Prime Minister John Key told TV One’s Q+A programme it would be “odd” for New Zealand not to join the fight against Islamic State.

He says there are a wide range of options being considered and there are “definite risks’.

“So the first thing is to identify whether those risks are worth us doing something about. And then I think the next point is just simply to say well if we don’t play our part in standing up to ISIS we could obviously choose to do that, but the really slightly odd thing about that would be pretty much everyone that we either align ourselves to look to or work alongside. Not just the United Kingdom and the US and Canada and Australia, but you know countries like Germany and France and Belgium, Netherlands. They are all involved, so it would be odd for New Zealand to do nothing.”

Mr Key also says he wants to make urgent changes to our laws to deal with foreign fighters – those who are already fighting with jihadists in Syria or Iraq, or those planning to. He’ll present a paper with options to Cabinet tomorrow but the changes need to happen quickly:

“Potentially we would have greater powers, and potentially even powers to look at arresting someone under the view that they would undertake what would then be deemed to be a criminal act. So that’s a very big step. I'm saying we will take that, but what I am saying is that we're going to ask Cabinet tomorrow to consider the paper, and then ultimately go and look at what are the areas where we think potential changes happen very rapidly.

“What the officials are saying to us is that the settings that we've currently got, particularly in relation to passports but also in a couple of other areas, potentially argue the case that the change should take place in a much quicker basis.”

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:35pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz

Thanks to the support from NZ On Air.

Q+A is on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/NZQandA#!/NZQandA and on Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/NZQandA

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