Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership

I move, That under section 11 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 this House endorse Hon Tony Ryall as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 7(1)(c) of the Act. This vacancy has arisen due to the resignation from the Intelligence and Security Committee of the Hon Peter Dunne.

The Hon Tony Ryall is a respected and long-serving member of Parliament. He was first elected to this Parliament in 1990 for the electorate of East Cape, and has represented it since—although the electorate has changed its name and border a number of times, including a brief change to Eastern Bay of Plenty for the 1996 election, until its current name of Bay of Plenty.

The Hon Tony Ryall served as Minister of Justice, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Minister of Local Government, and Minister of Youth Affairs in the Shipley Government, and has more recently been Minister of Health, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, and Minister of State Services, and he is a member of a very exclusive club of former Acting Prime Ministers.

Tony Ryall is a good choice to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee. He has good judgment, elected longevity, and ministerial experience. I support this motion. And might I say how good Clayton Cosgrove looks in the Leader of the Opposition’s seat. This may be one of the few occasions he ever gets to occupy it. Thank you.

If Tony Ryall is the answer, it must be a pretty silly question. That is what I think.

I want to cover a number of issues on the question of the proposed appointment of Tony Ryall to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I do want to acknowledge—as the Minister Gerry Brownlee has—that Mr Ryall is a reasonably long-serving member of this Parliament, coming into the House in 1990, as stated. He has been through ups and downs in that time—ins and outs and ups and downs in that time. He has certainly had a few issues that we have discovered we might have found a basis for, which is that unknown to many members of the House, Mr Ryall is one-eighth Jamaican—one-eighth Jamaican. As my colleague Clayton Cosgrove unkindly suggested, he is the limbo member. How low can you go, Tony Ryall? I do want to acknowledge Mr Ryall as a person who has been in the House for a long time.

The fact that we are today debating this vacancy itself is a matter that members on this side of the House are greatly concerned about. The first point I want to make is that when John Key announced that Tony Ryall would be nominated for this position, he said that he was forced into that position because Peter Dunne, who was then a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, was no longer a Minister. He was no longer a Minister and therefore he could not serve on the committee. Well, the Prime Minister is wrong, and the Prime Minister has failed to correct the misleading impression that he has left with the New Zealand public that Peter Dunne had to be replaced on the committee—that he had to be replaced—because he is no longer a Minister.

Section 7(1)(c) of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 makes clear that the Prime Minister can appoint any member of Parliament—any member of Parliament—after consultation with parties in the Government. So any member could be appointed. In fact, Peter Dunne, according to the Government, currently remains the leader of a party within the Government. So for the Prime Minister to try to justify to New Zealanders that Peter Dunne is going off the Intelligence and Security Committee because he is no longer a Minister is, quite simply, false. What that leads us to is that the Prime Minister is quite clearly telling New Zealanders that he does not trust Peter Dunne to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee. Presumably he is doing that because he believes that Peter Dunne is the person who leaked the Kitteridge report.

The problem that members on this side of the House have, and the problem that members of the public have, is that that was not the finding of David Henry’s investigation into the leaking of the Kitteridge report. David Henry says that he cannot say who leaked the Kitteridge report. John Key—who ordered the investigation, who said he wanted to get to the bottom of who leaked the Kitteridge report—cannot tell New Zealanders today definitively who that was. Instead, we have a situation where Mr Dunne insists that he did not leak the Kitteridge report, and Mr Key is asking us just to turn a blind eye to the fact that he has not got to the bottom of who leaked the sensitive report, and to accept that we can brush the whole episode under the carpet and that he can get on and appoint Mr Ryall to this committee in Mr Dunne’s place. Well, that is not good enough. New Zealanders deserve significantly better from their Prime Minister on intelligence and security matters, and, unfortunately, this—his sweeping under the carpet of definitively identifying who leaked the Kitteridge report—is typical of this Prime Minister’s approach to intelligence and security issues.

From day one this Prime Minister has not been upfront with this House about the activities of the Government Communications Security Bureau. We have gone through question time after question time trying to get to the bottom of what the Prime Minister knew about the Kim Dotcom raid, and what the Prime Minister’s role was in the appointment of his childhood friend Ian Fletcher to run the Government Communications Security Bureau. We discovered via the Kitteridge report that John Key actually knew from as far back as February 2012 or May 2012 that there had been illegal spying on New Zealanders, and he did nothing about it until the Kim Dotcom case broke. This Prime Minister’s lax and, in some cases, deliberately misleading information and advice about the activities of our intelligence community lead us on this side of the House to be deeply suspicious of any appointment he might choose to make to this kind of committee because this Prime Minister does not have the interests of ordinary New Zealanders at heart. This Prime Minister, John Key, has the interests of his mates at heart. That was never better emphasised than by appointing his childhood friend to run the Government Communications Security Bureau without anyone else being interviewed, off the back of a phone call that he made. He was riding roughshod over that process.

The activities of our intelligence agencies, which are monitored by this committee, are currently being questioned by many New Zealanders. New Zealanders have lost their faith in the intelligence and security agencies of this country, and I believe that that is a direct result of the way that the Prime Minister has undertaken his duties as the person whom we as New Zealanders have, on our behalf, in charge of those agencies. He has got that oversight, and he is not performing properly.

The Intelligence and Security Committee currently has in front of it legislation to expand the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau. Some of my colleagues, I think, will speak more on that legislation. What is quite clear is that this Intelligence and Security Committee should have a pivotal role in our Parliament. It should be a watchdog over the activities of our intelligence and security agencies, and it is toothless at the moment. It is a toothless committee because it is unable to actually get to the bottom of issues that New Zealanders are concerned about when it comes to intelligence and security.

The Labour Party believes that there needs to be a full and independent inquiry into the activities of our intelligence agencies. It is not good enough for this Government to bring to the House legislation to extend the powers of those intelligence agencies when there is such a cloud hanging over them, and when there is activity in the international community in terms of cyber-crime, which is increasingly a worry to people in New Zealand. New Zealanders are worried about their privacy, they are worried about whether their details are available to Governments overseas, and this Government wants to ram legislation through this committee in a way that I do not believe many New Zealanders would accept.

