Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister responsible for the GCSB: I move, That the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 26 July 2013, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 188 and 191(1)(b) and (c).

This omnibus bill focuses on New Zealand’s intelligence community, which has a vital role to play in our national security. The bill makes amendments to three separate Acts, and it has three main objectives: first, to provide a clear and consistent legal framework for the Government Communications Security Bureau to operate within; second, to update the bureau’s legal framework in response to the rapidly changing security environment, particularly in relation to cyber-security and information security; and, third, to strengthen the oversight regime that applies to our intelligence agencies.

The recent compliance review of the Government Communications Security Bureau has highlighted that there are difficulties of interpretation in the existing Government Communications Security Bureau Act 2003. The 2003 Act sought to codify and make transparent existing practices of the then Government Communications Security Bureau, but, under scrutiny, the 10-year-old Act potentially limits the bureau’s ability to provide the support and advice that successive Governments expected, possibly limits current support and advice that can be provided, and most certainly will restrict the bureau’s ability to look after New Zealand and protect New Zealanders. For an organisation with intrusive powers like the Government Communications Security Bureau, an unclear legal framework is simply not good enough. Therefore, the responsible thing for this Parliament to do is to move to clarify that Act. This bill does that. This bill will make the Government Communications Security Bureau Act clearer and more transparent so that it is clear what the agency can and cannot do. In addition to that, the bill also strengthens the oversight regime of our intelligence agencies by making amendments to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1996 and the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996.

The Government Communications Security Bureau is arguably more important in New Zealand now than it has been for many years. As the key agency responsible for advising on and protecting against threats to New Zealand’s cyber-security, the Government Communications Security Bureau is at the forefront of tackling a rapidly increasing threat. The bureau has three core functions: first, information assurance and cyber-security; second, foreign intelligence; and, third, cooperation and assistance to other entities. Two of the Government Communications Security Bureau’s three core functions—specifically, information assurance and cyber-security, and cooperation and assistance to other entities—are currently compressed into only a single paragraph in the Act. This makes it both complex to negotiate and inadequate to empower the bureau to carry out the full range and scope of activities envisaged in these functions. Splitting the two functions apart in the legislation will allow us to more easily articulate what the Government expects the Government Communications Security Bureau to do and will provide greater transparency. It is important because New Zealand is no longer as distant from security problems as it has been in the past.

The particular role of assisting with information security is clearly indicated in the Government Communications Security Bureau Act, but the current wording could be interpreted to mean helping only the public sector, potentially excluding critical infrastructure operators and organisations of national significance. We want to be able to use the Government’s significant investment in technology and expertise in this field for the benefit of the wider State sector, critical infrastructure operators, and other key economic contributors. A safeguard is built into the bill in this area. It requires the Government Communications Security Bureau to get a warrant from the responsible Minister and the Commissioner of Security Warrants when it is performing this function in relation to the communications of New Zealanders.

I will now speak briefly about the bureau’s foreign intelligence function. This function is currently defined in the Government Communications Security Bureau Act in a highly prescriptive way, describing the overall function that the function involves and how it is to be achieved. The Act specifies such activities as deciphering, decoding, translating, examining, and analysing communications. When the House considers how technology has changed the way we communicate over the past 10 years, and in light of future changes that can already be anticipated, these specific descriptions are extremely limiting. They are also likely to mean that the Government Communications Security Bureau’s abilities to protect New Zealand and New Zealanders are left behind by technology. We are therefore proposing to describe the bureau’s foreign intelligence function at a higher level than the current prescriptive legislation.

I would like to move now to talk about the third function of the Government Communications Security Bureau, which is cooperation and assistance to other entities. A particular issue has arisen around the bureau’s role in supplying crucial support to other entities, including the New Zealand Defence Force, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, and the New Zealand Police. It has been a longstanding practice of the Government Communications Security Bureau, including under successive Labour-led and National-led Governments, to provide assistance to other entities. However, as I stated earlier, there are difficulties of legal interpretation in the existing Government Communications Security Bureau Act, including in relation to this assistance. The Government has decided that there is too much uncertainty to continue this very important activity under the existing law. The vast bulk of this type of activity remains on hold until legislation is passed by this Parliament to provide greater clarity about whether the bureau can provide assistance to others. Currently the Act says that assistance may be provided but only on matters relevant to the pursuit of the bureau’s own objective, or the safety of a person, or the prevention or detection of serious crime. That limits or at least makes uncertain when the bureau is able to share its expertise across the intelligence community and the wider public sector. We want to provide greater clarity and ensure the bureau can help other agencies fulfil their lawful duties, particularly in the areas of security and law enforcement.

I would like to move now to speak about the significant changes to the oversight regime supporting the clarifications to the Government Communications Security Bureau Act. The most immediate oversight of activities by our intelligence agencies is internal oversight within an organisation. In respect of the Government Communications Security Bureau, two of our proposed law changes to the Act will impact directly on the way it manages itself. First, the bureau will be required to maintain written records of all warrants and authorisations in a way that is readily accessible by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. This will support a compliance culture.

Second, we are creating new obligations for the bureau in respect of the handling of personal information. These obligations will be based on the following principles, which are recognised under the Privacy Act: the purpose of collection, storage and security, accuracy, and not keeping information for longer than necessary. Under this bill the principles identified above will be transposed into the Government Communications Security Bureau Act with appropriate modifications to recognise the requirements of national security and the nature of intelligence gathering to serve as the basis of a new policy on personal information. This policy will be signed off by the director of the Government Communications Security Bureau in consultation with the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the Privacy Commissioner, and compliance will be regularly audited with results communicated to the Privacy Commissioner. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security will have overlapping responsibilities in this area, which will help give confidence that the bureau is implementing these privacy protections.

I would like to discuss external oversight, which applies to intelligence agencies as a whole. As one of our most important new measures we are creating the role for the Commissioner of Security Warrants in relation to the Government Communications Security Bureau Act. Whenever the bureau is called upon to intercept the communications of New Zealanders—this could occur either as part of its information cyber-security function or when the bureau discovers a New Zealander acting as an agent of a foreign power as part of its foreign intelligence function, which is one of the existing exceptions to the basic premise in section 14. In such circumstances, before the bureau can take further action, it will first be required to get a warrant issued jointly by the responsible Minister and the commissioner. This is very similar to the role of the commissioner in respect of domestic warrants sought by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and is an important safeguard in respect of New Zealanders’ privacy. Of course, the commissioner will not play a role when the Government Communications Security Bureau is assisting another entity to perform that other entity’s functions. This is because the other entity will have the authority to undertake that activity. Such authority could take the form of a warrant issued by the courts or an existing statutory authority granted by Parliament, or such other source of legal power to carry out the activity. In such cases the bureau will be governed by the restrictions and limitations that apply to the other entity.

In broad terms, the changes to strengthen the Inspector-General legislation fall into three categories: the first is legislative changes, expanding the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security’s work programme, and enhancing reporting responsibilities; secondly, increased resourcing of the Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security; and, thirdly, legislative change to address the required qualification to broaden the pool of candidates and the appointment process. It is the Government’s intention that the Inspector-General’s office will become a more proactive overseer of the intelligence community that is able to launch its own investigations and is better resourced to do so.

In conclusion, the changes proposed to the Act do not represent an extension of powers, but do clarify that the Government Communications Security Bureau can resume its longstanding practices under successive Governments. The legislation must be clear, must be fit for purpose, and must allow the Government Communications Security Bureau to get on with the job of protecting the interests of New Zealand and of New Zealanders.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Before the Minister sits down, on the issue of process and good governance, it is important for the Minister to indicate to the House to which committee this legislation is to be sent.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: She did.

OK, I did—I did say it.

Today we see the Government trying to do a patch-up job on an intelligence network, on intelligence agencies that have some very serious shortfalls. I would put it to you that it is too important to simply apply a band-aid to save face for the Prime Minister. This is about our national security. It is about our human rights. It is about Kiwis’ confidence in the integrity of our intelligence agencies, in agencies that we need. We need them to function according to the security demands that we have on us, but also according to the protection of our privacy and our human rights. That is why we have been calling from the very beginning of the debacle around the intelligence agencies for a wide, independent inquiry right across our entire intelligence network, not just about the internal workings of the Government Communications Security Bureau, because it is the right thing to do. We need to do this properly, we need to do it once, and we need to get it right, because we cannot go on as we are.

I want for the House to reflect just exactly why we are debating this issue in the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill today. We are debating this issue because we have had a train wreck over the last few months around our intelligence agencies, which has severely undermined the confidence that the public has in those agencies. On 20 January last year the police, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, raided the home of Kim Dotcom, after the Government Communications Security Bureau had been spying on him for more than a month. The very next month, in February 2012, questions were raised with the Government Communications Security Bureau by other agencies about the lawfulness of that surveillance, because Kim Dotcom was a New Zealand resident. It concluded, strangely enough, that its actions were lawful. In May the directors of the Government Communications Security Bureau, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security all knew there were legal issues with the bureau’s spying on New Zealanders, and not just in Kim Dotcom’s case. In July it told John Key about the possibility that New Zealanders were being spied on unlawfully, and he did nothing.

The next month the Government Communications Security Bureau director went to see Bill English and asked him to sign a ministerial certificate suppressing the details of the agency’s involvement in spying on Kim Dotcom—suppressing the details, and keeping out of any public scrutiny the fact that it had screwed up. John Key claims he was not told about any of the purported illegal spying until 17 September, when he was told that the Government Communications Security Bureau had acted unlawfully. He did not admit at that point that the broader concerns about illegal spying on New Zealanders had, in fact, been raised with him 2 months earlier, and he had done nothing in order to suppress that possibility of that spying being illegal. I have not even mentioned the fact that in the midst of all this John Key shoulder-taps a friend of his to become the head of the Government Communications Security Bureau. All of that contributes to an overwhelming lack of confidence in our intelligence agencies by the public at large.

Now, in the heat of all of that political fallout over this debacle, what the Government is trying to do is to rush through legislation in hindsight to make these activities legal into the future. That is not what is needed. What we need is a full and independent inquiry, an inquiry that obtains terms of reference from right across Parliament, and an inquiry that can be agreed upon. I believe that is entirely possible. We need an inquiry of the ilk that is being done in Australia. In Australia they conducted an inquiry in 2003, an independent inquiry that looked at all of its intelligence agencies, and did it again just 2 years later. Australia is not afraid of being able to look at its intelligence agencies in total. We should not be afraid of doing that either.

This fully independent inquiry will look right across the agencies. It will look at all of their functions and all of their accountabilities. We accept, I certainly accept, that some of the findings that could come from that inquiry may well be similar to the conclusions that appear in this legislation—completely accept that. But we know it will be part of a much broader analysis. We need this inquiry because, in addition to the debacle that we have seen over the last few months around the Government Communications Security Bureau, we know that the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service wants to expand its role and has got legislation. We have not seen that yet, but we know that legislation is written and has been put to one side at the moment to be introduced at some later date, no doubt. We know that there has been no independent inquiry since the 1970s in this country. There have been massive changes in technology, and I completely agree with the Prime Minister, who says that there are threats to our cyber-security. Absolutely—I completely accept that. But we need to be going about this in a way that makes sure that we have the best possible set-up and structure to enable those threats to be dealt with and with the correct ability to provide oversight.

One of the things that some of this legislation deals with is the Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary oversight of these intelligence agencies. I can tell you that the ability of that parliamentary committee to provide oversight is woeful—it is woeful. I want to give you two examples. First, we are not permitted to speak about what we discuss in these meetings, but I can tell you that at the last meeting that we had to look at some of the legislation that was coming forward, the briefing that we got was well below the level that the press gallery received a few hours later the following morning, together with an 8-page briefing statement that we did not get a chance to have a look at. Why do we have a committee that is given less briefing than what the parliamentary gallery will be able to receive about something as important as this legislation? The second example: when the legislation was announced at a press conference by the Prime Minister earlier this week I got a copy of the legislation 2 minutes—2 minutes—before that press conference. I am a member of that committee and I got it 2 minutes before. So if this committee is going to be treated with that sort of approach, I think that this legislation does not go anywhere far enough in terms of being able to satisfy public opinion that scrutiny is adequate and able to give the public the confidence that these agencies are operating effectively.

