November 4, 2014 11:51pm by David Farrar

Shearer indicates Labour may support security law changes

Big sporting events bringing large numbers of visitors to New Zealand are one of the Government’s concerns in proposing changes to the country’s security and surveillance legislation.

Senior Labour MPs Phil Goff and David Shearer were briefed this morning on the contents of the prime minister’s major national security speech tomorrow.

Changes to New Zealand’s security legislation will be announced as the Government attempts to plug “loopholes” within the country’s surveillance law and around passports.

Shearer said there was “obviously some rationale for doing it”, and they were “reasonably happy” the measures were ones that needed to be implemented because of gaps in the current legislation.

Great to see an Opposition MP, not just opposing for the sake of it.

Shearer said it was important gaps in surveillance and around passports were closed off, particularly in light of upcoming events in New Zealand which would bring in a lot of visitors, including the Cricket World Cup.

Shearer agreed there were some legislative issues to be dealt with, particularly with the SIS which was governed by “very old” law which was not in line with the police in what it was able to do.

Shearer would not go into detail on what the proposed new legislation would do as he and Goff were briefed in confidence, and it was for the prime minister to announce in his speech tomorrow.

The proposed changes would be subject to a select committee process, which would allow outside submissions to be made, although for a reduced period of time compared to the norm.

I’m pleased to see there will be a select committee process.

“We’re also very pleased with the fact there are going to be submissions around the area as well, so it means there is going to be some more scrutiny on the legislation, and of course there’s going to be a sunset clause as well,” Shearer said.

Interested in the sunset clause? Is that to allow the full review scheduled for next year to them supersede this interim changes?