We need better oversight of our intelligence agencies. One of the matters the Labour Party would like to see discussed in a full review of our intelligence agencies is what the best kind of parliamentary oversight that we can get is. As we stand today, the Intelligence and Security Committee cannot give New Zealanders the confidence that they need about our intelligence agencies. I believe that, as part of that review, we need to include what level of parliamentary oversight is appropriate, and how we ensure that it is not just that we have to trust Mr John Key when it comes to the activities of our intelligence agencies but that as a Parliament we can own those. As we stand today, the privacy of New Zealanders is at risk. We do not have a Prime Minister, in John Key, who seems to care about that and who seems to take his job as the watchdog over our intelligence agencies seriously, and he comes to the House today to appoint Tony Ryall to this committee.

The committee itself is flawed. The process by which Peter Dunne lost his position on the committee has been fudged by the Prime Minister, and today we have a situation where our intelligence agencies are not trusted by New Zealanders. This appointment of Tony Ryall today will do absolutely nothing to increase that confidence. We need a full and independent inquiry into our intelligence agencies, and the National Government should agree to that today.

I am speaking on the proposal by the Government to appoint Tony Ryall to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I think that in considering this proposal we need to give ourselves a little bit of context. That context starts with—it does not finish with—the extraordinary events internationally of the last week, whereby the international spying done with PRISM software run by the US National Security Agency was revealed to the world by Mr Snowden. As a leaker, or a whistleblower, he exposed the existence of an enormous conspiracy, effectively, which was that the US National Security Agency was spying on the electronic communications of basically everyone in America and, essentially, the electronic communications of most people in the world, because so much of our internet traffic passes through America.

The reason why that matters to us is not only that the US National Security Agency would have been spying on everyone in this House and pretty much everyone in New Zealand who uses the internet, because at some point or another the traffic is routed via the United States. It is not only an issue because of what the agency would have collected, it is an issue also because of what the intelligence communities might be doing in New Zealand and what the oversight is that the Intelligence and Security Committee is supposed to provide to those agencies. Were the reports that PRISM generated sent back to the New Zealand security agencies, and were those reports looking at what New Zealanders were doing? We do not know the answer to that.

The Prime Minister tells us that that is not true, but, of course, the Prime Minister either has no idea—as we have seen in the past—or simply is not revealing the full truth. He does not answer many questions about this issue, and when he does answer them, the answers are not always right. So we do not know how much of the PRISM information was being passed back to the security services here.

What we also do not know is whether the security agencies in New Zealand are attempting to establish their own domestic version of PRISM—whether that is what the Palantir company is trying to do. Palantir is a company established by some Silicon Valley high-tech people along with the Central Intelligence Agency—the Central Intelligence Agency was one of the founding investors of the company—in order to promote data mining or data analysis on a very large scale. It would appear that it has Government contracts in New Zealand now and is embedded in some Government organisations, from what PRISM put on its website, though the Prime Minister refuses to tell us, as usual. So the question is whether the security agencies have established a similar kind of framework here, and whether the Intelligence and Security Committee should be able to provide oversight over those kinds of activities.

In other jurisdictions parliamentary oversight is taken a lot more seriously than it is in New Zealand. They have proper committees and they have real powers. For example, the Norwegian committee is not made up of MPs. It is purposely made up of non-MPs so that it is independent of Parliament. It has powers to require intelligence agents to appear. It has the power to make those intelligence agents hand over information. The Intelligence and Security Committee in New Zealand has no such powers. It cannot force people to appear. It cannot force them to hand over information. Under the amendments that are being proposed by the Government, that will not be changed. Basically, they will not have to give us on the Intelligence and Security Committee information about what they are doing. So it is very difficult to have the kind of oversight that we need when we do not have the Intelligence and Security Committee as a proper committee.

If you look at other jurisdictions, even more of the Westminster-style jurisdictions, you see that they do not have Ministers on these committees. By rule Ministers cannot sit on the intelligence and security oversight committees, for the obvious reason that the Ministers, representing the executive, cannot provide independent oversight of what is an arm of the executive in the security services. In New Zealand we see that the Prime Minister, who is also the Minister responsible for the intelligence services, chairs the committee—an immediate conflict of interest. Then we have two other Ministers sitting on the committee—a majority of the committee are Ministers. So the executive has given itself authority and a majority on the committee that is meant to oversee the executive’s operations of the intelligence services. It is obviously not a serious kind of oversight.

Appointing yet another Minister, Tony Ryall—whatever may be the excellent qualities of Tony Ryall that Gerry Brownlee has described—on the Intelligence and Security Committee undermines its function and its purpose to provide oversight of the executive’s operation of the intelligence services. It is a clear conflict of interest, which is why in other jurisdictions you cannot be a Minister and sit on the security oversight committee. It is so obviously a conflict of interest.

Likewise, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who is also meant to provide some kind of oversight, should be an Officer of Parliament. Instead, essentially the Inspector-General works with the executive. The Inspector-General should be an Officer of Parliament, like the Auditor-General or like the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who report to Parliament rather than to the executive.

If we want to have proper oversight of these agencies, then we need to set up proper oversight functions. What we have seen internationally with PRISM, with the tremendous growth of the secret surveillance State—though not so secret any more, because it has all been revealed, or some of has been revealed, I guess—is that we desperately need dramatically improved oversight of the intelligence agencies. The Intelligence and Security Committee simply is unable, because of its legislative mandate, to provide that kind of oversight.

It is impossible for the Intelligence and Security Committee as it is statutorily defined at the moment—and including the amendments the Government is pushing through—to do its function. In fact, some of the legislative change that the Government is proposing will enable the security services to operate more of a PRISM-type scheme. The changes it is making to the Government Communications Security Bureau Act will mean that the bureau can spy on all New Zealanders, whereas previously it was not supposed to be spying on New Zealanders. Of course, it was spying on New Zealanders, but it was not supposed to be.

Likewise, the changes to the Telecommunications Act will give the intelligence agencies the ability to require the telecommunications companies to give them back-door access to all internet traffic in New Zealand, just like the PRISM system. So they are giving themselves the powers to establish at a New Zealand level something like what we have seen in the United States with PRISM. That is exactly what the changes to the Telecommunications Act are all about.