Then there is the question of urgency around this legislation. We need to rush this through because—why? Because we are led to believe that there are somehow threats around New Zealand. Again, I believe the Prime Minister is playing politics. If it was so urgent, why did we not rush it through last year? This is now May. Either the Government is not taking those threats seriously, which it says it is, or there is actually no real problem, and, therefore, we do not need to rush it through today. In fact, we could have had an independent inquiry that had the buy-in of the entire Parliament last year. We could have had the buy-in of the entire Parliament, we could have had terms of reference that were agreed to by the Parliament, and we could have had that inquiry reporting back to Parliament in a way that gave New Zealand real confidence.

We oppose the legislation because it is a band-aid. It is an ad hoc approach, it is way too mired in politics, and it is an attempt to get the Government out of a hole. It is not durable, it is not lasting, and it is not going to go as far as it needs to go in terms of satisfying the public that they can have real confidence in our intelligence agencies. We need to balance our national security, both our physical and economic security, with our right to privacy and civil liberties. If the Government was to establish such an inquiry that would enable us to satisfy both those competing objectives, we would cooperate with that, we would work with it, and we would work to bring forward to this Parliament legislation that would be able to give the public the confidence that our agencies not only are up to date but have the scrutiny and the correct accountability that we need.

I understand that the Minister of Justice wishes to correct her statement to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is it a personal explanation or a point of order?

I think it is probably a point of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): All right, a point of order.

I think it is a point of order. I am sure you will tell me if I am wrong, Mr Assistant Speaker. At the end of my speech on the first reading you asked whether or not I had nominated the committee. I thought we had, and other members thought we had. I think there is some doubt about that. In fact, I meant to and I do nominate that the committee is the Intelligence and Security Committee. Mr Assistant Speaker, I am sorry that I gave you the wrong information.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.

It is a privilege to speak on this important bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, where we are acting responsibly as a Government in the interests of New Zealand and New Zealanders.

This omnibus bill is about New Zealand’s intelligence community, which is of course critical for our national security as New Zealanders. As the Minister of Justice has said, this bill effectively has three objectives: to provide a clear and consistent legal framework, which is fundamental in an area such as this; to update the Government Communications Security Bureau’s legal framework, again fundamental as we live in a fast-moving and fast-paced world; and, thirdly, to strengthen the oversight regime that applies to our intelligence agencies, which of course is important in a country such as New Zealand, where we abide by the rule of law.

The history of this bill is reasonably well known: a compliance review of the Government Communications Security Bureau by Rebecca Kitteridge, a review of the Government Communications Security Bureau Act 2003, and a review of the oversight mechanisms that apply to our intelligence community. We are also addressing recommendations that have been made by the Law Commission regarding intelligence agencies and privacy law.

The Government Communications Security Bureau has an absolutely pivotal role to play in protecting our security as New Zealanders. Its operations are highly sensitive and its work cannot be talked about in detail because of a need to protect its capabilities and areas of focus. This means that its successes can rarely, if ever, be publicly discussed. But we are in no doubt, on this side of the House, that the Government Communications Security Bureau has, along with its other intelligence community colleagues, made an important—indeed, a very important—contribution to our national security over the years.

We cannot have, in New Zealand, an unclear legal framework that leaves room for interpretation and debate. That would not be just not good enough; it would be entirely wrong. Therefore, I started this speech by saying that through this bill we are doing, I think, the responsible thing as a Parliament in moving to clarify the law. This bill will make our regime clear and fit for purpose, and will allow the Government Communications Security Bureau to get on with the important job of protecting New Zealand and New Zealanders.

I rise to oppose this bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I think the speech we have just heard from Simon Bridges gives us some insight into what the problem is here. He spoke for, what, 3 or 4 minutes about legislation that he himself tells us is significant and important, and covering a significant and important agency, and he cannot even be bothered filling up his time to talk about that.

This is, as David Shearer has said, a band-aid solution. There are significant issues at play here for our security, for our human rights, and for privacy, and this Government thinks that it can sweep all of the problems—the debacle that has taken place over Kim Dotcom and the Government Communications Security Bureau’s behaviour—under the carpet with this piece of legislation. That is simply not good enough.

We do need a full inquiry. We need that inquiry because this is not about just the Government Communications Security Bureau; this is about all of the intelligence agencies that work in New Zealand. We know that the SIS legislation had been drafted. We know that there were to be changes to the way that the SIS operates. Since the Government Communications Security Bureau Act 2003 was passed, the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand has come into existence, the Police’s organised crime agency. We know that the Directorate of Defence Intelligence and Security now apparently wants the Government Communications Security Bureau working with it as well. There is an interconnected group of intelligence agencies, and for the Prime Minister to come down to this House and put in place a piece of legislation that sticks a band-aid over a problem that he does not want New Zealanders to focus on in the Government Communications Security Bureau, and say that this is the answer to everything, is simply wrong and unacceptable.

It is not just the Labour Party that is saying this. I want to quote from John Armstrong’s column in the New Zealand Herald from Thursday, 11 April. This is what he said: “A full inquiry is needed because formally allowing the GCSB some room to function in a domestic context is potentially a huge foot in the door in that arena whatever conditions or provisos are put on such change.” He calls it “No8 fencing wire sort of stuff”, and that is not good enough when we are talking about an agency with the intrusive powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau.

Doing this, enlarging the functions in this way—and it is simply not credible for Judith Collins and Simon Bridges to tell us that there is no enlarging of the function here; there quite clearly is. Whether or not that is justified, given the changes in terms of cyber-security, given the different agencies that now operate in New Zealand, we simply do not know today. That is why we need that formal inquiry.

But it is quite clear, when we look into the detail of the language in this bill, that the assistance that the Government Communications Security Bureau is now going to be able to provide agencies is “in their lawful functions”. It has not got anything necessarily to do with national security; it just says “in their lawful functions”. What does that mean? What greater powers does that give? Are we moving here away from information assurance into some other kind of area? What priorities are going to be put on the Government Communications Security Bureau? We cannot answer any of these questions, because we simply do not have enough information about the way that these agencies interact with each other.

But the scale of the change here justifies far more than a band-aid solution. This goes beyond clarifying the law. It goes into how this agency operates. It is very important that people understand what the distinction is between the Government Communications Security Bureau and—let us take one of the other agencies—the SIS. That distinction is that the bureau operates as part of an international network. The assurance, I think, that many New Zealanders would want is if the bureau is going to be given powers to work with other agencies, what assurance New Zealanders have that that information is not being passed overseas. The very nature of the expertise that the bureau is bringing to the table is its connection with international agencies.

So here we have a fundamental change to the premise of the difference between, in this case, the Government Communications Security Bureau and the SIS. That is not a minor clarification; that is a fundamental change in the way the agency works. Just putting a bill before Parliament and saying “This is just to clarify what we’re already doing.” is not good enough when it comes to addressing the differences and the distinctions between those two agencies. As David Shearer has said, there may well, at the end of an inquiry, be a need to change this legislation to take account of new technology and to take account of new threats, but it is not good enough to bring this in and not have the discussion about that as part of a wider and fuller inquiry.

When I obtained the documents from the court about the Kim Dotcom case, one of the things that struck me about the documents that came from the Government Communications Security Bureau as part of those court documents was the classifications on top of each page of those documents. Having worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I am used to the various titles and names, but there were some that I did not recognise, and on further investigation they were classifications that indicated that this material was going to be shared with international agencies. We have been told publicly by various people with the bureau that this material would not be shared, but that information—those designations on those documents—indicates that it is routine for Government Communications Security Bureau information to be shared internationally. What assurances do New Zealanders have that under this legislation, if the bureau is working with those other agencies, that information will not be shared overseas?

It seems to me that the fundamental purpose of the Government in bringing this legislation to the House is to sweep under the carpet John Key’s role in the Kim Dotcom affair, because for all of Rebecca Kitteridge’s report into what was going wrong at the Government Communications Security Bureau, the one thing she was not allowed to investigate was the Kim Dotcom case. The one thing that actually started all of this off, the Kim Dotcom case, she could not investigate. That is because the Prime Minister does not want New Zealanders to know about his role in that affair. We have managed over months and months to drag out information from the Prime Minister, and we now know that as early as July last year he was aware of unlawful spying, and he did nothing. He did nothing about that. In May the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security raised concerns about this, and the Government Communications Security Bureau, we are asked to believe, did nothing about that until it talked to the Prime Minister in July. What we do know is that in February 2012 the bureau knew that its spying on Kim Dotcom had been unlawful.

Where was the Prime Minister in all of it? There is a lot of talk in this legislation about oversight and the importance of oversight. We have seen the most lax oversight of this agency by John Key, the Minister responsible for the GCSB, and that is why he does not want us to look into that. We cannot have a proper conversation about changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau Act without knowing exactly what went on in the Kim Dotcom case. David Shearer has already mentioned the fact that Australia has had such an inquiry, and one of the outcomes of that inquiry was greater parliamentary oversight. I strongly believe that we do need that.

There are some things in this bill that are useful around the oversight. The expansion of the Inspector-General’s office to have a Deputy Inspector-General—that is a good thing. We need to look at the clauses around how that person is appointed, but I think widening the pool beyond a retired judge is a good thing as well. But what about that parliamentary oversight? In our democracy we need to have confidence in institutions and agencies such as the Government Communications Security Bureau. Public confidence in our intelligence agencies is at rock bottom, and putting up band-aid legislation simply is not going to satisfy that.

I am going to appeal now to the parties in this House that could stop this legislation and give us the full inquiry that we need. I want to quote something that Peter Dunne said in October last year, because I believe that he is actually right in what he said. He said, when talking about the intelligence agencies, “I … believe very strongly that when exercising their responsibilities the agencies of the state must at all times act within the law they are pledged to uphold. In a free state, it cannot logically be otherwise.” He finished by saying: “Free societies operate on the basis of mutual consent. We respect the authority of the state because we believe it to be exercised in our best interests. When confidence in our institutions is diminished by their own actions, the cohesion of our society is eroded. That erosion and where it might lead is what has me feeling uncomfortable right now.” That is what Peter Dunne said last year.

This legislation cannot get rid of the discomfort that he feels, because all it is doing is putting a band-aid over the problems that he himself identified. I am calling on Mr Dunne and others to oppose this legislation, because New Zealanders deserve a full inquiry into our intelligence agencies to restore confidence in them and to create around them the legal and oversight framework that can balance together issues of national security, freedoms, and privacy. That is the only responsible course to take. This bill does not take that course.

I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party about the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. It strikes me always as strange that it is the parties of the right that want to restrict our freedom. Time and again what we find is that the parties of the right want to intrude into our lives. They want to listen to our phone calls, they want to read our emails, and they want to know what we are looking at on the internet. And here we have in front of us yet another bill from the parties of the right—the National Party and the ACT Party, supported, I guess, by Peter Dunne, but I hope he changes his mind—to restrict our freedom and breach our privacy.

Let us remember what this bill does. This bill gives the Prime Minister and the Government Communications Security Bureau greater powers to break into our houses, to put bugs into our houses. It gives it greater power to listen to our phone calls without a warrant. It gives it greater power to look at our emails without a warrant—it does not need a warrant. It gives it greater power to monitor every activity that we do every second of every day. That is what a surveillance State is about. It is striking that it is always parties of the right that support the surveillance State, that oppose freedom, and that try to breach our privacy year after year after year, and here we have another example of it.

The tragedy of it on this occasion is that in the past the attempts to, basically, undermine our freedom have been justified by the war on terror, or whatever, and, of course, there was the “Red Terror” before that. On this occasion the justification for the expansion of the powers of the bureau to spy on us even more is in order to cover up the Prime Minister’s embarrassment. That is the tragedy of this particular piece of legislation. What stands behind it is the fact that the Prime Minister is embarrassed, as the responsible Minister who was supposed to be keeping the Government Communications Security Bureau acting lawfully and failed. This bill, to allow the spy agencies to intrude further into our lives—its sole purpose, really, or its main purpose, driven politically, is to cover up the political embarrassment of the Prime Minister, and that is a tragedy.

