Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader—National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I so move. Mr Speaker point of order are we having the clock operating?SPEAKER: Sorry it's running.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Thank you Mr Speaker. This is a really serious matter that I think the whole of Parliament is concerned with and that is what has happened to obviously our country that we end up with two major acts of terrorism in the last two years or two and a bit years. The situation that New Zealand now faces as a country with Western values the rule of law freedom of speech freedom of movement all of these privileges that we have are things that many people come to New Zealand to enjoy become part of our society embrace all those freedoms and are the greatest advocates for our way of life.The particular instance though that we're talking about here is a man who came to New Zealand supposedly he came on a student visa to supposedly study in New Zealand. A month later he cancelled out of that and then claimed to be a refugee. It is pretty distressing to find out that having had the immigration department decide that they did not believe he met the requirements for a refugee his refugee status he appealed it and then ended up—through the tribunal that deals with these the Immigration and Protection Tribunal they approved his refugee status. Some years later when he was being subjected to—his activities had obviously come to the attention of security agencies. Searches of his computers showed that he had in fact manufactured the evidence or a large part of the evidence that had been relied on by the tribunal in granting him refugee status. Refugee status is something that gives tremendous power and also rights within this country as we would expect it to do.The problem that we have with people like this man is that he used that right and then used it against New Zealand therefore actually putting at risk many other people who are very genuine refugees who would then say that some New Zealand - born people might look at them differently might look at them suspiciously. That would be a very bad thing to happen—very bad for our country very bad for our community. When we had the terrible situation of the mosque massacres in March 2019 that situation led people to believe that and after the royal commission's report that the security agencies had been too closely watching what they believed to be Islamist terrorists—in other words extremists—rather than looking to white supremacist extremists. The fact is quite clearly all extremists are a concern when they advocate for the death or killing or harm to others based on their ethnicity their gender or their beliefs. So the situation has occurred today we've had a ministerial statement from the Minister and I would like to thank him for that. The issue has to be: was there something else that we could do? Looking backwards is easy to do but looking forwards what can we do? There must be something that can be done around those who claim refugee status so clearly not here compliant with the rules that would normally be required around refugees and their status being granted but then are found to have fraudulently concocted stories and evidence. Clearly Immigration took the steps that they felt they could which was around trying to get this man's refugee status removed. He appealed but in the meantime could he have been removed during that appeal time?Now the Prime Minister has commented today during interjections that no he couldn't have been because he was subject to an appeal. But then looking at the Act the Immigration Act at sections 163 and 164 and also looking to the UN convention on refugees it appears certainly on first reading that he could have been removed because if the Crown even accepted or said Well he's a refugee." he could still be removed as a refugee whether or not he was legitimately one or not. So the problem then happens. It occurs. And that's the question I'm sure that the Government had to consider: is he a protected person? Is he going to be sent back to a country where his life could be in danger? Well actually better his life than the lives of those six people plus another who had their shoulder dislocated—six people who were stabbed by him. His life has to be balanced—and his faith and his beliefs have to be balanced—against those people who actually were doing nothing wrong going about their shopping in a supermarket. He was known to hate white people. He was known to want to kill white people. I don't know the ethnicity of those who were stabbed by him on Friday but it certainly appears that that is what he wanted to do. He wanted to go off and fight with Daesh in Syria. Some people would say "Shame he didn't go there. He could have been sorted out another way."But I think the Government is right. We have an obligation not to send known terrorists or people who want to be terrorists off to go on to be terrorists. We've got obligations around that. So the question has to be not just in the law changes that the Government is bringing through which the National Party fully supports but it also has to be: how do we deal with situations where someone is even a genuine refugee—which I don't believe for a moment that this person was—but who then goes on to become a national security issue and risk for New Zealand? I think these are genuine questions that aren't going to be—that one's not going to be dealt with in the current legislation that the Government has before the House. Now I don't agree with my parliamentary colleague David Seymour that this is a rushed process—that the counter-terrorism legislation that the Government is bringing through has not finished its select committee process. The fact is it has been in select committee for four months. I've