This is, I believe, a deeply disturbing development, and, of course, it has arisen since 9/11 in particular. It was there before, but it has got much worse since then, especially as the technological capacity of the State to monitor and provide surveillance of all electronic and online communications has developed further and further, and we are now in a total surveillance environment. Everyone, whenever they go online, cannot be sure whether they are being surveilled by the US National Security Agency, or by the New Zealand security services. That fundamentally corrodes privacy. At a fundamental level that is like Nineteen Eighty-Four, where you had the television on the screen and you could never know whether or not they were watching you. That is the kind of environment we have now established with regard to online communications.

That fundamentally undermines privacy, and privacy is fundamental to being a complete human being. If you have no space and no time of your own when you know that you are communicating with other people in confidence and where you can discuss ideas honesty and openly, where you can have thoughts in an uncensored manner, you cannot possibly develop your identity as a person. That is exactly what Nineteen Eighty-Four was all about, and what George Orwell was warning us about, and that is exactly the kind of total surveillance State that has now been established. That is what Mr Snowden has revealed to us the National Security Agency was doing in the United States, and we have no idea whether that is what the New Zealand security agencies are also trying to establish here, and we do not have the legislative tools and the legislative teeth to actually find out what is going on inside those agencies.

That is why we have supported a proper inquiry, not only into what has happened with regard to Ian Fletcher and so forth but, more important, into what the role of these kinds of agencies is, how much we need them, and, if we need them, what kind of proper parliamentary oversight and democratic oversight they need in order to protect our privacy, in order to protect our fundamental freedoms and democratic rights.

Gerry Brownlee today corrected John Key’s misinformation earlier on in these series of questions. He said that Mr Key had been the beneficiary of multiple briefings. That was a sizable admission. On Monday the Prime Minister told the nation that this motion has “got nothing to do with what happened last week”. Mr Key, of course, had Mr Dunne leave the Intelligence and Security Committee on a technicality, to use his words. He then told the media that Mr Dunne could not stay on the committee, because he was no longer a Minister, all of which we have demonstrated by reciting the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 as not being the case. So there you have got “Mr Spray and Walk Away” being caught out demonstrably, palpably, every day. John Key is spinning quicker than the blackjack wheels at Skycity Casino.

The law is clear. That law of 1996 says that anyone who is a member of Parliament can be on the committee. John Key nominated Peter Dunne to sit on that committee not because he was a Minister, but because he was propping up the Government and Mr Key trusted him. Be under no illusions here. Mr Dunne’s resignation from the Intelligence and Security Committee has everything to do with what happened last week. It is central to the whole story. Contained in the wording of this motion we are discussing today is a clear admission by the Prime Minister that he can no longer trust Mr Dunne on matters of national security. The question is whether we can trust the nominee, Tony Ryall.

The Prime Minister is leaving the House and the country in no doubt about who leaked the Kitteridge report, and the question must now be asked: why did he go to such lengths, as a Prime Minister, to cover it up? Why did he choose David Henry? Did David Henry, his inquirer, not seek the powers to get to the truth, or did Mr Key not give him the powers to get to the truth?

💬 Hon Member: Ha, ha!

Those questions are fundamental, and they are not laughing matters. I want to say this to those National members over there: how is it that one member of Parliament knows precisely how Peter Dunne leaked that Kitteridge report? How come one member of Parliament knows exactly how he did it, and yet Mr Key claims he does not know and Mr Henry claims he does not know? In fact, no one knows, except for one member of Parliament, who knows exactly how he did it.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Who’s that?

Well, that member is the one who has been giving this speech, and that is why I am certain where I am going. Is it because what is in the report is so damaging—that is, the report that should have been written about what Mr Dunne did—to Mr Key and his Government? For we know it is damaging to Mr Dunne. The material is comical and sad, and it is also worthy of a psychological study. But we will get to that sometime in the future.

But what Mr Key is doing is allowing and pervading a cover-up. Why has he appointed Tony Ryall to do Mr Dunne’s old job? It became apparent that the Prime Minister, in his interviews, is not just absolutely perplexed by this appointment but is set on spreading bulldust as wide as he can. This is not a case of the Prime Minister’s now famous brain fades. It is not a case of the Prime Minister getting lost in the detail. Rather, it is indicative of John Key’s wilful, irresponsible ignorance as the Minister in charge of the Government Communications Security Bureau to do his duty.

The truth is he does not want to know so he does not have to share it. There is the corpse, fingerprints, blood on the floor, DNA everywhere, and no one but one member of Parliament knows how it was done. Mr Key does not want to spell out exactly who was leaking what and when. You see, it was not just one leak. This person leaked the report on the morale of the Government Communications Security Bureau. There was a leak about the new head and appointment of the Government Communications Security Bureau. There were leaks about the review of the Government Communications Security Bureau, leaks about the briefing that was coming up on the Government Communications Security Bureau, a leak about the Intelligence and Security Committee’s proceedings, and other leaks as well. All those leaks, and the Prime Minister and his colleagues over there, who call themselves the National Party, do not want to know.

There is an acrid stench rising from those benches—an acrid stench of ignorance. They might be sitting there embarrassed, but I am asking Mr Bennett over there, from Hamilton, why the people of Hamilton are not entitled to know that their millions of dollars in the security industry are being so blithely handled. Where would you get a Parliament where members of Parliament say: “We will put somebody on the committee who will do everything to serve our bidding, and he will engage in the cover-up. He won’t ask who’s leaking. He won’t ask the import of these leaks. He won’t ask how embarrassing it is internationally. He’ll just sit there and make sure there is a cover-up.”?

Mr Dunne is not qualified, by his own actions already. This Parliament is asked to trust Mr Tony Ryall to go on the committee and represent it, and to oversee the intelligence and security issues of this country. I have no confidence in Tony Ryall, and the reason is that he is already involved in the cover-up. You have got two members of the committee who want to know more—Russel Norman and David Shearer—and now you have got a member of the committee who does not want to know, and who wants to engage in the wilful ignorance.