Why is it that the parties of the right always support further intrusion into our freedom and our privacy? I would argue it is because they think that they are never going to be the target of it. They think: “Oh, we’re conservatives. The security institutions don’t target us. They’ll target those lefties, those greenies, those radicals—they’re not going to target us. So we don’t care that we give more power to the Government Communications Security Bureau to break into our houses and listen to our phone calls, because we’re not going to be the target of it.”, and maybe they are right. I mean, if you look at the history of the SIS, it was found that it was spying on Aziz Choudry, an anti - free trade activist. The SIS persecuted Ahmed Zaoui because he was a democracy activist in Algeria and had upset the Algerian regime. We know that in the Kim Dotcom case the Government Communications Security Bureau was acting on behalf of the US Government. The Obama administration, of course, is highly dependent on donations from Hollywood. Hollywood is very upset with Kim Dotcom and when Hollywood said: “Jump.”, the Obama administration jumped; when Obama jumped, then the Government Communications Security Bureau jumped, because the bureau is part of the “Five Eyes” network.

So we know that the targets for the security agencies tend to be groups of people whom parties of the right figure they are never going to be part of: lefties, progressives, greenies. So what would they care if they breached the freedom and the democratic rights and civil liberties of ordinary New Zealanders? Of course, those ordinary New Zealanders whose freedom and civil liberties the parties of the right like the National Party are happy to breach are people like anti-apartheid activists. Of course, we have a Prime Minister who cannot remember whether he was opposed to apartheid or not, but those people who were opposed to apartheid—of course, the National Party was not opposed to apartheid; the Prime Minister just cannot remember whether he was or he was not opposed to apartheid—were the targets of the security agencies. Those people who campaigned against apartheid were the very targets of the SIS and the Government Communications Security Bureau, and those are the people who in the future, given these new powers of the bureau, will once again be the target of these agencies.

It is very difficult for us to know what the agencies do. Only very rarely does it become clear what they are up to. The Aziz Choudry case is an exception and the Ahmed Zaoui case is an exception, as is the Kim Dotcom case. Mostly, we do not know what they do, because they operate in secrecy. But when it is revealed what they do, what we find is that their targets are progressives. That is whom they have targeted historically, and this is a bill to give them more power.

Mr Shearer from the Labour Party made a very valid case for having an independent inquiry. I believe that not only do we need an inquiry into the illegal activities of the Government Communications Security Bureau—an independent inquiry, of which there has been none—but we need an inquiry as to what is the role of the security agencies. Remember, these were established during the Cold War. They kind of ran out of steam after the Cold War ended, and then they used the war on terror as a justification for what they were doing, and now they are trying to find new justifications, and cyber-attacks are part of it. There is no doubt that cyber-attacks are real—no question about it. The question is this: what should be the role of these kinds of agencies in a free and democratic society, given that they involve fundamental intrusions into our freedom and civil liberties? That is why we need an independent inquiry that is broader than just the Kim Dotcom case and that goes into the role of the agencies themselves. If they are to exist, then we need to know why they exist. We need to know what kinds of limitations on our freedom and democracy we are willing to withstand or put up with by the very existence of these agencies.

I think this thing goes to the issue of oversight. What we know is that in other jurisdictions there is some kind of parliamentary oversight of these agencies. There is no parliamentary oversight of these agencies here. The sole democratic oversight is John Key. John Key, as we have seen, has forgotten his role, amongst many other things. He has forgotten that his job is to protect our freedom and democracy from the intelligence agencies, and he has not performed that function. In other jurisdictions there is democratic oversight. When I have spoken to people who have been involved in the intelligence community over the years, what they have said is: “The thing we’ve always feared in a United States framework was that the congressional committee would pull us up and we would be forced to give testimony to the congressional intelligence committee about what we’d done, and if we’d broken the law we’d be put in jail.”

There is no parliamentary capacity in the New Zealand system for the Intelligence and Security Committee to force any of the agencies to give testimony. They do not have to say a word to us. We have no ability to force them to tell us what they are doing. I am a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. We have no capacity to force the intelligence agencies to tell us whether they are acting lawfully or not. We have no capacity to force an intelligence officer to appear in front of the committee and tell us what they are doing. We have no capacity to inquire into it.

If you think about it, the Intelligence and Security Committee is going to have to consider this legislation. It would be a bit like if the Social Services Committee had to consider legislation about Work and Income but it was not allowed to ask any questions about how Work and Income operates; it was not allowed to ask how the unemployment benefit is administered, or any of the other benefit systems; and it had to decide whether the legislation was good legislation or bad legislation, without knowing or being allowed to ask a single thing about how Work and Income operates.

The Intelligence and Security Committee that considers this legislation will have to make a decision about whether it supports the legislation or not, without ever being allowed to ask a single question about how the intelligence community actually works in New Zealand. Under the statute under which it is established, we do not have the right to do that. That is the level, the woeful level, of parliamentary oversight of the intelligence and security services in New Zealand. Is it any wonder that these agencies, which have been living under a stone for three or four decades with no public scrutiny, no sunlight ever exposed to them, went dysfunctional? Are any of us really surprised that a group of a few hundred people who never, never had any oversight became dysfunctional? The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security was a joke. There was never any oversight of what they did. They lived under a rock and they did what they liked. So at the end of it we found they were highly dysfunctional. That is what the Kitteridge report showed. Just in purely bureaucratic efficiency terms they were highly dysfunctional. We found they were operating unlawfully. Is anyone surprised, when there is no proper oversight of these agencies?

This bill does not put in place proper oversight of these agencies. There is still no democratic oversight. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security should be an Officer of Parliament. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security should report to Parliament as the Auditor-General does, or the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment does, or the Ombudsman does. That should be the role of oversight. The Intelligence and Security Committee should be a committee of Parliament that has the right to require the intelligence agencies to appear before it and the right to force information out of them. We do not have that right.

So in the absence of an independent inquiry, in the absence of any parliamentary oversight, and given the record of the intelligence communities to target progressive activists, it is obscene that the parties of the right once again want to restrict our freedoms, want to breach our privacy, want to break into our houses, and want to give these intelligence agencies all these expanded powers. We cannot support this bill.

I am very pleased to stand and speak on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Thank you for your attention, and for the remarks of the previous speaker, Russel Norman, who I am sure would be a great author of a conspiracy novel, because that is what his speech sounded like.

We need to understand that the safety and security of this nation is dependent upon organisations such as this, and we need to understand that they must have a strong, clear legal framework in which they operate. New Zealanders expect that. New Zealanders expect this Government to provide security and safety to its citizens, and it is important that we have agencies that can assist and do this in a way that is appropriate.

The Government Communications Security Bureau Act 2003 sought to codify and make transparent existing practices of the then Government Communications Security Bureau. But under scrutiny, the 10-year-old Act potentially limits the bureau’s ability to provide the support and advice that successive Governments expect and have expected, and possibly limits current support and advice that can be provided. So it is important and it is the responsible thing for this Government to do to move to clarify the Act. This bill will make the Government Communications Security Bureau Act clearer and more transparent so it is clear what the agency can and cannot do.

The functions and resourcing of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, of his office, will be increased and improved. It will increase capability and enable the office to have increased scrutiny over the operations of this agency.

The Government Communications Security Bureau has a crucial role to play in protecting the security, safety, and best interests of New Zealand and New Zealanders. It is for this reason that this bill, after the compliance review by Rebecca Kitteridge, is progressing in order to bring those improvements, to bring the improvements of oversight mechanisms that apply to our intelligence community. I am very happy to support the progression of this bill in the House. Thank you.

I think the background to this legislation, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, is well known by most New Zealanders. It is a shameful background of neglect, of cover-up, and of failure to answer parliamentary questions, or a failure to front up to the media and tell people what happened and what went wrong.

We are charged as a political party with writing a law that hopefully the mass majority of members of Parliament can support, in the interests of the national security and safety of New Zealanders in our role as participants in seeking to obtain a safer world internationally. The outcome New Zealand First seeks, therefore, is to create an effective watchdog that does not bite the people it seeks to protect. New Zealand First seeks specific safeguards in the legislation to ensure that the Government Communications Security Bureau does not operate outside the law. We have set these out: first, “Each surveillance to be authorised by warrant by the responsible Minister”; second, “The warrant to comply with specified criteria to identify the potential security risk”; third, “The method of surveillance and the time frame of the operation”; and, perhaps as important, every warrant from the time of its issue is to be made available to a group in which the country can have total trust and confidence so that it can review within 3 weeks that warrant—that is, a review by an independent authority selected from the judiciary, the Defence Force, and the police.

We have written to the Prime Minister setting out the circumstances in which we as a party would seek to pass a law, not for political reasons but for reasons that I believe and we believe are the responsibility of any member of Parliament. New Zealand First’s position on matters of security is clear and unambiguous.

The first duty of any Government is to ensure the safety and protection of its people. We therefore must live in the real world. We cannot put our heads in the sand in a world of extremists and terrorists, and for one, the party that I belong to, New Zealand First, and my caucus colleagues are not going to be standing by so that one day there is mayhem and murder and extremist actions in this country and people point a finger at us and say: “But what did you seek to do about it?”.

In short, we understand the real world, and parts of the real world are a very evil place. To ignore the threats posed by such groups would be irresponsible. Recent events graphically illustrate that terrorism can be home-grown, and it also does not respect international borders. New Zealanders, as we know, enjoy civil liberties that are not universally shared. These are precious, and men and women have in the past fought and died for them. As a nation we have always jealously guarded our freedoms, and view with suspicion any moves by the State to impose any sort of “Big Brother is watching” scenario. The outcome New Zealand First seeks, therefore, is to create an effective watchdog that does not offend or bite the people it seeks to protect.

We have specific areas of the legislation we believe need addressing. For example, new section 8A in clause 6 of this bill refers to “any other entity authorised by the Minister,”. That is far too wide and should be limited to those entities with accountable authority and specified in the legislation. New section 8A(c)(ii) refers to “any person or office holder”. That is far too wide, is far too open to abuse, and is not susceptible to transparency and accountability. New section 8B(1)(c)(ii) refers to “any person or office holder”. Again this is too wide. New section 8B(2), in clause 6, refers to “any public authority … and any other entity”. These are phrases that are far too wide, and they would have appeared, surely, to the drafters as obviously not capable of being supported by responsible members of Parliament. New section 8C(1)(d), in clause 6, refers to “any department”. This should include a schedule of departments. The subsection is not clear. New section 25(3)(d), in clause 24, refers to “any other person that the Director thinks fit”. Where on earth would they have got such a catch-all, carry-all, include-all phrase if they seriously wanted members of Parliament to support this?

Although New Zealand First agrees with the necessity to gather information and to share it with appropriate authorities, we believe there needs to be far clearer definition about this and also serious general oversight. We have suggested an independent committee to oversee the Government Communications Security Bureau’s information-gathering activities. Where New Zealand citizens or residents are involved, we want this committee to be informed when a warrant is authorised, and the same committee must be given the power to review the situation within a period of 3 weeks. That is proper oversight. This provides a measure of safeguard to avoid unfounded fishing trips on New Zealanders.

The Government Communications Security Bureau is an important agency. I can tell from the correspondence and communications that a number of people are suspicious of this. Let me ask them what they would have done in circumstances in which terrorism could have been discovered before it happened. When were they going to take responsibility, or whom did they trust to take responsibility for that? We are not asking people to sign up to spying on our fellow citizens. But there are some people in our society, as in a lot of societies—take the serious drug-trafficking in this country and on the borders of this country, which is surely a case in point—who simply cannot be trusted. Their whole record shouts that, and we know it.

The bureau must operate professionally to meet the challenges faced by New Zealand and our allies. New Zealand First has said—and we have written to the Prime Minister today—that we will assist the Government to meet these goals so long as our concerns are addressed in this legislation, because we will not support the idea of rubber-stamping the bill as it stands.

