KEY POINTS:
Be careful what you wish for, New Zealand.
We want to be good international citizens and sign up for all the big, shiny anti-terrorism legislation dished out by the UN big boys. But all it took was our Solicitor-General's concise little smackdown of the Terrorism Suppression Act (TSA)
last week to show everybody in New Zealand that a lot of these emperors aren't wearing any clothes.
Dare I say it, but we're almost looking red, white and Bush. Like a cancer, a little piece of terrorism histrionics has broken off and metastasized to our humble corner of the world.
I don't know whether I should be marching in the streets for the Urewera 17 or practising how to lock and load against my favourite Maori flower vendor and his two sons at the market who love to wind me up. Last week, when his son said that all Americans love guns, I replied, "that's like saying all Maoris are terrorists!"
His father was so delighted, he yelled to the passing crowd, "GET YOUR FLOWERS FROM MAORI TERRORISTS! $3!" Kiwis being Kiwis, they bought the bunches in droves, then offered to wear a lapel ribbon for him too.
This flower vendor's favourite cocktail is not a Molotov. No one seriously thought the Terrorism Suppression Act was going to be needed for the homegrown kind.
We rushed in and produced this legislation in 2002 to align ourselves with UN Security Council resolutions. But somewhere amongst the overwhelming Labour-National support, only a measly dozen MPs had their hands in the air shouting that this clinker was going to leave us with some Molotov-sized holes in our civil liberties.
Let's imagine for one split second that I've been up to no good. Under the Terror Suppression Act amendment currently under consideration, the high court will no longer review my designation as a terrorist.
It will now be the Prime Minister's call. If I am listed on the UN's list, I am now automatically deemed a terrorist, no questions asked. That's no problem, unless I'm not one. That's when it gets messy. By removing the non-politicised integrity of the judiciary to make the call, tomorrow's Prime Minister may have a completely different idea of who the bad guys are.
Think Jimmy Carter's perspective versus George W. Bush's or even David Lange's versus Robert Muldoon's.
Just look backward to see the future. Under this pending legislation, had Robert Muldoon designated Nelson Mandela a terrorist, as he called him back then, even some Springbok protesters could have been designated terrorists by today's measure.
If they wanted to contest their terrorist designation, they would have to either petition the same Prime Minister who put them on the list in the first place, or ask for a judicial review. While their case is pending, their assets could be frozen and anyone in this country who had sent money to support them, Mandela or the ANC could then be guilty of financing terrorism.
And woe unto you if you happen to show up on the UN's terror list, which we would now accept as gospel, because under the current amendment, we didn't even leave an option for the Prime Minister to take someone's name off, even if she has proof otherwise.
You'd have to ask our Government to argue your case before the UN, as has happened with some Swedes recently.
What's worse, if the Government deems the information about your case as classified, neither you or your lawyer can hear the nature of the allegations that put you on the list in the first place. How is anyone supposed to answer the charges against you when potentially you have no right to hear them?
At least in Britain they have set up a provision for the appointment of a special advocate - an independent lawyer to hear the secret stuff. But ironically, once he's heard it, he can't talk to you anymore. Even though the Law Society and the Human Rights Commission recommend adding special advocates, they are not yet in this bill.
This one is too important to get wrong. Not just for the Urewera 17 who have had to be the first to fall under its microscope, but because we can do better than reinvent the mistakes of other countries driven by their politics, not ours.
I've watched my birth country trample on civil liberties under George W. Bush in a way I never imagined would happen in my lifetime. New Zealand's Terrorism Suppression Act amendment bill has good intentions - but good intentions can still add up to a lousy law.
Someone better give the Green's Keith Locke a big smooch. He's been trying to tell us just how naked we'd be under the TSA's unwieldy gaze for years. How nice for us all that someone finally decided to listen.