This has been a cover-up from the word go. Look at the terms of reference given to David Henry. There was no mention of Mr Henry having the power to access the information, the electronic information, and five sets of it—no reference about those powers whatsoever. Then you go to the Henry report, page 2, and it is there—cheap, obvious, and not even clever. He says he could have got from the State Services Commissioner all the powers if it was a civil servant. He could have got—next paragraph—the support of the Prime Minister in respect of Cabinet Ministers. And then, in the next paragraph, he says that someone who came under suspicion was the leader of a political party. He did not say it was another Minister. Why did he distinguish that—Mr Dunne being the leader of a party, and not a Minister? Because if you go down further, you will see at bullet point 13 on page 2: “I remain of the view that I need to have full access to all 86 emails.” Why just those 86?

There is much more here. The man has been leaking like a sieve. What the ramifications for our international reputation are, we do not know. But, over there, we watch National members. They are telling the whole country—Mr Bennett, Ms Adams over there, and those from the South Island, from the West Coast, the member from Hawke’s Bay, and the one from Dunedin; they are all there—by their inaction, inertia, and wanton behaviour that they do not want the taxpayer to know.

Heavens, it must be embarrassing to behave like that. It must be extraordinarily embarrassing to go on the hustings and say: “My No. 1 duty is to serve the country and look after the security of its people.”, then come to the committee—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Why don’t you like David Henry?

Oh yes, oh yes, Mr Henare is guilty as sin. He is another yes-man—another yes-man, a “let’s pull the wool over my eyes” man. Boy, I mean, in the Māori world, do you know what you would call that?

💬 Hon Annette King: What do you call it?

It is a “c” word. It starts with “c” and ends with “e”. Mr Henare, does that member want the powers to find out the truth? Mr Henare, does that member there want the powers to have the truth? No. Does he want to know who leaked the report? No. Does he want to know why Winston Peters knows how he leaked the report? Oh no, he does not want to know that—he does not want to know that, does he? No. Does he want to know why we spent all that money on—[Interruption] Yes, but does he want to know why we spent all that money on Mr David Henry, and he never got to the truth? No. One last sentence: as Muhammad Ali would say, if Mr Key even dreams that this is going away, he should wake up and apologise.

I take a call on this very important issue. In a liberal democracy such as we have and such as we aspire to, we seek to ensure that the freedom of the citizen is maximised. As part of maximising every citizen’s freedom, we accept that there is a divergence of views, and we accept that everybody is entitled to express their views and take actions to express their views, even if sometimes those views are repugnant and sometimes they cause revulsion within the community. That is the nature of a free and democratic society. That is the nature of a truly democratic country.

Alongside that, we also seek to preserve the nation State and the institutions that make it up. What goes to the heart of this issue is these very important principles that underpin our constitution, such as it is. Some in the pursuit of their freedom of expression may act in ways to bring down the institutions of the State, if, indeed, not the State itself, and they may seek to undermine the accepted mores and the ways that we choose to live. Some of those are up for negotiation. They are matters of cultural values. They are matters of the way that as humanity we change, we evolve, and we develop.

As social democrats, as we are in the Labour Party, we typically see the institutions of this State as offering protection to citizens and, above all, protecting the weak against the strong. The threats that the State sometimes faces can be internal, and they can be external. But we strive to uphold the State because we think it delivers—has the potential to deliver—the best in terms of benefits for the community at large and for every citizen.

The price for preservation of the liberal State is appropriate security—appropriate security measures. This, of course, is not new. Those of you who know our history, or know the history, at least, of the Westminster system, know that this does not go back to Queen Elizabeth II; it goes back to Queen Elizabeth I. The first attempt of the Crown to ensure the security of the State was her attempt to set up a small group, which became known as “the cabal”, or a cabal of the various lords and dukes who made it up: Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Unfortunately, that fell apart because of the anti-Catholicism of the day, reflected in the Bill of Rights 1688. But, in any event, it was an attempt by the Crown of the day to ensure that there was some sense of security about the State, at least, and the monarch. This goes back well before then, of course, to the nation States upon which we now base our democracy: the Greeks and the Romans. The Romans had their praetorian guard and all those attempts to shore up the State of the day.

There is always a tension between a free State and the apparatus needed to protect and preserve that State, which can interfere with people, interfere with their freedoms, pry into their privacy, and defeat their rights. But, against that, we accept the need for security. Although we do that, the oversight that we then have for our security apparatus is absolutely crucial, absolutely essential. In a free and democratic country such as we aspire to be, that oversight must then rest with the duly elected representatives of the State, and they are the members of this House. So the Intelligence and Security Committee Act under which this appointment is being made has been conceived to achieve that purpose.

The Intelligence and Security Committee is part of the apparatus that we have to provide that oversight. It is a bulwark against excess and the abuse of power by our security agencies, which must act, if they are to act effectively, often in darkness—if I could use that metaphor—and out of sight of the general public. But I have to say that when we look at the legislation governing this committee—at section 6, in particular—the oversight it provides of the committee to which we are now making an appointment is the barest oversight possible, and that must cause us some concern.

The truth is that the public—every citizen of New Zealand today, as always—must have the highest degree of trust and confidence not only in our security apparatus but also in the oversight bodies we have to ensure that it does not stray too far. We must have public confidence—that is a bottom line. The tragedy about this, and the reason why this is the source of debate today, is that every aspect, every historical act in the lead-up to this appointment today, has undermined the public’s confidence in our security apparatus and in our oversight.

We can go back to the Kim Dotcom fiasco, where the security agencies, particularly the Government Communications Security Bureau, clearly acted without authority. The bureau acted outside its own laws, it acted outside its own rules, and, worse, the role that is meant to provide the most effective oversight of that body, the Inspector-General, was found wanting—was found wanting. That may be a resource issue, or it may be a question about the powers that the Inspector-General has, although I do not accept that. The powers of the Inspector-General under that role’s legislation are extensive. The Inspector-General can stop unlawful activity, as, indeed, they must do and as, indeed, they are charged with doing. But even at that level our system has been found wanting and failing.

The consequence of all that was that it led to reviews and, ultimately, to the Kitteridge review, and then, of course, it is around there that we have seen that even those elected representatives who are charged with an oversight role and with providing confidence to the public have been found wanting. They have failed in their duty. That is a great pity, because if there is one group in whom we must have confidence because we entrust to them a very important role, it is the elected representatives on this committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee. We require them to act as our conscience and voice if things are going wrong.

