with this recommendation from the Justice Committee that intimidation is a more appropriate standard. It is the standard used by the United Kingdom Australia and Canada and the threshold for meeting the definition of a terrorist act still remains appropriately high because a person still has to meet all three components of a terrorist act—that is an intention to cause a serious outcome such as death the purpose of advancing an ideology and the intention to induce intimidation in a population.The committee also recommended changes related to new offences of planning or preparation for a terrorist attack and the committee recommended a change to clarify that it is not an offence to attempt to plan a terrorist act or to conspire or incite another person to do so. The committee also recommended removing the clarification that planning to plan a terrorist act is not an offence and this was intended to clarify the scope of the offence but submitters also found it confusing. Its removal will not lead to over-criminalisation by the new planning and preparation offence within the bill.It is an offence to provide also funds or material support to a terrorist entity within this bill but the bill as introduced contained an exception for when support does no more than satisfy essential human needs. Submitters during the select committee process I understand had concerns that the exception did not allow the provision of legitimate humanitarian support. So to respond to this the bill clarifies the scope of the funds and support that can be provided.The committee also recommended including New Zealand's territorial waters within the scope of the travel offence within the bill and recommended a change to ensure that terrorist activities in our territorial waters are captured by the new offence of traveling to from or via New Zealand intending to commit a terrorist offence.An important aspect of the bill is balancing the need to counter terrorism with individual rights and some submitters expressed concern that the bill does not adequately protect human rights and freedoms. I believe the committee considered these concerns and determined that where rights and freedoms are impacted these limitations are justified and proportionate to the aim.The committee also carefully considered the concerns raised by submitters about the bill and these included a lack of consultation on the bill including from the likes of Māori. The committee considered that the select committee was the appropriate place for that consultation to happen and given the high threshold to meet the definition of terrorism and requirement to seek the Attorney-General's consent before prosecutions are taken the committee thought that there were sufficient safeguards within the bill to uphold the Crown's obligation under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.Submitters also questioned a lack of oversight of the implementation and operation of the proposed legislation and the need for an independent oversight body will be considered as part of wider counter-terrorism work to respond to the recommendations of the royal commission into the Christchurch attacks. Submitters also commented that the bill would not have prevented the Christchurch terror attack and that is because the perpetrator had not come to the authority's attention. The new offences and powers provided by this bill will allow early intervention and may be critical to preventing further attacks.Sadly we have been recently reminded that terror can take many forms here in New Zealand as well as overseas and the actions of the lone attacker in West Auckland on 3 September have reinforced the importance of this legislation and raised questions about whether other parts of our laws should be looked at—dealing with issues such as detention deportation for example. The Government has requested further advice on these areas of work because we have to make sure Parliament responds in every way that we can. The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill will enable us to better prevent and respond to the threat of terrorism which as we have unfortunately seen recently is a very real one. I commend the bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to."