Faafoi KrisCOUNTER-TERRORISM LEGISLATION BILLFirst ReadingHon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Thank you Madam Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I move That the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.It will be very hard for many of us to forget the tragic events of 15 March 2019 and the terrorist attack on the two mosques in Christchurch. On that day a terrorist attack ended 51 lives and directly harmed many more survivors and witnesses. The impact of this attack on New Zealand communities and in particular on our Muslim community is immense and we want to do everything that we can to prevent this from happening again.The nature of terrorism has been changing. We are seeing more lone actors and small groups rather than larger organised terrorist groups and this is a trend within New Zealand and overseas. We need to ensure that our laws can respond to that changing trend. Our counter-terrorism legislation particularly the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002 was developed in response to international experience such as the 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in the United States and focuses on managing prominent terrorist groups. It therefore does not allow us to adequately respond to the range of terrorist activity that we see now. The New Zealand Government coordinates counter-terrorism activities to protect the safety the rights and the freedoms of New Zealanders and our agencies need up-to-date legislation and a legislative framework to give them a mandate to better identify threats and disrupt events before they occur.The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill strengthens New Zealand's counter-terrorism legislative framework to better prevent and respond to terrorism and provides law enforcement agencies with clear legal authority to disrupt terrorism and terrorist-related activity. The amendments in the bill balance enhancing our ability to prevent to disrupt and to respond to terrorism to protect public safety with the individual rights and freedoms recognised in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.In response to the tragic events of March 15 the New Zealand Government commissioned a royal commission of inquiry into the terrorist attack to investigate all aspects of that attack. The royal commission produced recommendations to the Government to make changes across the system to protect the lives and wellbeing of those who make New Zealand their home. The royal commission highlighted the importance of regulatory stewardship and ensuring that our legislation remains fit for purpose. Recommendation 18 of the royal commission's report was for the New Zealand Government to review all legislation related to the counter-terrorism effort to ensure it is current and enables public sector agencies to operate effectively. The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill is the first step in implementing recommendation 18 of the royal commission's report.The royal commission also highlighted the need to consider creating offences which relate to the preparatory behaviour of a terrorist before they attempt a terrorist act. Overseas jurisdictions including Australia and the United Kingdom have developed offences that are precursor in nature but this is currently the gap in our legislation. The bill amends the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019 and creates offences in the Terrorism Suppression Act that may be broadly described as precursory in nature including an offence of planning or preparing for a terrorist act. The bill brings New Zealand into line with the way that terrorism is criminalised in overseas jurisdiction with similar legal systems and enhances our ability to meet our international obligations.If I can now take an opportunity to set out the key features of the bill. The definition of a terrorist act is the cornerstone of New Zealand's counter-terrorism legislation and it is important that it is clear and appropriately framed. Although there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism our current definition aligns with definitions used in jurisdictions with similar legal systems to New Zealand and with academic commentary. However our agencies identified aspects of the current wording that may present unintended difficulties in using it. The bill makes minor changes to that definition to ensure that it is clearer. The definition is made up of three key elements. It specifies the motivation required for a terrorist act—the person must intend to impact others—and what outcome they must be intending to achieve. The definition also has an avoidance of doubt clause. The bill amends the definition to modernise to provide clarity and to ensure that the threshold is set at the appropriate level.In New Zealand we don't currently specifically criminalise the planning or preparation of a terrorist act. This is a gap that was identified by the royal commission as reducing our ability to intervene at the planning stage to prevent any harm from occurring. Jurisdictions similar to New Zealand—as I mentioned before the likes of the United Kingdom and Australia—criminalise this type of behaviour and I believe that New Zealand needs to take this step too.The bill also introduces a new offence of planning or preparation for a terrorist act and this offence will ensure that making plans for a terrorist act is specifically criminalised in New Zealand. The new offence will give police the opportunity to effectively intervene when the person or a group is planning or making preparations to carry out a terrorist act. The offence will not reach further than is necessary because it requires proof that the preparatory behaviours were done with the intent to carry out a terrorist act whether that be a few hours or a few months away. I believe that in order to ensure that this offence enables early intervention police also need the ability to use warrantless powers of search or surveillance where this is necessary. Terrorist preparations may quickly escalate into a terrorist attack particularly where a terrorist wants to seize an opportune moment so police must be able to intervene and stop this from happening.The amendments to the terrorism financing offence framework update that framework to cover the changing nature of terrorism. The framework currently only criminalises providing financial support for terrorism. However international experience has shown that terrorists have relied on a range of both financial and non-financial support to carry out their terrorist attacks. The bill criminalises material support provided to terrorist persons or groups and the support that is criminalised includes things like offering advice providing goods and services and financial assistance. Currently a person can be convicted of this offence if they intend for the support to be used to support or facilitate a terrorist act or if they know that it will be. The bill also introduces an alternative mental element of recklessness to the offence. Similar jurisdictions—including Australia and the United Kingdom again—have also taken this approach. This means that a person who didn't explicitly know that the material support being provided would be used to support a terrorist act can now be convicted of this offence if they perceived the risk that the support may be used to support a terrorist act and provided it anyway.The bill also criminalises participating in weapons or combat training to prepare for a terrorist act or to enhance the ability of a person or a group to carry out a terrorist attack and I consider that a separate offence ensures that receiving or providing of weapons or combat training will be clearly denounced as criminal conduct. Currently it is not a crime to travel to or from or via New Zealand with the intention to carry out a terrorist activity. New Zealand's existing mechanisms to prevent travel such as cancelling passports are not responsive and are not suitable in all cases. Because of this police cannot effectively intervene to prevent a person from travelling for terrorism purposes. Having a specific terrorist travel offence makes it clear that New Zealand considers this behaviour as both harmful and criminal.Control orders are court-imposed civil orders and that places requirements—for example for monitoring and restrictions on association—on individuals who continue to pose a real and public safety risk. Currently the control order regime is only available for individuals who have engaged in terrorist activities overseas. This bill extends the control orders regime to apply to individuals who have completed a prison sentence for a terrorism-related offence here in New Zealand. The bill also contains amendments that improve the workability of the Terrorism Suppression Act. Although these minor amendments do not make a substantive change to existing law they will provide clarity and improve coherence and consistency with the Terrorism Suppression Act.I am confident that this bill will make a valuable contribution to New Zealand's counter-terrorism effort. The bill is the first step in implementing the royal commission's recommendation to review all legislation related to our counter-terrorism effort. The bill strengthens New Zealand's counter-terrorism legislation to enable us to better prevent and respond to terrorist efforts. I commend the bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.