Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9349] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I want to speak on this part because I have some amendments to it relating particularly to clauses 7 and 8. Clause 7 is about threatening to do harm. One of the problems is that the definition—it is a bit like the definition in the Terrorism Suppression Act although this is not specifically about terrorism—is very broad because all one has to do to qualify under this particular clause is to threaten to do something that is going to cause significant disruption to a commercial activity or a civil administration in a way that causes a risk to health major property damage major economic loss or major damage to the national economy of New Zealand. They are very broad terms. People do not actually need to do the act; they can just even as of now threaten to do something. For instance some of the Maori involved in the battle for the foreshore and seabed are getting quite upset about their property rights as they see them. They are worried about the aquaculture. If they took some action against an aquaculture facility somewhere and caused major economic loss to one or more persons—in fact they do not need to do it; right now they need just to threaten to do it—then under this clause they could be up for quite an extensive period in jail. The terms are so broad that they could be misinterpreted. 
I turn to genetic engineering. Of course most people do not want the release of genetically engineered foods into crops and into the New Zealand environment but there are people even now who are threatening perhaps to take some sort of non-violent civil disobedience - type direct action in a way that could affect genetically engineered crops and that action could qualify under the definition in this clause. So just the threat of it now—or when and if this legislation passes through Order in Council or whatever it is—could mean that people are subject to quite a big penalty. 
New section 307A(2) inserted by clause 7—and one of my amendments relates to it—states that any strike lockout or other industrial action is not by itself a sufficient basis for inferring that a person has committed an offence. This is what is known as a comfort clause. There is a similar clause in the Terrorism Suppression Act. People can be a bit misled and say: “I can be a good protester and I won’t be covered by this clause because of those two words—‘by itself’.” But I have interrogated the officials and the legal people in this respect and they all say that the clause in both the Terrorism Suppression Act and in this bill is just a comfort clause. If someone who is involved in protest action does actually cause the effects I have just described he or she is still covered despite this comfort clause. But I have put forward an amendment. If people think that strikes lockouts and legitimate protests are protected under this clause then I have moved an amendment to cut out the two words “by itself” so it would be clear that people involved in strikes lockouts industrial action and other protest action will not be covered by that. But the Green Party is opposed to that whole clause because as I said it is quite dangerous. 
The other clause I have an amendment to is clause 8. Clause 8—and this also comes up in Part 3—enables the police to engage in fishing expeditions involving interception devices. There is already a provision for interception devices in the criminal law in order to try to get drug offenders under warrant and also in the Crimes Act in order to get serious offenders. The two amendments to this bill in Parts 1 and 3 mean that the police can say they want an interception warrant because of a particular offence that they think a person may have committed. Under these amendments once the police have the interception warrant they can then look for information on all kinds of crimes across the board basically. If there was a situation of the police misusing their powers a little bit they could use this measure.