discussed the matter with my colleagues from the National Party who are members of that select committee and they are satisfied with the quality of the bill following its time in select committee. The select committee process has heard from members of the public and those interested in this legislation. They have considered it. They have very carefully thought about it and they have balanced the rights and the responsibilities of people who live in New Zealand. So I don't have any problem or any qualms saying we should support the counter-terrorism legislation that the Government has before the House. That's why I let the Prime Minister know that if she wanted to bring it through earlier we would support it. Because this is a big issue for New Zealand. In most criminal matters we don't have laws against planning criminal activities unless it's the conspiracy law. If someone's acting by themselves it's hard to call that a conspiracy. You normally have to have more than one person. But I think that this is an issue that is very important and it's not one that we've really had to grapple with before. So having found this issue we now need to deal with it.We also I think need to consider how terrorism laws can be used to prevent people who think that they have a particular gripe or angst against the Government and that they want to be able to protest. People will remember I'm sure the Urewera raids the Operation Eight that caused so much hurt in the Ureweras. But also I'm fully aware that there were activities going on there that caused the security agencies great disquiet. So we haven't really seen until March 2019 and now this latest incident any experience of actual terrorism other than—I think the closest we'd ever had before was the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and that was by the then French Government.So we just simply are generally as a country—most New Zealanders—reasonably naive about the fact that we might have at any time 30 to 40 people who are giving the security agencies a great deal of concern. There could also be several hundred people that they are concerned with because things have changed and we need to be able to adapt to them. I think one of the things that we can sometimes do when we're bringing about law changes like this that we're talking about and those that might be needed around the ability to remove from New Zealand people who are legally here as refugees or as protected persons should they become a national security threat is that we need to perhaps put limitations time limits on some of these provisions. Because society changes rules change the ability to deal with things change and we need to be able to adapt.That's why we're quite interested in the royal commission's report after the mosque massacres which was really around recommending that there be a counter-terrorism agency not instead of but as well as the agencies we have now. I'm sure the agencies having dealt with them over the years in a ministerial and also in a Leader of the Opposition role would be very jealous of their roles and would not want to share any of those at all. But it is important that just because they think it's all going swimmingly well we should be thinking about these things. I think it is something we should seriously consider because the March 2019 massacres were clearly not a one-off; there are in fact people in our society and they don't necessarily present as any differently from anyone else unless you know we all know what's going on in their computers or in their minds—that we could have other risks like this. We believe some of us believe that there are such risks as this still out in the community and people would not know; they don't have "terrorist" tattooed across their heads. They are in fact people who can look like everyone else go about their daily business but actually hold to them their views—views that are not just contrary to most New Zealanders but actually have enormous antipathy to New Zealand our way of life our rule of law and our systems. So these are issues that I think do need to be addressed.The Minister has referred to in questions from me and in the ministerial statement the royal commission's report and the comments around the agencies themselves. Clearly when you have an agency that is the lead agency such as Police in this last instance other agencies are involved in this. There's no one agency to be held to account. There are multiple agencies. There are multiple Ministers. It is actually something a little bit like a dog's breakfast when it comes to who is actually in charge. I'm really not sure that we are now at a stage where as a country we should accept that the Police do some bits the SIS does another bit the GCSB does something else Immigration does another half of that and we're all sitting around saying "Well hopefully that all works in well." There really does need to be some ministerial responsibility in terms of who directs agencies. There also needs to be agency heads who we can call in and question rather than saying "Oh that bit was another agency's mandate." So I think there is a lot more to be said about whether or not there should be a separate agency for counter-terrorism similar to what there is in some other countries to whom we align. It would be useful to consider that more fully than simply to presume that everything is going well when quite clearly it hasn't.I would also like to just take the opportunity just before I complete my contribution just to shout out frankly to the New Zealand police of the Special Tactics Group (STG) unit who were undertaking surveillance of this man. It's a very dangerous job STG; they deal with very dangerous people. And can I say that I'm sure that most New Zealanders feel exactly like I do that I'm very pleased that they were there that day."