Third Readings 
Third Readings 
[Volume:612;Page:9381] 
Tuesday 21 October 2003 
( 
continued on Wednesday 22 October 2003 
) 
Third Readings 
Debate resumed on the third readings of the Crimes Amendment Bill the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 2) the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill the Sentencing Amendment Bill and the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to table today’s Garrick Tremain cartoon. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I am at a loss because I have not had the opportunity to look at that cartoon. No doubt I will as soon as I sit down. When we adjourned last evening I was saying to the House that we have seen a lot of legislation go through on whose passage New Zealand First has indeed supported the Government. But much of that good legislation becomes meaningless if resources are not put in place so its intent can come into effect. One of the things that worries me about this legislation we are supporting right now is that many of the agencies with primary responsibility for monitoring terrorism for ensuring the security of our nation and for helping us live up to our international obligations—I ask Mr Tisch to blow off and have his chat down the other end please—and I think that most of the nation— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I was going to say that I am the whip and I will talk to my members as I wish. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Be nice to them; they are very bruised today. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes no deals Ron! 
RON MARK 
: I am sorry. That is fine. I just find it a little rude when people stand in the aisles and have conversations in such close proximity to someone who is speaking. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask the whip to go back to the whip’s seat and talk there. 
RON MARK 
: I will be looking at a couple of agencies and watching the estimates for the next Budget to see how they have fared. I will be looking at the Security Intelligence Service to see whether its budgetary increases reflect its new responsibilities. I will be looking at the Customs Service at the border patrol in particular and at the ministry responsible for them. The greater provisions included in this legislation and the greater powers being extended to the people concerned are necessary in this new climate of instability but tracking devices and the ability to monitor people who enter this country for suspect purposes with goods considered to be illegal or suspect will be worthy or able to be utilised only if the customs people at our borders have the staffing the experience and the resources to carry out that work. 
We talk about the Defence Force. It is one thing to tell the world we are signing up to United Nations conventions then ratifying those conventions and passing law to bring them into effect in New Zealand—all in the interests of enhancing security and playing our part in the war against terrorism—but that situation is somewhat questionable when one looks at the state of our defence forces. 
We have an obligation—indeed we have now told the world we are prepared to play our part internationally in countering terrorism—to ensure that we have a Defence Force of the size that makes it a meaningful and valuable contributor to that cause. I look at the state of our infantry battalions which are running at below half strength I look at the state of our staffing right across the board in the Navy and Air Force in particular—when for 6 months of 1 year we could not even keep Orions in the air—and I have to say that the Government is falling flat in those areas. 
It is one thing to buy 105 vehicles at a cost of $750 million but it is another thing when we do not actually have the people to crew those vehicles. I guess what I am saying is that it is good legislation. It is necessary and New Zealand First supports it whole-heartedly. But the proof will be in the eating of the pudding and that proof will be seen one way or the other when we examine the Government’s performance in its finances budgets and allocation of resources to those parties responsible for implementing security measures to protect our people and the interests of our trading partners friends and allies. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 It is unfortunate that this legislation seems to be going through with only the Greens opposed to it although ACT supported some amendments to reduce its undermining of our civil liberties implications. It has been easier to put this legislation through Parliament because of the original title the Counter-Terrorism Bill when in fact there should have been two bills one called the Counter-Terrorism Bill amending those bits of the Terrorism Suppression Act relating specifically to terrorism and the other something else—the “Crimes Amendment Bill” probably because it amends general criminal legislation. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee at one point was thinking of dividing the bill into two bills but unfortunately at the end only the Greens supported that course. 
It is important that we realise that most of the material in these bills is in the nature of amending criminal legislation and would have had greater scrutiny from the public—and I think from Parliament—if the legislation had not been down as an anti-terrorism measure. The context today is that there is a very strong push particularly from the Bush administration in the United States to put everything in the framework of counter-terrorism and to undermine a lot of our civil liberties. Of course that goes to the very extreme in the US base at Guantanamo Bay where people have been held for a couple of years without any charges or trials and not having access to lawyers their families or anything else. We have seen this phenomenon just this past week at the APEC conference where there was the big Bush administration push to turn APEC into some big counter-terrorist organisation. 
