Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Speaker. Terrorism is a real and a significant threat. It is a threat in New Zealand as it is a threat around the world. And I have to reflect that for years and years when this side of the House was in Government and I sat on the national security committee and I sat on the Intelligence and Security Committee and we brought piece of legislation after piece of legislation to this House to protect the citizens of New Zealand what we heard from many of the people now in Government was a barrage of the reasons why they wouldn't support us because they wanted to pander to this naive and frankly dangerous view that somehow these things don't happen here. It is utterly ridiculous and misguided to suggest that New Zealand doesn't face exactly the same threats that our near neighbours and our allies and countries around the world face. That sort of head-in-the-sand approach is wrong and it is dangerous and yet that is what we have heard far too often from many of the members who now sit in Government. The reality is terrorism can happen in New Zealand it has happened in New Zealand and it's highly likely it will happen again. It is utterly naive to think that New Zealand doesn't have to do everything it can to protect our citizens against those known and understood threats. The one thing I agree with the Minister of Justice on is when he said that the first and most important duty of a Government is to act to protect its citizens. None of us want to look back after another tragedy and point to this day and this bill and wish that this Government had done more to protect the people of New Zealand. And I fear that that is what is going to happen. Nobody can understand and predict every single eventuality; we know that. But what we are talking about in this legislation is the failure of this Government to act on known threats and take clear obvious well-applied international protocols to make sure New Zealand is no less protected than countries like Australia and Canada and the UK. We're not asking the Government to go further. We're not asking the Government to have a crystal ball. We're just saying accept and understand that New Zealand faces the same risks and step up to the plate and do the minimum you need to do to keep New Zealanders safe. We are not going to sit back quietly while this Government puts its political agenda its egos and its coalition strategising ahead of the needs of New Zealanders. It is inadequate it is unacceptable and National is not going to be a part of it. Now I have to address some of what the Minister said in his comments because he was quite wrong in how he characterised National's approach to this legislation. He's quite right—and we put out a press release we didn't hide it—that we wanted to vote for this bill at first reading. We wanted to vote for the bill send it to select committee and then work constructively on the ways that we thought it needed to be improved because we are a responsible Opposition. We will always in Government or Opposition prioritise our national security. That was our desire but the Minister made it abundantly clear he had zero interest in working with the National Party. He had zero interest in making any of the changes or even discussing those changes at select committee. So when Andrew Little ruled out any openness for the select committee to even look at the changes that we were proposing it was clear to us this was a Minister who was putting politics and his ego ahead of this legislation. That is the truth of the matter and now the Minister wants to rewrite history. You can tell this is more about politics for Andrew Little than people because of how much of that speech he just spent talking about Simon Bridges and the National Party—hardly any commentary at all about the real threats to New Zealand and the deficiencies in this bill. It was all about the politics all about covering his backside all about his ego. This is the truth: the truth is he has weakened this legislation to pander to the Greens to get his votes because his ego wouldn't let him sit down and work constructively with the biggest the most popular political party in New Zealand. Mr Little this side of the House represents the biggest single group of votes any party in this Parliament got. We represent a big chunk of New Zealand and that Minister refused to deal with us. He didn't want to build a consensus bipartisan strong solution; he wanted to play politics and that is shameful. It is an utterly shameful abdication of his responsibility to keep New Zealanders safe. Andrew Little said he couldn't be bothered working with National because he didn't want to in his words and I quote keep dicking around". Well actually Mr Little building a consensus on national security working with whoever you need to work with to make New Zealanders safer isn't dicking around; it is doing your job and you have failed to do it. We should have a bill that is far stronger than this. We should have by the way enough time at select committee to look at the deficiencies in the bill. And we've just heard from the Minister that not only did he have zero interest in working with National constructively on any weaknesses in the bill he is now going to ram it through select committee in such a short time frame that there is almost zero opportunity for anybody to point out deficiencies in the bill. The report back of 3 December—we've just heard—is an unreasonable unwarranted failure of this Government to be open to any criticism any feedback or any constructive input from anybody. That's because this Government thinks they know best. They don't want to listen to anyone else because no one else gets it like they do. That is wrong; that is bull-headed. Let me just touch on a couple of the very important issues that National knows are missing from this bill that we wanted to work with the Government on and I know others of my colleagues will continue to take this up. This is not from our side idle opposition. We put out a press release very clearly publicly stating: here are the areas where the bill is deficient; this is why this bill fails to keep New Zealanders safe against a very real imminent threat to New Zealand. Everybody now knows in New Zealand that we have New Zealanders who have been seriously radicalised and have been acting in that radicalised ideology for decades. Those people present a very clear risk to New Zealand but this bill seems to suggest that someone who has been radicalised by extremist ideology will come back to New Zealand and magically after six years have forgotten all of that and be back to being a Norman Rockwell painting of a picket fence and 2.5 kids and a dog. That is idiotic. It is idiotic to suggest that after six years there will no longer be any need for oversight of someone who has been a radicalised terrorist for years and years and years. Now there's no civil liberties issue at play here. If you read the legislation in clause 25(3) it makes it very clear that the control orders are in place for two years and they can be renewed twice. At each step the courts who are not known as radical hardliners I'd have to say have to satisfy themselves that that's appropriate. So every two years the courts will check: is this still appropriate in these circumstances? So what then is the harm Mr Little in allowing the courts the ability to keep them in place longer if that's what's needed? It's not a blanket ban. It's not a blanket imposition on these terrorists; it's saying let's give ourselves the power to act as we needed to act. But no no no—Mr Little knows better. He says six years is all we'd ever need. Well the day one of these terrorists acts in a way that hurts New Zealanders after six years and two months Mr Little is going to need to look himself in the mirror. Another of the serious flaws in the bill is the suggestion that somehow radicalisation only applies to people over 18. And again why is this Government so arrogant to assume that every other country that we would look to has this wrong and that in New Zealand radicalisation will only apply to people over 18? We know and Mr Little knows radicalisation applies to people over 14. We know that young people will be targeted for radicalisation. It happens in Australia it happens in New Zealand it happens around the world and yet Mr Little apparently knows more than all of those people and doesn't even want to discuss the potential need to have control orders in place for those in their late teens. Now those are very carefully controlled—as I say the courts have oversight they're a much shorter duration. Mr Little won't even discuss—not only with National but now we hear through any sort of proper select committee process—the ability to even question what sort of controls we might need over those who are 16 17. These people are being radicalised they do present a threat and I want to put the rights to keep New Zealanders safe ahead of Mr Little's view that he knows best. The legislation at the moment has this slap-on-the-wrist penalty for breaching a control order of a couple of thousand dollars' fine—couple of thousand dollars' fine—potentially maybe up to a year in jail. It is inadequate. At the very least it should be a five-year penalty. Now look we don't need to sit here and argue whether our ideas are going to be right but at least we would have had the discussion."