Yates Dianne: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Yates Dianne: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2007. Volume:643;Page:12672. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DIANNE YATES (Labour) 
: 
 I thank the member opposite Murray McCully for his support and I thank his party for its support of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. I also thank members for the comments that have been made and for the comments made about recent events. 
I also mention that the minority report from the National Party which is included in the report back to the House is not about the actual content of the bill but about the application of the bill. I also remind the House that New Zealand is a sovereign State and is not necessarily governed by lists that are compiled in Australia. However the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee did include the National minority report about the application of the bill in the report back to the House. 
We also included the Green Party minority report which was concerned about civil liberties—as were all members of the committee. When we tried as the Hon Murray McCully has mentioned to achieve a balance between civil liberties and the protection of New Zealanders we discussed a great deal the wording in section 8. We were assured by officials and by our legal advisers that the wording we have presented to the House does achieve that balance between civil liberty and protection of New Zealanders and that the previous wording in there was unnecessary as a safeguard. 
I wish to thank all those who made submissions on the bill. There were 35 submissions from interested groups and individuals and the committee heard 14 of those submissions. We considered them very carefully and as I say there was considerable debate. 
There were changes made to the bill in the light of New Zealand interests around the offences concerning the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. Those changes were made by the committee to ensure greater clarity and to ensure that the definitions were those that were suitable for New Zealand and the policies of New Zealand around those issues. We also noted that there were changes—as has been mentioned by the Minister Mark Burton in his opening speech in this debate—that may be necessary to the Immigration Bill. The committee has written to the appropriate Minister to point out that those changes may be necessary. 
Once again we are concerned that New Zealand does respond appropriately to international terrorism that we meet our United Nations obligations and that we are a very good member of the United Nations and honour our obligations. We are probably a leader in countries that sign up to agreements and keep those agreements. We wish to say that generally New Zealand is a very good and compliant member. As members will see the schedules to the bill give all the details of the implications for the conventions. 
One of the additions that the committee also made was in the matter of transparency. To ensure transparency clause 21 concerning renewing designations was amended to provide that the Prime Minister must report to the Intelligence and Security Committee on the proposal of renewal. That was a change that the committee also made to ensure there would be greater transparency. 
I can assure the House that the deliberations of the committee were rather long and serious. We had some very serious discussions with those who made submissions about achieving the appropriate balance for New Zealanders—I can say once again—between civil liberty and maintaining civil liberties within New Zealand and protection against terrorism. This was as I have said very much to do also with the collecting of funds and the legislation around the collecting of funds and—I think Mr Locke will agree with this—the discussion that we had reflected on what has happened in the past when New Zealanders have contributed to movements that have been involved in anti-apartheid and so on and that New Zealanders should be free to contribute to these. We also wanted to make sure that people who might accidentally contribute to something—sometimes people are raising funds and New Zealanders will when somebody comes to the door give money to a collection—would not be caught up in any provision concerning terrorist collection of funding in that regard. 
So we have been very careful around the collecting of funds and the supporting of democratic agencies. As we have said and as the Green Party minority report says funding to the African National Congress for instance would not be seen as an offence under this legislation. We were assured that that was not the case but we note that the Green Party minority report wanted to make doubly sure on that regard. So once again I thank the committee for its consideration of this legislation and for the work that has been done. I also thank the officials who worked on this and all those who made submissions.