Smith Lockwood: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Lockwood: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21648] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 Obviously clauses 1 and 2 relate simply to the title of the bill and to the commencement date which would be immediately after the legislation receives the royal assent. That is important because of the designations we have just been discussing which expire in October this year. It is really important that this legislation comes into force prior to that because otherwise we will have no list of designated terrorist organisations in New Zealand and we certainly would not be consistent with our obligations to the United Nations under Resolution 1373 were that to be the case. 
I would like the Minister to give us more guidance on the issue of the designation of terrorist organisations that I was asking him about a moment ago. It is quite important because why do we have this provision in the legislation if we do not take it seriously and do not make sure that our designations are up to date and consistent with the thinking of like-minded countries around the world? That does not mean to say we all have to designate the same organisations because obviously as a sovereign nation we have our own view on those matters and that is absolutely right and proper. 
But I pointed out to the Minister and I think it was news to him that in fact 420 organisations are now on our list of designations the number having originally been 318. When the principal Act was passed we had 318 designations and that was the United Nations list. The United Nations updated that to 420 and New Zealand did likewise. I understand—and I certainly stand to be corrected by the Minister if I am wrong on this—that we increased our number of designations by almost 100 to have 420 organisations on our list. Members may or may not realise that the Prime Minister has the power under the principal Act to add designations to the list. It is important that that power is taken seriously. It is important that we monitor the emergence of new organisations around the world and update our list. There is a matter that the Minister did not give us guidance on. I pointed out that I understood—the last I heard—the United Nations had 433 organisations on its list. So my first question to the Minister was whether we have updated our list to cover the full 433 organisations on the United Nations list. 
The next thing is that under the principal Act countries like New Zealand are at liberty to add further organisations to the list. We do not simply have to comply with the UN list of designated terrorist organisations. We can say that we in this part of the world are very concerned about such and such an organisation and if we have good cause it can be added to the list. There is a process that can be gone through: there can be an interim designation and then a final designation. In fact some countries around the world do that. My understanding is that the European Union has more organisations designated on its list than the United Nations has. The European Union is a group of countries with sophisticated institutions. Therefore if the European Union has designated organisations that we in New Zealand have not it invites questions about whether we have looked at the additional organisations that the European Union has designated and if so why we have not incorporated them into the list that we are now extending the duration of in Part 2 of the bill. Have we looked at the additional organisations listed by the European Union? Have we looked at the additional organisations listed by the United Nations? When do we plan to update our list? 
I also asked before whether if we were to update our list those designations would go beyond the 2 years of the extension provided for in this bill or whether they would go for the full 3 years stated in the principal Act. I guess this amendment will supersede the principal Act and I imagine that any new designations that are added would terminate after the 2 years’ extension that this bill is applying. 
There are some issues here that would be of interest to people in New Zealand who are genuinely concerned about our security. There is a question as to whether our list of designated organisations is up to date. I think we should be advised of the answer to that. There are issues about whether we should stick to the UN list or whether we should go beyond that.