.....but the Greens found grounds to grumble about the new law
The Government has further strengthened and clarified counter-terrorism laws, particularly around high-risk individuals, to make our communities safer, Justice Minister Kiri Allan said in a press statement after the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill 2023 passed its third reading in Parliament “with strong support across the House”.
But the Greens did not support the bill and Allan’s press statement is somewhat vague in explaining how the laws have been strengthened and clarified.
Among other things, the new law amends an arrangement in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 which enables the Prime Minister to designate a terrorist entity (either an individual or a group) if the Prime Minister believes on reasonable grounds that the entity has carried out, or participated in, a terrorist act.
A Prime Minister who has been politically ambushed while overseas by a Minister declaring her intention to stand as a candidate for the Māori Party at the next election might be tempted to check whether those powers can be invoked against the renegade MP and/or the Māori Party.
The answer – of course – will be “Sorry Chris, but no, the legislation can not be invoked in this case”.
A designation, by the way, has consequences designed to prevent further terrorist acts, including prohibiting third parties from dealing with the property of a designated entity or making property or material support available to the entity.
The bill that has just passed its third reading amends the designation scheme to clarify matters relating to the expiry.
Kiri Allan’s statement can be found among this fresh batch of press statements from the Government’s official website:
A Prime Minister who has been politically ambushed while overseas by a Minister declaring her intention to stand as a candidate for the Māori Party at the next election might be tempted to check whether those powers can be invoked against the renegade MP and/or the Māori Party.
The answer – of course – will be “Sorry Chris, but no, the legislation can not be invoked in this case”.
A designation, by the way, has consequences designed to prevent further terrorist acts, including prohibiting third parties from dealing with the property of a designated entity or making property or material support available to the entity.
The bill that has just passed its third reading amends the designation scheme to clarify matters relating to the expiry.
Kiri Allan’s statement can be found among this fresh batch of press statements from the Government’s official website:
Latest from the Beehive
Environment Minister David Parker has asked Parliament’s Environment Select Committee to conduct an inquiry into seabed mining.
Kiwis will have plenty of opportunities to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III and the Queen Consort this weekend, with a focus on conservation, sustainability and volunteers.
New Zealand and the United Kingdom have agreed to bring forward the entry into force of their Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to 31 May 2023, unlocking unprecedented access to the UK market by the end of the month.
The Government has further strengthened and clarified counter-terrorism laws, particularly around high-risk individuals, to make our communities safer, Justice Minister Kiri Allan said.
A General Policy Statement published when the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill 2023 was introduced drew attention to the PM’s powers:
The current designation scheme does not specifically address the circumstance of a designated person being imprisoned in New Zealand. That means there is ambiguity in how the designation scheme applies to such persons. Given the potentially devastating consequences of a terrorist attack, it is crucial that the Prime Minister’s powers to prevent and suppress terrorism in the evolved global terrorism landscape are clear.
In her press statement Kiri Allan did not mention the role of the PM.
She did say:
“The Government will continue to respond to the evolving nature of terrorism to ensure our communities are kept safe from these horrific acts.
“Following the Lynn Mall terror attack, the Government sought a review of how the control order regime could be strengthened. These new laws respond to that and New Zealanders will be safer as a result.
“The Control Orders Act will be more effective and ensure operational agencies have the right tools to better prevent and respond to terror attacks.”
Allan said the scheme to designate terrorist entities would be strengthened and clarified too.
The purpose of the scheme is to prevent further terrorist acts by placing restrictions on the assets and activities of identified terrorist entities, including individuals, she explained.
“The scheme was brought in to stop New Zealanders from providing financial support to overseas terrorist groups following the September 11 attacks. As the terrorism landscape has continued to evolve, so too will our laws.”
Allan said the Government continued to make progress on implementing the recommendations from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on the Christchurch masjidain “and these changes contribute to that”.
After the third reading debate on the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill 2023, Hansard records 10 votes against from the Green Party.
Let’s check out the explanation from MP Golriz Ghahraman, who said during the debate that in the past, when acts on counter-terrorism had passed through the House,
“… they’ve been as part of a remote movement in terms of the war on terror, for example, led by some of our ye olde allies, and we’ve been followers. But now it is something that we need to take even more seriously in our own, very real context.”
The Green Party did support the Bill to the Justice Committee because it wanted to see how that work would go, Ghahraman said.
Listeners would have anticipated a “but” … and here it comes:
“But our hesitation in part, which stands again and still, is in the ad hoc approach in terms of bringing this law back to tweak it, so to speak, but, in fact, including much more than what would be just cursory tweaks without waiting for that broad, systemic review that’s in the works.”
Good luck with understanding that lot.
“So we already had hesitations because this was an ad hoc approach to a review of counter-terrorism law, but we wanted to see what the select committee would do. We stand, as we did at second reading, unsatisfied that our concerns in terms of the rule of law and in terms of that rights-based approach and in terms of the safety mechanisms that we want to see in law making, even when it comes to counter-terrorism, are there”.
Ghahraman noted the select committee heard from the likes of Amnesty International that this law included the unacceptable application of retrospectivity.
“So, again, that’s the rule of law being undermined—so sanctioning someone for an activity that, at the time they did it, was not unlawful. In a very real way, because the control powers within this regime are pretty restrictive, they go well beyond the Bail Act, and the Bail Act’s applying to people where there’s been a crime actually alleged, and this isn’t about that in all cases. So that’s pretty serious.
“And Amnesty International, I should say, also shared the Green Party’s problem with this kind of ad hoc approach to bringing back bits of counter-terrorism law and changing that without waiting for the broader, proper systemic review.”
Ghahraman further noted a Law Commission objection that there had been no Māori consultation.
She said this was
“…quite galling in the context of the way that we saw counter-terrorism law weaponised against Māori activists, and what we saw in the royal commission report that said that our institutions at the time of the royal commission report—and we’re yet to see any kind of meaningful reform since then—were focused on the wrong groups, which included the Muslim community itself and Māori.
“So to say that there was no consultation with those groups, and no Te Tiriti – based partner consultation, is quite stunning at this point in our experience of what counter-terrorism law can miss, what our institutions can miss, and how much those powers can be misused, not to keep us safe from terrorism. So that’s pretty concerning.”
Ghahraman further said the bill didn’t represent a new way of doing things in terms of having a global systemic vision of what counter-terrorism in the modern world should look like in the New Zealand context.
“It represents a repeat of what we’ve seen for decades, which is just doing little bits here and there without proper consultation, without taking account of current contexts, without taking account of the ways that power is misused in this space against communities and groups who are not, in fact, the threats to our society, and how to better balance those powers as against the right and, in fact, the very valid threat of modern terrorism.”
And so the Green could not commend the Bill to the House.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
No comments:
Post a Comment