I have heard some of the previous speakers from the Government side. Frankly, with respect, I do not think they know what they are talking about. I have been a Minister who twice in my career signed out on countless authorities or warrants because I had to, but I was seriously concerned at the time about the safeguards where there may have been some impact on New Zealanders.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: He was no rubber stamp.

No, I did not rubber-stamp them. That is a fact.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Read them, unlike Bill English.

I most certainly read them. But here is the point: we had a Prime Minister who, according to the head of the Government Communications Security Bureau at the time, Mr Ferguson, paid no attention at all to this most serious of all obligations. We consider that the Government should seek as wide a degree of cross-party support for this bill as possible. In short, this legislation surely has to be supported by enough of Parliament to ensure that it survives the next election, the one after that, and the one after that, if it is going to have any serious meaning in terms of the security of this country. That being the case, and because we have written to the Prime Minister, and the Government has preferred under urgency to press this bill, deficient as it is, at this point in time we oppose this legislation.

This House is considering the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill because it is important that we take security threats seriously and we ensure that the legislation under which agencies such as the Government Communications Security Bureau operate is sound, is robust, and is fit for purpose. There are some important changes in the bill that I suggest to the House should be supported by the whole Parliament.

I heard some comments from Mr Robertson and Mr Norman. Mr Robertson spent a lot of time talking about what New Zealanders deserve. I think New Zealanders deserve a Parliament that takes security matters seriously. We live in a changing security environment where threats are increasingly interconnected around the world. Globalisation means that New Zealand is not safe from threats. We need to have an agency there that is looking after us. Mr Robertson does not believe legislation like this, which improves the framework under which the bureau operates, is important. I think New Zealanders deserve to have changes made to the Government Communications Security Bureau Act so that they can have greater confidence in the bureau and so that they can have a bureau that has greater oversight by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and an inspector-general who has greater resources to provide that oversight. That is what New Zealanders deserve.

New Zealanders deserve to have a Parliament that takes seriously the review undertaken by Rebecca Kitteridge. Rebecca Kitteridge made some important recommendations and highlighted some difficulties with interpreting the Government Communications Security Bureau Act. What was the bureau doing when the difficulties she highlighted were pointed out? The bureau was simply assisting other agencies carrying out their work.

Mr Norman talked about the parties of the right trying to clamp down on freedom. In fact, with this legislation, the parties of the right are providing greater oversight, greater transparency, and a clearer authority for the Government Communications Security Bureau to assist other agencies to do important work on behalf of New Zealanders. This bill will improve the bureau and other similar agencies that it interacts with, and it should be supported by this Parliament.

I agree with one thing at least that Jami-Lee Ross, the member who has just resumed his seat, said. This Parliament needs to take security agencies seriously. If only the Government would do so. We have seen a debacle, a farce, surrounding the Kim Dotcom affair. The Prime Minister cannot even remember whether he was briefed on Kim Dotcom. He did not know Kim Dotcom. He did not know about the guy—the biggest guy in his electorate, who had the largest mansion in his electorate, and he had never heard of him. He had never been briefed by the Government Communications Security Bureau. But he had been.

There was the appointment process of the director. The Prime Minister thought he could ring up a mate and say “How would you like this job? There won’t be any competition. You’ll be the only interviewee.” and get away with it. He thought he could get away with not telling this House the full truth. The Prime Minister never admitted that he had breakfast with him on a number of occasions, never admitted that he was a good mate of his, and went about it in a way that the State Services Commissioner himself said was flawed. He used Yes, Minister language but what he was really saying was that the Prime Minister broke the protocols—did it wrong. If anybody has undermined the confidence of New Zealanders in our security agencies, it is John Key, who is meant to be the Minister responsible for the security agencies and is meant to exercise the oversight, but time and again has failed to do so.

I am one in this House who believes that the security agencies do need reform. They need reform in regard to their powers, so that they are 21st century powers and they are appropriate to the work they need to do. But, just as important, they need reform around the oversight of how these agencies, which act in secret—act outside the public oversight—can be checked and how it can be made sure that they are acting under the law and that they are acting properly. To do that, you need proper legislation.

We also need legislation moved through this House in a way that would restore public confidence in the security agencies. TV3 ran a poll the other day. What did it show? A massive 40 percent of New Zealanders have no confidence in, do not trust, the Government Communications Security Bureau. You cannot operate in a democracy with security agencies that so lack the confidence of the public, whose needs they are meant to be serving. That is an indictment on the bureau. It is an indictment on how the Government has handled this matter.

If we do not get this legislation, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, right and if we do not do it in the right way—build consensus, because you need consensus across the House on how these agencies should be run—we will end up with the bureau damaged in the same way that the SIS was way back in the 1960s. You will remember the case where the SIS agent left his briefcase on the street in Wellington. It may have had secret documents in it, but more attention was given to the copy of Penthouse and the cold pie that he had in it. That made the SIS a laughing stock. We cannot afford for our security agencies to be a laughing stock. Unless we do this well, the Government Communications Security Bureau will be, just as the SIS was, a laughing stock that lacks public confidence.

What I am saying to you is that if you are going to do this well, you do not do it in an ad hoc way; you do it comprehensively. We know that this House is expecting another piece of legislation, which the Government has tucked away in the wings, on the SIS—so a separate piece of legislation on the SIS—and this legislation, rushed into the House under urgency today, on the Government Communications Security Bureau. Who is going to have confidence in the outcome of legislation that is done in an ad hoc way? Who is going to have confidence in legislation unless there is a full and public inquiry into how our agencies are operating, what powers they need, and what safeguards there need to be?

Better than most people in this House, I have an understanding of how our security agencies work. As a foreign affairs and trade Minister and as a defence Minister, I worked with those agencies for 9 years. But I think the time has come to fully, comprehensively, and coherently reform those agencies. I do not think they do the job that we need them to do, I do not think they do it thoroughly and competently enough, and I do not think that the powers of oversight over how they carry out their functions are done properly.

The reason we have got this legislation is not that there are terrorist groups lurking in the wings. You can never rule out that you do not have nutcases like the Boston bombers who can operate in a country, but that is not, I think, something that is actually such a risk to New Zealand that we need to rush legislation through in an ad hoc way. I think there are more important questions to ask about cyber-security, about commercial interests and State interests outside of New Zealand that would like to break into our IT networks and use that information. Maybe the Government should be asking itself some questions about why, unlike Australia and the United States, it has accepted Huawei into New Zealand, when that in itself is regarded by two of the countries we work closely with as being a security risk. The Government will not talk about that, but that might be what it actually needs to be focusing on.

You know, we have this legislation to distract the public from the embarrassment that John Key feels about the debacle of the Kim Dotcom affair. The police went into that mansion with a combination of Rambo and the Keystone cops—total overkill, unnecessary. That was bad enough. What was worse, according to Justice Winkelmann, is that they went in without a valid warrant to search the place or to break into the place, and that makes us as New Zealanders, and as taxpayers, liable possibly to tens of millions of dollars in damages if that is the way it goes. So we certainly need an inquiry into the Kim Dotcom case.

We need to know why—when they acted illegally, when the advice of Crown Law was inadequate, when the Ministry of Justice did not get it right, when the police did not get it right, and when the Government Communications Security Bureau did not get it right—Bill English suppressed information that revealed those facts. Why did he cover it up? Is it credible that John Key, who is the Minister in charge of the security agencies and the Prime Minister, was never told about Bill English’s once-in-a-lifetime warrant to suppress public information about the Government’s illegal doings? He did not brief John Key.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who believes that?

Who believes that? I mean, either you have got a totally incompetent and disloyal deputy, or you have got a Prime Minister who is not telling the full truth. I will leave it to the public to make up their minds on that. We need a proper job to determine the powers and the oversight of the Government Communications Security Bureau. This bill does not do it, and this process is such that there will be no restoration of public confidence in those agencies.

I want to look very quickly now, in my last minute and a half, at the oversight proposals in this bill. Rebecca Kitteridge, who is a very competent woman, I think got the direction right, but she did not go far enough and this bill does not go far enough. You need an Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security who is not in a retirement position. You need an active inspector-general—more than that, you need a proactive inspector-general—and you need that person to be backed by staffing and resources so that they can ensure compliance. We need to have a strong inspector-general, and that person, if they are not to be a retired judge, needs to have the confidence of both sides of this House. So in this bill there should be legislative provision that the appointment needs the concurrence of the Opposition, just as you do for the Governor-General, because that is how important the position is.

You also need changes to be made to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I served on that committee for 3 years. It is a farce. It does not do the job, because John Key does not let it do the job. It hardly ever meets, it does not get briefed properly, and it does not give anywhere near adequate reports to this House. It is an absolute conflict of interest that the Minister in charge of the Security Intelligence Service should be the chair of the committee having oversight into the Intelligence and Security Committee. He is the person who should be held to account. This bill says: “Oh, put the Deputy Prime Minister in or the Attorney-General.” That is not good enough. Maybe we should look at the Regulations Review Committee and, like that committee, have an Opposition member chairing the committee.

What an angry speech from an angry man. Mr Goff is a man who comes to this Parliament after continuing to leak to the media suppressed details from a coroner’s report, a report that is still subject to a suppressions order, in an absolute disregard for legal process and the laws of this country. Then he has the audacity to come down here to this House and lecture us on what he views as being right and being wrong. You see, the problem that we have here is that Mr Goff has just questioned whether or not the Prime Minister received a briefing. What we have got to do is look at the year before last when he was Leader of the Opposition. Do you remember that he was the man who forgot he received a briefing from the SIS? And then he said he would not meet with the SIS again without somebody else there who was independent, because he forgot. So it is not just that he does not trust all intelligence services in New Zealand; it is that Mr Goff forgets sometimes but he will not own up to that.

This bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, is a responsible piece of legislation on behalf of the Government and for this Parliament. It does a number of things. The first is that it looks at a service—the intelligence community—that has a vital role to play in our national security. Very clearly, the bill is to provide a clear and consistent legal framework for the Government Communications Security Bureau. It will also update the bureau’s legal framework in response to a rapidly changing security environment. And the third thing it will do is strengthen the oversight regime that applies to our intelligence agencies—something that everybody in this Parliament must surely want.

One of the challenges we have is that the Government Communications Security Bureau is arguably more important today than it has been for many a time. The reason for this is that cyber-security, and the way that security must be handled on behalf of nations around the world, has changed and continues to change rapidly. We need to continue to be able to have our services tackle a rapidly increasing threat. Very clearly, what will happen is that the Government Communications Security Bureau will continue to have three core functions: information assurance and cyber-security, foreign intelligence, and cooperation and assistance with other entities. This legislation will help Parliament look at that and make sure we are doing this work in the right way, and give the surety that New Zealanders need that the agencies are working in their best interests. I look forward to it passing through this House, and to further discussion. Thank you.

I understand the next call is a split call.

I think I would start my point by noting the fact that the Government decided to put up Todd McClay on intelligence legislation—a contradiction in terms to start with.

I think most people are aware of the fact—although some of the new members might not be—that I have had a mixed history in this House to do with security legislation. I was arrested in the House opposing the 1977 legislation, and the core reason that I was opposing it, and why many, many New Zealanders marched on this Parliament, was because we did not think the Prime Minister of the day deserved the trust that was being given to him as part of that legislation. I think we have come full circle. I certainly trusted Jim Bolger with the legislation. Jenny Shipley I did not know well enough to know how she acted in this area. Helen Clark and David Lange certainly took this legislation very, very seriously across security areas. But times have changed. I have no doubt that we need changes in our security legislation, not only to do with this agency but also to do with the SIS. In fact, I have been part of consultations on changes to the SIS legislation, and it just seems to me unbelievable that the Prime Minister is trying to do a patch job on this bit of the legislation, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, without having a proper look across all of the agencies as to what needs to happen.

And I will say something else. There are considerable infringements of personal liberties that flow from this legislation—considerable. What this Parliament does when it is doing its work well is it comes together and works out what is fair and what is reasonable. I am just going to say this a little bit carefully to the people who I hope will be supporting a Labour Government later on: we do not always get everyone on board, but I think it is important, in order for legislation to be seen as reasonable, for it to be at least bipartisan. I think that that is a minimum for this sort of legislation, which infringes so badly on the liberties of individuals.

