Graham Kennedy: Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 09 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1215. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee has now reported back on the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill. The Green Party will have something to say in the Committee stage about the drafting. Let me address the issue of substance now to the extent that it was considered by the committee.The Green Party had opposed the introduction of the bill not simply its draft content. We alone voted against it in the first reading. Like all other parties we entered the committee’s work open to persuasion but unlike most others we were listening for the fundamental reasons for the bill in the first place. The committee received as has been mentioned 588 submissions; it heard 63. The other 525 remained essentially unread by the committee during the hearing process because of the perversely truncated time it was allowed to perform its democratic function of listening to the people. The very passage of the bill impugns the democratic standards it is designed to protect. We were briefed twice by the Director of Security to gain an appreciation of the need as claimed for the expanded State powers. Nothing we heard persuaded us that our initial underlying concern with the bill was misplaced.We do not deny that the world is a dangerous place. We are not oblivious to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). We are aware of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178. But the primary case for the legislation according unprecedented State powers to not just the police but the SIS has not been made and the political foundation for the legislation is weak. UN member States have an obligation under the Charter to maintain international peace and security. This includes measures to combat international terrorism. Collective action to this end however is not new. As long as four decades ago the United Nations General Assembly invited member States to take all appropriate measures at the national level with a view to the speedy and final elimination of international terrorism. Concerns over the 2015 Cricket World Cup cannot be higher than those that stemmed from the 1972 Munich Olympics yet New Zealand had the wisdom not to overreact then. The strategic decision after September 2001 to regard terrorism as an issue of international peace and security rather than of global and domestic crime has had fateful consequences for political judgment everywhere ever since.New Zealand as the smallest fast follower among the “Five Eyes” espionage network has suffered the most in loss of clarity regarding its role as a responsible global citizen. Through pure contagion it has imported a vicarious threat level from its four partners that is inappropriate to its own geostrategic position and its distinctive political culture. In calibrating its response the Government is unduly influenced by its “Five Eyes” espionage partners which have attracted higher threat levels and it has not had sufficient regard for the other 188 member States.The rise of ISIL in 2014 raises the threat level but the change is not qualitatively different from before and does not therefore justify the expansion of State powers of the kind proposed. In making the political case for the legislation the Prime Minister has described how our risk and threat profile is changing. Much of that he explains is due to the rapid rise of ISIL which has seized substantial territory decreed national borders between Islamic States to be invalid and used brutal methods. The ability of ISIL to motivate Islamic radicals as well as its ambition resources and methods make it a brutal threat to stability not only in the Middle East but regionally and locally too. The rise of such a well-resourced globally focused terrorist entity that is highly skilled in recruitment and social media is a game-changer for New Zealand the Prime Minister says.ISIL has successfully recruited New Zealanders to its cause and there is a watch-list of about 40 foreign fighters plus an equivalent number in or from New Zealand who are participating in extremist behaviour. Some have been fighting in Syria. Some are attracted to carrying out domestic attacks in New Zealand of the type recently prevented in Australia and successfully carried out in Canada. Should they return to New Zealand fully radicalised and with fighting skills they would represent a significant threat to the safety of New Zealanders.In light of all this the Prime Minister concludes there is “an immediate threat to national security”. This justifies he thinks the Government’s response: expansion of intrusive powers by the State and a resulting erosion of privacy and civil liberty longer cancellation of passports SIS access to Customs Service data visual surveillance by SIS hitherto confined to the police and 24-hour SIS surveillance without a warrant. These changes he says will “strengthen our national security settings”. The Prime Minister’s “immediate threat to national security” is not matched by the official change in New Zealand’s threat level which has increased only from very low or highly unlikely to low or possible but not expected. There is some cognitive dissonance between the excitable political narrative and the official judgment. The case is advanced for an unprecedented expansion of intrusive State powers in response to a possible terrorist act that is not expected. The case is not made. The bill is an overreaction to the true content of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178. That resolution requires member States to ensure that their laws are sufficient to combat the threat leaving it to their discretion to judge what those might be consistent with international human rights refugee and humanitarian law.The political foundation for the legislation is weak. The day the bill was introduced the independent Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence released a report with findings on actions by the SIS and the Prime Minister’s office in 2011. These included disclosure of incomplete inaccurate and misleading information; significant errors in considering media requests; a failure to safeguard political neutrality; a lack of trust and confidence with the Leader of the Opposition; and an insufficiently rigorous and careful approach in handling security intelligence. Separately staff of the Prime Minister’s office had disclosed to the media for political purposes information supplied by the SIS. The report recommended that SIS staff be trained in the release of information and that published guidance be developed on their political neutrality obligations.It is in the context of these shortcomings—corrosive of public trust in the most sensitive areas of State power—and the need for guidance and training of the SIS that the Prime Minister asks the people of New Zealand to accept an expansion of its powers. The timing of this bill could not be less opportune. There is a need for proven rectification of the shortcomings in both the SIS and the Prime Minister’s office and a consequent restoration of public trust in these institutions before any such bill could even be contemplated.As I said we shall speak to the drafting of the bill in the Committee stage but our fundamental opposition to the bill is this. Under legislation designed to combat foreign terrorist fighters engaged in the Middle East the New Zealand SIS will have the power in respect of all New Zealanders to access Customs Service data and covertly plant cameras anywhere in their homes including without warrant. The justification for expanded State powers is ISIL terrorism in the Middle East but those powers extend to “local extremists”—undefined—carrying out serious environmental or economic damage in New Zealand. This is wrong and unacceptable.