By Lloyd Burr
The National Party has introduced a bill under urgency into Parliament today that will suspend the Supreme Court’s decision in the Urewera case.
The ruling meant police dropped charges against 13 of the 17 people accused from the raids on supposed ‘military training camps’ in the Urewera Ranges in 2007.
The Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill, which will temporarily suspend the decision and reinstate secret filming by the police, has been introduced by Attorney-General Chris Finlayson and will be referred to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee tomorrow.
The bill has support for its first reading from ACT, United Future and Labour.
The Green Party, Mana Party and Maori Party are against the bill.
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9:01PM – The bill passes its first reading with 106 votes in favour (National, Labour, United Future, ACT) and 15 votes against (Greens, Maori Party, Mana Party, Chris Carter). The bill is referred to a select committee which is planned for tomorrow.
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9:00PM – The Speaker asks what his doing and Mr Harawira says he wants to speak to the bill. The Speaker says he cannot speak because the debate has concluded. Mr Harawira seeks leave of the House to speak but there is objection and he sits down.
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8:59PM – The Speaker says the debate has concluded. Mana Party leader Hone Harawira stands to speak.
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8:55PM – Mr Bridges says from a practitioners point of view, the bill is fair. He says that everyone needs to know that covert video surveillance is legal because they currently don’t. He says large scale methamphetamine busts rely on covert police surveillance.
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8:53PM – National MP Simon Bridges speaks and says the bill is “fair and modest”.
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8:53PM – She finishes by saying Tuhoe deserve an in-depth look at this bill after experiencing the “long arm of the law”.
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8:50PM – Ms Mahuta says the Government has been too slow to prioritise the search and surveillance bill. She says Labour supports a longer, more substantial select committee process and says she will not support the bill in its current state.
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8:48PM – New Zealanders trust the police to do their job with regard to the law. It is not about rushing through types of proposals like the Government is doing, she says. She agrees with the Green Party that the haste in which this bill is being passed is dangerous. She says the Government are “scaremongering the good citizens of New Zealand” by saying dangerous criminals will walk free.
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8:42PM - Labour’s Nanaia Mahuta stands to speak and says the Minister have not addressed the issues and concerns in the bill. She wants to know the exact reasons why retrospective legislation is needed because it is “merely a temporary bill”. She says they need to challenge the rushed manner in which the Government has tabled this bill. She says the bill was tabled just before dinner tonight and has not given her confidence that the Government has it right. She says Parliament cannot fudge this issue.
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8:40PM – Dr Mapp says New Zealanders have protection under the Bill of Rights even with the passage of this law. He says that is the key issue under the bill. He says Mr Finlayson has gone to a lot of trouble to get the bill right.
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8:35PM – Defence Minister Wayne Mapp rises to speak and says the legislation and the police surveillance has to be reasonable and lawful. He asks: “Is this a reasonable use of retrospective legislation?” He says it is because it does not affect anybody in an unreasonable way.
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8:31PM – “No group in New Zealand should feel they are above the law and walk into our legislature and get what they want,” he says. He finished by saying that Labour will support it but wants balance and goodwill from both sides of the House. He wants a good outcome from this very “sad episode”.
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8:29PM – Mr Jones says the Bill of Rights is something worth fighting for. He says police should have to work under the same laws as the rest of New Zealand and no parliamentarian should hand over a blank cheque to the police.
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8:27PM – He says he disagrees with many Maori youth who say the biggest gang in New Zealand is the police because he likes to think that the police are there for the good of the nation. He says the police made an egregious error on the day of the Tuhoe raids.
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8:25PM – Labour’s Shane Jones says that the bill is an incredibly vexing issue for any Maori parliamentarian. He says he supports the first reading but has reservations. He also says the ‘terror raids’ were not akin to levels of international terrorism.
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8:24PM – Ms Collins says surveillance work is dangerous and police officers have been killed because of it. She finishes by saying that it is urgent and is needed.