There was some resistance from many ASEAN countries to that. They wanted APEC maintained as it has been devoted to trade and other issues. In most countries in the world and I think South-east Asian Governments are reflecting this people see the prime issues confronting them not as the danger of non-State terrorism—even though there is that problem in parts of the world particularly the Islamic world—but as poverty the right to a roof over their heads the right to enough food and clean water and the right to have a decent education and basic human and political rights. 
In some ways the manner in which this anti-terrorist campaign is being conducted internationally makes these situations worse. If we look at Bali where we have just commemorated the very tragic deaths of so many people in the terrorist bombing a year ago we see that the economy in Bali has declined 40 percent. Helen Clark says that that is an illustration of how terrorism can affect the economy but how has it actually done that? 
One of the problems is that Bali is not one of the parts of Indonesia with a history of terrorist bombings although well before September 11 there had been the odd bombings in Indonesia over a long period in Java in particular—often promoted as it turns out by the Indonesian military and agencies they support like Laska Jihad but Bali had been immune from terrorism. So there has been only this one incident. Unfortunately we have Governments like New Zealand’s through their travel advisories saying: “Don’t go to Bali. Don’t go to Indonesia.” That has been what has pushed the economy of Bali of other parts of Indonesia and of other countries downwards. If we are serious about supporting these countries’ development to overcome their problems we should not be adding insult to injury by allowing those travel advisories pushing New Zealanders not to go there. 
What is happening is an exaggeration. It is not putting in a proper context the terrorist threat that does exist. It exaggerates it and takes a uni-dimensional approach to terrorism simply a law-enforcement approach rather than seeing what underlies it and trying to remove the social causes. 
 This results in tragedies such as we have seen in the case of Ahmed Zaoui whereby State institutions in New Zealand—like the Immigration Service the police the SIS and the Customs Service—are geared up to fight terrorism because they have emails coming in from their counterparts internationally particularly from the United States saying that there are terrorists everywhere and under every bed. Then they say they have not been able to find any terrorists because there has not been a terrorist in New Zealand since French secret service agents came and bombed the  
Rainbow Warrior 
. A chap called Ahmed Zaoui arrived in New Zealand as an asylum seeker under his own name and there was something on the computer from the Algerian secret service or the French secret service— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Would the member please come to the thirds reading of the legislation. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: This is relevant because this legislation contains amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act and the whole question of how we approach terrorism is very relevant to it. Mr Zaoui arrived in his own name our authorities thought we had a real live terrorist because there was something on a computer somewhere and they put him into solitary confinement for 10 months and imposed a security risk certificate on him. 
We are left with a situation—and this is the problem with the Terrorism Suppression Act that we are amending today—whereby a secret process ensues. In the case of the Terrorism Suppression Act it is the secret process of designating a terrorist without a great deal of legal recourse. There is an appeal procedure to the Court of Appeal on points of law but basically it is a “trust us” situation which is the same situation that applies to Ahmed Zaoui. We are asked to trust the SIS to get it right in secret the Minister of Immigration to get it right in secret and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to get it right in secret. That is not really good enough if we are to protect human rights. We know that the Refugee Status Appeals Authority—which is a more public body that did its own determination over many months and wrote a 223-page report—said that this guy had a completely clean bill of health that he was a democrat and an elected member of Parliament and that he should be allowed to stay here as a refugee. 
The problem arising in the Terrorism Suppression Act—which this bill amends and reinforces with “harbouring” provisions etc.—is that this process in relation to designating terrorists relies primarily on classified information. The same thing applies under this Act as applied in the Ahmed Zaoui case in that we are told that we and Ahmed Zaoui and any person who might be designated a terrorist under the Terrorism Suppression Act cannot have access to this classified information in any shape or form. The prime reason given is that the overseas agencies that provide this information would not provide it if any of it were made public. So we do not even have a process to interrogate from our own values and our own legal process whether this information could be kept secret. It is being determined according to that definition by the overseas agencies. 
