Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Prime Minister): Mr Speaker thank you very much. I want to join with colleagues from across the House in starting my speech by expressing our deep sympathies to those who were hurt during this terrorist attack. As I think the Leader of the Opposition noted going out to do your supermarket shopping this is the very very last thing on the mind of New Zealanders and it would have been a shocking and terrifying event for everyone involved. We are wishing those people well in their recoveries which thankfully are going well at this stage and thank all those who are supporting them particularly the families of those who have been directly affected. This will be again a traumatic time for them and we send our deepest sympathies to them as well but also to the community of West Auckland and those in and around the LynnMall. This has been a shocking event and one where we know that there will be many people who will have been deeply deeply concerned to have heard about it and if they were nearby to have experienced it.Can I also extend both my thanks and sympathies to the workers at the Countdown supermarket. We know that in recent times at another Countdown supermarket down in Dunedin there was an incident and now this incident here. These are our essential workers. These are the people who we are relying upon in these very difficult and challenging times to be able to work and to have events like this occur is extremely challenging and traumatic for them. I want to reiterate what I said on Sunday when I spoke on behalf of the Government on this matter: we genuinely reach out to those workers to thank them and to support them as they go about their work.In addition to those thanks I want to extend them to in particular the New Zealand Police and the Special Tactics Group who were there on the day. This is again an incredibly difficult set of circumstances. From all reports the utmost professionalism was shown by the New Zealand Police. They undertook their duties in a way in which I think New Zealanders can be proud of and indeed their actions have ensured that the situation that was already horrific did not become any worse. I want to on that note note the bravery of a number of people who were in the supermarket at the time both in terms of what they did in terms of the terrorist but also in terms of the support provided to those who had been hurt. Some of that emergency first aid that was undertaken was very instrumental in the fact that those people now either have recovered or are in a stable condition.I also want to thank all of the other agencies who've been involved throughout the last few years in relation to this gentleman and indeed to all of those who we have to have security agencies involved with working on in particular the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and other intelligence agencies but also immigration officials and officials from across Government. This has been a very difficult case to deal with and those agencies have performed their role professionally as public servants.I want to start with some assurances to New Zealanders. The first of those is to repeat the words of both the Prime Minister and the Commissioner of Police: this was a lone individual. This was a person who acted alone but also for whom there is nobody else that the New Zealand Police are suggesting would be of a similar nature. In the words of the Police Commissioner the case is an outlier. Police are not looking for anybody else.We of course must continue however to be vigilant. Our security and our intelligence services perform a role in our society to help New Zealanders feel safe and to be protected. It is a role where there are challenging boundaries. I know there are members across the House who have a strong belief in civil liberties and all members across the House will know that whenever decisions are made around things like surveillance or around making sure that New Zealanders are kept safe by our intelligence officers this is a difficult and challenging area for all of us but it is important that New Zealanders know and are assured that our intelligence agencies and the police are continuing with their work to make sure that New Zealanders do feel safe.An awful lot of material has been covered by earlier speakers and I just want to pick up three or four matters in the—SPEAKER: Yeah the member's got about 5½ minutes.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That's good to know. Thank you Mr Speaker. The first of those is that I want to provide a further assurance to New Zealanders that every pathway was taken within the New Zealand law to see what could be done to either detain or deport this particular individual. I want to note that the Prime Minister in her first briefing around this issue in May 2018 raised the question of deportation at that point and work was done on that issue throughout the last few years.I think it is worth noting that the terrorist was in prison for much of the last few years—basically from May 2017 through until just a few months ago. So during that time that meant because there was a series of appeals and a series of court cases involved it was not possible to return to the issue that had been identified as far back as 2018 that this particular individual had falsified some of the documents involved in his refugee claim. It's important to note that the process was run through and at the beginning of 2019 the decision was taken to revoke his refugee status. At that point an appeal was launched or just thereafter and that appeal had not been finally heard. That appeal is taken in front of something called the Immigration and Protection Tribunal. That tribunal—and this is an important thing for those who don't follow closely how systems of Government work—is totally independent of the Government. It is in the words of Mr Little a quasi-judicial process. That process was still under way. The strong advice that the New Zealand Government had was that the criminal cases needed to be dealt with before that matter could be dealt with and those criminal cases carried on for a significant length of time.The solution to some of these issues lies in a piece of legislation that is before select committee at the moment and we have discussed that at some length. I do want to note that since around 2007 concerns have been raised about whether or not our terrorism laws have been adequate to deal with the issue of planning and preparation. This Government undertook the policy work on that through 2019 and into 2020 legislation was then drafted as is normal and then the bill was introduced earlier this year and has been at select committee. The public submissions on that bill have been completed. The select committee will soon report back and I do believe it is in the interests of this House to move as swiftly as possible to be able to enact that law. We will do so bearing in mind the things that have been said today by members in this House and outside to get the law right but it is important that we progress it swiftly. Significant policy work has been done and the public has had their say and now is the time for Parliament to deal with that matter.The other area of law is the Immigration Act. This is an area where we will now further the work that has already started around whether the Immigration Act gets the balance right. What I am absolutely clear about is that the advice that this Government has received is that under sections 163 and 164 of the Immigration Act we were not in a position to be able to deport this terrorist. The strong advice from the Crown Law Office and others is that while there is a refugee status or appeal against the removal of a refugee status there is not an opportunity at that point to deport the person. There is of course also the issue of that person being regarded as a protected person which would be another grounds on which it would not be possible to do that.But the Immigration Act itself is one that we do need to look at because as both Minister Andrew Little and the Leader of the Opposition have recognised this is an area where a tension is created. A person who we cannot deport from our shores because they represent a significant threat to where they might go—or sorry have a threat against them to where they might go is in turn a threat to our own people. Mr Little described it as a tension in our law which we will now have to discuss further. What we will not be able to do at any point is remove from our legal process the rights of appeal. We still have a rule of law; we still have a situation in which people are entitled to utilise those rights. What we have to do is create a system that is sufficiently robust to be able to handle this kind of situation. In closing I simply want to reiterate the Prime Minister's comments on the very first day: these were the actions of an individual. These were despicable and hateful actions. They are not the actions of any community inside New Zealand of any faith group inside New Zealand and they are not actions that any New Zealander could support in any way whatsoever. We now find ourselves in a situation where this Parliament will address the legal issues that surround this situation but in the case of this particular individual we as New Zealanders need to come together to support those who have been affected and to ensure that this does not happen again.