So from Kim Dotcom to the Government Communications Security Bureau review and the fiasco around that, to the leak of the report—and, of course, since the report has been leaked we have had this from the Prime Minister, who is really the one where the buck stops. He is the one who chairs the committee. He is the one who has ministerial responsibility for the security agencies. When pressed for an answer about how the leak could have happened, he repeatedly and adamantly averred that it could not have been a Minister in his Cabinet—it could not have been a Minister—and yet now it turns out that it was a Minister. When that was disclosed we have very quickly seen a further fudging and nudging to say: “Nothing to see here. We’ll make an other appointment, and life will carry on.”

So then we look at the appointee and we ask whether this is enough to give renewed trust and confidence in this committee, in the oversight of our security agencies, and in the security agencies themselves. Mr Ryall is a staunch loyalist to this Prime Minister and to this Government, and I think that we, the public of New Zealand, must say of this Government—5 years into its life, having shown a shabby and tawdry regard for its responsibilities towards the security agencies—that it is impossible to have confidence in this appointment.

As the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Grant Robertson, said, nothing less than a full-blown, proper, open inquiry into all the matters that have led to this appointment—into the issues about Kim Dotcom, into the issues about the Government Communications Security Bureau—is required. Nothing less than a full-blown inquiry that can expose the truth and enlighten the public and assure every citizen is required. That is what is needed to restore public confidence, and we need to see that. Simply making an appointment of a prime ministerial loyalist, of a Cabinet and National Party loyalist, is not enough. I repeat the call: we need an inquiry, we need the truth, we need honesty.

We are having this debate because the Prime Minister sacked Peter Dunne from the Intelligence and Security Committee—not, as he tried to spin it, because some mysterious rules require it but simply because John Key wanted Peter Dunne “outski” from the committee. That is the sole reason.

The Prime Minister can nominate any two MPs to the committee, subject to the endorsement of Parliament and the motion “That, under section 11 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1966, this House endorse Tony Ryall as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 7(1)(c) of the Act.” So the question today is whether we should endorse Tony Ryall. I will come to that in a minute and, having done so, I will then be moving an amendment to the motion.

I note that other speakers have raised the very real issues around oversight of the Government Communications Security Bureau and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, which is their full titles. The short version would be the spooks. Spooks, by nature, operate in the shadows, furtively and secretly, and I can see the Minister’s attributes in these areas echo appeal. After all, who earned the dial “Secret Smile Tony Ryall”?

But my concern is that the Minister is liable to capture by bureaucrats. Let us look at Tony Ryall. We have found in recent weeks and months that he is very vulnerable to capture by bureaucrats. He becomes the mouthpiece of those departments, rather than the champion of hard-working Kiwis. Let us look at some specific examples, such as diabetes. Already since I mentioned on Facebook that I would be speaking today, I have had a number of people calling in, and they are calling him “Denial Ryall”. The Minister of Health funds only the CareSens meters, and many diabetics are finding serious problems with these meters. A 20 percent variation in test results for a child could mean death. The CareSens meters do not have a backlight. There are concerns about testing strips.

I am concerned about the Minister’s intelligence, because when asked a question yesterday about the number of people who had concerns, he said there were 14. But just from the past 4 days, right here in my hand are thousands of comments from people concerned abut the CareSens meters for diabetes. There are heartbreaking stories here. There is intelligence here of a mother with a young child, who while she was driving him to hospital had to pull over to the side of the road and give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. There is a story here of an elderly gentleman whose wife was having a hyperglycaemic event, and the worry and concern of that elderly gentleman. There is a lot of intelligence in here, but it seems to have escaped the Minister, who has adopted a “hear no evil, see no evil” approach. So is that Minister appropriate for this committee? This Minister does not seem to want to know about intelligence, but here is just a simple week’s worth.

I am hoping that Pharmac has intelligence, and I trust that it will because I know that there are people leading Pharmac who care. I know that they will stop some of the inane answers that people have received when they have written to Pharmac on its diabetes feedback line. When people have said they are concerned that their machine is not working, the feedback they have received, or the lack of intelligence, has been: “Oh, put the meter under your armpit and warm it up.” Where is the intelligence in that? We are moving into winter. At the end of this month it is going to be severely cold. What about all the diabetics? How are they going to test their blood sugar levels this winter? There should be real concern here, because there is real intelligence about this. I would ask that Pharmac cast its people to it immediately, and come up with a solution. I do have confidence that the leaders of Pharmac will do that, because where there has been need in other areas they have acted appropriately.

Therefore, we come to our Minister, who is, I guess, a ghost Minister, so again I can see how the title fits, and how he might be able to get on to that Intelligence and Security Committee. He is a ghost Minister indeed. I refer also to an example of him being a ghost Minister. A Tauranga mother with a very ill child went to see Mr Ryall, as Minister of Health. Mr Ryall said: “Well, I’m actually seeing you today as your electorate MP and I’m going to have to write a letter to myself as Minister of Health.” So we do have a ghost Minister there. Again, he does have certain attributes in that area.

That small girl was denied money for a lifesaving operation because she had to go overseas to get it. Where was his intelligence then? Where was the security or the thought for that small girl? His intelligence told him that the girl could not be cured, so he did not fund the trip. But guess what? The solo mother went to the community, raised the money, and sent that little girl to the States, and now she is alive and well and going to St Thomas More Catholic School—no thanks to the intelligence or the security of “Denial Ryall”.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Can I just say to the member that name-calling by and large comes from frustration, and that is understood. But it is out of order as a personal reflection. I refer the member to Standing Order 117 and also to Speakers’ ruling 28/1, because it can lead to disorder. I also remind the member that no good comes from personalised attacks, as they bring Parliament into disrepute. I urge members to play the ball, not the man.

Thank you. I will note that. I do not mind apologising and withdrawing that comment. I meant it as a friendly moniker. I found it on Facebook.

But let us have a look at the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2), which was trumpeted as “paying family carers”, when the reality was that it was paying less than the minimum wage to a bare handful of families. That means there must be real questions as to whether Tony Ryall is an appropriate person to be endorsed to be part of the democratic oversight of intelligence and security.

