Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership

on behalf of the Leader of the House: I seek leave to take Government notice of motion No. 1 on behalf of the Leader of the House and the motion in his name concerning the terms of reference for the Intelligence and Security Committee as one debate.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears not.

I move, That under section 8 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996, this House endorse the following as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee: Hon John Banks and Hon Peter Dunne, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 7(1)(c) of the Act; and Dr Russel Norman, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition under section 7(1)(d) of the Act.

I further move, That—(a) the Intelligence and Security Committee will examine the Estimates Vote for each intelligence and security agency (Standing Orders 244, 245, 246, and 333 are to be read and applied accordingly); (b) the Intelligence and Security Committee will examine the Supplementary Estimates for each intelligence and security agency (Standing Orders 244, 245, 246, and 336 are to be read and applied accordingly); (c) the Intelligence and Security Committee will conduct a financial review of the performance in the previous financial year and the current operations of each intelligence and security agency (Standing Orders 244, 245, 246, 339, and 340 are to be read and applied accordingly); (d) no select committee can examine an intelligence and security agency; (e) a bill or other matter relating to an intelligence and security agency may be referred by the House to the Intelligence and Security Committee (Standing Orders 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 272, 273, 274, 275, 284, 285, 287, 288, 289, 291, 292, 294, 295, and 296 are to be read and applied accordingly); (f) the Clerk will allocate any petition relating to an intelligence and security agency to the Intelligence and Security Committee (Standing Order 366); (g) for the purposes of this order—intelligence and security agency means the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service or the Government Communications Security Bureau; and Intelligence and Security Committee means the Intelligence and Security Committee established by section 5 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996.

I rise to support the two motions here. Firstly, with reference to the establishment of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the process for doing that is laid down in the law, and has been undertaken by the various parties. In terms of the Opposition parties, the Leader of the Opposition is by statute a member of that committee, and there is a process of consultation that needs to take place to appoint the second member. That has been undertaken, and Dr Russel Norman is put forward as the other nominee from the Opposition. I want to thank all Opposition parties for their cooperation in going through that consultation process.

The composition of the committee is perhaps not the major issue of the day in terms of this particular debate on these motions. What I do want to discuss is the role of the committee that is contained within the second of the two motions that are up for debate today. By nature, the work that this committee does is going to have an element of secrecy. It is in the name; it is part of what happens when we look at the work of intelligence services. There will be occasions on which the work of that committee does need to be kept confidential and comment about it needs to be kept to a minimum in order to protect the important role that security intelligence agencies play.

The reality is that in our society we do need intelligence services. I would love to live in a society where we did not need to have the Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau. The activities that they undertake present a challenge to those of us who are strong believers in civil liberties, but the truth is that in our society from time to time there is a reason for intelligence agencies to undertake the kind of work—the covert work, I guess, if you want to call it that—that is part of their core business. That is required, and from time to time the committee will be required to look at that, to respect the way in which information has been delivered to the Government and to the agencies, and to talk about it in a confidential manner.

But there has to be a balance in that—there has to be a balance. When the work of these agencies challenges the civil liberties that we all have, it behoves this whole Parliament, and the Government in particular, to be extremely cautious and careful with how those powers are used. There is little more important in our society than our ability to go about our daily business free of interference, the ability to have contact with our friends and with our associates and not feel that in some way or another we are being watched unfairly or without due cause. So any attempt by these agencies to go about their work, which, as I say, is legitimate work, needs to be monitored carefully, and there needs to be a degree of transparency and accountability about that.

The example that occurred in the last Parliament when this committee was considering the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill was one that on this side of the House we felt very uncomfortable about—the fact that there was a lack of public submissions. There was a lack of openness and transparency about an important aspect that actually was changing the way in which these agencies were doing their work, and that deserved and merited better public participation and some greater levels of transparency. As I say, there will be times when that level of transparency will not be possible, but a bill that was fundamentally changing the way that that work was done—not a specific subject, not a specific investigation, but the methods and means of the work—deserves greater transparency. When the challenge to those of us who care passionately about civil liberties is taken by that kind of action, we need to see that, and, of course, in the last Parliament we did not see that level of transparency from the Government.

The Human Rights Commission, in its submission on the bill, raised these serious concerns, and I just want to quote briefly from it. It said that at the point in the process when it wrote the submission “It is unclear whether the Committee intends to hear oral evidence. As the Bill may have significant impact on the lives of New Zealanders, and other people within New Zealand, the Commission strongly urges that public hearings on the Bill to be held.” That was the Human Rights Commission saying to the Intelligence and Security Committee that it is important that there is a level of transparency around, in this case, a piece of legislation that went to the committee. Those calls from the Human Rights Commission should be heeded in the future, so that there is transparency where that is appropriate, and I do believe that in matters like this, and in a number of other matters, it will be appropriate that there is that level of transparency.

