Harawira Hone: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Harawira Hone: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21818] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) 
: 
 I have to say first of all that I am disappointed with Mr Chauvel’s position on this. I am absolutely convinced that if Labour was not involved in this whole case he would be the first to condemn this legislation the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill. The fact that the Tuhoe raids were conducted in Labour’s time is the reason it wants to get out from under this as quickly as National does right now but that is no reason to support the legislation which I suspect Mr Chauvel knows and I know Mr Finlayson knows is flying in the face of justice particularly in terms of the way in which the bill has been brought to the House. 
This bill gives extraordinary powers not just to the police—this is not just about the police any more—but to the Inland Revenue Department the Department of Internal Affairs fisheries officers and the Commerce Commission. I can think of innumerable families in and around where I live who are likely to wake up with a camera in their house. If they ask the police they will not tell them anything. There is no obligation on the police to tell them that there is a camera in their house. There is no obligation on the police to tell them that there is a camera on the marae. There is no obligation on the police to tell them that there may be a camera in the toilet block just in case somebody might be going around there and smoking a bit of dope. 
This is terrible legislation. It enables those State agencies to invade the privacy of citizens without having to go before a judge with proof of a good reason for doing so. We already know that information has been gathered in the past and it has been gathered illegally and used to destroy political careers in this country in the past. I know too for example of a very high-profile politician of very recent years—very recent months—who was caught during surveillance of a woman as part of a P investigation. It was not the politician under surveillance but this woman as part of a P operation. She was having an affair with a very high-profile politician. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: Not that high-profile—Michael Laws. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: No no. Just because Rodney is leaving it does not mean it is him. But these sorts of things can happen. Where does this sort of thing stop? And there is the fact that it is retrospective legislation. You know retrospective law is bad law. I have heard that on numerous occasions from law lecturers and lawyers. In fact every submission from lawyers and legal organisations civil rights organisations and individuals on this legislation has said “Don’t do it.” In fact I understand that the only ones who support it are the police. There has to be something wrong with legislation if the only people who support it are the police—and of course National and Labour. 
This kind of retrospective legislation contravenes basic human rights and legitimises the illegal behaviour of the State and its agencies. Just because Labour got caught out on this in the Tuhoe raids and because National is getting hung out with it because of the decision of the Supreme Court that is no reason to race through special legislation. There is nothing that is currently going on that means it could not wait. The police might say that there will be problems with the trials of 40 to 50 serious criminals but it is one thing to say that and another thing to prove it. If they are not prepared to put the information on the table then we should not be foolish enough to just accept it. And there was the indecent haste with which the whole select committee process went through. It was indecent. The select committee process allows the public to have their say on the lawmaking process and in this case I just heard the previous speaker Rahui Katene talk about how many submitters the Justice and Electoral Committee managed to cram in in just 1 day. On legislation as important and fundamental to our human rights as this bill is there should have been far far more time to consider it. I suspect that the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General knows this and I know that Mr Chauvel agrees with that. 
The select committee process also allows politicians to consider bills in a more relaxed environment but in a compressed time frame that is never going to happen. The good thing about a decent select committee process is that it minimises the chance of having knee-jerk legislation like this bill which comes about as a specific response to a particular event. The Supreme Court nailed it. Really we should have asked what action we are taking against the police. But no all we are going to do is grant the police more powers. A good select committee process is fundamental to good lawmaking and a weak select committee is really an insult to the people and to the parliamentary process. 
Is there not something wrong with legislation when every lawyer whom Mr Finlayson knows and Mr Chauvel knows opposes it? The Law Society opposes it the Criminal Bar Association opposes it all of the civil society organisations oppose it and hundreds of individuals oppose it and they had only a day to put in their submissions. How they even got a chance to read the bill I do not know. But hundreds opposed it and they made comments about how New Zealanders need confidence that the principle that public authorities can do only what they are authorised to do under law should continue to apply. In fact instead of restricting the police’s ability to do certain things we are not only granting them extra powers but also granting everybody else those powers. 
There are doubts about whether those promoting this bill understand that it compromises the right to be free from unreasonable covert surveillance by the State. One of our genuine freedoms has to be that we can wake up in our own bed and know that there is not some bloody camera watching. I am not saying that that will happen to everybody but Mr Finlayson knows a lot of the people whom I know in the north and he knows of some of the discussions around land and how to go about acquiring land and whether there need to be steps taken to acquire that land which may not necessarily always be within the law and that they will be reason for the police to surveil them. I know of people who march to Waitangi every year and who are likely now to have given the police the reason to stick a camera in their rooms. I know that at the Waimanoni Marae the Mahimaru marae and a whole range of maraes people discuss these kinds of activities. They will now be open ground for the police to put in cameras. 
This bill is a serious violation of our human rights. We do not have a Privy Council to oversee the Government’s actions or an Upper House to monitor legislation like this. We do not even have a written constitution. And the first time the Supreme Court comes up with something like this the Government instead of standing back and taking a breath along with the support of the main Opposition just goes bang and rides roughshod right over the top. 
This bill is an overreaction and is designed to be used in conjunction with the enormous resources that have been given to the police and the SIS since 2001 to protect us from so-called terrorism. But we are not a terrorist target except for the French bombing of the  
Rainbow Warrior 
 of course. The scary thing is that we have a history—I know this to be true—of passing laws for one purpose and then using them against those who dissent. The charge of breach of the peace which I have been arrested for on numerous occasions was introduced originally to justify giving police the power to stop gangs intimidating people but has been used more against protestors arrested at Waitangi and elsewhere than against gangs. Trespass orders were sold as a way to help farmers keep unwanted hunters off their land but have been used willy-nilly ever since by police against protestors. This new bill is being sold as a means to catch really bad criminals but I guarantee—and I think the Minister knows this is true—that it will end up being used to monitor and suppress dissent. 
Freedom from surveillance is the right to be left alone. The police abuse of the law regarding surveillance should be punished not rewarded. This bill is getting pushed through while our whole nation’s attention is being diverted by the rugby. The bill is an expansion of the power of the State that New Zealanders would not support. It legalises illegal police activity. It grants powers to police instead of charging them for their illegal actions. It is a breach of human rights. It is being rushed through Parliament without proper debate. It will impact directly on Maori activists beneficiary rights activists unions environmentalists and I am sad to say ordinary New Zealanders. Mana opposes it and more intelligent members of this House do so as well. Kia ora tatou. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Keith Locke to clause 5A be agreed to: 
to omit this clause.