Whilst we are thinking about security, the Hon Tony Ryall is the electorate MP for the Bay of Plenty. That is right—Psa. Rife. It went through the area under his watch. Where was the security or the intelligence there? If it was not for Zespri, one of our main export earners in this country would be down and out. Where was our ghost Minister then? Well, he was—he was a ghost Minister, hands-off.

Let us take a look at the Rena. Yes, that is right. Where is the intelligence for the Rena? Where is the security? What happens if a ship wrecks on that very same reef tomorrow? Well, guess what? There is not much room for it, because there is still a wreck on the rocks, just about 2 years after the incident, although that Government over there promised it would remove the Rena from Tauranga. Guess what? There is still pollution leaking from that, but we do not know about that, because we cannot get out there and go under, dive under Astrolabe Reef—which should be every New Zealander’s right—because there is still this aura of secrecy. So again there are certain attributes that the Minister exhibits that are fine there.

There is also Solid Energy, which he is responsible for as the Minister for State Owned Enterprises. It is a total basket case, but the Minister is still digging.

I conclude, when asking whether Tony Ryall is an appropriate person to be on the committee, that the answer is no. And so I move, That all the words after “That” be replaced by “this House invites the Prime Minister to submit a fresh nomination to the Intelligence and Security Committee”. I urge the House to adopt this amendment.

New Zealanders who are listening to this debate will find it no surprise whatsoever that the Prime Minister John Key has been less than honest about the reasons why we are debating Government motion No. 1 today, relating to the appointment of Tony Ryall to the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Prime Minister stood up at a press conference and said that this was all about Peter Dunne not being a Minister any more. The fact that Peter Dunne was a Minister and is no longer a Minister has precisely nothing to do with whether or not he should be on the Intelligence and Security Committee. There are already members of that committee who are not Ministers. Some of the members are Ministers; some of them are not. But that matter is absolutely irrelevant when considering the members who make up the committee.

In fact, what the Intelligence and Security Committee Act actually says, in section 7(1), is: “The Committee shall consist of—(a) the Prime Minister: (b) the Leader of the Opposition: (c) 2 members of the House of Representatives nominated for the purpose by the Prime Minister following consultation with the leader of each party in Government:”. It says “members of the House of Representatives”, so it does not have to be a Minister. Actually, I think that section might be starting to get to where the problem is here, because there has to be consultation with the leader of each party in Government. I wonder whether the Prime Minister is doing what everybody else in the country is doing and is no longer recognising Peter Dunne as the leader of a party for parliamentary purposes. That is what the Standing Orders say. They say that Peter Dunne is no longer the leader of a party for parliamentary purposes.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I thought they’d registered now?

No, no. Ruth Dyson says she wonders whether United Future is registered now. No, that is not the case. As far as the Electoral Commission is concerned, there is not currently a party called the United Future party, and should a party called the United Future party become registered at some point in the future, that would be a new registration. Our Standing Orders—[Interruption] Yes, Peter Dunne has to go out there and find 500 people to sign up to the United Future party, and what the Standing Orders of this Parliament say is that if a party is not recognised under the Electoral Act by the Electoral Commission as a political party having 500 members, it is not a political party for parliamentary purposes and does not get all the perks that come with that. So, given that Peter Dunne is no longer the leader of a party, and is essentially here as an independent member of Parliament, maybe that is why John Key actually decided that he should no longer be on the committee.

I was not quite sure who the other member of the committee nominated by the Prime Minister was, so I went away and found out who it was. Can anybody guess who the other member on the committee nominated by the Prime Minister is? It is the Hon John Banks—the Hon John Banks. If this is a matter of trust, if this is about whom the Prime Minister can trust to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee, I think there are some real question marks over the presence of John Banks on that particular committee. He is the man who, we all know, was not completely honest—I cannot use another word, but he was not completely honest—about the donations he received in his mayoral campaign in his failed bid to become the mayor of the Auckland super-city. The police had a look at that and the police pretty much said that he was not absolutely honest about where those donations came from, and now he is actually in court facing a private prosecution about his breaches of the Electoral Act and the fact that he was not honest about where his political donations came from. So I would have thought that if Peter Dunne cannot be trusted to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee, maybe we should also be debating the replacement for the Hon John Banks, who probably ought not to be on that committee, either.

For the benefit of the folks who are listening at home, they might also be interested to know that the other person on the committee is a person nominated by the Leader of the Opposition, and that person is Russel Norman. That is how the committee is made up. So there is no need to consider whether or not a member is a Minister or is in Cabinet, but that is what the Prime Minister told New Zealand was the reason, and, of course, we now know that that was John Key, as usual, being less than honest with the public of New Zealand.

So we are debating today whether or not Tony Ryall is an appropriate person to be one of the Government’s representatives on the Intelligence and Security Committee. Well, looking at Tony Ryall’s history here in Parliament and the way he operates, I think he has actually got a few characteristics that make him absolutely appropriate for what is the “spooks committee” of Parliament, because he likes to engage in a bit of cloak-and-dagger. He likes to engage in spy operations. As a member of the Opposition and as a Minister he has been known to camp out in the emergency departments of our hospitals around the country—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Under cover.

Under cover, in disguise—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Under whose cover?

Maryan Street asks: “Under whose cover?”. That is a good question. But Tony Ryall has this history of going into the emergency departments disguised as somebody else to see for himself what is going on in the emergency departments.

Actually, this has extended into his behaviour as a Minister, which is extraordinary, really. He has been said to text or call any official of whatever rank whom he believes to be underperforming. He is an astonishing micromanager of his portfolios. It is said that he has close to 600 phone numbers saved on his phone. He might want to check to make sure that those details are secure—that the privacy of those 600 people that he has on his phone is secure—and that might be an issue that Tony Ryall wants to bring up as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. There are 600 numbers, because those are the numbers of all the different district health board chief executive officers and chairmen and managers, and the ministry managers and the ministry officials—the people whom he likes to keep a very, very close eye on.

Tony Ryall likes to build little fiefdoms, and the health portfolio is certainly one of Tony Ryall’s fiefdoms, over which he has omniscient control. He is a man who knows every tiny little detail and likes to control every tiny little detail. So I think Tony Ryall does have some characteristics that lend him to being an appropriate member of this committee.