I think something else is important, and that is oversight. I want to say that there are two levels of oversight that I am worried about here. There is the oversight of the legislation—and we will get back to that later on, as to which committee it is going to go to and for what period—but there is also the question of the oversight of the agency itself. I think we should soon be at a point where we can have someone whom we trust to oversee it—someone who cares about the governance, someone who gets regular briefings on matters that are important, and someone who does not appoint his boyhood friend as a director and does not suggest to him that he should apply for the job. We want to have a group in charge of this that is going to haul the director over the coals. It is important, when so many rights are being taken away, that the individuals who are making those decisions are properly accountable, and this legislation does not get anywhere near that at all.

That is why, in my opinion, there needs to be a proper review—a proper inquiry. I would suggest that it would be a good idea to involve people from offshore as well as from New Zealand—Australia has done it twice in recent memory—to have a really good look at our mosaic of security arrangements, because I do agree with the Prime Minister that they are out of date. The legislation is out of date. I think the pattern of arrangements is out of date. The fact that it appears that our information is sent almost automatically to the United States from this organisation is out of date. It has got to change, and this legislation does not do it.

I rise to speak to the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. The question has to be who makes New Zealand spying law, and whom it is for. Clearly, it is for John Key and his mates, but it is also, I suggest, for Echelon, the five-nations, USA-dominated spy agency that has its Government Communications Security Bureau arm run spy domes at Waihopai.

This week there are three different significant spy activities going on in New Zealand. The first is these new spy laws being fast tracked into Parliament instead of first having an independent inquiry into the Government Communications Security Bureau, its illegal spying on us Kiwis, and its functions. The second is the faux damages trial of the three penniless, dome-busting peace activists for $1.2 million for their costs for popping one of the Waihopai domes while trying to interrupt New Zealand’s part in the bloodshed of innocents—Government Communications Security Bureau material again. That really embarrassed New Zealand to its USA, UK, Australian, and Canadian spy mates, so today John Key has got a gift for them: this bill.

The third is very disturbing as well, I think. Today the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, is in Auckland, New Zealand, for the five-nation meeting of Attorneys-General. That is a meeting of the US Attorney General; the Aussie Attorney-General; the New Zealand Attorney-General; the England, Wales, and Northern Ireland Attorney General; and the Canadian Attorney General—the same group from Echelon. Also today they are holding a joint session with the FBI-instigated Strategic Alliance Group, comprising the same five nations’ federal policing agencies: the FBI, the Australian Federal Police, the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, the New Zealand Police, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. So the five Echelon States have their Attorneys-General and policing agencies all here having a chat about, among other things, Kim Dotcom’s Megaupload, and who knows what of the other 88 people illegally spied on by the Government Communications Security Bureau, which this bill intends to make legal in the future.

John Key must feel very, very smug at having a new spying law for his mates in town that can allow Echelon to spy on, effectively, anyone and have total access to all telecommunications and internet systems. A big focus will be on the USA-UK corporate masters’ income protection, including their Hollywood mates, but it is a huge, huge loss for the civil liberties of Kiwis. New Zealand needs to break away from these alliances, which are set on protecting the USA-UK industrial military complex, and needs to show an independent, peace-loving example predicated on human and civil rights.

So we have John Key and his hand-picked mate, Government Communications Security Bureau Director Ian Fletcher, spying on us New Zealanders.

I will give just a little reminder of where the Government Communications Security Bureau Act came from in 2003, when MPs repeatedly commented that there was nothing to worry about, because the bill expressly stated that New Zealanders could not be spied on. But we know of at least 88 now. In 2003 Tony Ryall said: “people who have quite a bent on conspiracy theories and seem to think that all the Government Communications Security Bureau ever does is listen on New Zealanders’ telephone calls, which is, of course, expressly prohibited. The bureau is not allowed to listen in on New Zealanders.” Peter Dunne also said he would listen to no concerns when the 2003 bill was passed. He said: “This is a good bill. I do not accept the criticism of those who speak against it, that somehow it means that information about people will be gathered improperly,”. Well, Tony Ryall and Peter Dunne showed how clear it was to Parliament when it passed that bill that the bureau was not permitted to spy on New Zealanders. The law and the intent of the law were not confusing; the bureau just did not follow it. There is no justification for the expansion of powers other than that the bureau was breaking the law. It is not needed. The law is adequate. The Greens want an inquiry. We think the bill should be pulled, and we oppose it.

The Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill is needed. The law is inadequate, and that is exactly why we are introducing this measure this afternoon. It is naive to suggest that this bill is simply about making life easier for the Prime Minister and his mates, or whatever the exact wording was that the previous speaker, Steffan Browning, used when he was on his feet.

The fact of the matter is that this is an ever-changing world. We know just with cyber-security how rapidly things change, and, as a result, it is important that we have clarity in our legal framework. Yes, there are some extensions in powers here, but that is because they are needed. Most New Zealanders understand why we are doing this and they are supportive of it. I have great pleasure in supporting the first reading of this bill.

on behalf of the Minister responsible for the GCSB: I move, That the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 26 July 2013, and that the Intelligence and Security Committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 188 and 191(1)(b) and (c). The Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill will go to the Intelligence and Security Committee for a shortened period because the difficulties of interpretation in the Government Communications Security Bureau Act need to be resolved in a timely manner. The compliance review by Ms Rebecca Kitteridge raised issues that need to be addressed. Until legislation is clarified, the Government Communications Security Bureau remains in the situation where it has put important activities on hold. This includes the vast bulk of its assistance to other agencies like the New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. Until the legislation is passed, the bureau’s ability to help important private sector companies with the rising threat of cyber-attack is also unclear. This needs to be resolved. The public will have a chance to have its say, and rightly so, but for a reduced period of time.

I rise to oppose the motion that has been moved by the Minister of Justice. The 2-month period that is being suggested here is woefully inadequate to give members of the public the opportunity that they need to have a say on such significant legislation as the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. The Minister has just told the House that the lack of ability for the Government Communications Security Bureau to continue to assist other agencies is hamstringing it from important activities. Well, if timeliness is the issue here, we know that in at least July last year the Prime Minister knew that there were issues with unlawful spying, and then in September, according to statements the Prime Minister has made, the kinds of activities that are being talked about here were ceased. So if there is an urgency that requires only a 2-month period, why was legislation not introduced in September last year? In order to justify such a truncated select committee process, the Government needs to answer the question of how it is that when it has been aware of this since at least September—actually, July last year, in the case of the Prime Minister—it did not act at that point.

It has introduced legislation to the House today that has not been adequately scrutinised by anybody. It put that legislation in front of the House and asked for an exception to grant it only a 2-month select committee process. The gravity of the issues involved here in terms of personal privacy, in terms of human rights, and in terms of our national security is such that it is simply impossible that a 2-month committee process would be able to take that on board. I imagine many, many New Zealanders will want to make a submission to this bill, and to have only a 2-month period guarantees that the voice of a lot of New Zealanders will not be heard in the committee process.

I want to speak too about the nature of this particular committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee, and its relationship to this truncated select committee process. This Intelligence and Security Committee is unique in our Parliament. It is constituted in a different way from all other select committees, to the point that members cannot be substituted on this committee. So in such a truncated period, will members of the committee actually all be available to hear submissions? I am not certain that they will, and there is no capacity to have a member substituted on. Can the Government guarantee in this House today that the Prime Minister will be present throughout the submission process? Can it guarantee that to the House? If it cannot, then New Zealanders are being denied their right to participate in discussion on this legislation in front of a full committee. Certainly, in terms of the Labour Party’s representative on that committee, David Shearer, in this 2-month period—it is a very, very busy period. We have just had the Prime Minister announce today that the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti by-election will be held on 29 June. The National Party is not participating in that by-election, but this is a period of time that is extremely busy. It is a committee that operates in quite a different way from other committees in the House, and I do not think sending a piece of legislation to that committee for only 2 months is satisfactory.

We know that there will now have to be submissions called for. That will be a very narrow window for people to put submissions in, and then a very, very narrow window for those submissions to be heard. There are issues that are raised in this legislation that may well be of a confidential nature. People who want to make submissions to the committee may well have issues that they need to raise that will be of a confidential nature. What processes are going to be set up to allow that to happen, to allow people to have an adequate say?

We heard in the earlier debate both sides of this argument talk about the significance of what was being done here, that there were significant changes to the way in which the Government Communications Security Bureau would be acting, and yet the Government has put up a motion that says it needs only 2 months to do this. That is not consistent with what we know about when the Government was informed about unlawful spying. The urgency with which this is being put through simply does not match the process of events that took place last year—and I will rehearse those again, because they are relevant to the question of how long this committee should have to assess this bill. If it is true that the Government Communications Security Bureau itself became aware in May last year of unlawful spying—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: February.

February, initially, that is right—February initially, and then the bureau swept it under the carpet. Then in May it returned to the matter when the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security raised concerns. Then in July Ian Fletcher decided it was time to let the Prime Minister know about the unlawful spying, and nothing happened at that point. Nothing happened along the way there to say: “This is a hugely urgent matter—we better get a bill in front of Parliament and rush it through.” That did not happen. Then between July and September it appeared the Prime Minister was happy enough to see the Government Communications Security Bureau continue to operate under the existing law. He did not seem concerned about the information that he had been told about unlawful spying. But in September the game was up, because finally the bureau and the Prime Minister had to come clean about what had happened in the Kim Dotcom case.

At that point, if a bill had been introduced to this House and the Government had said we have to get this through quickly because we have got to make sure that the Government Communications Security Bureau can continue to do the work it has been doing on behalf of other agencies, that would have made some logical sense. But that did not happen. Nothing happened until today, when a bill was introduced to Parliament. The Minister stood up and moved a motion that said there needs to be only 2 months’ worth of consideration by a committee that is restricted in the way that it operates. I simply do not believe that that is adequate for this piece of legislation.

I believe that the people of New Zealand, when we are dealing with issues of such sensitivity, and when we are dealing with an agency with intrusive and significant powers and that operates in an opaque manner, deserve a proper process for this piece of legislation. I have not heard anything advanced today by the Government, most especially in the recent contribution by the Minister, that actually indicates why this urgency is required, because if it had been required, we would have seen legislation in September last year. The fact is that it is being referred to a committee that operates, as David Shearer has already said to the House today, in a way that I think is woefully inadequate in terms of parliamentary oversight, and that committee is then being given only 2 months to do its work.

I believe strongly that this legislation deserves full scrutiny by this Parliament, and New Zealanders deserve an opportunity to make submissions and know that if they request to be heard by this committee, they will be heard. With a 2-month window it is simply not credible that all the New Zealanders who will want to be heard on this bill will be able to be heard on this bill. That is possible only with a full select committee process. The Labour Party is on record as saying that we need a full inquiry into the intelligence agencies. The severity of the change in this bill actually indicates that that inquiry is needed more than ever, but in the absence of the Government agreeing to that inquiry, this select committee process for this bill is the only opportunity that New Zealanders have to actually have their say.

I think that the Government needs to think again about how it is treating these issues. These issues are about the balance in our society between the fundamental freedoms that New Zealanders expect—the fact that they can go about their business without the intrusion of the State—against our national security. Those are weighty matters. I accept the need in our society for these kinds of agencies, but without New Zealanders having confidence that the checks and balances are in place, we run the risk of totally undermining the confidence that New Zealanders have in our security and intelligence agency, which is at an all-time low now, I would suggest. Nothing that the Government is doing today will increase that confidence; it will simply decrease it. The idea that the Government is ramming through under urgency this first reading, and the idea that it is putting in place a truncated select committee process, simply fuels the view of many New Zealanders that this Government is trying to sweep under the carpet the problems, the debacle of the Government Communications Security Bureau, and the role of the Prime Minister in it. Democracy is not being served today by a truncated select committee process through a committee that does not operate properly. I urge the Government to reconsider this motion, and I oppose it.