Even if the classified information stated that the person—Mr Zaoui or whoever it was—played soccer last week if the overseas agency said that the information is classified then it has to be kept classified under this definition. We cannot go down this track. One of the problems is that under this terrorism legislation there are not the checks and balances in the system. The debate in relation to the intelligence services in America and Britain over the weapons of mass destruction shows that. These institutions of the State tend to reinforce each other’s erroneous determinations in this climate of anti-terrorism rather than correct them. 
Unfortunately this bill gives the Customs Service—which is not supposed to be a police agency—greater powers in this respect to detain material it thinks might belong to some person or group that may be designated terrorist at some time in the future. That can have very harmful effects on the person or body whose materials are seized. If the information gets out that someone is a suspected terrorist there can be very damaging consequences. That came up in the Zaoui case too where the Customs Service interviewed Zaoui at the border—not the Immigration Service not the police but the Customs Service—and got it all wrong as the Refugee Status Appeals Authority found. The Customs Service said that Mr Zaoui had admitted he was a member of the Armed Islamic Group when in fact that was completely wrong as the Refugee Status Appeals Authority found out. 
The problem—and this bill reinforces it—is that we are seeing something like the homeland security push by the Bush administration to link up the immigration police and customs agencies in this anti-terrorism drive in a way that is undermining our civil liberties in legislation and in practice. We are now seeing examples of this. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I rise to support this counter-terrorism legislation on behalf of United Future. I shall attempt to speak with just a hint of wisdom and a lot of brevity because much has already been said. Before I start there are a few things I would like to mention. 
It is interesting to note that Keith Locke from the Green Party has been incredibly consistent as has been pointed out by others but I think he has been consistently wrong. The idea of separating the original bill into two along the lines that he suggested is ridiculous because there are strong links between terrorist activities and organised crime. As has become increasingly obvious there is a blurring between the two. Organised crime as with other avenues such as State sponsorship is increasingly becoming the means by which terrorists secure funds to carry out their activities. 
If we want to do our part in the international community and do our bit to protect the New Zealand public we must effectively legislate the means by which we can implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 adopted on 28 September 2001 following the abominable terrorist attacks against the USA. No country is safe and we cannot hide from the rest of the world. We cannot stick our heads in the sand. The Bali attack was in our backyard and we have to be concerned. 
This legislation will complete the Government’s response to the very real security threats that we have become aware of—increasingly so since the September 11 attacks. Following on from the Terrorism Suppression Act this is very much an enabling bill. It will provide the legislative framework necessary for the agencies charged with investigating and preventing terrorist activity in New Zealand to carry out their investigations effectively and to prosecute offenders. Given the ongoing worldwide effort being put into the war on terror it is essential that New Zealand pulls its weight and contributes to the counter-terrorism effort in its own backyard lest we become a soft environment for terrorist organisations and a consequent security liability to our friends and allies. 
Every party in Parliament supported this legislation through its first and second readings except for the Greens. Apparently a rigorous and robust approach to terrorism is not required on their planet. I guess it is a very good indicator that the rest of us are probably on the right track. I suppose good intentions and a bit of positive thinking must be enough to get terrorists to change their minds and their thinking and become peaceful organic farmers instead of unconscionable murderers in some far-off place—and sometimes in a not-so-far-off place. 
United Future on the other hand is not willing to risk the safety of New Zealand citizens by indulging in a bit of wishful thinking and anti-American ideology. We also do not agree with the standard line that this legislation will somehow violate our civil liberties. It certainly appears to have enough safeguards built into it. For example under this legislation any information intercepted by the law enforcement agencies through the use of electronic listening devices may be used against an individual or organisation in court only if it was collected under the auspices of an interception warrant. The use of such warrants is also limited to certain offences. 
This legislation implements in domestic law the requirements of two international conventions relating to the physical protection of nuclear material and the marking of plastic explosives. I think those two conventions really need to be highlighted. Those are the final two of the 12 terrorism-related international instruments that New Zealand is to ratify and with the passage of this legislation we will be fully compliant with UN requirements. The legislation also contains new offences designed to deal with terrorist-type activity. It will be an offence to harbour or conceal a person who has carried out or intends to carry out terrorist activity. It will be an offence to endanger the health or safety of animal populations thereby causing major economic damage and in New Zealand that is a very important ingredient of the bill. The contamination of products such as food water and crops intended for human consumption is something that is basic and fundamental. It will be an offence to threaten or disseminate communicating information about an act that is likely to cause risk to the health or safety of the public cause major property damage cause economic damage and disrupt civilian populations and infrastructure including the administration of government and commercial interests. 