It is fair to say that all his cloak-and-dagger operations have not quite gone to plan. He was on Jenny Shipley’s side when she stuck the knife in Jim Bolger’s back. Tony Ryall was quite a senior member of that little cloak-and-dagger operation. He was one of the lieutenants who brought Jim Bolger down. That was a success.

However, following the downfall of Jenny Shipley, he was then an English man. He supported Bill English in his defence against the Brash coup, which, of course, up until the last minute he probably thought he was on the right side of. He was probably doing the numbers, along with Nick Smith, and thought that English was going to survive that coup, but we all know that when the master of the flip-flop, John Key, saw his own personal ambitions being tailored to by Don Brash, he made the last-minute change and got Don Brash the leadership back in about 2004 or 2005, I think it was—about 2004.

So Tony Ryall has not always been the greatest operator in the shadows, in that kind of cloak-and-dagger world that our spy agencies and this committee operate in, but he certainly has experience in that world, and that, I think, lends itself very well to his being on this committee. But we are, of course, debating the wrong thing here today. What we ought to be debating is a full inquiry into the operations of the Government Communications Security Bureau. The Opposition will not rest until that is what we are actually debating.

The question today is whether Tony Ryall should be appointed to the Intelligence and Security Committee, that very important but very secret committee of Parliament. A huge amount of responsibility rests on the members of Parliament who sit on it. The question is whether Tony Ryall is suitable for that appointment. In order to examine that question we need to look at what is currently before that committee, and that is the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, a bill that is extremely controversial.

The bill is extremely controversial for a number of reasons. It was extremely controversial before last Friday when it was revealed that there were very serious allegations and evidence appearing about a massive surveillance programme operating out of the United States, and there was comment about the implications of that for our country and, in particular, for the legislation that is currently before that secretive Intelligence and Security Committee. There are too many questions for this legislation to be before that committee now. That was our position before last Friday. It is even more our position today. We have said that we need an inquiry. Before we look at legislation like this, we need a full inquiry into our intelligence agencies.

The Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, which is before the Intelligence and Security Committee, is one of two bills that are being considered together, but at different select committees. The second bill is the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. It is also a bill over which there rests an enormous number of questions. We believe there has to be an inquiry into the intelligence agencies because of the importance of privacy and the importance of balance. It is absolutely important to put on the record that communications security is important—it is absolutely important—but so are the freedoms and the privacy of New Zealanders. Who is looking after that? Who is representing New Zealanders when we are taking into account the issues that are in these two bills? Nobody on the Government side of the House. That is what we fear, and that is why there are huge question marks over whether the appointment of Tony Ryall to that committee will actually make things worse.

Getting the right balance between privacy and security is absolutely critical. It is a huge responsibility for a Parliament—for a Parliament as well as for the people who sit on that committee. They have huge responsibility. Our fear is that another brother is going to join Big Brother on that committee and that the legislation, which is going to be forced through, will not have adequate scrutiny.

So is Tony Ryall fit to sit on that committee? Will he ask the questions? Will he represent New Zealanders? Or will he obfuscate and block? This is about integrity, and that is what is under scrutiny—integrity and trust. On 10 June John Key said: “to make a contribution, you have to have integrity, and to have integrity there has to be a directness and a fullness in your answers.” The problem is that there is no fullness in his answers, because there are usually no answers at all. The answers that are given skirt around the questions and certainly do not provide adequate answers. It is happening time and time again in this House, and it is a serious issue.

I want to pose some questions. Before that, the question of integrity and trust is absolutely critical. Yesterday a major telecommunications company told me that it would have knowledge as to whether the Government Communications Security Bureau or another security agency wanted to access New Zealand phone numbers in our country, because there would have to be a warrant, but it would not know whether an overseas intelligence agency such as the National Security Agency or the FBI was hoovering up intelligence on New Zealanders’ phone calls, texts, and use of social media and the internet. The company said to me that it has to take the Prime Minister on trust that that is not happening in our country. The problem is how we would know, because he will not tell us, and that is a serious issue.

In considering whether Tony Ryall is a suitable appointment to the Intelligence and Security Committee we have to know whether he is going to ask the right questions. I want to put some of those questions to the House today, because he needs to be accountable if he is sitting on that committee. We need to know that those questions will be asked or that at least he will want to know the answer to questions such as whether the new provisions within the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill will make it possible for a PRISM-like system to operate legally within New Zealand. On the face of it, that is what it does.

Will including services, what they call the service providers, like Facebook, Yahoo!, Skype, and Google, in the Telecommunication (Interception Capability and Security) Bill, which impacts on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, have a chilling effect on the growth of the weightless export economy within New Zealand? On the face of it, that is what will happen.

Will the Telecommunication (Interception Capability and Security) Bill and the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill have a far-reaching impact on the privacy of citizens? There has been no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vetting released yet, so we do not know. Will Tony Ryall ask why new section 15A(1) and (2), in clause 14, in the Government Communications Security Bureau bill explicitly gives the Prime Minister unilateral authorisation to allow the Government Communications Security Bureau to act unlawfully? Because that is what this bill does. If he does not ask those questions, if he does not want the answers to those questions, then he does not deserve to be on that committee.

This is such a serious piece of legislation before that committee. Mr Ryall’s position on that committee is absolutely critical—that he gets it right. The notion that personal privacy is a right rather than a privilege is being eroded at a blinding speed. Those were the words of a New Zealand commentator this week. The whistleblower who made the revelations about PRISM in the United States has sparked deep anger and unease in countries across the region, in the United States, in Australia, in Canada, and in the UK.

In our country those issues are continuing to raise concern. There have been requests from stakeholders and organisations for extensions on the time to make submissions on this legislation. I am pleased to say that there does appear to be an extension of 1 week for the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation. In the case of the other piece of legislation there is no extension. This is not democracy. This is not accountability. This is very concerning.

There is one risk that is not in this—one of our biggest risks is that the good guys who catch the bad guys will not always be seen as the good guys if their capacity to delve deeply into what should be private goes too far. Instead of appointing Tony Ryall to this committee there should be an independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence agencies. That is what we need to have in this country.

I am absolutely delighted to have an opportunity to contribute to this debate. I believe it is one of the more important matters that this House has had the opportunity to address itself to. It is very much important for all New Zealanders because of the far-reaching implications of the recent revelations about the United States’ security agencies—of the PRISM, the US National Security Agency capabilities—and the implications they have for all New Zealanders and the freedoms that we hold dear.

