O'Rourke Denis: Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:806. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):I have seldom been more flabbergasted by such a ridiculous proposal as this one. In fact I think that the collective New Zealand “flabber” should have never been more “gasted” than by this idiotic proposal. This is absolutely totally unacceptable as a process. It is utterly undemocratic and unseemly for any bill to be dealt with in such haste especially a bill that contains such important issues as this one does. Fundamentally we are being asked to sign off on a 1-week submission period for this bill that has those particularly serious issues to be decided in it. In my speech earlier today I set out a number of the concerns that New Zealand First has over the contents of the bill. It is totally and completely unacceptable to try to deal with those issues in such a short time frame and it is a gross affront to democracy and good parliamentary practice.New Zealand First will therefore support Labour’s amendment to extend the period to 10 February 2015 which I might say is itself an extremely short period for due consideration because of course you have got to take into account the Christmas and New Year period in which very little or nothing would get done so the constructive time for consideration would even then be very short. People need time to digest the bill to understand what it is about to consider what their submissions will be and all of the issues and then to forward those submissions and if necessary to seek to speak on them.As I said earlier today there are some very serious issues to be dealt with. New Zealand First even now is not fully decided upon what its attitude will be to some of them. Most particularly we are very concerned about the proposal for the 3-year cancellation of passports. We do understand why that is being proposed and the arguments for it are valid. On the other hand the cancellation of passports for 3 years is a very long period to be deprived of a basic human right. We would like to hear what others have to say. There will be many people I am sure who will wish to make submissions and who will no doubt bring out as always happens some very good points in the submissions process. We want to hear those. We want to consider those before we make a final decision.The second issue is the 48 hours for visual surveillance without a warrant. That needs to be very seriously considered. New Zealand First is more definite about that. We do not see why 48 hours are necessary and why 24 hours would not be more than adequate in this day and age. We want to hear the arguments about that. If we do not hear the arguments there is no possible way that we could support 48 hours.Thirdly and lastly the sunset date of 2018 is again far too far away—at least a year too far away. We want that date to be 2017 before the 2017 election so that people would then have a genuine opportunity to consider it before the election and if necessary to take that into account in their voting process.New Zealand First was one of the parties ignored when the Government spoke to others—including not just other parties but other entities altogether—about this bill. We were not consulted at all but now we are expected to turn up here in Parliament and just rubber-stamp this stuff. That is not good enough for us. We do not intend to lie down and accept that kind of arrogance. It is a ludicrously short period. We as a political party would find it difficult to fully grapple with the serious issues concerned—Ian McKelvie: That doesn’t surprise us.DENIS O’ROURKE: —and to make a good contribution as a result of such a short period for consideration. If that member opposite Ian McKelvie thinks he can do better he had better upgrade his performance because so far he has not done anything better in the last 3 years in this Parliament. It is about time he upgraded his performance because if he does not he will find himself doing nothing for another 3 years. That is about as good as his performance has ever been or ever could be.New Zealand First will not accept such a short period and no amount of shouting by that member will make any difference to that. We do not want to be unconstructive about this. We accept that it is a serious issue and we accept that it is urgent but we do not accept the kind of arrogance that says that we should have a period of consideration this short. That is not acceptable and we will not be voting for it.We do want to try to reach consensus. If you read my speech from earlier in the day you will see that we made a number of suggestions about how we would be able to support the bill if some changes were made. We want to have the opportunity to fully argue those. What we are seeing here tonight is just the National steamroller at work—more Government arrogance and what we are obviously going to be seeing for the next 3 years. Despite the Prime Minister’s statements on election night that that would not happen we obviously are going to see a very arrogant National Government simply doing what it wants to do without any consideration of the views of anybody else—not just other political parties but anyone else in this country with a view contrary to the Government’s. New Zealand First will oppose this motion. We will support Labour’s amendment. If this process goes through it can result only in a No vote from us simply because we would not have had the opportunity to properly put forward our views and that would not be what our choice would be. We would prefer on an issue like this to try to find consensus but that Government does not seem interested. Well so be it.