I support this Government’s efforts to combat terrorism as they are based on sound common sense and are neither too heavy-handed nor too soft. This bill is the final step in that process. What we cease to remember sometimes—and certainly this is true of the Greens—is that the very liberties we are now able to enjoy have come at the price of the blood of people who are now buried having fought for those rights. The Green member would then spit on those graves and use that against the very people who presently threaten our liberties. That is something we cannot tolerate and cannot allow. We commend this bill to the House. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party in the third reading debate of the counter-terrorism legislation. This legislation has useful provisions. It addresses matters that any Government of any stripe anywhere in the world should be concerned about: deliberately infecting animals deliberating terrorising people with bombs or threats to bomb sending diseases through the mail threatening the economies of whole countries and frightening away tourists. Those are all things that of course the law should be concerned about. 
ACT’s difficulty with this bill is that existing law covers some of those issues. The existing law needed to be reformed supplemented and added to. But what we have instead are poorly drafted provisions. In some cases they could turn innocuous behaviour into what is deemed to be terrorism in a way that will attack essential liberties. Though I do not share the foreign policy ideas of the Greens—in fact I deplore what I think is their wilful ignorance of evil in many areas and their support of people who are evil—I do share their concern that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. If we think as New Zealanders of the various causes we have supported and the peoples we have been worried about just in recent history we do not need to go too far back to find examples of people who could have been categorised under some of the definitions in our legislation. We can think about the people of East Timor the people now in Aceh those who might have tried to oppose the regime in North Korea and those who have struggled against cruel domination in Tibet and Rwanda and about the struggle of some Iraqis against Saddam Hussein. All those people could have been categorised as terrorists under some of the definitions in the Terrorism Suppression Act which this legislation is a supplement to and in the terms of this legislation. 
New Zealand should not be putting itself into a position where it may have to hand over under extradition treaties to regimes that we share no values with people who are accused of activity that would not be an offence in New Zealand. This legislation does not as far as I can tell have the proper protection that a year-on review of our counter-terrorism effort should have. We should be making sure that nothing in this law could require a New Zealand citizen to be handed over to any other body for activity that New Zealanders generally would consider not to be an offence. This legislation has no overriding protection of the sort of idealism that sent some New Zealanders to Spain before the war in 1939. General Franco as I read this legislation could have invoked provisions that we have put into our law to get people handed over who raised funds for the International Brigades. That is quite wrong. It does not do as Mr Alexander for United Future has done to simply recite a list of objectives and a list of horrors to tie the objectives and the horrors together and to say it is invalid for parliamentarians thereafter to question the wording of the legislation. 
Unfortunately this legislation is typical of the sort of law we get from Mr Phil Goff. This is absolutely typical of the stuff that comes out after he has made a vein-popping speech about a mischief or an evil. Then we get technically poorly drafted stuff without regard for the unintended consequences. In this case the legislation is open to misuse. This is a “trust us” law. If we look at what the Government is actually doing about countering terrorism we see that it is a paper change. That is hypocrisy. It takes us in some areas in the wrong direction. As Ron Mark from New Zealand First said there is no real commitment to genuine defence. There is a huge commitment to trotting around to every commemoration of a previous generation’s efforts. There is a huge commitment to showing up and trying to curry political favour with the military by giving medals and speeches. But when it comes to real commitment to the sort of investment that is required for a country that wants to be able to defend itself we are not there. We are reneging on our arrangements reneging on treaties and relying—bludging—on our neighbours. 
I draw no comfort whatsoever from the requirement as a defence against wrongful prosecution that the Attorney-General’s consent be obtained. The Attorney-General under clause 5 does have a role in preventing misuse of this law. That in itself is an admission that this law can be misused. Leaving that in the hands of an Attorney-General who has shown herself unable to recognise where she should be standing up for the rule of law against her colleagues means that I take no comfort from that as a protective device whatsoever. 