In World War I, I understand that about 10 percent of New Zealand’s population served overseas—100,000 out of one million New Zealanders. Of those, 40,000 were wounded and 18,000 were killed. Over half of the one in 10 New Zealanders who served overseas became casualties of the Great War. When we look around this House, we see names like Messines, Egypt, El Alamein, or Gallipoli. We are reminded that the freedoms that we enjoy today have been paid for by the price of the blood of earlier generations of New Zealanders. We who stand or sit here in relative security and comfort can have no idea of the sacrifices that they made and the hardships that they endured. But we can have pride, for example, that when the tide turned at El Alamein, it was the Kiwis and the Aussies who were in the front line of that break out. We have always punched above our weight as international citizens, and we are not cowards.

The Labour Opposition is not calling for proper constitutional safeguards because we are scared to play our part in constructive international citizenship, nor are we saying that New Zealand citizens do not deserve the protection of proper, legally authorised, and capable intelligence agencies. The three questions that we must address ourselves to in this debate are: how did the vacancy occur that the Hon Tony Ryall is now being called upon to fill; what are the key challenges of that role and how are they changing; and what changes are required for the security apparatus to keep up to date with the changes around the world?

Let me first address the first of those issues. Obviously, as others have said, this vacancy has arisen and Mr Ryall is being called forward because the Hon Peter Dunne is no longer asked to serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee. It is not, as the Prime Minister has said to the public and to this House, because there is any legal reason that as he is no longer a Minister he cannot serve. The Prime Minister lied to the public. And that is material because, at the end of the day, the entire intelligence apparatus—and the public confidence in it—rests upon confidence in the word of the Prime Minister, who is the head of this committee, and upon the public’s trust in the political independence and neutrality of that apparatus. Like in no time that I can remember since Rob Muldoon used the intelligence agencies to spy on Colin Moyle, have I ever been more concerned than today about the political neutrality of this important institution. John Key is the new Muldoon. This is the new Colin Moyle scandal, and this has to stop.

Peter Dunne may or may not have leaked the Kitteridge report ahead of time. He has not been able to satisfy the Prime Minister that he did not, and the Prime Minister is entitled to sack him or ask for his resignation as a result. That is not in dispute. What may be in dispute is that another member of Parliament may have had access to copies, he says, of the self-same emails and text messages. If so—and the Prime Minister disputes it—I ask how that could have occurred. If his communications as an individual or as a Minister were secure in this complex, how could another member of Parliament have received copies of them?

I would go so far as to say that the stability of this Government is being called into question, because there is a Minister who has lost his portfolios and who may yet lose his seat if the Privileges Committee were to find against him or if the police were to find against him in a prosecution with a sentence of over 2 years. The stability of the Government would be under threat, because another John Key appointment on this very committee is John Banks. The public will not forget that Mr Banks is under the gun because he somehow forgot that he accepted thousands—tens of thousands—of dollars in donations from one Kim Dotcom. Kim Dotcom was the person whom the Government Communications Security Bureau was allegedly illegally spying on in the first place, which gave rise to the Kitteridge report. What a terrible closed circle of dysfunction. In trying to sort out the Dotcom mess, another National Party prop may have leaked the very report that was supposed to tidy it up. The Government’s majority hangs by a thread—a thread that may be called Peter Dunne, may be called John Banks, or may be called, perhaps, Winston Peters or Tariana Turia.

So New Zealanders must be under no doubt about the gravity of these issues. And John Key says “Trust me.” Well, do you know what the former head of intelligence and security said about the Prime Minister? Sir Bruce Ferguson said that he must be smoking dope for linking the failings in the Government Communications Security Bureau to the deep defence and intelligence background of its former overseers. The former head of the agency has said that the Prime Minister has been blowing smoke because he appointed an old school friend, instead of following a vital—vital—constitutional tradition of political impartiality. It is not OK to ring up your old school friend and tell him to apply for a job that you happen to be responsible for, and to reject every other candidate put forward by the State Services Commission and the intelligence agencies in favour of your mate. Why does that matter? Because the freedoms of New Zealanders, paid for at El Alamein, matter. If I am angry, it is because I feel that we are dishonouring them.

New Zealanders may not appreciate the seriousness of this issue, but here is why it does matter. I bring the House to the second of my two key points. This week a commissioner of the European Commission wrote to the United States Attorney General and said that she was raising serious concerns that the American intelligence agencies are “accessing and processing, on a large scale, the data of European Union citizens using major US online service providers, [which] could have grave consequences for the fundamental rights of EU citizens.” She asked the following question of the US Attorney General: are PRISM and other similar programs aimed only at the data of US citizens? And for New Zealanders, just to be clear, these computers pick up every email, every text, and every Facebook post. Every time you access the internet—every single time—they record the trails that could identify those communications. That may not be wrong. The world is a dangerous place and we need to be proofed from legitimate threats. We do not want terrorists or foreign powers taking down our electricity system or our hospital system or our buildings. But they can be right only if they are protected by the law—the rule of law—and by the dispassionate, apolitical, demonstrably transparent oversight of the intelligence community. It is that tradition that is under the greatest threat today that it has been under since Rob Muldoon jacked up the resignation of Colin Moyle using the SIS.

I say to New Zealanders that the time has come to be very, very concerned about the progressive erosion of your freedoms and civil liberties by this National Government. Nobody now trusts John Key. Nobody trusts John Key, a man who appointed his school friend to run the spy shop, then lied about it. He is a man who lied about how he was required to sack Peter Dunne off this committee. And who knows what else he is lying about—

💬 Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member knows that he cannot accuse anyone in this House of lying.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Yes, I just ask the member to be very careful. He has 11 seconds left.

I challenge the Government to assure New Zealanders that the spy agencies are not accessing the data of other international counterparts to spy on New Zealand citizens in circumvention of legal warrant requirements, and to have that requirement written into the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill that it has brought to this House. I require the Government to assure us that it will implement every recommendation—

Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired. Members, this debate has concluded. The question is that the amendment in the name of Brendan Horan be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary, No. The Noes have it.

Amendment not agreed to.