KEY POINTS:
Parliament today voted 108-13 to strengthen terrorism suppression laws, but Parliament was told the bill had no relevance to last month's police raids and the Solicitor-General's ruling against charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act.
The Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill was drafted long before the police raids with the
main purpose of allowing New Zealand to meet its international obligations in terms of designating terrorist organisations.
But it also creates a new offence of committing an act of terrorism, under penalty of a life sentence, and gives the prime minister responsibility for designating groups and individuals as terrorists.
It is those provisions, which have now been passed into law, that have set the Maori Party, the Greens and ACT against Labour and National.
There were fiery clashes during earlier debates on the bill, with Maori MP Hone Harawira accused of effectively justifying anarchy when he said he opposed laws which allowed "state forces" to terrorise his people.
During today's debate United Future leader Peter Dunne said it might seem perverse to be passing the bill under present circumstances, but Parliament had to because terrorist designations would otherwise lapse and those organisations would become legal entities in New Zealand.
ACT leader Rodney Hide said the bill and its parent legislation - the Terrorism Suppression Act - allowed people to be locked up without charge.
"This bill does away with the fundamental rights of every New Zealander," he said.
"This is a fascist law, it puts power into the hands of politicians."
National's foreign affairs spokesman, Murray McCully, said the bill bore no relation to the arrests.
"None of the events of recent weeks touch upon the matters that are contained in this bill," he said.
But Mr McCully said Parliament had unfinished business to deal with.
"The events of the past few weeks will at best have caused serious doubts - at worst some loss of confidence - in the institutions and processes by which this country is protected from serious disorder," he said.
"We cannot merely leave matters where they stand."
Mr McCully said New Zealanders were entitled to expect that Parliament would take "all of the appropriate steps" to ensure the public could have confidence in the law and those who enforced it.
Green Party MP Keith Locke, a fierce opponent of the bill, could not speak on it today because he had previously taken part in the debate but he told reporters it was "completely false" to claim it was needed to meet international obligations.
"We were meeting them under existing legislation," he said.
"The only reason this bill is being pushed through is to introduce a whole new offence of a terrorist act with a life penalty,"
In Parliament, Mr Locke tried to delay it by using a tactic that would have delayed its third reading to April 1 next year.
His bid was defeated 108-13, the same majority the bill received on its third reading.
The only change in the voting pattern compared with previous stages of the bill was that former Labour MP Taito Phillip Field, now an independent, voted against it on its third reading.
He had previously supported it.
- NZPA
