Hipango HareteHARETE HIPANGO (National): Kia ora. Thank you. I take this call for the second reading of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill and I do so with a sombre note and first and foremost acknowledge the victims of recent incidents that have struck at the heart of our country and those recent victims from the incident of the LynnMall attack on Friday 3 September 2021. Then of course our minds turn to Linwood the Al Noor Mosque and the mosques in Christchurch on 15 March 2019.Also Mr Speaker—you will be aware of this coming from Whanganui—we had an event an incident in Whanganui where one woman was killed as the result of a knife slashing attack and five others members of her family were injured. That wasn't deemed a terrorist attack as such but it struck terror at the heart of our community as these recent events have at the heart of our nation. So this Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill is timely despite some of the submissions the contributions that have been made in the House today requiring further care and consideration and more time to do so. I think the majority view as well was espoused in the House this afternoon that due care consideration and time is given and it is more than timely for this bill to be passed into law after that careful consideration.Those of us gathered in the House well know what a second reading is about. I'm always conscious of the people the members of the public who may be listening tuned into this and so I'll just express that the second reading of this bill is after the first reading puts the bill to the select committee where there's been careful scrutiny and due consideration. Accordingly I acknowledge the members of the select committee who gave service at that time. However importantly the officials who have sat and listened to the full extent of the submissions and there were in total—the Justice Committee received and considered 81 submissions and heard evidence from 22 submitters. So the select committee was ably assisted by officials from the Ministry of Justice the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the Office of the Clerk providing advice on the bill's legislative quality and the Parliamentary Counsel Office assisted with the legal drafting.I sat on the Justice Committee up until 31 August 2021 and that date again coincides with another event where the New Zealand Government sent a rescue deployment mission of our New Zealand Defence Force to Afghanistan. So the timing of dates and referencing the timeliness—we're cognisant also that there was a gathering on the parliamentary grounds yesterday of the interpreters from Afghanistan having given service and this will correlate to counter-terrorism and this bill before the House is to address that in the finer detail.I've talked about two particular instances or events that have really been the impetus for the speed of this but not compromising the quality of this legislation and the bill. So it's well known that there has been a commission of inquiry and Minister Little who is the Minister responsible for leading that commission of inquiry made reference to the Leader of the Opposition getting it wrong in terms of a specialist counter-terrorism agency and ministerial appointment being set up. I think that's just debating the semantics.I have a copy of the inquiry which was triggered as a result of the 15 March terrorist attack 2019—that is in Christchurch. That inquiry commenced on 10 April 2019 and it concluded with a report presented to the Governor-General on 26 November 2020. Significantly the recommendation in that report—and that was recommendation one—was to ensure a Minister is given responsibility and accountability to lead and coordinate the counter-terrorism effort. This bill doesn't specifically address that. However it is going to be the precursor anticipating that that recommendation will be followed through.The second recommendation which the Leader of the Opposition the Hon Judith Collins made mention of was to establish a new national security agency. Minister Little indicated that that would be a national intelligence and security agency. So it's very important that the agencies are implemented so that the tools of the legislation may be applied.I'm moving on now to just addressing some of the detail around what's been reported back to the House by the Justice Committee. Of course it states that this Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill is an omnibus bill. Some would consider that it's also an ominous bill in the sense that there have been these ominous events in the history of our nation recently triggering this to occur. The bill's aim is to improve New Zealand's counter-terrorism legislation to enable Government—and I've talked about the enabling tools with a Minister being appointed and a specialist national security agency being set up—to better prevent and respond to terrorism and associated activities.The bill would create new offences to criminalise travel to from or via New Zealand with the intention to carry out a terrorist act. It would also criminalise planning or preparation for a terrorist act—and we've heard members in the House this afternoon speak to the detail of that—and then further criminalise weapons training or combat training for terrorist purposes.We've heard contributions talking about the specifics and getting into the detail of what a terrorist act is and so of course the Justice Committee after hearing advice and also contemplating many submissions that were made before them in person would be to amend the definition of what a terrorist act is by changing some of the purpose and intention elements. That gets to the legal construction of the action or the omission in itself.We'll hear further contributions at the third reading also. It's important however to give feedback from the commentary of the Justice Committee report which is proposing amendments. Those amendments total seven clauses specifically and that's detailed in the report. I invite members of the public who are listening in to this to go to the Parliamentary Service's website and you will be able to obtain a copy of the report and also the details of the bill. However the contribution this afternoon is to say that the National Party recognises the significance and the importance of this bill and has with our submissions and contributions at the select committee stage supported that been cognisant of contributions from various interested parties including legal experts counter-terrorism experts humanitarian experts and those other people and persons concerned about the shaping of this legislation how it impacts on the shaping and the protection and security of our nation.In my opening I made mention as is appropriate to the victims of these incidents that have struck at the heart and the security of our nation in recent times. In closing I wish to acknowledge those persons and personnel who give service to the protection and the security of our nation and our peoples. They often go hidden and unknown as is the nature of the security and counter-terrorism work that they do. They are a special force and they are an elite group and it is appropriate that they too are acknowledged for the service that they give in putting themselves on the front line often indiscreetly often indiscriminately but trained with a special force elite skillset that is required to be able to implement such legislation as is being proposed and put to the House this afternoon. I stand in support of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill on behalf of the National Party.