Finlayson Christopher: Passports Amendment Bill Customs and Excise Amendment Bill New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFinlayson Christopher: Passports Amendment Bill Customs and Excise Amendment Bill New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 09 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1255. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service)on behalf of theMinister for National Security and Intelligence: I move That the Passports Amendment Bill the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I want to start by responding to some of the comments made about the truncated legislative process. No one is arguing that it was not speedy but it was in response to urgent circumstances. I do think it is also useful to go through the time line step by step.The House had its last sitting day on 31 July 2014 before rising for the general election. Parliament was dissolved on 14 August and as we know the election was 11 weeks ago on 20 September. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 2178 the basis on which the Government is proceeding only on 24 September. The Government was sworn in 8 weeks ago on 8 October. The terms of review that led to this legislation were approved 7 weeks ago. A draft of the bill was released as soon as it was ready on 23 November and the bill received its first reading on 25 November. If one accepts that the foreign fighter threat needed to be addressed urgently and that legislation was required something on which both the National Party and the Labour Party agreed it is hard to see how we could have done things differently. I really do think it is quite unfair to compare us with the United Kingdom Canada and Australia who had full committee hearings. Our legislation goes nowhere near as far as those countries have gone and of course those countries did not have general elections this year.Mr Shearer made a very interesting series of comments about engaging with representatives of the Muslim community in New Zealand and Mr Goff echoed those comments. I agree with both of them that this is a very important job. Those comments align with paragraph 16 of UN Security Council Resolution 2178 which says: “Encourages Member States to engage relevant local communities and non-governmental actors in developing strategies to counter the violent extremist narrative that can incite terrorist acts address the conditions conducive to the spread of violent extremism which can be conducive to terrorism including by empowering youth families women religious cultural and education leaders and all other concerned groups of civil society and adopt tailored approaches to countering recruitment to this kind of violent extremism and promoting social inclusion and cohesion;”.Let me say for the benefit of those in the Chamber tonight that I take those matters very seriously and I pledge to work with local Muslim communities over the next period including during the period of the broader review. I do not intend to take up too much of the House’s time this evening because I think the arguments have been very well canvassed this afternoon but I want to make four comments.First as has been made very clear this is temporary legislation. It will either expire in early 2017 or be replaced by new legislation before that date. Any new legislation which will be the product of an independent review to be conducted in 2015 will have a full hearing at the select committee. The broader review next year will take a very good look at all the intelligence legislation and I have noted the comments by Mr Goff and also by Mr Mark and Dr Graham on the definition of terrorism and I agree that that should probably be looked at as well. We will also look at the public order offences to consider whether there are gaps in Part 5 of the Crimes Act and I think we also need to look at the procedure and evidence provisions to ensure that where necessary the State can prosecute effectively and of course the concomitant of that that defendants can defend themselves properly.The second point I want to make is on the scope of the changes to the Passport Act 1992. I say to members that this legislation only broadens the scope of the legislation that the last Government put through this House in 2005.My third point is that the safeguards applying to the legal regime Parliament is amending today are very extensive. The whole regime is subject to ministerial control. There are very clear reporting functions. There are clear lines of responsibility and rules about what can and cannot be delegated. On top of this everything is overseen by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security who has very extensive powers.Finally I return to one of the primary motivations behind this legislation which is fulfilling our role as a good international citizen. All members of this Chamber have been horrified over the past 5 or 6 months at the suffering in the Middle East and the sheer and utter barbarity of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. All countries have to do their bit to confront this unspeakable horror. There is no room for moral ambiguity. We have a responsibility to do whatever we can to ensure that New Zealand citizens do not contribute to the problem. So with those few comments I again thank the select committee and in particular I want to acknowledge Messrs Mitchell Goff and Shearer for their considerable assistance. I commend the legislation to the House.