Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): Thank you Madam Speaker. I acknowledge the Leader of the Opposition who has just resumed her seat and acknowledge the support that she has pledged on behalf of the National Party for the passage of this legislation. Can I just correct the member who has resumed her seat on one or two things. The royal commission of inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attack did not recommend a standalone counter-terrorism agency. It certainly recommended a Minister be given discrete and specific responsibility for counter-terrorism and it also recommended that a new national security and intelligence agency—one to sit above the operational organisations that sit there at the moment—be established to ensure that there is that strategic leadership that kind of looking over the horizon to look at the risks and threats as a source of advice to the Prime Minister and Cabinet and relevant Ministers of the day. I can assure the member and indeed the House that that work is under way and is ongoing as we continue the journey to fulfil the recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry into those mosque attacks.Can I also say too that this legislation started following work commissioned by this Government in its first term—work commissioned in 2018 as the Prime Minister has confirmed in her media statements—and it continued even following the mosque attacks. But the work was not concluded pending the completion by the royal commission of inquiry of its work to make sure that any proposed changes to the legislation principally the Terrorism Suppression Act took account of the work of the royal commission of inquiry and this does that. My colleague the Hon Kris Faafoi introduced the legislation with the benefit of the insights of the royal commission of inquiry's report and the work that had been done. It was referred to the select committee earlier this year. I know there have been some comments made publicly that somehow this has all been dealt with in haste and I reassure the House that it has not. It has been done appropriately. I'm thankful for the work that the select committee has done. When I look at the changes that have come back to this House as a consequence of that work I think that it is good work. They are good constructive changes that have been made.As the Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged and indeed the Hon Kris Faafoi there will be through the work that has to be done—that is the work that will be done in light of the events of 3 September. This bill was not conceived around the events of 3 September. If anything this bill goes back to events that happened in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 2000s and of course in 2019 because the reality is that we now know this country is not immune from terrorist activity and the threat of terrorism. We know that precursor events that lead to terrorist activity—namely preparation and planning—can have evil intent and can be intended to cause harm. We should have a criminal code that captures that activity and that's what this legislation seeks to do.So we've had counter-terrorism legislation for nearly 20 years now. It was found to be wanting only a few years after it was enacted and the work has now been done to address the gaps that were identified at that time. Those principal gaps were in preparation activity. I think it's also important to remind the House that when we think about planning and preparation of a terrorist act we are still dependent on the definition of terrorist act" that is in the Terrorism Suppression Act—that is the extant definition that is in section 5 of the existing Act—and that definition has three elements to it. First of all the action that is the subject of the planning and preparation has to be an action intended to cause death or risk of harm or destruction; secondly carried out for the purpose of ideological political or religious causes; and thirdly intended to cause fear in a population. So that is a very high threshold to meet when it comes to considering a charge for a planning and preparation offence when it comes to an act of terrorism. Added to that is the further safeguard that for any prosecution it has to be approved by the Attorney-General.I might add too there is a further clarification—extant clarification—under current legislation that makes it very clear that a protest activity activist activity does not constitute and cannot constitute an act of terrorism so there are a number of safeguards already built in. But the reality is we know from our experience in this country now that it is possible for someone motivated for the right reasons or we might say the wrong reasons—but in their warped view of the world they're motivated for the right reasons—to cause harm and to start making preparatory acts for it. There is the constant juggling act that this House and the State generally has towards its citizens of working out where the line between ensuring safety for citizens and ensuring the freedom of expression and action and movement is as we have to look closely at those who express a will to do harm and prepare for an act to do that and particularly when motivated for ideological reasons and also particularly when intended to induce intimidation as the bill now proposes to create. So there are a number of safeguards already built into this and in the end it is for our agencies including the police to make the assessment about threats and where to take appropriate action. I might add as the Leader of the Opposition said too we already have offences on our statute book. They are called the inchoate class of offences. Conspiracy is one of them attempting to commit an offence is another aiding and abetting is another. No offence has been committed but an action has been taken that is intended to cause or encourage others to cause harm and that is an offence under our Crimes Act right now. So there is nothing unusual about ensuring that our criminal law keeps up with the actions of those who would do harm and captures the level of criminality at the right place at the right time to prevent harm being caused bearing in mind that at least in this case there are good safeguards around the intended offences.The other concern that has been expressed I know is about the extension of the search and surveillance powers under the Search and Surveillance Act because this bill amends that piece of legislation. Those powers are effectively extended but again there are safeguards in the existing legislation the Search and Surveillance Act which say that in order to exercise those search and surveillance powers a constable has to have reasonable grounds to suspect that a relevant offence is being committed or is about to committed has to have reasonable grounds to suspect that there is evidential material which the constable wants to get access to and thirdly has to form a reasonable view that if entry is delayed that material will be destroyed or removed and therefore prevent the enforcement of the law.So again those who are concerned about overreaching or overweening powers of the State when it comes to this sort of activity can be assured that there are safeguards in place. In the end I come back to the reality of the situation that has been illustrated by the events in March 2019 and now September of this year that there are those in our community—some who come to our community from abroad—who would cause us harm and who would do so for what we would describe as warped ideological reasons and who are prepared to take actions and plan to do so. Some of those actions will be very hard to detect as we have seen. But others with appropriate exercise of suspicion and inquiry we can detect and we need our authorities to be able to take appropriate action at the right time to keep us all safe. I commend the bill to the House."