Flavell Te Ururoa: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:12802] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Chair. Tenatatou katoa. I just want to take a brief call acknowledging that Part 2 is a small part at the end of the bill. Unfortunately I have been tied up in other places but I want to make a couple of points in particular around the amendment to other Acts and of course the consequences in terms of the principal Act. 
I ask members to track this scenario through with me. Let us say for example the nation was to be woken up to the notion that terrorism was in Aotearoa and that in order to deal with it the forces of the State were to move to particular areas throughout the country. Along with that scenario let us say that a force of 50 or 60 police or other personnel were to move in on a community where they suspected that terrorism was possibly there and that along that line the possibility of charges under this legislation might be put in front of those people. Let us suppose that in going about that action as one would expect in terms of dealing with terrorism the forces of the State were to block off particular communities maybe. After all that action of firstly Aotearoa being woken to the notion of terrorism secondly the State using its forces to deal with that quite rightly so and thirdly under the banner of terrorism that community maybe being marked as a community of terrorists let us say that 50 to 70 police were to go about their work in order to subdue the notion of terrorism within that community. 
Let us suppose that at the end of the scenario one person was to be taken out of that community after that whole action —and I ask members to please follow me now—and that that one person after all that activity and the label of “terrorism” having been put on that person as well as the community was to be charged with another offence let us say just for example under the firearms legislation then we as the Maori Party ask this: what happens if we have not necessarily addressed the issue at heart—namely terrorism? What happens if we have not quite nailed it down? That is the concern in terms of this particular debate. I have already declared from the start—and my colleagues have also declared—that the Maori Party is clear about the notion of dealing with terrorism. If people are caught for a crime they need to be processed through the right channels of the law. But what happens if one gets it wrong? What happens if one uses a label such as “terrorism” and one gets it wrong because one has changed direction? What happens to the people who may have been affected by that action? 
Let us say for example—as I stressed during question time in this House today—as a possible scenario one goes into a small community let us say Remuera does the same thing and maybe as part of an action to suppress the notion of terrorism tells people to get out of their cars and have their photos taken. If every person who went left or right north or south was instructed to get out of the car to have his or her photo taken what would New Zealand society think about that? Would our society think that was about addressing the notion of terrorism? In fact I suppose one would think that if one was going to deal with terrorism one would go to the source. One would know where it was and one would go directly to the source. Yet in a possible scenario like this other people are affected. 
Sure what we are talking about here is an amendment to the principal Act. But the Maori Party is alerting the Committee to the fact that yes other Acts are part of this scenario yet this amendment has come out of the primary Act that addresses terrorism. That is why I am trying to draw the whole thing together. We need to be careful in case in fact we do not actually nail the source of terrorism. All of us are concerned about nailing the source absolutely. We have to go there. We have to weed those people out should there be a case. I would have thought that our intelligence would tell us exactly where to go. 
But the downside of that is what flows out of that? For example in the community I talked about earlier what would happen if there had already been a historical experience of the State moving in on that community? What would happen if that community had already had an experience which had been talked about in history whakapapa waiata and korero on marae of the arrival of the State in that community? What would happen is that basically the development of terrorism would move on from one generation to the next. So what we would do in fact is to fill people with anger frustration and sadness in having to deal with the consequences of this sort of legislation. As I say I want to make that really clear because we can almost get into a them-and-us scenario which was played out in the House today. 
But we take these issues really seriously. Why? Because in a sense this particular bill and the amendments that are in it have arrived at Aotearoa. We know that because of the current actions—not that we need to talk about them too much because it has been plastered over all the media that terrorism is in Aotearoa. So the Maori Party tells the Committee to think about those things. After a short space in time we will end this debate and it may all be forgotten. But in a sense while we talk about terrorism let us not forget the consequences if we do not quite get it right. Kia ora tatou.