It was confusing to those of us on this side of the House, when we looked at the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee and looked back in previous debate, to find that in its very early days Jenny Shipley when she was the Prime Minister made clear in this House that in a similar situation there should be transparency, and there should be public submissions. So National when it was last in Government and involved in this committee seemed to believe that there should be a level of transparency in the activities of this committee, yet this time around when it came to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill there was not that level of transparency, and it is disappointing that that would occur.

We do say that in the future we need to see a greater level of transparency. We would like to work within the frame of the committee to achieve that, and we would like to see Parliament be able to, in the future, adopt some measures that will enhance the transparency of this work. This is not to undermine in any way the work of the committee; it is actually to support it. It is to give it some kind of greater accountability that the public will have confidence, they will know a little more about the activities without compromising the actual investigations that are undertaken by our intelligence services.

As we have seen from examples from around the world, intelligence services are not perfect. They are not suddenly able to always get it exactly right. They are not going to get the information and read it perfectly every single time. Sometimes they are going to misunderstand information. Sometimes they will be given false information. They are not perfect. They do need a level of scrutiny. This committee provides some of that, and it is why we support the motions on the Table. But over the next few years I would like to think that Parliament could return to these issues and actually create a different environment that has a great deal more transparency.

Now is the time to do that from this Government’s point of view because it runs the risk of having a reputation of not being transparent and not being accountable. If we look at the deal around the legislation with Skycity, if we look at what has been going on with Radio Live—the loan to Radio Live; the Prime Minister’s broadcast—if we look at the Crafar farms and the role of Landcorp, and if we look at the whole question of New Zealand On Air and the role of the Prime Minister’s electorate chair, there is building up a record of lack of transparency here. We have got Nick Smith today in the House—the debate around the question of what he did in his role, compromising his role as a Minister.

That level of transparency is not good enough in this Parliament, and when we are dealing with intelligence and security measures, if we have got that background of behaviour and activity from the National Party, it does not give me confidence in the Intelligence and Security Committee that it, in the last Parliament, did not even allow submissions on a significant bill.

We want to see a greater level of transparency and accountability. We want to see that right across the work of the Government. In security and intelligence it will always need to be balanced against the best interests of New Zealand, but it is vitally important that this committee have the ability to look at that balance and, from time to time, create the situation where there are public submissions, where the public can learn more about the activities of these agencies. We are supporting these motions, but we do believe that there is work to be done to create the appropriate transparent environment in which this committee works.

I rise from the Green Party to speak to the motion. I think it is fair to say that the Green Party is pretty sceptical about the level of oversight of our security services. However, we are participating in this committee and we thank the Leader of the Opposition, David Shearer, for nominating us on to this committee. But, like the previous speaker, we think there needs to be tremendously improved oversight of the security services because it is very difficult for the current committee to properly supervise or provide any kind of oversight of the security services in New Zealand.

The Intelligence and Security Committee is not a select committee of the House like other committees. It does not have parliamentary control like other committees. It is a committee established by statute—the Intelligence and Security Committee Act. That is how it is established. The Intelligence and Security Committee has five members: the Prime Minister, who is also the Minister responsible for the security services, and two nominees from him, and the Leader of the Opposition and one nominee from him. So this is a five-person committee established by statute whose job is meant to be to provide some oversight of the activities of the security services.

However, the Intelligence and Security Committee has very few powers to do anything much to make the security services answer questions. For example, if the chief executive officer of a security service declares any information to be sensitive then we cannot ask any further questions about it. That is written in the Act. We do not know what the information is, but if the chief executive officer of any security service says “No, the question you are asking is of a sensitive nature; it is sensitive information.”, then they do not have to answer any questions about it. So it is fundamentally different to the select committees established under the Standing Orders of this House.

Unlike select committees, the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee is the Minister responsible for the security services. The way select committees are established in this House is that the chair is always independent—it is not the Minister—so that the chair of the committee, which is meant to be keeping these Government agencies accountable, is at arm’s length from the Minister. What this means is that very few people know what the security services do. It is very difficult for the Intelligence and Security Committee to get to the bottom of what the security services do, because we do not have the powers. It means that the chair of the committee is actually the Minister, so it puts us in a very difficult situation.

Other jurisdictions do not do this, of course. Other jurisdictions have much better parliamentary or congressional oversight of their security services. I just quote for you the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency William Colby. Mr Colby said: “We in the intelligence and security services can work under a system of parliamentary control. We can do our job and in fact we are stronger because when we make mistakes and get in trouble, the responsibility is shared with the legislative committees. The intelligence service can do its important work, and yet be under the control of our democratic system.” That was a quote from the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency from the United States. What that says is that the system we have, where there is not democratic oversight of the security services—not in any effective way—is not the only system that you can have.

