Franks Stephen: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9347] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 The amendment provision gives us the time to think about whether we are panicking or whether we are rushing. The ACT party believes that clearly there are sensible things that every country must do about terrorism that evil is real and that people who do not care about the innocents they hurt in the cause of securing their political objectives are a special kind of threat. The normal response of criminal law to these people should properly take account of the fact that they prey on victims with whom they have no natural connection who would not normally be seen as targets and who can therefore feel a particular horror about being victims. 
On the other hand the ACT party is concerned about some of the same factors that Keith Locke raised on behalf of the Greens though not the concerns about Ahmed Zaoui—the commencement could not come quick enough for us if it related to Ahmed Zaoui. I think the supposition that the Greens and other defenders act on is that he has some kind of entitlement to be here and in ACT’s opinion only New Zealanders have a right to be here. Anyone else is on a privilege and there is no requirement to extend that privilege simply because someone claims to be a refugee. That is grace and favour and Mr Zaoui has abused our hospitality. 
Coming back to the commencement I wish that it were being delayed because I think it is almost inevitable that in a passion we do things to our own law that we should not be doing. I look for example at the new offence of causing disease or sickness in animals. It looks to me as if someone from the Green Party for example could make it an offence to sterilise possums with GM. I know that that is never intended but the problem is that when people are legislating in a passion they take these well-meant words and do not look at them closely simply because there is a panic and a rush to get new powers or to at least look as if they are trying to give new powers. I use the new clause 298A about causing disease or sickness in animals as an example. At first sight it could actually make it an offence to spray mosquitoes but of course that is not likely to cause major damage. 
 But it certainly could be that that clause might one day be used for political purposes to confront people like the Greens who have a genuine concern about a proposed response to an animal pest and therefore the criminal law could be misused. It is not fanciful. In the United States a law against mob racketeers has been misapplied in all sorts of spheres including throughout the securities industry. The “RICO Act” the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act has been very much misapplied. 
Another example of haste is new section 307A “Threats of harm to people or property” inserted by clause 7. It looks to me as though anti-smokers could be targets or perhaps people against certain drugs or drug companies because they will intend to disrupt the commercial activity of a particular kind and it could be argued that they will therefore create a health risk to one or more people. That is just the kind of unintended consequence that a long delay in the commencement could be used to iron out. The Minister should take that on board. 
The Minister is aware that I am equally concerned that unintentionally he has put hurdles in the path of people who want to use surveillance cameras. If members care to look at the definition of “tracking device” they will find that it covers a surveillance camera and as I read it that says that from now on if the police want to cooperate with a supermarket or even someone who wants to know where his own vehicles are going they have to go and get a High Court warrant to do it. It is an intrusion on anti-crime effort and that is a consequence of well-meaning people looking at law in haste and not examining it properly. 
The commencement clause should be delayed and the power to defer by Order in Council should be used in order to go back through this in the cold light of day and examine why we would want to ban the use of surveillance cameras without a High Court warrant which the legislation appears to do. I normally deplore commencement clauses that depend on a ministerial decision or on the Order in Council process. In this case delay would be desirable.