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8:18PM – Police Minister Judith Collins stands to speak to the bill. She lists the number of scenarios where covert video surveillance is used by police which mainly refer to drug and gang crime. She says the use of surveillance by the police has existed in a number of situations – ranging from public land into private land or from private land into adjacent property. She also says that criminals themselves are using covert video surveillance themselves.
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8:14PM – Mr Flavell says the bill goes right to the core of concerns from the community. He finishes by saying that police told him that “there was nothing in law that said they couldn’t do it, so they did it”. He also says they would have liked more time to see the bill. The Maori Party will be voting against the bill, which should surprise no one, he says.
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8:12PM – He says there is a history of mistrust of the police by the people of Tuhoe and the people are still scared. He says they have never been apologised to and they still suffer. People still hurt from what the police did and have waited for four years and their feelings toward the police are not great, he says.
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8:08PM – The Maori Party’s Te Ururoa Flavell says he agrees “wholeheartedly” with Mr Hide and will not repeat the same comments. He says the people who were apart of the ‘terror raids’ were shaken and scared for weeks afterwards. He says Tuhoe will never forget the day of the raids.
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8:06PM – He finishes by saying he has “grave concerns” about the bill and wants to know how many cases are affected. He says the bill is a “constitutional outrage” and the Government’s failure for not being swift with the search and surveillance bill.
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8:04PM – Mr Hide, shouting, says the retrospective nature of the bill makes something that was unlawful into something that is lawful. “That’s Alice in Wonderland” stuff”, Mr Hide says.
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8:01PM – He says covert surveillance by the police is a “big deal” for this country. He also said that they are dealing with a judgement by the highest court of New Zealand and says it is dangerous that Parliament interferes. He says that behaviour is a “banana republic”. This bill is a potential mistake, similar to the Foreshore and Seabed law. He says Parliament should not be a court in this country that can veto court decisions.
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8:00PM – Mr Hide says that in other countries, police can spy on who and what they like and New Zealanders want nothing like that. He says the police shouldn’t be allowed to spy on “law abiding citizens”.
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7:59PM – He says he is glad the Government couldn’t pass the bill as it is because that would be flawed. He says if we are going to have law and order, then the police must work within the laws that Parliament makes. He says they should operate within the law, regardless of what criminals they are catching.
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7:58PM – ACT’s Rodney Hide rises to speak and thanks the Government for sending them the copy of the bill beforehand.
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7:56PM – Mr Locke finishes by saying that the bill should just wait until the next Parliament because that is the price we pay for “civil liberties”.
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7:53PM – The public have not had any time to look at the proposal and do not have enough time to get to the select committee tomorrow, Mr Locke says.
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7:51PM – The bill allows prying into private property which is against the Bill of Rights, he says. Mr Locke says the powers in the bill extend further than the police, with all Government departments allowed to covertly film people.
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7:48PM – He says the bill overrides the Bill of Rights. He says police have deliberately broken the law. He says the Government has known for a long time that this issue exists.
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7:47PM – Green Party MP Keith Locke says the bill is one of the worst he has seen presented to Parliament. He says the police have been breaking the law and instead of bringing them to account, the Government is passing a law to make the illegal behaviour illegal.
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7:43pm – Mr Parker finishes by saying that the Government have had three weeks to draft the bill yet they have done it in the last three days. He says Labour has drafted what they think is needed.
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7:41PM – He says he doesn’t like the Prime Minister saying there will be more crime as a result from the Supreme Court’s decision. He says there is no point in scaring the people of New Zealand. He says the Bill of Rights allows covert video footage to be admitted as evidence in extreme circumstances and expects it to be used in appropriately cases.
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7:39PM – Mr Parker says Labour agrees that the police need to be allowed to use covert filming. He says during the 2007 ‘terror raids’, he was scared by the police in black suits. He says he was especially scared when they boarded school buses and were using the full force of the law.
