NZ Listener | 27 Nov 2014
The day after National won its third term, John Key warned his Government against displays of arrogance. It’s hard to reconcile that good advice with National’s determination to bulldoze new security laws through Parliament before it rises for the Christmas break.
The Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill is being debated under urgency. Its emotive title is telling. Since 9/11, governments throughout the Western world have justified curbs on individual freedoms on the basis that they are needed to counter terrorist plots. It’s a compelling argument that plays on public fears stoked by chilling television footage of Al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center and the more recent beheadings by the Islamic State. But does it justify taking a short cut through the normal process of parliamentary scrutiny?
Tougher security laws were not identified as a National Party priority before the election. Given the furore over illegal surveillance by the Government Communications Security Bureau, that might have been a wise omission. But people are now entitled to wonder whether the Government has been honest. Has the security threat really escalated since September to such an extent that radical new powers suddenly became necessary? That hardly seems credible. Either the Key Government took its eye off the ball and is now scrambling to catch up, or it withheld notice of its intentions in the hope that public alarm over terrorism would allow it to push through the bill without fuss.
Either way, National cannot claim to have won a mandate for tougher surveillance and passport laws in the way that it has, for example, on welfare, education and housing policies. New Zealanders did not vote for new powers to withhold and cancel passports, surveillance without warrants, intrusion onto private property by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and enhanced powers for the police and SIS to access Customs records, all of which are included in the bill. That makes it all the more important that the legislation is thoroughly tested in Parliament, yet it’s being subjected to only a compressed select committee hearing – on the face of it, a pro forma procedure, intended to give the appearance that due process has been followed.
On an issue as fundamental as the contest between individual freedoms and the power of the state, that’s not good enough. Key himself, in his November 5 speech dealing with the threat posed by the Islamic State, said it is important we retain the integrity of our democratic system and processes of government. Quite so. The public should feel very uneasy – the more so in view of an inquiry’s confirmation that former SIS head Warren Tucker was implicated in the release of politically sensitive information to blogger Cameron Slater. Nothing could be less conducive to public trust in the integrity of our security agencies, yet in the very week the damning report by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security was released, Parliament was being asked to give more power to those same agencies. “Trust us”, the Government is saying – but it’s hard to recall a time when confidence in the state security apparatus was more fragile.
The problem is, of course, that the threats the bill purports to counter, such as New Zealand recruits joining the Islamic State or committing terrorist acts on our own soil, are real. That explains why the Labour Party, despite grave misgivings, voted for the bill’s introduction. Labour wanted to hear the Government explain, more convincingly than it has done so far, why the bill is not only necessary but suddenly urgent. It also wanted an opportunity for interested groups – the Law Society, the Human Rights Commission, the Privacy Commissioner – to have their say.
Many New Zealanders will share Labour’s curiosity and also its frustration that such a significant piece of legislation is being subjected to truncated debate. Personal liberty is never more at risk than when politicians and bureaucrats are able to cite threats to public safety. As Chief Human Rights Commissioner David Rutherford has pointed out, the state’s obligation to protect citizens from terrorism must be balanced against its duty to uphold fundamental freedoms and rights. If we relinquish those freedoms and rights to advance the war on terror, the terrorists have won.
