Summer polls: Strong anti-terrorist laws backed

The nationwide poll revealed 60 per cent supported introducing laws like Australia's, which allow for suspected terrorists to be held in secret for up to two weeks. Thirty-three per cent said New Zealand should not follow suit.

More than half of respondents, however, believed a terrorist attack in New Zealand was either unlikely or highly unlikely.

Anti-terror laws were passed in Australia early last month to an outcry over civil liberties. The laws enable first-time terror suspects to be detained without charge for up to 14 days, as well as restrictions to be placed on their movements and communications for up to a year.

The laws also gave police tougher stop, search and seizure powers, and allowed for greater use of security cameras.

Ron Smith, Waikato University's director of international relations and security studies, found the poll results encouraging.

"The implications here is that if our Government is thinking of going along the same lines, there's clearly a certain amount of support out there - which should encourage them."

Dr Smith said it showed New Zealanders' willingness to accept a trade-off between security and certain freedoms, although it was not clear when the war on terrorism was going to end.

"It's probably going to be a long war, and whether we've got the stomach for restrictions in our civil liberties for over a long period, that's another matter."

Tim McBride, chairman of the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties, said the findings were not surprising.

"People get caught up in the hysteria. There's been a climate created whereby people will agree to anything in the belief that they will be more secure. I think it's illusory in the end."

Mr McBride said although people have the right to expect to feel safe, the country had not had an informed debate about anti-terror legislation, and its impacts on people's fundamental human rights.

Governments in the United States and Britain have had to back down on expanding their security legislation, he said, and those proposing similar measures here would have to produce a compelling case for doing so.

"The more intrusive, the more severe in terms of taking away what are established fundamental human rights, the more compelling the argument needs to be."

The Greens' human rights spokesman Keith Locke was not worried about the survey's findings.

"People can just react superficially for a start, but as the debate proceeds, the support tends to drop.

"I just don't sense in the New Zealand population a great fear of imminent terrorism, or the need to strengthen the laws."

A spokesman for duty minister Steve Maharey said the Government would consider any new measures if necessary, but it had no plans to introduce similar laws here.

He said the Government had already introduced a number of measures in line with other countries in combating worldwide terrorism.

It announced laws last February to counter money laundering and terrorist financing, upon advice from the Financial Action Task Force, an international policy-making body.

There was no evidence that New Zealand was being used by terrorist groups to launder money, but the organisation had pointed out potential loopholes in the country's deregulated financial system.