Laban Luamanuvao Winnie: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Laban Luamanuvao Winnie: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21612] 
LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Kia ora talofa lava and warm Pacific greetings. As a proud member of this Labour-led Government and as deputy chair of our Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee it is indeed my pleasure to participate in the second reading of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2). 
Before I address the contents of the bill I want to provide a context for this very important legislation. The events of 11 September 2001 have been a big wake-up call for the international and global community to take collective responsibility and action to stop terrorism and the activities that support it. Our collective responsibility and action locally nationally regionally and internationally are critical to stopping terrorism and all forms of abuse and the action or inaction that supports it. 
We can all learn from history and indeed history is in the making today. This Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) is one contribution that our Government and Parliament can make to stamping out terrorism. The bill amends the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 which states that a designation as a terrorist organisation expires after 3 years unless it is renewed by order of the High Court. That has created the unintended need for each designation to be renewed individually but it will be impossible to renew all 318 United Nations Security Council - listed designations before they expire next October. 
That means that New Zealand would be breaching United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 and related resolutions. So this bill will extend the expiry date by 2 years to 2007 and the extension will allow our select committee review of the Act—provided for as Dr Lockwood Smith said in section 70 of the principal Act—to consider fully what changes if any should be made to the renewal process in order for any resulting changes to be implemented. The bill also extends two sections of the Act that prohibit the financing of terrorist acts and designated terrorist entities so that the provisions also cover the international financing of non-designated terrorist organisations. 
The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee has recommended that the bill be passed with no amendments. That is very necessary to ensure that terrorist entities designated as such under the Act do not expire. 
This is the second amendment bill to be put before the House since the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002 was enacted. There was also provision for the Act as I said before to be reviewed by our select committee and in fact we are already conducting that review and heard a submission from the human rights commissioner this afternoon. 
The two measures in the bill that need to be implemented in order for New Zealand to comply fully with its international obligations are the creation of a specific terrorist financing offence relating to the funding of terrorist entities and the extension of the current terrorist designations that were made pursuant to the Act. Clause 4 also creates the new offence of the direct or indirect financing of terrorist entities as opposed to terrorist acts. Of course the creation of that offence will make New Zealand fully compliant with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 as well as the Financial Action Task Force’s special recommendation. Compliance is critical to ensuring that New Zealand is not and cannot be seen to become a country through which funding support for terrorist groups can be channelled. 
 Dr Lockwood Smith alluded to the fact that the committee as well as submitters expressed some concern regarding the scope of the offence. Concern was also expressed that the scope could be used maliciously to allege an offence of funding a terrorist entity when donors in fact believed or intended that they were funding legitimate humanitarian or democratic rights groups. 
The committee gave very serious consideration to those concerns. With the great legal advice we received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Justice we were satisfied that neither the intent nor the wording of the offence would catch persons who provided or collected funds for groups with no connection to terrorist activity. 
The committee also discussed the application of the “avoidance of doubt” provision contained in section 8(2) of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. In response to that provision the committee’s broader review of the Act which I referred to at the beginning of my speech has provided a more suitable forum and time frame for us to give it serious consideration and to address some of its complexities. 
Nearly 3 years on all the entities are still United Nations security designations; none have been removed from that list. The time and resource implications for the High Court in such an exercise would be enormous. It is clear there is simply insufficient time to extend so many designations in that way. Allowing the designations of groups like al-Qaeda as terrorist entities to expire so that New Zealand becomes non-compliant with the security resolution is not an option. Instead the bill extends the expiry date for current terrorist designations for a period of 2 years following the report of our select committee on its broader review of the Act. 
I will end how I began. The events of 11 September 2001 have been a big wake-up call for the international and global community to take collective responsibility and action to stop terrorism and the activities that support it. Our collective responsibility and action locally nationally regionally and internationally are critical to stopping terrorism and all forms of abuse and the action or inaction that support it. We can all learn from history and indeed history is in the making today. This Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) is a contribution that our Government and Parliament can make to stopping all forms of terrorism.