This is a Government that in response to my written parliamentary questions about immigration told me there is no security criterion in determining immigration policy. I wrote to the Minister of Police asking whether the police had provided any advice or information and got no material in response. I wrote to the Minister of Immigration and asked if we are so committed to counter-terrorism what the Minister of Immigration was doing in terms of immigration policy to ensure there was not a population sea for terrorist fish to swim in. I was told that that was not one of the relevant immigration criteria. I wrote to the Minister of Justice to see whether there had been any policy work done on that issue. I was told no. Once again this Government is so politically correct that it is jumping to the order of the United Nations. There are twelve conventions that Mr Goff is so proudly complying with. They will put into our law provisions that can be misused and the only protection we have is that a prosecution may be stayed by the Attorney-General. The Government is so politically correct that sovereignty means nothing when it comes to the United Nations although it meant everything of course when justifying the Attorney-General’s ending of our Privy Council appeal rights. 
This Government thinks so little of genuine threats to sovereignty that we accept people from any country in the world without regard to the security risk that that population might create. It appears that there has been no attempt by the New Zealand Government to address the real issues that the counter-terrorism legislation should have been addressing which is how to deal with populations that do not share our values that despise our tradition of law and order and that think it is wimpish to be worried about civil liberties. This Government has no policy whatsoever to restrict the entry of people with those values. 
We voted with the Greens on a number of features of this bill and one of them was a concern about the tracking device code. We voted as we did because that code goes absolutely against the Minister’s rhetoric. That code restricts the use of tracking devices by security personnel and makes it more difficult to track terrorists. That code does nothing about the kind of tracking that the Green member was concerned about—that is the tracking of people by putting a device on their property or on their cars without their consent by people other than the authorities. In other words it handicaps the authorities and does nothing about other kinds of illegality. But at the same time it does not allow the police to cooperate with property owners. The tracking device code appears to prevent someone—a policeman—from using a pair of binoculars without a court order. That is pathetic. Without a court order it would prevent the police from sticking labels on their own suitcases to identify them when picking them off the baggage carousel. It would prevent the police from tracking their own vehicles without a court order. That is just typical of what happens when we have a Minister who is so determined to curry favour with his United Nations masters that he will copy something from Canada something from a convention and give no attention to what is really required: a law to ensure that tracking devices can be used by anyone who wants to on his or her property. 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 The Progressives went through this legislation thoroughly with our coalition partner the Labour Party and agreed that it should come to Parliament. We were very keen that it should go through the select committee process as steadily as possible without rush so that it could be scrutinised very carefully. We were in agreement that there was a mischief to look at—that is whether criminal activity that is terrorist activity or illegal drug activity is easier to carry out without this legislation. My opinion which I gave to our Progressive caucus was that on balance we could do without this legislation and that the present Crimes Act was sufficient. That was the view of Matthew Palmer. 
On another level though there is a need to ensure that every loophole is closed and there is a need internationally—for all countries not one just particular country—to show that New Zealand is serious about its laws detecting wrongdoing in terms both of criminal terrorist activity and of drug taking. Also during the select committee process a number of safeguards were put into the legislation. The legislation has clear definitions in respect of the legitimacy of political protest and activity. That is good. It has clear definitions to uphold the right of workers to strike and it has clear safeguards in terms of the judiciary’s oversight. 
The ACT party and the Green Party had a number of amendments that I agreed with and the Progressives were willing to vote for them as further safeguards. In dialogue I had with my colleague Phil Goff we agreed we would look at those amendments. If the ACT party and the Green Party had originally supported the Progressives having a proxy vote when our members had to be away on other business I would have recorded our vote for those amendments. Unfortunately those parties did not support the Progressives’ two members being able to have a proxy vote in the House when they were attending to other business. Last night in relation to drugs I attended a debate between Nandor Tanczos of the Green Party and Jim Anderton on the question of the decriminalisation of cannabis which the Progressives are against and the Green Party is for. So other parliamentary duties called. 