I am surprised that no one from the Government is prepared to defend this rorting of the parliamentary process that is being attempted by Judith Collins and John Key today. We set up rules for the running of this Parliament. We set up rules for the running of it, and one of the great things about our democracy is that just about every piece of legislation is referred to a select committee—a proper select committee of this House—and the public have the right to come in, to have their say, and to be considered.

You will have noticed that on an earlier motion the Labour Party voted against this bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, going to the Intelligence and Security Committee. We did that because we thought that that was not the appropriate committee. It would be better to get it to a proper select committee, one in which the normal rules of Parliament work and where there is an opportunity for proper discussion and proper debate. In fact, I think that if the Government looks at this carefully, it could think about referring the bill from the Intelligence and Security Committee to the Government Administration Committee, or a similar committee, which works on the edge of these matters but has, I think, some independence to consider matters carefully.

But even if the bill did get cross-referred to that committee, I would still be opposed to this shortened time. My view is that what we need is a period long enough for there to be a proper review. In fact, if there is an exception to be made to the normal Standing Orders of the House with regard to the length of time that this bill is at a committee, then consideration should be given to making an exemption to the 6-month maximum—the normal maximum period—that a bill is at a select committee, in order to ensure that a proper inquiry takes place, an inquiry with people who are experienced in intelligence matters, preferably someone from overseas, and preferably people who have been involved in the Australian arrangements. To do that, we know—to do a proper job—it cannot happen in 5 minutes or in the 10 weeks that John Key has decided that this committee will have.

I also want to refer again to the busyness of this period. There is a by-election to be had. It is my expectation that our representative on the Intelligence and Security Committee, the leader of the Labour Party, will be actively involved in that by-election. It is not like it is a minor wee seat that sits in one of our metropolitan areas; it stretches from Wainuiōmata around the top of the East Cape. It is an enormous seat, and it is our expectation that our leader will be out. I know that the National Party has run up the white flag as far as that by-election is concerned, and that that problem will not affect the Prime Minister in the same way because he will not have the expectation of being involved.

The other not so minor matter that is occurring, I think, in another couple of weeks, around which there is going to be quite a lot of debate and quite a lot of business, is the Budget. I do accept that there are one or two engagements that follow the Budget that the Prime Minister takes—about the same number as for the Leader of the Opposition—but all of the party leaders and all of the people who are members of that committee will have quite a chunk of their time taken out around Budget matters.

We know that by now the Budget is in bed. It is finished. Its proofs are probably being read at the moment. The Prime Minister’s work in understanding the Budget is now finished. He will not be involved in that, because he will be right across it, like he was right across the paper boy tax last year and a number of other things that he missed. But for people who are not part of the Government, it takes a lot of time for them to get understanding of the Budget matters and the things that are within it, and that is time that will not be available. If the Intelligence and Security Committee is going to be meeting around that time—the time immediately after the Budget—again, that is time that is not available for the leaders of the other parties to be doing what is essentially what I would describe as their core work for June. Most of this period is in June. It is the biggest chunk of it and, post-Budget, the last week of May and the weeks of June are when that occurs.

Again, I want to just go back to a point that I made with regard to the legislation generally when I was talking about it, and that is the importance of consensus, wherever possible, around this sort of legislation. I think there should be consensus around the process. I reiterate what I said before that I do not expect total consensus as to the results. We have parties that have different views, and I do not think we will ever quite get there by way of agreement. But if we could have consensus around the process, and an acceptance that those views that might be described as outside the mainstream have an opportunity to be heard, and at the end of it there can be some bipartisan agreement to the legislation, then that means that New Zealanders are more likely to be happy or accepting of the result. I think, to be absolutely fair, most New Zealanders are not happy at the idea of video cameras in their bedrooms. I mean, most people do not want that—

💬 Grant Robertson: If they put them there themselves, Trevor—

The member might. We are talking about the ones that John Key puts in there and looks at. Most people—most people—are not happy with the idea of intrusions, video or audio, into the personal parts of their lives. But what we are doing here is for the first time granting the right not of the police, who are trying to stop a crime, but of an agency that feeds material to the United States and the United Kingdom to make video and other surveillance of Kiwis. Previously, it was not allowed to. There can be, with a judge, the right for the New Zealand Police to use that sort of approach. But if we are going to extend it, we need to make sure that a consensus can be built around it.

The other obvious point is very clear from listening to the Prime Minister about this. You know, I acknowledge that Clare Curran and Grant Robertson have both got their heads around some of this cyber-technical stuff much better than I have, but I know that I can understand it better than the Prime Minister. What we do need to know is that there is enough time at that committee for the proper briefings to build the Prime Minister’s understanding of the technology in order to make sure that both the current technology and the stuff that is coming in are, one, properly covered, and, two, properly protected. It will take much longer than 10 weeks for the Prime Minister to understand that. It will take much longer than 10—

💬 Grant Robertson: It’ll take years.

No, I disagree. I think if the Prime Minister focused on it, if he put his mind to it and if he worked hard at it, he could understand it—

💬 Grant Robertson: He’d quite probably forget.

Well, no, there is no chance of him remembering. All we are talking about is understanding for a short period of time so that the committee can make decisions. If he forgets after that, well, we understand that that happens with him.

This very, very short time that has been mooted for reporting this Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill needs to be reviewed because this is a significant piece of law. It affects all New Zealanders. It affects New Zealanders in a range of ways. It can be in their individual lives. It can be in their membership of different organisations. It can be to do with their faiths. It can be in all sorts of ways that this bill will cover them. Those people need significant time to actually get a grasp of the enormity of this bill. They need to be informed on the way that it can affect them in their lives. They need to be able to get expert advice, if they so choose. They need to be able to draft submissions. They need to review those submissions, and they then need to submit and they need to have access to the Intelligence and Security Committee to speak to their submissions. We are talking about potentially everyone and anyone. Having only 2 months is definitely going to block out significant numbers of people, even though they may wish to submit to that committee.

It was concerning to be reminded that no substitutes are able to be on that committee. Although it is in a way contrary to another call—ensuring that this very small committee may basically struggle to have full attendance if the Prime Minister or other very busy members of Parliament are away—I actually think it would be very, very good if we did have substitutes. Maybe that needs to be considered, because in this instance where we are considering whether we need more time, we need to reflect that the Prime Minister himself is absolutely culpable in the illegal spying that has pre-empted this bill. Fast tracking over a couple of months, to report by 26 July, will not cut it.

This is about civil liberties. New Zealanders, as I say, need time to engage with this bill. We need to give them the opportunity to find out about it, and we have to think about who is going to do that. We have got an organisation, the Government Communications Security Bureau, that is covered by the bill. We have the SIS implicated in it and also a number of departments. Are they going to be letting New Zealanders know about the significance of this bill and that they need to get involved and submit on it? There are a lot of questions about that, and certainly the time is not there in this process.

I need to point out the types of organisations that could be affected. There is a March Against Monsanto shortly, to do with genetic engineering and pesticides and things like that. Those are the sorts of people who potentially would be spied on. They may want to submit and talk about the fairness that they should be covered by in terms of legislation. There are the Ploughshares people, whom I mentioned earlier, and civil society generally, and there are a lot of organisations involved there.

There are professionals and academics who will want to be involved. I note an Otago Daily Times article about some University of Otago professors talking about the national security State brought on by this bill. I am sure that they will want to make a submission. They point out the worrying implications for individual privacy, civil liberties, and national security that this proposal has. And that covers everyone—that certainly covers everyone—and everyone needs a full opportunity.

They added: “We do not think this critical law should be changed without more extensive public discussion about its potential costs and benefits.” So I think Professor Kevin Clements and Professor Richard Jackson from the university’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies raise a very, very important point. That point, if it is to be considered appropriately and if we are to extend it, would mean that we should be giving much, much, much more time for this bill to be put in front of a committee—a committee that probably should not have John Key anywhere near it and certainly not voting on it.

There have been at least 18 months of illegal spying. We have no inquiry. The nearest thing to an inquiry will be the submissions to the Intelligence and Security Committee. So surely the public could have at least 6 months—a third of the time that illegal spying has been going on, which this bill is about. What we have got is 2 months, a ninth of the time of that illegal activity, which John Key knew about. This is the amount of time that the public will have to properly realise in respect of this bill, which has been thrust on them this week, that they can suddenly get into gear and get submissions in that would have enough import to potentially change the wording of this bill, and come to us as members of Parliament who might be able to assist, particularly those involved in that committee. They clearly have not got a chance of getting very, very far.

I would just point out the functions of the bureau as such in the old law, which finishes in a way: “The performance of the Bureau’s functions is subject to the control of the Minister.” John Key and—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No. Order! This debate—if the member would sit while I am on my feet—can deal only with why the report-back period is being truncated. There is Standing Order 286(3). So if the member would just come back to that. You have been fine up to now, but you cannot deviate and start talking about things of substance.

Yes, thank you. I have expressed a fair amount of it. I think there are those organisations that will want to come to the committee. As I mentioned earlier, there are the faith organisations. They are generally involved around these civil liberties issues of privacy. Business will be concerned as well, because of the levels that this bill can go to. So they will want to submit. The telecommunications companies—and we know we have got another bill that will affect them too—will want to be involved. I would expect that the departments that are included in the powers of this bill—and a number of Government departments are given access to it—would also want to be involved in how that is managed for them.

Everybody will want, or should want, to be involved here, and the 2 months aspect of it may actually make some of them say: “Well, this isn’t worth it.”, and that would be very, very disappointing. Maybe that is part of the point of it. So I wonder—

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

What we are actually talking about is that the limited amount of time this Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill has before the committee is far from adequate. We certainly need an inquiry. The various groups that I was talking about before need a lot of preparation time. I have been able to check on some of that through the dinner hour. We know that this short period of time is not going to be adequate to explore the issues that this significant piece of legislation requires.

The Green Party would like to see an extension. We would like the Minister to reconsider the time frame that has been put up for this significant piece of legislation. We did point out that the illegal spying was going on for 18 months. I think that needs to be taken into account, to give as long as is legally possible for all the public who will be exposed to this law an opportunity to come back on it. The Green Party would like that to be taken into account, and hopefully the Minister will respond to it. Thank you.

This motion has two elements to it; both are important. The first aspect of the motion is to truncate the process by which submissions can be made to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I want to come back and construct the argument around why this legislation, of all legislation, should be subject to a full and proper process of democratic consideration. The second aspect of the motion is to refer the legislation, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I want to suggest to the House, and seek a response from the Minister of Justice, why that is not an appropriate committee to send this legislation. Those are the two aspects of the motion.

Let me come back to the first one, which is the truncating of the period of time for submissions, because the Minister’s motion states that this legislation needs to be referred back to the House on 26 July. It will not go through the full process of scrutiny. It will not allow people the normal time they would have to put their submissions together. It will not allow them the time that they would need to present those submissions. I would argue that it would not allow the committee to properly analyse the submissions that are made to it.

For as long as I have been in this House, I have seen changes in the process of Parliament that have actually strengthened democracy. That process was predominantly about sending all legislation to a select committee and making sure that people had the proper time to be able to present to the select committee. That is how we involve the New Zealand public in the scrutiny of legislation and give them confidence that as members of a democracy they will have their voices heard and they will be listened to. There is a particular reason why we need to reinforce public confidence in that process on this particular piece of legislation. That reason is that this is a particularly intrusive piece of legislation giving very strong State powers to interfere in the lives of people, to subject them to scrutiny, and to intercept their correspondence. It is something that would not normally be allowed in a free, liberal, and democratic country. There may be an argument specifically for why the intelligence agencies need these powers, but you therefore need to be very careful in terms of what powers you give them, and what scrutiny the exercise of those powers are subject to.

We know at the moment because of a variety of reasons that the Government Communications Security Bureau has lost a huge amount of public confidence. In a TV3 poll 40 percent of people have said that they do not have trust in the Government Communications Security Bureau. I think that is bad. That is bad because we need an organisation of this nature, but because of its intrusive powers, we need to have public confidence that it is exercising its powers properly, that it is subject to proper scrutiny, and that the process of giving it those powers and the process of determining the oversight is subject in turn to the scrutiny of the public. They get this opportunity at the statutory committee, but the Government has made the decision in this motion to cut back the period of time that people have to have their voices heard. If ever there was a piece of legislation that you wanted to build public confidence in the process that you are operating so that the Government would get it right, it is this legislation.

