Foreign fighters bill passes: a measure of Little's ambition, and Peters' guile

The Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill passed its third and final reading in Parliament under urgency last night.

The most intriguing aspect was Labour supporting the bill as it passed 94 to 27 (the Greens, NZ First and the Maori Party voted against).

That's a measure of Andrew Little's ambition.

The new Labour leader assumes he's got left/union support in the bag. In supporting the bill, he was targeting middle New Zealand, and specifically the Labour voters he thinks strayed right to NZ First and even the Conservatives (and the maths backs that theory. Labour's vote on September 20 was down; the Greens and National were static; NZ First jumped).

Winston Peters does not take that sort of malarky lying down, of course.

The NZ First leader comprehensively out-conservatived Little with an amendment that sought to reintroduce sedition laws. 

Sedition, or attempting to undermine the state, was repealed seven years ago, with critics arguing it was outmoded and prone to abuse. The last person to face a sedition charge was Timothy Selwyn, in December 2004, for putting an axe through the window of Helen Clark's electorate office. 

NZ First's sedition amendment was defeated, but Peters had made his point, and he can be counted on to always try and out-grandstand Little. 

On social media, the NZ First leader was mocked for inconsistent logic. How could he call the main provisions of the foreign fighters bill overbearingly "Nazi" while at the same time trying to reintroduce the sweeping charge of sedition? No matter. Winston knows his base, he knows MMP maths; and he knows more ridicule from the chattering class will only increase his stock.

Mr Little can claim some credit for pushing for greater oversight of the SIS, and other key amendments including warrentless surveillance being halved from the initial 48 hours to 24 hours, and the spy agency's new powers under the bill being restricted to counter-terrorism rather than applying to all its activities, as in its original draft (as NBR has noted, others were also lobbying for the same changes, including the Privacy Commissioner).

And, beyond my politicking conspiracy theory, he says he received a briefing from SIS director Rebecca Kitteridge that convinced him there is a real foreign fighter threat, and one that needs to be acted against with speed.

But the loudest noise on the left has been made by the Greens this morning.

Referencing a major US government report released today that found the CIA tortured, and exaggerated the usefulness of information gained through torture, Russel Norman tweeted, "US state torture is at the end of the road. Warrantless state surveillance is somewhere along the same road. Let's take a different path."

Mr Little also expressed qualms about warrantless surveillance. But overall, he took a pragmatic approach.

David Cunliffe, with his oily demeanour and track-record of fibbing, often tripped up when he made such calculated moves, or they simply didn't wash with voters.

But Mr Little, for all his charisma deficit, is at least perceived as authentic — a quality that can take you a long way in politics. And he did himself a favour by thinking out loud about the foreign fighters bill; raising objections and getting them addressed (admittedly he had luck on his side with the PM keen to build cross-party support). His solid start continues.

ckeall@nbr.co.nz

Follow @ChrisKeall

* Selwyn was convicted and sentenced to two months' jail for the sedition offence, and 15 months for various welfare fraud charges uncovered during an associated police investigation.