Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): I would like to join in the congratulations of the select committee members of each other. I was not part of the Justice Committee but I am very happy too to celebrate them working in a responsible adult and in the best interests of New Zealand and New Zealanders" way—particularly the contributions I've heard this afternoon from the Labour National and ACT parties. I take on board some of the comments that the Green Party's advocate Golriz Ghahraman has made today but I would say that the world we live in is not a perfect world and not everybody cares about Aotearoa New Zealand or our rights or responsibilities and that some of the information that our security agencies receive is information that doesn't necessarily come from our security agencies or from New Zealand. And we need to have a level of and degree of trust between ourselves and—I would correct her—our friends with whom we share intelligence-gathering relationships. Those relationships should not be taken lightly because for a small country like ours with a very tiny population and very little leverage in the world other than goodwill it is really important that we understand that we benefit hugely by being part of such relationships. Otherwise we would have to try at immense cost and with very limited outcomes to try and replicate that to have anything like the degree of security that we can now.I'm fortunate to have been in a position over the years in Government of having to deal with a few of the issues raised and I do know that there will be information behind certain court proceedings that will possibly never come out because it's just too sensitive. And why is it sensitive? Well sometimes people's lives are actually at risk; sometimes methods of people living in countries where they are not free and I don't like to criticise the member from the Green Party because I personally like her and she's a fellow lawyer but really to question freedom in New Zealand—New Zealand is a liberal democracy and this is not something that we should take lightly. We should be celebrating that and we should be happy to encourage other liberal democracies to feel like that too. Don't take it lightly. People die in other countries because they don't agree with the Government. People lose their lives because of that. We have to value it and I think it's precious. Remember too we are working today in a war memorial. There's a reason that people like my father went off to war. There's a reason that they did that and many of them lost their lives. Why is that? Because they valued freedom. Don't take it for granted. And I'm looking at the individual freedoms and that's what we're also talking about here. Yes the State has a duty to let someone know what it is that they are accused of. Yes absolutely. This is not a Star Chamber type regime we're talking about. It is really important people know who's accusing them and what they're accused of. But let's not be naive. We do have a history of people who have meant very ill will to this country. It's not only the appalling situation we saw of the massacres in Christchurch; it's not only that one. And that was an appalling situation—the worst of all. But there are other situations—some of which have never been made public. There were some situations that myself and probably also the Minister Andrew Little will be aware of—certain situations where harm has quite definitely been stopped because of the information that never ends up in a court. But the action was stopped the harm was stopped people's lives were saved and we can't talk about those instances publicly. But let's not be naive. The world is not as we want it. This legislation is good legislation. It is attempting to give some balance to the rights and responsibilities around that information in the court proceedings. But it's also legislation that I think will help to give our friends when it comes to security some confidence that they can continue to share with us the information that we should receive. So we commend this bill to the House. The National Party is supporting it."