Ross Jami-Lee: Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoss Jami-Lee: Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 09 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1222. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany):It is common when members on this side of the House rise to speak to say that it is a pleasure to take a call on the bill. It is an often overused phrase that we use on this side of the House and possibly one that is not quite appropriate on this bill. It is not a pleasure to have to be talking in the House about increasing powers for surveillance because our country is under threat. But the very fact that there are threats out there that are emerging in this world and emerging at quite a fast pace leads us to the situation where we do have to be talking in this House about an issue like this. Members and the public have already acknowledged that this bill is making its way through Parliament at quite a fast pace. We accept that. We also accept and understand that there is a need for this bill to be progressing at the pace that it is.The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee members worked very well together over the past week or so to ensure that this bill came back to the House in the best possible manner in which it could. I do wish to join my colleagues in acknowledging the select committee staff and officials who supported us. I also want to acknowledge the bipartisan approach that the committee took as well. We National members did work extremely well with the Hon Phil Goff and David Shearer. We also worked very well with Kennedy Graham who ultimately ended up opposing the bill and we always knew that would happen. We also worked very well with Fletcher Tabuteau. I think that if the speech from New Zealand First had been given by Fletcher Tabuteau we would have had a far more informed speech on the bill not one of the general rants that Mr Peters has. We would have had a very informed speech and Mr Tabuteau did make some very good contributions in the select committee that did help to improve the bill. Those contributions from members to improve the bill came from all sides of Parliament. We did genuinely work very well together to try to improve the bill.We heard submissions about the need to reduce the warrantless surveillance time from 48 hours to 24 hours. Some called for less; some called for that power to not be inserted at all. New Zealand actually already does have warrantless surveillance power in extraordinary circumstances for the police. This is simply a change to our statutes that would allow the SIS to have that warrantless surveillance power as well. It is an extreme power. It would be used very rarely but it is going to be put in the legislation for those emergency situations that the country might find itself in. To understand the reason why the warrantless surveillance power is needed you have to remember that to get a warrant under normal circumstances for surveillance requires the Minister and the commissioner to sign off on it. You can probably imagine quite easily circumstances where the country’s security would be at risk if those two individuals were not available in an emergency situation and that is why this power is needed.We also received submissions around the need to tighten the scope for which surveillance can be undertaken; we did that. We received submissions around reducing the time frame for which the bill would operate from 3 years to 2 years; we did that. We also received submissions about increasing the fine if surveillance information that was acquired is not properly destroyed when it is required to be and we have made changes to that provision as well. The select committee members worked very well together to improve this bill as much as we possibly could. We have a much better bill now before Parliament and I hope it continues to enjoy wide support in the House.