We know that what the Government Communications Security Bureau does in its normal course of events is not subject to public scrutiny. We do not know how it operates, what it does—or most people do not know. I know because I have worked with them, but most people do not know. They have a worry that for the first time this organisation is being given the power explicitly to spy on New Zealanders. You would think that the process by which we debated giving it this power would be subject to the strongest possible public scrutiny of the legislation itself, and that is not going to happen. We saw in the debate on the bill that the National Party got up and spoke for 1 minute or 2 minutes. It did not speak to any matter of substance and did not take the full call to properly debate in front of the public why this legislation was necessary. This motion itself is a motion that truncates the process of democracy, and no member of the Government is getting to their feet to defend why they are doing that. That is wrong. That is why we are opposing this motion. This is a process that should be particularly thorough and that should give the public the maximum import. If anything, they should have longer to do their submissions on this piece of legislation, but under this motion they have less. We are against the time frame that the Government has set, but equally we are against sending this bill to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

I have sat on that committee.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Standing Order 286(3) is quite specific and in reference to the debate on the question: “for a motion under this Standing Order is restricted to the special powers or instruction set out in the motion. It may not extend to the principles … of the bill.”, etc. The statutory committee motion has already been passed by the House. The motion that is under debate does not mention the specific statutory committee. The House has already dealt with that element.

The statutory committee that it is going to is relevant to the point of how much time that committee will have to hear the submissions. This has been commented on earlier in this debate, but it is a particularly important point and I want to reinforce it.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I will hear the member, but it must be pertinent to the truncation of the process.

Yes, it is pertinent. Firstly, the statutory committee is a very small statutory committee. It has only six members. The second thing is that it is unique amongst committees, because you cannot substitute for those members. I am wondering how you are going to have the time on that committee in a truncated time period to hear the submissions when that committee has, for example, the Prime Minister, who is normally known to be a reasonably busy person, so he may not be available for the timing that committee needs to meet. It has the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition will be going up and down the country both talking on the Budget, which comes in the middle of the submission period, and campaigning in the by-election in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. So it is really difficult for the two key members of that committee to actually be able to be there so that the committee can hear from the submitters in the time frame that is given. If you look at the other members of the committee, you see that one is John Banks. Given the court case today, he might not be available at all, but we do not know that yet. The other person is Peter Dunne. He is the leader of a political party, and one suspects that he has a lot of things to do. The other is the Leader of the House and the Minister of something or other. He is going to be busy. It is pertinent to the question of timing. We have got a truncated period of time for the committee to consider submissions, and we have got members of the committee who will make it even harder for those submissions to be heard within that time frame. It is a real problem, it is a practical problem, and I do not think that the combination of those things will give adequate opportunity for the democratic process to be followed properly in this case.

I want to reiterate the point. The timing that people have to participate in the statutory committee process is absolutely essential given the nature of the legislation and given the confidence-building period that the submissions should be involved in helping to develop, given the loss of confidence in the Government Communications Security Bureau. This is an important piece of legislation. The Government should be taking it seriously by taking calls in the debate. The failure of the Government in this debate to take calls will just reinforce the impression that members of the public have that this is designed to be a quick and dirty process. The Government has made up its mind. It does not actually want to hear the submissions on the legislation. It is limiting the time and it is making it really difficult, actually, even to put the committee together to hear those submissions.

There was a really important opportunity in hearing the submissions on this legislation. It was to build an understanding about why certain powers should be given to the Government Communications Security Bureau and why strong powers should exist for oversight of that organisation. But if the public takes the message that the National Government is giving it tonight that it is not taking this process seriously, then the public will take the corresponding message from that that the Government is not interested in a process of democracy, that it is not interested in people having adequate time to prepare their submissions and have their submissions heard, and that what the public says actually will not count for anything anyway. This bill itself is wrong and the process is a disgrace.

We in this House are the guardians of civil liberties for the people whom we represent. There is no one other than us who stands between inappropriate legislation and inappropriate legislation being passed and applying to the citizens of this country. Nowhere is it more important to look at the civil liberties of people than when it comes to legislation that gives to the State powers of intrusion into people’s lives. When we do that, we are allowing the State more rights than we normally give to people to intrude into other people’s lives, and we have got to be very careful that we guard those rights jealously. One of the most important protections that we have in any democracy is delay—not undue delay, but appropriate time periods that allow the fourth estate, the media, and interest groups that might be getting their heads around the implications of policy changes—

💬 Jacqui Dean: Say it like you mean it.

Actually, Jacqui Dean, I say it like I mean it. I would actually like you to take a call and say it like you understand it. That is the sort of inane interjection that we get from National members—not debating the substance of an important issue, but saying: “Say it like you mean it.” I would say to Jacqui Dean that I actually do mean this—I do mean this. I am quite happy to be one of the people who stake my reputation on appropriately protecting the civil liberties of our citizens from inappropriate State intrusion. I do mean that, Jacqui. I do not have to shout it to mean it, but I am willing to take a call and state what I believe.

Time is important. The time for processes ought not to be unduly truncated in any democracy. It is especially important when you live in a jurisdiction that has only one House of Parliament. It has no Upper House to negotiate once legislation is passed by this House. There is no effective constitutional check on intrusions into civil liberties in New Zealand, except through this House of Parliament. I have not seen a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet on this bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. I do not know whether anyone else has had an opportunity to read the vet. I do not even know whether there is one. We have not heard any discussion of it today—

💬 Grant Robertson: It was only tabled today.

The bill was tabled only today. We have not had the opportunity on this side of the House to get our heads around the full implications of this bill. If we—with all of the resources that are open to us and our ability to devote full-time attention to this—have not been able to, what hope is there that members of civil society have properly been able to consider the implications of this legislation? That is why we allow ample time for submissions to be made, so that people can think through the implications of legislation that impact upon civil liberties, rather than rushing it through.

Parliament views that so seriously that it recently introduced a change to the Standing Orders so that we can have this very debate. Until a few years ago, we would not be having this debate as to the inappropriate truncation of select committee procedures. It was through a change to the Standing Orders, which was agreed across all sides of Parliament, that we changed the Standing Orders through the introduction of this Standing Order 286, which is why we are debating this motion. It provides that where truncation of the select committee process is shortened by an inordinate degree, we should debate whether that is proper. That is to enable us to highlight to the public how inappropriate it is that in a unicameral system with only one—one—House of Representatives, with no Upper House acting as a check on our conduct, it is appropriate that we properly protect our citizens from inappropriate intrusions by the State through proper scrutiny of proposals.

Now we are going to have this rushed process. The Hon Phil Goff has already said how difficult that is, given the make-up of this committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee. This committee, according to what the Hon Phil Goff says—and I did not know this, actually, Phil—can never have substitutes. The committee can never have substitutes. Remember we have the Prime Minister sitting on it hearing submissions, and the Leader of the Opposition, and representatives from other parties, all of whom are very senior, very busy, with lots of other obligations, and the idea that they can do justice to this within that time frame is wrong.

But the idea that they will have the submissions before them is also wrong, given the truncated process. A lot of the organisations that are submitting on legislation like this are effectively volunteers in that process. They are not doing it because they are being paid to do it; they have been doing it because they think there is a public interest in submitting or that they have got some knowledge that Parliament could benefit from hearing. They cannot drop their ordinary lives. Sometimes they are accountable to committee structures that meet only once a month. How do they get this information out to their members, form a view, and then submit to the committee within the time period that Parliament, because of what the National Government is doing today, is imposing upon them? They cannot.

This is another reason why the normal rule is that you have a longer period of consideration by the committee, which then enables the committee to give a fair notice through public notices to all and sundry through the country. It enables people to get up campaigns though the media in the fourth estate and all of the little committees that might be interested in this in civil society, whether they are members of councils for civil liberties or whether they are Rural Women or whatever. There will be lots of people who are interested in these issues, but they do not have time, because of a truncated select committee process, to be given sufficient time to submit to the committee to give a considered view of what the implications of this legislation are.

In the Labour Party we accept that the Government Communications Security Bureau needs powers. We also accept that it is appropriate for the State to have powers of intrusion in respect of New Zealanders. We are not sure what the arguments are for and against—the issue as to whether the Government Communications Security Bureau should be given powers in respect of the surveillance of New Zealand citizens that could not already be done through the likes of the police. These arguments are very, very important. They need to be explored at the committee. Why is it that we cannot just rely upon the police to use their warranted powers, rather than giving the Government Communications Security Bureau the powers to spy upon New Zealanders? There are, no doubt, arguments on both sides of that debate. We want to hear them—we want to hear them properly.

The fact that this has been a live issue for the Prime Minister since the middle of last year is already a matter of public record. We know that the Government Communications Security Bureau warned the Prime Minister that there were doubts about the legality of some of the bureau’s conduct arising out of the Dotcom fiasco—which it has to be called—in the middle of last year. So since the middle of last year the Prime Minister has known that there is an issue, or that there may be an issue, at large. Here we are, just about a year later, and what does the Government do? Having mucked around for all of that time, having obfuscated and having all these faded memories as to what was said where and when, we now are told that we have got no time for a normal select committee process to consider whether the civil liberties of New Zealanders are inappropriately infringed by this legislation. The Government now says—having delayed all that time, the best part of a year—it has now got to truncate the only part of the process that the public can be involved in.

How cynical is that? How inappropriate is that? How unprincipled is that? You look at how long we took for the search and surveillance legislation. A good process was run around that. It actually took over a year. It is important to get these things right. There are civil liberties at stake. There are high principles that go back for ever. You know, you do not have to think too far back to think when we have had Governments in New Zealand that have gone a wee bit towards the totalitarian fringes. It happened in New Zealand under Mr Muldoon—it did. The courts pushed back against that. You have got to think of this legislation long into the future, when you may have a Government that is not as benign as the Governments we have now or have recently had. These principles are important. These principles are meant to be protected by the Standing Orders. This motion should not be agreed to.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a brief call on the instruction on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. As members are well aware, but maybe people watching and trying to learn about our democracy and Parliament might not be aware, under Standing Order 286 when a Government Minister instructs that a bill must be reported back from a select committee in less than the traditional time, it allows Parliament to debate for an unlimited amount of time this instruction.

What we are seeing is this Government giving this legislation only 2 months—only 2 months—to be reported back to this House. Remember, this is legislation that only recently was given to the Opposition. It is legislation that had no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet. It is legislation that is being introduced in urgency, and it is important that the Opposition has a say. This is, in fact, the only protection our country, our democracy, has when the Government abuses, I believe, the system needlessly for a bill such as this.

We have not seen a bill pass with the unanimity of this House. We have seen a bill pass its first reading by the smallest of margins—61 votes to 59. We see a bill being passed under accusations by the New Zealand First Party of bully-boy tactics. We see a bill entering this House under urgency, with a constrained, shortened select committee period. Select committees are vitally important to our democracy. That is where the real work is done. That is where I wish more people would actually watch and tune into the work that MPs across all the party lines do, because people would see MPs work collaboratively. They would see MPs not always butting heads, as they do inside this Chamber. They would see legislation actually improved. You see experts, the public, and interested parties get a say, and that is not what we are going to see with this important bill, which deals with issues of security, issues of spying, issues of surveillance, and issues of civil liberties and human rights. I think the Hon David Parker quite aptly explained why select committees are so important in our unicameral parliamentary system, where there are so few constraints on executive power.

We have seen no arguments, I believe, from the Government benches. In fact, no National members—I see, what, about eight in the Chamber today—have stood up and been prepared to take a call to explain why this bill is going to be reduced to having only a 2-month period at a select committee instead of the traditional period. We have seen some waffly claims, which I think most New Zealanders do not take particularly seriously, of potential nuclear weapons information acquisition through New Zealand. We have seen some claims of cyber-attacks. The Green Party takes these allegations seriously. We take the security of our country seriously. Obviously, we do not support, or in any way want to be seen to support, those who use, in the name of political goals, violence such as, obviously, what is in the definition of terrorism used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the States.

