Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): I apologise for the abrupt entry into the debate Madam Speaker. Counter-terrorism obviously is a matter that's close to all of our hearts in particular in this Parliament and across our nation after the deadly tragic events in the Christchurch mosques that happened on March 15th in 2019.I know that we all—and we always have—aim to protect our people against violence and terrorism is the worst of violence; it is a hate crime and it aims to terrorise a community with far-reaching implications. It hasn't always been the case that Parliaments and Governments have brought laws under the umbrella of counter-terrorism that have actually done that; that have actually kept those particular marginalised communities safe or addressed the truth kind of actors in the realm of counter-terrorism. We have had a royal commission inquiry into those events and we've learnt a lot. A review of the actions that resulted from the royal commission is due out just next week and so we'll hear again from those communities from the experts from the agencies and—hopefully—act as a result of that.I've been asked about this bill a few times by media in the lead up to it and sometimes the question has been Is it weird that the Government is bringing back this tweak?" And obviously the Green Party has not always been quick to support things that come under the umbrella of counter-terrorism because we do have serious concerns about due process and we do have serious concerns about rights issues that are often suppressed there. But I certainly don't have an issue with Governments bringing counter-terrorism legislation back to this House to tweak things that have gone wrong or to fill voids in the law that we've learnt are necessary to be filled. So in that spirit I do welcome a Minister reacting and responding to things that we've found out were missing in our laws that may have made our laws a little bit less safe or affected the efficacy of our counter-terrorism regime.We are supporting this bill to select committee today and that's because it does identify some valid and concerning gaps in our law—one of them being that the Christchurch terror perpetrator may fall short of being able to be designated a terrorist under current law. That's concerning. Having said that the reason the select committee process will be essential in this is that we need to hear from experts and from the communities that are most impacted by both terrorism and counter-terrorism legislation—because often there's a crossover. We know that the Muslim community in particular for example experienced oppression as a result of past counter-terrorism laws that came in through the so-called war of terror and also they were increasingly the targets and the victims of white nationalist terror most devastatingly on March 15th when the Christchurch terror attack happened. So we need to hear from those communities and we need to hear from the experts so that we are not engaged in overreach that impacts people's rights and we're not leaving anything out. In particular I know that one of the gaps in practice that was identified by the royal commission was that we weren't designating the right people and we weren't watching the right organisations in terms of what modern terrorism looks like today. So those are the types of things we need to hear from communities on.The types of concerns that we have as the Green Party are things like whether or not the orders regime is going to be extended to apply to people who are not duly shown to be engaged in terrorism for example. The proposed change is for example to look at material that's distributed or posted that's not just terrorist material but also dangerous in other ways—for example encouraging torture. But we want to know that that is right. We want to know that we're not capturing material that falls outside of being actually dangerous for example because it is important to protect both freedom of speech and freedom of expression and freedom of publication and communication—especially in communities that are often seen as being "potential terrorists" that are sometimes actually the most marginalised communities—but also to uphold the spirit of what counter-terrorism law is about which is to keep our communities safe from violence. The balance is really really important. So that select committee process is going to be really really important. It is valid to bring back counter-terrorism law it is valid to look at the orders it is valid to look at the designations and the definition that we provide in law that allow those designations; we need to know that we are reacting responsibly to the current climate when it comes to terrorism. But it is also important that we don't let go of our due process standards that we don't let go of the rule of law and the human rights regime that we hold so dear that will protect us and keep us aligned with the values that New Zealanders expect us to be aligned with.So for those reasons the Green Party will support this bill to select committee. We will engage meaningfully with that process and we hope that the bill is improved in that process so that we can continue to support it and make New Zealand and the world a little bit safer from modern terrorism."