Tabuteau Fletcher: Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTabuteau Fletcher: Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 09 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1233. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First):There have been quite a few issues raised in the debate this afternoon. I speak first on the passport issue which seemed to slip through the conversation in the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—kind of under the radar. It was not an issue of great debate yet the issue was raised—and it was raised again quite strongly by the honourable member—that we are asking in the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill to extend our right to remove a passport from 1 year which it is currently to 3 years.I asked numerous times whether we were not already complying with our requirements to the UN Security Council Resolution 2178. I was told repeatedly that yes under current law we comply with the resolution. We are prohibiting the movement of terrorist fighters we are prohibiting them from leaving our country if we know that that is their intent and we are prohibiting them from moving across borders in different parts of the world. That legislation exists already.When the honourable Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service said how sensible this legislation sounded I had to agree with him at the time because he is such a sensible-sounding member. But when you actually ask the question whether that compliance already exists in our New Zealand law then you have to ask where the sense is. How is it sensible that we now remove the right of New Zealand citizens to have access to their passport for a period of 3 years when in the select committee it was identified and discussed that already there are a very small number of individuals whose passports have been removed where that action has been taken? But it was also noted that at no point has it been necessary to extend that period of time. At no point has the SIS come forward and said: “We need more time. We need to extend it further.” Where is the sense in that?Dr Kennedy Graham was speaking just now about our compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2178 and I acknowledge that yes we do comply. We already comply. But actually what was noted there also was that the legislation spoke of only that part. The legislation made reference to “a part” of the resolution. There are several other parts that ask this nation this Government to please take account of its citizens’ human rights and their rights to privacy. That is also in the resolution. It explicitly states that it explicitly expects Governments to take consideration of individual human rights and privacy. It even speaks further about the practice of undermining those rights leading to radicalisation and that is something that we absolutely must avoid.At the moment with the rhetoric that is being used in the presentation of this bill to the New Zealand public and the rhetoric that is being used to present this bill to the members of the House we are radicalising a minority group within this country and in fact we are already not complying with the UN Security Council Resolution 2178. We are countermanding the requirements there already.I just want to add my statement around the definitions of terrorism the definitions that have been referenced in the legislation. It has already been acknowledged and it has been said very eloquently—and I am adding my voice and the voice of New Zealand First to this conversation—that actually there is no sensible definition of “terrorist”. “Freedom terrorist fighter” is not even mentioned in the legislation apart from the title. The ludicrous statements and the use of reference to legislation where we have had members of this House investigated by the security agencies under those current definitions seems to be counterintuitive and not just that but undermining the democracy and the human rights of New Zealand citizens.We are not clear about what defines a terrorist. We are not clear on what “contributing to” might look like. We are not clear on what—