We take these issues seriously, and that is why we do not think the Government has gone about it the right way. If the Government was concerned about an imminent or urgent threat to our country’s security, it would have gone about this bill in an entirely different way. It would have convened a meeting of the parties. It would have done it in a much different way, as we have seen in our country’s history over the decades and centuries. But, instead, what we see is politics being played.

As Steffan Browning said, we have got the US Attorney General and representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New Zealand, and representatives of other spying partners, of which New Zealand is one of five members—the little finger of the fist, some people call it. Mr Browning, quite rightfully, I think, posed the question as to whether we are seeing this bill introduced under urgency today to send a message to the US that New Zealand takes its concerns seriously—that New Zealand will do whatever it can if Washington beckons. We have seen it with Dotcom. We have seen it even with copyright legislation, where the WikiLeaks cables have shown that the US Government asked New Zealand to jump, and the National Government said: “How high?”. This is why it is abhorrent, and I believe egregious, that legislation containing such important issues, with such significant ramifications for our country and for our human rights and civil liberties, is getting such a constrained select committee process.

What we know is that 80-plus New Zealanders have likely been unlawfully spied upon over 18 months, and I think this is a crucial thing when we are putting the context of a 2-month report-back period. Over 18 months we have seen potentially unlawful spying on Mr Dotcom, and on other New Zealanders, potentially, over a longer time. For 18 months we could have sorted out and dealt with this issue, but instead the Government wants, through urgency and through a constrained select committee process, to rush the issue. That is not how good legislation is made. That is not how good, enduring political consensus is made. Despite a multiplicity of views in this House—which is only right in a mixed-member proportional system; obviously, we are not agreeing with the Labour Party on everything and we obviously do not agree with the National Party on everything—we should have a more considered, deliberative time to go through and get this stuff right.

We should have had an inquiry, and this is why the Green Party has been calling for that. A constrained 2-month period at a committee will not cut the mustard. It is nowhere near an inquiry, but this is the closest thing our country is going to get.

So I urge a National member, if they stand behind the decision of the Minister responsible for the GCSB, to take a call and defend your arguments. Put your arguments so that the people of our fine country can hear them. But, no, we see members shaking their heads. We are not going to see a National member taking a call, but I urge them to.

I guess it is not a good day to be a National member, is it? We have got the Prime Minister talking only about Aaron Gilmore—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member is outside the scope of the debate.

Good call, Mr Deputy Speaker. I acknowledge the call. I think it is bad process that we are seeing today. It is not a good day to be a National member. But, look, if those members are going to take decisions like this to rush bills through in urgency, and if they are going make a decision to put the bill through only a 2-month report-back period, stand up and defend it. Put your words in the Hansard if you defend it. I challenge a National MP to put your words on the record of this House.

I move, That the question be now put.

Chris Simpson.

“Hipkins”, I believe, is the word you were looking for then, Mr Deputy Speaker—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, I do apologise.

—but I will forgive you. I will forgive you. I am mortally wounded!

There are two procedural aspects to this debate, which are kind of new for the House because of the changes to the Standing Orders that were made by the Standing Orders Committee of the last Parliament. One is that we are debating this matter under urgency—and I will deal with that one in a minute—but the second is that in what has now become a relatively rare occurrence, we are debating a referral motion that gives the committee a shortened time frame and a whole lot of additional powers. It was standard practice in the House that Ministers, for quite a long period of time, would be able to move all sorts of additional powers for the committee in their referral motions. There would be no debate on those; it was just standard practice. It would happen all the time. The Standing Orders Committee considered that issue, along with a range of other potential amendments to the Standing Orders, when the Standing Orders were reviewed at the end of the last Parliament. This new provision, which has been enacted now and which allows this motion to be debatable, was part of a whole package of amendments made to the Standing Orders and it was part of the trade-offs.

The changes to the Standing Orders made by the last Parliament actually gave the Government a number of additional powers to expedite business before the Government, without the need to do the sort of thing it is doing within this referral motion. It gives the Government powers to use extended sittings, for example, so that it does not have to use urgency so much. We are considering this under urgency, which in itself is unnecessary because there are a whole lot of additional ways that the Government could gain the additional time it needs in the House to consider this matter without having to resort to urgency. We are debating a much-reduced time frame for the bill, and I think it is a good advance that these motions are now debated and therefore have become much more rare in their occurrence.

The question that the House has to turn itself to in these sorts of debates is whether the justification for shortening the time frame is sufficient. I want to talk through a little bit about the process of what happens to the bill from here. There are certain time lags within the process when the bill gets referred to a committee that draw into question whether the bill could be adequately considered within the 8 weeks that we have given in this House. I would hope that the committee that this bill is referred to will advertise and call for public submissions. In order to do that they have to have a meeting. The committee comprises the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, among others. Therefore, getting them together to have the first meeting in order to call for submissions will probably take a little bit of time, and, if we pass it today, it may not even happen this week.

The Prime Minister traditionally is not in the House on Thursdays. I do not think I am supposed to say that, but on Thursdays we do not necessarily expect the party leaders to be here and therefore they may not be here tomorrow. So the meeting may not happen this week, and it might not happen until next week. At that point there is then a process to lodge the advertisement with the newspapers. That normally takes a couple of days, by the time the advertisement actually makes it into the paper. You have then got to give people a reasonable amount of time to read the advertisement and prepare their submission. So the question then becomes, well, who are the sorts of people who are going to be interested in making a submission on this? It will be civil liberties groups, lawyers, people with expertise in this particular area, and they will also typically be quite busy people.

I would imagine, given the subject nature, that there will be members of the fourth estate, of the media, who are going to be very interested in the extension of powers to the Government Communications Security Bureau and they may also want to make submissions. The fact is that the bureau’s powers have been used against the media by the current Government over the teapot tapes, so the media are going to have an interest in an extension of the bureau’s powers and are likely to want to make a submission. We need to allow sufficient time for them to consider the nature of the bill, the contents of the bill, and make informed and educated decisions around what sort of input they want to have into that process, and the time frame that we are allowing does not do that. It is another attack on the freedom of the press.

This bill is another attack on the freedom of the press, because we know that the Government we have now is very happy to use the bureau’s powers to attack the media, and therefore we have to make sure, because the media are a very important safeguard in our democratic process, that they are given sufficient time and opportunity to make submissions and to have their voices heard in this process. The truncated time frame simply does not allow that to happen.

So, why the urgency? Why are we even trying—it is not “we”, because the Opposition is firmly opposed to the shortened time frame—why is the Government even trying to push this bill through with such haste? Given that it has known about these activities that this bill relates to for over a year, why is it that all of a sudden now the whole thing has to be fixed within 8 weeks? It is completely unnecessary. In fact, what the Labour Party has said is that the process should be a longer one and a much more extensive one—one that considers the wide-ranging ramifications of the concerns around the way the Government Communications Security Bureau is operated, and pushing this through simply thwarts what should be a very constructive debate around how the bureau uses its powers.

Let us be very clear about the nature of the bill that the Government is trying to push through. It is around illegal activity by the Government spy agency spying on New Zealanders, and it seeks to make that legal. I have mentioned in my speech so far some of the organisations that may be interested in making a submission on this bill, such as civil liberties groups, lawyers, and the media. But actually, this being the people’s House, any New Zealander should have the right to be able to consider this legislation and make a submission on it. The bill gives the Government Communications Security Bureau the power to spy on any New Zealander. Any mum or dad, as John Key refers to them, could be spied on by the Government under this legislation. Will they have an opportunity to make a submission on this bill within the time frame that is proposed? I do not think that the Government is doing anything more than paying lip-service to the democratic process, because in fact if the Government was genuinely committed to providing an opportunity for people to make their submissions and to have a say, it would not be trying to push this through in 8 weeks.

The regular time frame for a select committee consideration is somewhere between 4 to 6 months, so the default setting really is about 6 months. There is another provision, and it is non-debatable. This debate would not happen if it was 4 months or longer. So the Government can shorten it by 2 months without having to have the debate. But there is another way that the Government could shorten the time frame for the committee, and that is to take a recommendation to the Business Committee, which is comprised of all of the parties in the House, and get agreement on a shortened time frame. Even if a shortened time frame was deemed to be desirable and it was deemed to be desirable across the House—so it was not being done for political purposes, but there was some genuine need for urgency—there is a provision in there for this whole debate to be avoided. The Business Committee could agree to a shortened time frame.

The records of the Business Committee—[Interruption] No, the records of the Business Committee will record that no such proposal has been received. The minutes of the Business Committee, I think, are public—certainly the determinations of the Business Committee are public—and no such proposal was received. The Government did not even attempt to gain cross-party agreement for this shortened time frame. So that is a matter of concern, because what it means is that the Government is using a wafer-thin majority in the House—a wafer-thin majority in the House, and getting thinner by the day—to try to push through legislation that is incredibly controversial, that gives the Government Communications Security Bureau the power to spy on New Zealanders, and dramatically reduces the opportunity for the people who will be the subjects of this legislation, i.e. every single New Zealand citizen and resident—very important, and resident—to fully participate in this process.

That is fundamentally wrong. This bill should go through a full regular select committee process, but in fact even that is premature because what should happen first is there should be a full review into how we got to this position so that the New Zealand public can have confidence that this Government is protecting their rights to privacy, among other things. This bill does not do that. It is in fact a violation of that principle, and the process around passing it is a further violation of our democratic principles in this House. It is an affront to our democratic process.

I move, That the question be now put.

We did get some new material then, so I will hear Denis O’Rourke.

New Zealand First opposes the time frame proposed in the motion. We think 2 months is ridiculously short. The essential issue, of course, is whether the Government really has any genuine interest in the views of the public and in the contributions that might be made by special-interest groups. There are likely to be many of them on this particular bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill.

The shortness of the time frame indicates to me and, I think, to many others that the Government has in fact prejudged the issues in this bill, and that it is not interested at all in what the public has to say. Nor is the Government interested in getting quality submissions, because quality submissions from the public do take time. Hurried submissions are likely to be less considered and less comprehensive. So what are we really achieving by having such a constricted time frame? What we are achieving is less quality, and a less properly considered bill by the public. The public does have a right to participate properly in these matters.

It is a shame that that is the case, because much can be learnt from the public and from special-interest groups. Many bills, as we all know, are altered as a result of well-considered public submissions. We have to acknowledge that we members of Parliament, the Government, and the officials do not always know everything about these issues, and certainly do not always get them right. In fact, the history of this legislation shows that past Governments and officials got it wrong.

I have studied the bill and have seen in it several important issues that I will wish to consider much further. And, of course, as Winston Peters said earlier today, New Zealand First has already written to the Prime Minister seeking a whole raft of changes. If that is the case with us, it is likely also to be the case with special-interest groups especially, and with very large numbers of members of the public.

This is not a simple bill. It is complex; even the most cursory reading will demonstrate that. There are many options possible within its provisions, especially, I suggest, those regarding oversight and supervision issues. These matters take time to understand and they take time to consider. It takes time to look at other possible options, and it takes time to write all of that down and submit it through the process. Time is needed for proper consideration, and that is what the time frame in this motion is, I think, quite deliberately avoiding.

The Government is, in fact, treating the public with contempt, for that reason, by not giving adequate time for submissions. It knows that it is doing that, and it is doing it quite deliberately. The public needs to know the contempt in which it is being held in this way. Firstly, in the context of matters of high public interest—and there have been few issues of higher public interest in recent times—secondly, in the context of matters of high importance to our freedoms and democracy, which this unarguably involves, and, thirdly, in the context of the significant complexity that I have mentioned with regard to this particular bill, the lack of an adequate time frame is a sad indictment on a Government that is obviously just trying to put an awkward situation behind it. Well, that is not a good enough reason to treat the public in this way.

Just as disappointing to me has been the lack of argument by Government members opposite. I have waited to hear from them. I have waited to hear good reasons why this motion proposes such a ridiculously short time frame, but nothing has been offered. That proves, I think, the points that I have been making. So for all of those reasons that I and others have stated, New Zealand First will certainly oppose the motion.

I move, That the question be now put.