Mitchell Mark; Rurawhe AdrianHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Mr Speaker. I never thought that I'd be standing in this House opposing a bill that relates directly to safety and our national security. I'll start my contribution this afternoon by saying that on Wednesday 24 July this year at 1 p.m. the Minister invited me to his office to signal that there was an issue around our national security and community safety that related to the risk of Kiwis returning from overseas having participated supported or sponsored some type of terror activity and specifically speaking about the risk that we'd seen with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the major commitment that we've made as a nation over the last three or four years in trying to defeat what was a global risk.I made it very clear to him in that meeting that we anticipated that he probably would not receive support from one of his coalition partners. Of course I'm directing my comments towards the Green Party because the Green Party in their history in this House—and they have their own ideology and I'm respecting that and I understand that. That's been their history. But their history quite simply has been they will not support bills that come to this House that relate to national security. They will not do it.I said to the Minister very clearly in that meeting with our own officials and with his officials We will support you. The National Party will support you. But the expectation is this: that you bring a proposition through Cabinet and a bill to this House that will put the proper protections in place to make sure that we can keep our country and our citizens as safe as possible." That is one of the fundamental jobs of any Government and any Parliament to keep the citizens safe. I said the expectation—Dr Duncan Webb: Police State—you want a police State Mr Mitchell. Detention without arrest.Hon MARK MITCHELL: So this is the attitude—this is exactly the typical attitude that is driven out of the Labour Party. They see the protection of our people—Rt Hon David Carter: Another social experiment.Hon MARK MITCHELL: —the protection of our country. Exactly—this country is being treated like a social experiment and it's a police State. No we don't live in a police State; we don't. It's not a laughing matter either. It's actually something that this Parliament should take as deadly serious—that is a real genuine threat that we're not immune to and something that we need to take seriously as a Parliament. If we don't put the protections in place—it's still a laughing matter I can see—then who is going to do it? I'd ask the member to stand and take a call.In that meeting I was very clear with the Minister that one of the primary issues that we're going to have to address is the ability to detain at the border. If someone slips through the net and for whatever reason our own agencies aren't notified of their pending return if we can't get an interim control order in place our services our police must be able to detain at the border until a control order can be put in place and until some basic background work has been done in terms of the level of risk to our community. It is completely unacceptable and intolerable in my view to have someone arrive at our border and be able to walk straight out into the community without understanding what their intent is and what the risk is.I'd appeal to the Minister of Defence who is in the House. We have differences—there's no doubt about that—and there's been some tension created around that. I won't go into those issues now but the one thing that I will acknowledge is his service in our own Defence Force and his service and his experience in the Omani defence forces. He has an understanding and he knows the types of threats that this country faces. He has an understanding and he knows that they are real. He has an understanding and has dedicated a lot of his adult life to the service and the protection of our country without a doubt and I acknowledge that service.I'd be very interested to see—because I understand that he is the person in New Zealand First that is actually handling the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill—whether or not he will come to this House and whether or not they will support our Supplementary Order Papers in making the changes to a bill that at the moment is weak. We will not hand on heart as a party stand here and support a bill that we know is not going to provide the protection that Kiwis need.Let me come back to my original point. Let me highlight to the country who is leading this bill now: it is the Green Party. The Green Party are now taking the lead on this bill. Do you know why? It's quite simple. It came down to petty politics.Marja Lubeck: Stop the sour grapes.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry what was that? If you're going to say it say it clearly so I can respond. It came down to this: quite simply when the bill was released the National Party came forward with seven amendments that we wanted to make that would strengthen it that would address the issues that I spoke to originally in that meeting on 24 July with the Minister. The Minister's response publicly was this: "They're silly."Well I'll tell you how silly they are. Let me take just one and that comes to the issue of detained on arrival at our border. Through the select committee process—which by the way was compressed; it wasn't given the time it actually deserved—the police came in front of the committee. In relation to our amendment that we put forward giving them the ability to be able to detain someone at the border that arrived back in New Zealand that we had a suspicion or had information to say could have been involved in some sort of terrorism activity or sponsoring or supporting some type of terrorism activity around the world we wanted the police to have 72 hours to detain that person to allow the High Court to have time to put an interim control order in place. The police reiterated four times during the select committee process that that would be a welcome tool that they would like to have.The Minister stood in this House and he just told us that he wanted to make sure that our agencies had the tools—go back and check the Hansard—that they need to be able to be effective to be able to make sure that they can protect Kiwis. Do you know what the response was? They won't support it. They won't support our own agency our New Zealand Police who are responsible for that—to give them a tool that they've said very clearly in front of the select committee that they would welcome. They outlined why. Because they feel that relying on another piece of legislation outside of the bill and it relates to the ability of a customs officer to be able to hold someone for up to four hours and that's it—after four hours they're able to leave. They didn't feel that they'd be able to get a surveillance team in place. They didn't feel confident that they'd be able to have the processes in place to be able to pick that person up before a High Court Judge was able to issue an interim control order. So I'm highlighting just how weak this bill is. To anyone that watches or studies the passage of these types of bills it should be a huge red flag and a huge warning signal that in the select committee process it was the Green Party member that was leading it. It was the Green Party member that's asked for concessions. They want a tougher test on the intelligence that we use. So they want to weaken and water down the ability of our intelligence agencies to be able to actually take action on and work with our law enforcement agencies to be able to provide the protection allow the protection that we need. That's how fundamentally weak this bill is. We will continue to strive through the committee of the whole House. We'll have our own Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) now that we'll put up. I will appeal—I am making a genuine appeal—to our Minister of Defence to support us on these SOPs and to make this bill stronger because I don't believe for one minute hand on heart that he is going to allow a bill to come through this House and allow the country to think that the protections have been put in place when they haven't.I'd like to talk in the limited time that I have to some of our amendments. Today funnily enough we met with members of the Australian Parliament. I was talking to them about this and they were surprised and shocked that there hadn't been close cross-party collaboration on an issue around national security and I agree with them. I want to acknowledge the chair of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee Simon O'Connor. The Minister's right. He's an outstanding chair and he did the best that he could to try and create some harmony in the committee to get some cross-party collaboration and work done. Unfortunately that couldn't be achieved. It was obvious that the Government members were under orders and it was obvious that the Green member was actually driving it. All I'd say is this. When I chaired the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and we took the returning foreign fighters bill through—I want to acknowledge David Shearer and Phil Goff who worked very well with the National Party. We made concessions inside of that legislation for them. We worked closely with them to make sure that we could bring a bill back to the House that had cross-party support. This Government has chosen not to do that. I haven't seen one step towards us in terms of wanting to collaborate and actually make this a stronger bill in the best interests of our country. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time's expired."