Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9358] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I have a few amendments to this part which amends the Terrorism Suppression Act. We need to go back because the amendments in Part 2 relate to the definition in the Terrorism Suppression Act. My amendments will improve the definition and in so doing improve the bill. 
My first amendment is to insert new clause 14B which changes the definition of a terrorist act. At present the definition has two aspects. First a terrorist act has to be for “an ideological political or religious cause and with the intention to induce terror in a civilian population.” I wish to keep that part in the definition but I wish to eliminate the section that states “to unduly compel or force a Government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act.” As I think was implied earlier in the debate what does the term “unduly compel” really mean? Any sort of legal protest action or strike could be seen to be unduly compelling. Governments often feel that they are being unduly pushed around by the Post Primary Teachers Association perhaps the farmers marching on Parliament or whoever it happens to be. It would be best to knock out those words and just have “with the intention to induce terror in a civilian population”. 
My next amendment which is to insert new clause 14C deletes section 5(3)(d) of the principal Act. The problem at the moment is that section 5(3)(d) states that an outcome can be “serious interference with or serious disruption to an infrastructure facility if likely to endanger human life:” Under that provision one does not have to intend to endanger human life; one could just be performing an action that is likely to endanger human life so it is best taken out. Again the provision could apply to major strikes or demonstrations particularly if they affected hospitals or things like that—one could say that they endangered human life. We want to restrict terrorism to what is said in clause 5(2)(a) which is “to induce terror in a civilian population.” If that is done and then followed up by the outcomes being death or other serious bodily injury or serious risk to health then we are getting into legislation what is generally understood to be people’s concerns about terrorism. 
To somewhat repeat the debate we had on the previous part there is that comfort clause in the Terrorism Suppression Act that says that “to avoid doubt the fact that a person engages in any protest advocacy or dissent or engages in any strike lockout or other industrial action is not by itself a sufficient basis for inferring”… etc. etc. Again I think it would be best to move an amendment to withdraw those two words “by itself” so that it is quite clear that people engaged in protests and that sort of thing are not covered by that definition of terrorism. 
My fourth amendment relates to United Nations Security Council information. At the present time there is a rather strange provision in section 31 of the Act that states that information from the United Nations Security Council “is in the absence of evidence to the contrary sufficient evidence of the matters to which it relates.” We are just taking as gospel virtually what comes down from the United Nations Security Council. Of course we all respect the United Nations but from what I have been able to find out the Security Council does not have a full legal process when it works out its list of terrorist organisations. It is more a process of some country—most likely the United States—saying “here is a list of terrorist organisations.” It could also be another country as that would depend who was the dominant force in the United Nations at the time or who swung a bit of weight. Those “terrorist” organisations are rubber-stamped by the Security Council sent out and countries like New Zealand might adopt them.