Law changes target terror attack planning
The Government will introduce new counter-terrorism legislation aimed at cracking down on the planning and preparation of terror attacks.
The legislation, announced by Justice Minister Kris Faafoi, would amend the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and Search and Surveillance Act 2012 to criminalise terrorist weapons and combat training, create a new offence for travelling overseas to engage in terrorism, and expand the ability to crackdown on people supporting terror.
The changes to the law will broaden the scope of what has been considered terrorist activity, allowing law enforcement agencies to go after people considering or training for terrorist activity without firm attack plans, and provide warrantless search and entry powers to do so.
Such a change to counter-terror laws was recommended by the Royal Commission into the March 15 terror attack, to provide the police and intelligence agencies ‘‘with the means to disrupt planning and preparation terrorist attacks’’.
‘‘The crimes perpetrated against members of our Muslim community on March 15 two years ago brought terrorism to this country in a way we had never seen before,’’ Faafoi said, in a statement announcing the prospective laws yesterday.
‘‘The attack also mirrored how the nature of terrorism has been changing internationally, involving lone actors rather than organised terrorist groups. We need to ensure our laws can respond to that.’’
The new counter-terrorism legislation will tweak the definition of terrorism, currently defined as an act carried out for an ideological, political, or religious cause to ‘‘induce terror’’ in civilians or ‘‘unduly compel’’ a
government or international organisation to do or abstain from any act.
A new definition somewhat broadens what a terror act is, describing it as carried out for ‘‘one or more purposes’’ that advance such causes, to induce ‘‘fear’’ – not terror – in a population or ‘‘coerce’’ a government or international organisation to do or abstain from something.
The maximum punishment for the new offence of planning or preparing a terror act, or for providing or receiving weapons or combat training with the intent of committing a terror act, would be no more than seven years in prison.
In such the case of a person training for a possible terror attack, a prosecutor will not have to prove the person was planning to attack a specific target or location.
The powers to apply terrorism ‘‘control orders’’, introduced in 2019 for the possibility of Islamic State fighters returning to New Zealand, would also be expanded so such controls could be placed on convicted terrorists who complete their prison sentence, but still pose a threat.
The Government also intended to change the Search and Surveillance Act to permit police officers to conduct warrantless searches of people, vehicles, and properties for terror planning and preparation offences which have a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment.
The warrantless entry of a property would be limited to circumstances where the police officer considered that evidence might be destroyed or concealed if a search was delayed to obtain a warrant.
Faafoi said the changes to the terror law was the beginning of the Government’s response to the royal commission’s recommendation about counter-terror legislation.
The Government has also committed to bringing forward a review of the Intelligence and Security Act.