Hide Rodney: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hide Rodney: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2007. Volume:643;Page:12680. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of ACT to oppose the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. We should reflect calmly and soberly in the wake of terrorist attacks and think very carefully about our response. We cannot fight terror by terrorising our own people. We cannot defend our freedoms which we cherish by adopting fascist policies. We oppose terrorism because we all wish to live in a free and open society. That means a society in which there is a rule of law and we are ruled by rules not by men and women. With our anti-terrorism legislation we have the rule of men and women because a body of people can declare an organisation or a person to be a terrorist and that is it. Once a person is declared a terrorist that person is a terrorist. 
The amazing thing about what this Parliament is signing up to is that it is not even our own Government—as bad as that would be—declaring who and who is not a terrorist. It is an outside agency— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Al-Qaeda! 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Mr Wayne Mapp says: “Al-Qaeda!” Actually declaring al-Qaeda a terrorist organisation has not sprung its members out of their cave. Mr Wayne Mapp says that we have to pass this bill because maybe Osama bin Laden will turn up in court and challenge his terrorist designation. I think it would be quite good if he did because then we would arrest him. 
Jumping up and down about bogeymen as scary as it is and then giving a response like this is not appropriate. How can it be that we are signing up to a group of people not elected by New Zealanders who can declare the ACT party or the National Party or the Green Party for that matter to be terrorists? Everyone will sit here and say: “Oh well that would never happen.” Well why allow for it to happen? Why allow that to happen in this Parliament? We are supposed to be protecting the people of New Zealand. 
Then we have the situation where the Prime Minister on his or her own bat can declare someone or some group to be terrorists. The assets of that person or group are frozen and that is it. I have huge respect for Helen Clark’s integrity. I do not think she will misuse that power. However—and I know this will be a shock to the Labour Party—she will not always be the Prime Minister although I know Labour members are working hard on the Electoral Finance Bill to make that a possibility. We should ask ourselves this question in this Parliament. We remember Sir Robert Muldoon. What would he have done with this legislation? What would Sir Robert Muldoon have done with this legislation? Are we seriously suggesting that the man who used the Economic Stabilisation Act to freeze everything in the entire economy to try to beat inflation would not be above declaring those in political protest movements that he did not agree with to be dissidents? Indeed would he not be above declaring people who opposed the Springbok Tour to be terrorists? Would that not fit the definition in this bill? 
Why are we giving that power to our Prime Minister? Why are we surrendering this power to an overseas agency over which we have no sway and no say? Let us track down criminals let us incarcerate those who offend against our person and our property but let us not indulge in a political witch-hunt and the opportunity for a political witch-hunt where people not the law rule and where a person can declare someone essentially illegal and does not even have to say why. How do we challenge it? Under this law one cannot. 
I think in New Zealand we live in a big village. I think we live in a village that is remote from the world’s troubles. We think of our Government as the fellow or the fellowess next door. We cannot imagine our political leaders misusing their powers. So we find ourselves very relaxed about passing enormous awesome powers across to our Government and saying: “Well we need this because there are terrorists.” Someone who stands up for our basic rights—like the Maori Party the Green Party or the ACT party—immediately gets accused by the parties that do not have an argument of somehow harbouring terrorists or going soft on terrorists. 
We do not want to concede awesome powers to our political leaders. We do not want to have a country and to live in a country where we can be declared guilty without a trial. We do not want to live in a society where the Prime Minister can declare someone to be persona non grata without actually having to charge that person and where there is no recourse simply on the basis that the legislation would not get misused and simply on the basis that we have this awesome threat called terror. 
I believe that with the passage of these measures—and New Zealand obviously is not alone in passing such laws—the terrorists are winning. In waging their terror the very freedoms that we are trying to protect are being eroded by our Governments in response. We should reflect on why we do not want to live under the Taliban. We should reflect on why we do not want to live in a society where we do not have basic human rights and where we cannot stand up for what we believe in. We should reflect on why we not do want to live in a society where rulers can just declare us to be guilty. And then we should ask ourselves: “Why oh why are we passing this bill?”.