A lot of very good points have been made in terms of the need to be 
watchful of this legislation. I said that in my opinion if there were criminal wrongdoing in terrorist form we were not without weapons right at this moment. The police under the general powers of the Crimes Act and other legislation have the ability to take out warrants and carry out other actions against people who are suspected of wrongdoing. The Security Intelligence Service certainly does. In my opinion the weapons to detect are there. So the warnings of groups that legislation can be misused should be taken seriously. The compromise position that can be taken is to watch this legislation very carefully. Keith Locke has quite rightly in my opinion drawn attention to the misuse of legislation in the case of Ahmed Zaoui. My prediction on that case is that New Zealand will have to do a lot to re-establish its record of upholding the presumption of innocence and it will have to do a lot to uphold its record that it will not misuse terrorism to persecute people who have political positions opposed to terrorism. 
That is why in the third reading speeches on this legislation it is important for parties to have a historical perspective. The Cold War years should warn us of the misuse particularly by conservative parties of popular fears—in the case of the Cold War the misuse of propaganda that the Soviet Union was going to invade our country and that New Zealand was under threat—to undermine political rights in New Zealand. Testimony to that misuse is the 1932 Public Safety Conservation Act which was brought in at a time when unemployed workers in New Zealand and their supporters were protesting about the fact that the Government was worsening their position by not providing them with work and security. It took a 1935 reforming Government a Labour Government under Mickey Joseph Savage—a great Australian who gave his talents to this country—to remedy that situation. 
Darren Hughes 
: And a Catholic. 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: And a Catholic who often did not say his prayers I know. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please come to the present. 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: I was distracted. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That was 68 years ago. 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: Then in 1951 during a legitimate industrial action— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That was 52 years ago. Please come to the question of whether this legislation should be given its third readings. 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: I am Mr Speaker. In terms of this Act the 1951 regulations in building on the 1932 Act made it illegal to give support to workers who were locked out. They lost their freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. That happened in New Zealand and anti-communism was used as the vehicle to do that and to intimidate. That is the danger with Acts like this. I have an assurance from Mr Phil Goff which I accept—he is aware of those historical precedents which is why I was telling the House about my interesting conversation with the Minister on these topics—that this legislation does need to be looked at very carefully. 
The United Future party said—and I am paraphrasing—that it did not want to hear anti-American ideology. Mr Locke in drawing attention to what regimes do is not being anti-American. From Abraham Lincoln through to Martin Luther King there are admirable figures in the history of the United States. But to disagree with a particular regime with its outlook and what it does is not to be anti-American; it is to oppose the most powerful Government in the world if it has a foreign policy that may have an ill effect on New Zealand. I think the warning is apposite that our legislation is not so much driven by the masters in the United Nations—I wish it was—but often is driven by or could be driven by the type of legislation that exists in the United States. I refer to the Patriot Act which is being used to persecute the Muslim population of the United States and to undermine the liberties that the Americans cherish so greatly. 
I point members to an article in the edition of  
Le Monde Diplomatique 
 in the  
Guardian Weekly 
 of October 16 at page 2 where it is pointed out that “the war on Iraq is the culmination of a decade of intense intellectual and political work by a small group of neoconservatives who have united with fundamentalist Christians and militarists in the new imperial coalition that has crystallised under the Bush presidency”. It seems far away but the type of pressure that comes to shape the world for the interests of a very small and powerful clique can come home to New Zealand. That is what we do not want in our legislation. 
This legislation does have some inherent dangers if the authorities misuse it. That is why I support what Keith Locke said about Ahmed Zaoui. I have talked with my colleagues and the Minister of Customs and the Minister of Immigration on some of the dangers that occur from legislation. I believe that in terms of this legislation it is important to keep a very watchful eye on it and as a House to report any misuse of it. Of course if we see good use of it we will support it but we should keep a watchful eye on this legislation. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 I rise briefly to respond to the comments made by Keith Locke concerning Mr Zaoui and the Customs Service. I want to repeat what I have said previously and to correct the impression given by Mr Locke. In this particular case the Customs Service did not perform immigration activities; the matter has been presented in that way but it is simply not the case. It is concerning to me that the actions of Customs Service staff have been misrepresented in that way and we will be taking action to ensure that it does not occur again. I repeat that the assertion made by Mr Locke is not correct. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Crimes Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 110 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 110 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. 
Ayes 110 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 110 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Sentencing Amendment 
Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 110 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 102 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time.