Chauvel Charles: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Chauvel Charles: Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:12600] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 As has been said the debate on Part 2 confines itself to the provisions that repeal the substantive jurisdictional provisions concerning the sedition offences. It is interesting to look as Dr Worth began to do at what is left on the statute book relating to what is able to be punished by the law in this broad area. As Lynne Pillay said in her contribution on Part 1 there are the thought and intention crimes relating to the incitement and conspiracy provisions in the Crimes Act. Obviously I think as Dr Worth said there is treason but also there are other provisions such as those to do with riot unlawful assembly criminal nuisance and there are the offences in the Summary Offences Act. 
Also I think probably of relevance in terms of what remains on the statute book is the offence of inciting racial disharmony which of course is an offence under the Human Rights Act 1993. The fact that a victim of an offence was targeted because he or she was part of a particular group such as race colour nationality or religion can be taken into account also at sentencing as an aggravating factor under the Sentencing Act 2002 which was passed in the previous term of this Labour-led Government. In such circumstances the offender may be subject to a higher sentence if it can be shown that the person incited the offence because of his or her attitude toward the victim’s race nationality or religion. 
It is clear then and I think that the House can be comforted that the removal of these provisions and also the substantive provisions that are repealed by clause 5 still leaves New Zealand’s criminal law in a position where offences that need to be dealt with by the criminal law can still be dealt with by the law and indeed they can be dealt with more appropriately by that law. It is interesting to compare the approach that is being taken in New Zealand where the District Court’s jurisdiction is being in part deprived consequent on the repeal of the substantive provisions with the provisions that obtain both in the United Kingdom and in Australia. 
In the United Kingdom presumably the Crown Court has jurisdiction over common law seditious libel offences at least at first instance. Of course in the United Kingdom prosecutions for seditious offences have been few and far between in the 20th century. There was the 1977 United Kingdom Law Commission report into sedition where the preliminary view was that there was no longer any need for the offence. None the less despite that the common law offences remain in the United Kingdom and proceedings can lie under those common law offences—which of course are not known to the law in New Zealand—in the Crown Court. 
In Australia I imagine the Federal Court is the court that is seized with the first instance jurisdiction to deal with the offences relating to sedition. It is interesting to note that in 2005 the Australian Government decided to modernise sedition laws in that jurisdiction and to adapt them for anti-terrorism measures and also to increase the penalties associated with them. That is a different approach from the one now being taken in New Zealand. 
None the less clearly Part 2 is to be commended to the House. It is an essential and sensible component to those provisions found in Part 1.