Locke Keith: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Locke Keith: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:12592] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 Ron Mark said we should just sit quietly and wait for the police to look at this law and perhaps bring in prosecutions. In fact when the police brought in a prosecution in the Tim Selwyn case they used this law and because of the archaic nature of the law Tim Selwyn was wrongly convicted. That is how people will interpret what happened once this law is taken off our statute book—that he was already punished for criminal damage for leaving an axe in window of the Auckland office of the Prime Minister. He was tried and convicted for sedition for saying that other people should engage in symbolic acts—which was the term he used—against the Foreshore and Seabed Act. As has been pointed out in the debate the sedition laws are criminalising free speech. 
It occurred to me when I heard Chris Auchinvole reading out that bit about inciting contempt against the Government that I have heard Mr Mark being quite contemptuous of the Government on occasion. I would not want my good friend and close colleague here to be dragged away for the honourable role he plays in being a watchdog for wrongdoing and for sometimes bringing contempt upon the Government in doing so. Chris Auchinvole also read out something about creating hostility or ill will between different classes of people. I was listening to a speech made by my colleague Hone Harawira not long ago that quite upset Mr Peter Dunne. I think one could say that that speech incited hostility between the middle classes the white collar and the blue collar. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Oh no I am sure he wouldn’t do that. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: He was. He was talking about white-collar crime and saying we were not paying enough attention to that and I am sure he could have been sent down for sedition. In fact one former leader of the Labour Party Harry Holland was convicted of sedition for that very reason—for causing ill will between the classes when he talked about the need for the working class to assert itself and rise up and take power and all the rest of it. Harry Holland was inciting disaffection against what he would have considered to be the ruling classes or the rich classes of that day. So we have a problem here. Getting rid of the sedition laws is getting rid of thought crimes and it is really good if we value free speech. 
There is a whole parallel here between this debate and the debate on the Terrorism Suppression Act in that if the police go down that track the prosecutions that have been threatened to be brought under the Terrorism Suppression Act might end up in the same basket as the sedition laws. This is because people will see that that Act is in a sense a restriction on free speech too in that it is so broad in its application and could be applied to what people say as well as to what they do. If people commit any specific crimes of incitement the sedition laws are not required as there are specific provisions in the Crimes Act. It is the same under the Terrorism Suppression Act: if any crimes are committed in terms of involvement in an organised criminal conspiracy that is covered under the Crimes Act so we do not need a Terrorism Suppression Act that has a much broader application and inhibits our civil liberties. 
So it may be that what we are doing today following on from the Tim Selwyn case will be done tomorrow with the Terrorism Suppression Act if the police bring prosecutions. Even if they do not do so—and we do not know the full details of the cases yet—I point out that a lot of these people do not on the surface of things seem to be involved in the deep level of wrongdoing that the Terrorism Suppression Act suggests. So I see that parallel there and I support this bill wholeheartedly. It is a bill whose time has come. There has been a debate in the Chamber between National and Labour on this issue and it is great that National and Labour are coming together with the other parties—the four minority parties that held a press conference a few months ago on this bill— 
Christopher Finlayson 
: We apply it to the Electoral Finance Bill as well. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Yes that is good—a dialogue across the Chamber on what to do about the Electoral Finance Bill.