Ex Green Member of Parliament Keith Locke speaks about the Countering Terrorist Fighters Bill with Lisa Er.
The Government is legislating at breakneck speed to pass a Bill it calls "Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation". It will allow the SIS to conduct video surveillance on private property, for a specific period of time without a warrant, and will enable New Zealand passports to be suspended for 10 days or even cancelled for up to three years.
All this, in case we harbour aspirant fighters for a fundamentalist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But experts like Richard Jackson of Otago University say the evidence shows that it is extremely rare for returning jihadists to commit terrorist acts in their home country. Is it wrong to create law, which offends our human rights, just to cover some very unlikely or exceptional future event?