Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise in opposition to the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill a bill that was introduced as a fairly weak bill and a Minister who will not listen to sensible suggestions to strengthen it and thereby keep New Zealanders safer but instead will negotiate with a party which was always in opposition to it and he could only have got their agreement by promising to weaken it further.Yes they referred to this as a dog whistle of a bill and that they were doubling down on oppression and foreign nations using the term of terrorist" to deal with dissidents. Oh no they weren't going to have a bar of this bill but now they will. So Andrew Little when faced with the possibility of a negotiation with National to deliver a stronger bill to the House—one that would keep New Zealanders safer—realising I think that National had shown with its sensible amendments that they could do a better job than him with this bill. So rather than agree to those changes and therefore show the people of New Zealand that National is better at this than he is he has instead chosen to compromise the safety of all New Zealanders by agreeing to weaken it just to get some votes. Well that's absolutely shameful and he would do well to tell New Zealand just what he has agreed to so they don't have to wait a few weeks for this highly truncated select committee process to get to the committee of the whole House when we might see just to what extent he has sold the safety of his countrymen and countrywomen down the river. He could tell us all now but what we do know with great certainty is that a weak bill will be weakened even further. How can it possibly be to the benefit of New Zealanders? The sensible things that we were looking at were things like increasing the age of eligibility to include people as young as 14. Why would we do that? Well evidence has shown just across the Ditch a case of a radicalised teenager radicalised at 15. Now 14 doesn't mean mandatory. In fact the bill in its provisions itself doesn't mean that everyone who may have been overseas may have been suspected or that there may even be somewhat strong evidence of having been involved in terrorism will necessarily have a control order placed upon them. But it would give the ability for courts to deal with those whom they hold could well have those sorts of views and who might undertake such actions in New Zealand or might seek to expound those sorts of ideas and to radicalise others. We sought to increase the maximum duration of the control orders. Instead of capping them at a hard limit of six years where no one can know how long it might take to address the issues that these returning terrorists will present—and Mark Taylor the example that has been used. He's been radicalised longer than the control order can possibly take effect under this bill. The other thing I'd note on that which is part of its base weakness is that not only can these people who are going to be subject to control orders only be electronically monitored if they agree to it and that is bizarre but they can't be made to undertake any form of rehabilitation programme. They have to agree to that as well which is utterly bizarre as well. That is also limited to the duration of six years. So we've proposed instead that the control order would be in place for two years but could be renewed each two years with no limit on the number of renewals. Perhaps Mr Little and his colleagues simply don't have enough faith in the New Zealand judiciary to make proper decisions and judgments in these areas. Perhaps it's this side the National Party that has more faith in our judiciary indeed. We would suggest though instead of a small financial penalty it would be better to increase the term of imprisonment to five years for those who fail to meet the conditions of their control order. That would be a more fit and proper response to someone who only has a control order because of acts most likely overseas which are abhorrent to us all anyway. That would be a far better way of addressing their failure to comply with the law back in New Zealand. On that point actually we also suggested that while it might be a small chance it is worthwhile that the provisions could be used for those convicted of a terrorist offence in New Zealand. A small but still somewhat very relevant point is the ability for police to actually detain returnees so that the elements of the control orders can be put in place—such as fingerprinting such as electronic monitoring—to actually allow them to place the person into the control order regime rather than just let them across the border and hope they can track them down later. Those sorts of sensible things would strengthen the bill. It would give New Zealanders confidence and faith that the control order would work effectively along with requiring proper rehabilitation efforts and monitoring of the people subject to the control orders. The public would feel safe. I don't believe they're going to feel safe at all in this bill as it's currently written—and let's bear in mind that this isn't going to be its final version because the Minister has sold something out to the Greens. We just don't know what it is yet. We'll learn. So this bill even as it stands now won't make the public feel safe or safer at all because there are simply too many areas in it that don't place the sorts of control that the public might actually expect that a control order might have particularly a control order which is only subject to someone who has been effectively found guilty of terrorist activities most likely in a foreign nation. So what they're going to do is allow these people back in. They're basically going to water down the monitoring and requirements on these people as much as they can because the Green Party just basically want to let them in as if they've done nothing wrong at all and try to tell New Zealand that somehow that's going to keep us safe. It simply isn't going to do that. But it's wonderful—on the speaking list if it's accurate the Greens are going to come up next and with a bit of luck they might actually tell us what concessions they've twisted out of Andrew Little to suddenly make them vote for this bill. It'll be very interesting because if they've asked for nothing at all that's got an interesting connotation doesn't it? Because it was only days ago where their spokesperson was saying that this was a dog whistle of a bill and there wasn't basically a snowflake's chance in hell that they would actually vote for it. So if they've actually changed their mind with no changes there's a word for that one that's not mentioned in this House in this Chamber—Hon David Bennett: Hypocrisy is a word.BRETT HUDSON: Oh that's a word. That's a word all right Mr Bennett and it's a word that might actually be befitting of a group of people that might one day say "This is a dog whistle of a bill." and then the next day actually change their mind with no changes to its provisions. Yeah that sort of an approach might actually accurately describe that sort of behaviour. So it's going to be very interesting to see. But at the base of this we have a bill that was imperfect if one wants to be generous to begin with—it was weak to begin with—and a Minister who simply wouldn't listen to sound logical reason and sensible amendments to make the bill better but instead would negotiate with a group that already wanted it to be weaker than it already is just to get some numbers. The safety of New Zealanders means so little to that Minister and to this Government that they would trade it away for a handful of votes rather than sit down and negotiate a decent bill that would actually keep New Zealanders safe. That is abhorrent in itself. But we're only about 12 months away—with a bit of luck even less—and the people then can have a choice and have their voices heard as to who they believe is in a better place to lead this country. With a bill like this it certainly ain't going to be that lot on the other side. We oppose this bill."