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7:38PM – Mr Finlayson interjects and says he has been looking at it.
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7:36PM – Labour’s David Parker rises to speak. He says the Government would have known that the problem existed. He says it saddens his that National won’t listen to the other parties and other options. “We have all but drafted the requirements…and it is almost there”.
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7:34PM – He says the reason the bill is being rushed with haste is because the Government received no advice that covert surveillance was unlawful. He says the bill is “discrete” and “time limited” and will temporarily fix the problem.
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7:32PM – He says Labour could have passed a bill that would have avoided the current situation when they were in power in 2008. He says the search and surveillance bill could have been put through along with the other legislation they passed under urgency.
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7:31PM – The debate has continued with Justice Minister Simon Power rising to speak to the bill.
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5:46PM – The debate is paused for Green MP Sue Kedgley’s valedictory speech and will resume at 7:30 this evening.
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5:44PM – He says he tried to table a supplementary order paper but it was turned down by the House earlier today. He attempts to seek leave from the House to table the paper but is turned down.
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5:43PM – “We have known for a long time that the law is not clear and we need clarification”. He says he is glad the Government has agreed to take it to a select committee.
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5:42PM – “That sort of arrogance has typified this type of legislation”. He says the vital issue has “been left to languish on the order paper”.
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5:40PM – Mr Chauvel says “what we see in the approach taken in the questions being raised is arrogance”. He says Labour has been keen to support the Government with the issue of covert video surveillance but they have been “ignored”.
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5:39PM – He says it is hard for other parties to comment on the bill because it has only just been presented. He would have liked it tabled in Parliament earlier.
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5:38PM - Labour’s Charles Chauvel stands to speak to the bill.
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5:39PM – He concludes by saying that they are in a difficult legal situation.
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5:36PM – Mr Finlayson says “if evidence is found to be improperly obtained within the meaning of Section 30 of the Evidence Act 2006, it is liable to be excluded unless the result is disproportionate to the seriousness of the crime. The intention in the bill is that if the only basis for objecting to admissibility of the evidence is that covert video surveillance was used, the evidence may not be treated as improperly obtained”.
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5:34PM – He says the bill does not give police permission to enter onto any private property for “the purpose of seeking only visual evidence form covert video surveillance”. He says police will still need a warrant issued by the courts. He says the bill means that covert filming with a warrant is not deemed unlawful.
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5:31PM - He says the bill does not seek to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision (which he says affects 40 cases that are currently before the courts). He says the bill temporarily preserves the law before the Urewera decision and will allow covert police surveillance under “carefully scrutinised statutory provisions”.
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5:30PM – Mr Finlayson says the Court of Appeal believes covert cameras to be legitimate under a search warrant. He says that lawfulness needs to be distinguished from unreasonableness.
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5:29PM – Mr Finlayson is introducing the bill. “I intend to move that the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill be considered by the Justice and Electoral Select Committee, that the committee report to the House on or before 3 October 2011” He moves that the committee can meet any time from tomorrow and at any time the House is sitting, excluding oral questions, and on a Friday. He says covert surveillance cameras have been used for the last 15 years to investigate serious crime, including drug dealing and organised gangs.
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3:10PM – Mr Locke wants to know if Ms Collins was concerned about covert police surveillance from documents she had received last year and earlier this year. Mr Finlayson could not answer the question on her behalf.
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3:08PM - It is still question time and Mr Finlayson is defending Police Minister Judith Collins, who is absent, after fielding questions from the Green Party’s Keith Locke. Mr Locke wanted to know how many trials this year have had covert police surveillance admitted as evidence. Mr Finlayson says the police don’t have that info readily available.
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2:15PM – Question time commences and Attorney-General Chris Finlayson is fielding questions from David Parker, who is standing in for Phil Goff, about the number of police cases that have been paused because of the Urewera case decision.
Mr Finlayson says that it is “highly unlikely” that any of the paused cases will rely on video footage obtained without warrants.