Faafoi Kris: Search and Surveillance Bill — Second Reading 
Faafoi Kris: Search and Surveillance Bill — Second Reading 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the Search and Surveillance Bill. As the three previous speakers on the Labour side of the House have mentioned this bill has had a long gestation period. It began under a Labour Government in 2008 sparked by the Law Commission report in 2007. On this side of the House we still support the continuing reform of the law in this area around search and surveillance because we think that the legislation has become outdated. But in its current form we will not be supporting this bill to the next stage because we have some substantial concerns around three areas which have already been highlighted by Charles Chauvel David Parker and Lianne Dalziel. 
 I will be focusing because of my past on the press freedom aspects of our concerns. We would like to see some specific provisions in this bill inserted to protect the freedom of the press and the confidentiality of their sources. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: This member caused a lot of this bill. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: I know Mr Williamson would like that too from a number of the stories he may have fed to the media that I was aware of when I was a journalist so I am sure that Mr Williamson may want to keep his anonymity in that respect. 
Over time our minority report put forward our concerns and also letters that David Parker sent to the Minister in the previous term of Government laid out our concerns about this bill. We are seeking three main amendments which relate to both examination and production orders. The first of course as I have already spoken about is that the media should be exempted from examination and production orders. As Lianne Dalziel has mentioned there are Serious Fraud Office processes for examination and production. We believe that these should also be the same as for the police and that the threshold for the police to make use of the examination and production orders should be lowered. 
In terms of media freedom I think it is a good thing that a High Court judge will now be involved to deal with objections around the production and examination order applications against the media. I know this was a live issue certainly in my time. I think there was suspicion that the police may come knocking on our door at Television New Zealand (TVNZ) for some tapes. I cannot remember the specific issue and someone else in the House may be a bit more learned in the legal area but we understood that the police could not serve a search warrant in Parliament Buildings so very quickly we removed the tapes from our Lambton Quay office and put them into a safe cupboard in our press gallery office to make sure that the police—I do not know whether they are still there. They may be; someone may have forgotten about them. But this is certainly a live issue that the media takes very seriously at the moment. 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: Obstruction of justice. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Maybe the Minister Anne Tolley is going to be sending the police around now just to see if they are there. Maybe it was pertaining to National Party issues so maybe if they are back at the TVNZ office on Lambton Quay—they were not able to get their hands on the tapes at that time. 
We also believe that there should be some better protection for material that may have been seized under these orders but is still in the possession of the police which may be in dispute. We believe that under the current legislation there are not enough protections around in that department but we are hopeful that there is going to be a Supplementary Order Paper at some stage and we are expecting one where some changes may be made in that respect to make sure that there are better protections for information tapes or documents that may have been seized from the media but are still in dispute. 
As we all probably know around this place the protection of the media’s sources and material is a major pillar of journalism and to risk that is a serious risk to the level of freedom of the press at the moment so we are on the side of the media and we have spoken to many of them who want to make sure that in this legislation there are protections in place for them to make sure their sources remain anonymous. 
This is important legislation and we do believe that some of the measures in it are worthy of our making sure they are passed but because of the three areas of concern that we have at the moment we are not willing to support it unless some serious changes and significant changes are made. So we are hopeful that that will be done. I think we have had some signals from the Minister of Justice that those changes will be made. We still wait to see the shape of those but we are hopeful that because we do not think there is a huge chasm between our concerns and the ability— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member; his time has expired.