Auchinvole Chris: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Auchinvole Chris: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2007. Volume:643;Page:12707. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I support the third reading of this bill. My understanding is that the third reading is a summary of the progress of this bill. It has been very very interesting for me as a new member of Parliament to sit in the House and listen to the quality of the debate particularly that which has occurred tonight. I am grateful as I am sure my colleagues are for the opportunity to listen to those who have had a lot of experience in debating. I guess it is something we can all learn from and develop as we go. I do query though—and I am sure that in the spirit of parliamentary debate there will be no objection from the member—why in a recent debate Mr Mark is recorded in  
Hansard 
 as saying “and that is why we will be supporting the passage of this bill.” 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: To the select committee. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Indeed—I understand that. I am grateful to Mr Mark for the expression of his opinion which I listened to last night. I would have thought though that New Zealand First a party founded on the very stuff of dissent and radical opposition would be quite comfortable about losing the law on sedition. But I say that perhaps as a little light-hearted remark and I do understand the approach the member has taken. 
There has been general support for this bill from pretty much all parties— 
Ron Mark 
: You don’t agree with this do you? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: No not really and I am perfectly happy to explain why. I listened very carefully when the member being keen made heavy emphasis on the point that we should reconsider reflect and wonder whether in fact this bill should be dispensed with. I have thought about that. I thought about it during the day and I reflected on it just as the member asked us to do. The member raised some questions in my mind. 
However let us look at some of the points that have been made during the first reading debate by a number of speakers. Keith Locke told us that the laws were put on the statute book to constrain dissent against Governments and have been used for that purpose ever since. He gave the example that they were used to convict Maori leaders in the 19th century notably Te Whiti and Rua Kenana. Then in the earlier part of the 20th century a Catholic bishop Bishop Liston was charged for making supposedly seditious statements when he hinted that he supported the Irish nationalist cause. We have also had the example of three leaders of the Labour Party—Harry Holland Peter Fraser and Walter Nash—who were convicted of sedition for supporting workers’ struggles for being against conscription and for selling left-wing books. I think it has been commented on more than once that copies of those books were actually in the Parliamentary Library at the time. 
The other event that propelled change which Keith Locke mentioned was Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s Law Commission report entitled  
Reforming the Law of Sedition 
 which called for the law’s repeal and provided all the reasoning as to why it should be repealed. It has been suggested that one of the reasons this bill is before the House is that the Government’s legislative programme is slightly light and that may be the case. But the Green Party has supported the bill and has been quite instrumental in bringing it before the House and generating support for it. 
I too heard the honourable member Hone Harawira when he spoke in the debate. He certainly spoke very strongly and with passion. He spoke about the celebrated prophets of sedition Erueti Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi who in 1881 were both charged— 
Ron Mark 
: He was acquitted. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Yes but they were charged. We spoke about this last night when Mr Mark said that the charges still had to be proven. He said: “Yes they can charge them. It doesn’t matter; it still has to be proven.” I do not think that in the reality and fairness of justice the member simply wants to be able to go around charging people so that they have to prove themselves innocent. There are connotations in my mind in relation to these sedition charges—and I am sure in the minds of many—that once a person is charged the person really has to prove his or her own innocence rather than it being the other way round. The very wording of it implicates a person in guilt and as a freeborn Scotsman I find that a little hard to stomach I really do. 
We heard an expression of views from someone who is certainly very strongly influenced by the rights of the tangata whenua or should we say by the lack of those rights in the past. I quote him: “Sedition has been used to quieten the natives and to suppress and oppress anyone daring to challenge the status quo. In fact even former Prime Minister and President of the Law Commission Sir Geoffrey Palmer admits that the archaic offence of sedition was too wide and too unclear and had been used to muzzle unpopular political speech.” I have something to tell that will possibly appeal to those in New Zealand First who oppose the bill. I went to a school in a very old town in Bury St Edmonds in Suffolk where the knights gathered before they went down to Runnymede to sign the Magna Carta. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: You went to school? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Yes I did go to school. I thank the member for the inquiry. I am able to affirm that during tonight’s debate. The reality is that the rights of people are hard fought and freedom of speech is a hard-fought thing to go for. 
Then we heard Peter Dunne who gave instances of earlier generations of his family who were caught under this law. In one case a very elderly relative said she would not like to see sons of hers go to war. I am sure that other families in New Zealand have had that experience. She was taken away and threatened with being charged with sedition. 
If we look back at earlier times we see that the Elizabethans introduced the law of sedition. I think Henry VIII did it first and the government of Elizabeth I probably took it further. It was an uncredited quote but it was designed to control the commoners frighten the intellectuals and deal to people like Jesuits and clergy. It has always been a legal frightener. I can see my military colleague Mr Mark thinking “Yes! What’s wrong with that?”. But we should not really need that sort of thing and indeed it is the opinion of this Parliament clearly that we do not need that sort of frightener. 
The Hon Peter Dunne finished his speech by saying: “I stand here delighted to see the bill before the House urging expedition in its passage and looking forward to a time when the references to sedition in this country are purely historical never to be repeated again. A country that is confident about itself and its direction”—and I think this is important—“does not need laws of this type to regulate its behaviour. I look forward to the third reading of this bill which will hopefully be not too far away when we can farewell this particular legislation to the dustbin of history where it deserves to lie and rot.” 
So the debates and discussions have gone on from other parts of Parliament. I think it was the National Party that suggested that this was very much an MMP type of legislation as it has emerged from the smaller parties and has been picked up and debated. Certainly having sat on the select committee that heard the public submissions I know there were really not very many strong supporting voices in favour of the sedition laws. I think we had 17 submissions in all. 
Ron Mark 
: Peace in our time. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Oh no; I think the member probably knows me a little better than to credit me with that sort of expression. But I am confident and the police were clearly confident that they have sufficient laws to cope with the possible requirements of offences that normally would attract convictions under the sedition law. But even the strongest supporters of retaining this law would have to admit that it has not really been used very much at all effectively. 
Ron Mark 
: Neither has necrophilia. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Well yes there is necrophilia and—what was that other one? Running off with an adulterous—no; running off with a nun! Those things changed in about 1960 and this one can go. I really do not think we will be overly concerned at not having this law but I would be concerned as I said as a good free-thinking person to think that it was being retained for no good purpose. I am very proud to be part of this Parliament and I will be very proud to tell the people of the West Coast - Tasman seat—that ever-increasingly marginal seat—that I have been part of reducing some of the laws and regulations in this House.