This is particularly the case because our security services have a terrible record of, basically, taking sides in politics. For example, there were some documents that were released to my former colleague Keith Locke that showed that in the 1980s the security services were taking a very unhealthy interest in anyone who opposed apartheid in South Africa. So the SIS seemed to take the view that if you opposed apartheid in South Africa you were a threat to the New Zealand State, so you needed to be investigated.

The SIS has made a habit of targeting law-abiding political dissenters. For example, it targeted Aziz Choudry. It burgled his home. The reason we know that is it was caught burgling Aziz Choudry’s home. That went to the courts, and when it went to the courts the Security Intelligence Service lost the court case, and unspecified damages were awarded against the SIS to Aziz Choudry.

💬 David Bennett: It’s a conspiracy theory. You might as well join New Zealand First.

Mr Bennett over there says it is a conspiracy. Well, this is actually on the public record, Mr Bennett, and you should try reading it some time. It might actually help you a little bit. At the time the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Laurie Greig, said it was reasonable for the SIS to break into—to burgle—Aziz Choudry’s house. However, the courts disagreed and overruled him.

A further case where we have concerns about the activities of the SIS would be the long-term persecution of Ahmed Zaoui. This is a well-documented case and the courts repeatedly upheld Mr Zaoui’s rights against the SIS, and the SIS breaches of his rights. Mr Zaoui was an Algerian democrat who was being hunted by the brutal Algerian dictatorship. He was the classic political refugee that members of this Parliament should support because he was an advocate for democracy, and that is why we were very disappointed when the Labour Government participated in the persecution of Ahmed Zaoui over many years. What happened was the Algerian dictatorship provided false information that Zaoui was a terrorist to the French Government, which then passed it to the New Zealand SIS, which stupidly believed everything it was told. It took massive intervention by the courts—court case after court case after court case—to prevent the SIS from essentially deporting Mr Zaoui to serious harm offshore. At the time the Government of Helen Clark backed the SIS 100 percent in pursuing, persecuting, and wrongly imprisoning Mr Zaoui, as the courts ultimately came to the conclusion.

Keith Locke is another who was targeted by the SIS for being a law-abiding dissident—something we should encourage. In fact, there are hundreds of law-abiding New Zealanders whose political beliefs happen to disagree with those of the SIS, and hence they have become the target of surveillance. In a free society it is wrong for the State security services to target people because of their political beliefs, yet there is a repeated pattern of the New Zealand security services doing exactly that. Some people say that we have the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who is meant to be the safeguard to oversee the SIS. Because the Intelligence and Security Committee cannot do it, because it is too constrained, the Inspector-General is meant to be the safeguard. However, the Inspector-General operates in secret so we do not really know what he does. We do know that one of the few times we have seen the Inspector-General in action was when Laurie Greig was reviewing the decision of the SIS to issue a security risk certificate against Mr Zaoui. Laurie Greig, who was at the time the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, told the media that Mr Zaoui should be sent overseas—he should be “outski”. He clearly had a predetermined view of the issue.

So although the Intelligence and Security Committee is very limited, and that is the body that we are appointing with this motion, the Inspector-General is meant to be the safeguard. But on the one occasion when we saw what the Inspector-General was doing, we discovered that the Inspector-General, who is meant to be an independent check on the activities of the security services, was completely biased. This went to court, and the courts ruled that the Inspector-General had to step down from reconsidering the case against Mr Zaoui because the Inspector-General at the time was clearly biased. The courts ruled him to get out of the case.

This is the so-called independent check on the security services. That is what is meant to be the independent check on our security services, because the Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary oversight, is so weak. Yet we know that the one time we saw what the Inspector-General got up to, he was very, very biased against someone who turned out to be actually a political refugee and the kind of person whom people in this Parliament should support, because he was a democrat. After that, the Inspector-General actually resigned because the courts found against him.

We recognise that the security services do some good, that they have an important role; we are not naive about it. But we believe, along with Mr Colby from the CIA, that there should be parliamentary oversight of the security services, and currently we do not have it. One victory for the Intelligence and Security Committee, in the last committee, was the inclusion of some human rights provisions in the Act governing the SIS. Along with the Prime Minister, I think I am now the longest-serving member of the Intelligence and Security Committee—the current one—and that was one of the victories that came out. By law I cannot tell you what happens inside the meetings of the Intelligence and Security Committee, but you will know that there was at least a majority inside that committee to support human rights provisions being added to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act. How else could it have appeared in the committee recommendations that came back to Parliament? So that was, I thought, one small, significant thing that we have achieved.

I would say to progressive activists and agitators, to people who stand up for freedom and democracy and human rights—the people who are the targets of the security services traditionally—to not sleep easy in your bed, thinking that the Greens are providing good oversight of the security services because we have one person on the Intelligence and Security Committee. There are very real limits to what this committee can do, and so it is essential, if you wish to protect your freedom, that you should be as vigilant as possible. We will do the best job that we can on the committee, but there are real constraints on it. Thank you very much.

Motion endorsing members’ nomination agreed to.

Motion concerning terms of reference agreed to.