PM gets powers under terrorism bill

A Parliamentary committee has decided the prime minister, rather than the High Court, should carry out three-yearly reviews of who is considered a terrorist despite concerns too much power would rest with an individual.

The Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill was reported back by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee today.

The bill was supported by the National Party but the Greens, in a minority report, say it is unnecessary and impacts on civil liberties.

The committee's report acknowledged submitters' concerns about the concentration of responsibility in a single person if national terrorist designation reviews were made by an individual.

The bill proposed the three-year review by the High Court of the designation of groups or individuals as terrorist to be replaced by a three-yearly review by the prime minister and that this only apply to non-UN terrorist designations, that is those made by the prime minister.

"We consider that such decisions, like initial decisions to designate, involve judgements about national security that are more properly made by the Executive than the High Court," the report said.

The committee did, however, add to the bill a requirement for the prime minister to report to the Intelligence and Security Committee any proposed renewal.

National, in its minority report, said the Act provided a toolkit to fight terrorism.

"The availability of that toolkit requires the subjective judgment that a sufficient threat exists for the civil liberties of designated persons to be overridden in the interests of the security of the public," it said.

National thought such a responsibility should lie with the prime minister who had the benefit of security officials' advice.

However National was critical that no terrorist designations had been made by New Zealand at all especially as Australia had identified 88 entities and it accused the Government of negligence.

"Clearly counter terrorism initiatives are being pursued with significantly differing degrees of force and diligence as between this country and Australia."

The Greens said it would be very hard for a group or individual to have a designation removed.

"I am ... concerned at the virtual elimination of review by the courts of the determination process by which organizations get designated as terrorist entities, and it makes New Zealand dependent on a UN listing process that the UN itself has conceded is highly flawed," its report said.

The bill did not include any power to remove a person or group off the UN list.

Other changes the committee decided on included: