Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill

I move, That the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill be now read a second time. The bill was referred to the Law and Order Committee in May 2013 and I would like to thank the committee for its consideration of the bill. I also want to acknowledge the many useful public submissions that have resulted in changes to the bill.

The bill contains two key parts. Part 2 of the bill amends and replaces existing obligations on telecommunications companies in the Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act of 2004 to ensure that obligations are targeted, future proof, and flexible. Part 3 of the bill introduces a new network security framework to ensure that network operators work with the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to identify and address security risks in the design, build, and operation of public telecommunications networks at the point that decisions are being made. This builds on and formalises the approach taken today. These parts are reinforced by a robust compliance and enforcement framework.

Looking firstly at interception capability, submitters said that there were some ambiguities in the bill as introduced, and in response definitions have been clarified, such as the definition of “service provider”. This will put beyond doubt that the provisions of this bill apply to all service providers that make their telecommunication services available in New Zealand. There has been a change to clarify the position on decryption in relation to the duty to assist. Once more, this puts beyond doubt that network operators or service providers may be required to decrypt a communication only if they themselves have provided the encryption. The select committee heard from industry that it needed time to participate in decision-making processes and also to implement its obligations, so amendments have been made to ensure that companies will have a reasonable amount of time in which to make submissions to a Minister and reasonable time frames to comply with any directions or new obligations.

Looking at network security, the select committee has made two key additions to the network security requirements to provide greater certainty to industry about how network security risks will be identified and how the framework will work in practice. The first is that the bill sets out a clear decision-making process that the Director of the GCSB and the Minister responsible for the GCSB will follow in finding a network security risk. The second is that the bill now provides that the GCSB can issue guidelines that will assist the industry in complying with its requirements. These amendments respond to requests from the industry for greater specificity and certainty. The industry also sought that the framework be better targeted. The select committee has made a number of changes to achieve this. It has narrowed the scope of the requirement for network operators to engage so that it is clearly focused on future risks, while also ensuring that the director can exempt network operators from discussing matters that will not raise network security risks.

Amendments have also been made to give greater clarity to network operators about the areas of the networks that they must report on when they are proposing changes or making procurement decisions. In addition, the bill now provides that the director can identify only network security risks that are more than minimal. This responds to concerns from industry that minor issues could have been raised with it.

To ensure that the GCSB acts in a timely way and does not unduly interfere with network operators’ commercial operations, the select committee has included a new statutory principle for network security that requires the director to make any decision or take any required steps as soon as practicable. Together these amendments will provide greater clarity and certainty to network operators about network security requirements.

In respect of the compliance and enforcement provisions, the bill as introduced provided for the protection of classified security information and court proceedings and that a special advocate be available to assist non-Crown parties in court by accessing classified information on their behalf. Submitters said that the special advocate provisions could be strengthened, giving more safeguards to non-Crown parties. The select committee has responded to this by making amendments to allow a special advocate to make oral and written submissions to the court, and to cross-examine witnesses, allowing the non-Crown party to propose a person to be the special advocate and by making it clear that the relevant surveillance agency is to pay the cost of that special advocate. These changes will provide additional protections to network operators and service providers in court proceedings.

I will shortly be asking the House to consider a Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee of the whole House stage that will also make a number of additional amendments. Firstly, that Supplementary Order Paper proposes removing the ministerial direction power in relation to overseas telecommunication services resold in New Zealand, as this could create a competitive disparity if applied, and we agree is better addressed through the enforcement framework. Secondly, the Supplementary Order Paper introduces a review by the Commissioner of Security Warrants of the material that has informed the opinion of the Director of the GCSB that there is a significant network security risk. This will be a mandatory step in the process if the director is considering referring the matter to the Minister responsible. If a direction is sought, the Minister must consider the report from the commissioner.

The Supplementary Order Paper will also strengthen and clarify the matters that the Minister responsible for the GCSB must take into account before issuing any direction on network security. This will require a thorough weighing of costs and benefits. The Supplementary Order Paper also contains other minor amendments, such as narrowing the kinds of changes that a network operator must not notify to the Government.

This bill is about reducing obligations on some network operators to pre-invest in interception capability. It allows more flexible and faster processes for exemptions, and provides a structured process for changing obligations where there is an operational need. These changes are important so that our legislation can keep pace with the changing telecommunications industry and remain fit for purpose. The network security framework formalises and builds on the existing partnership approach taken between Government and some network operators. It allows the sharing of information and collaboration between Government and industry, to help ensure that the public telecommunications networks are secure, and remain secure. The shared compliance and enforcement framework underpinning the bill gives surveillance agencies an ability to deal with minor and serious non-compliance in more appropriate ways.

Finally, can I respond to some of the incorrect claims that have been put forward by some groups, which do not reflect an accurate understanding of what the bill does and does not do. There have been incorrect claims that this bill will create back doors in our public telecommunications networks. This is simply incorrect. Encryption requirements do not have the effect of weakening encryption or creating security vulnerabilities. The requirements in this regard are consistent with the position in the current Act. The bill also does not require a network operator to provide open access to their networks to surveillance agencies. The bill also maintains requirements on network operators and service providers to protect the privacy of communications not affected by the warrant.

The bill does not provide for the GCSB to force a company to fundamentally undermine the security of their services, as some have claimed. The only role of the GCSB in relation to network security is to identify risk and to advise the network operator. It is up to the network operator solely to take any action. It is only where the GCSB believes that there is a significant risk to national security that it can advise the Minister to issue a direction. This is an option of last resort for our most serious security concerns. Again, I would like to reassure the public that this bill does not change in any way the authority of agencies to intercept telecommunications. It does not change existing privacy protections, and it does not require data to be stored or require any stored data to be disclosed. The bill relates only to real-time interception under warrant. This bill gives greater clarity and certainty to industry about their obligations and will ensure that our law enforcement and security agencies have the appropriate support from industry to keep New Zealand and New Zealanders safe. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to take a call in this second reading of the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill to place on record Labour’s continuing strong opposition to this legislation. We do so for three principal reasons. The first is that the bill facilitates the implementation of its companion legislation, the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act, which fundamentally reduces the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders by providing insufficient protection against the spying on New Zealand citizens by State agencies. The second reason is that the bill is so poorly and broadly drafted that it raises a raft of questions that have not been fully debated in the Law and Order Committee or by the Minister for Communications and Information Technology, who cannot even be bothered listening to the arguments that have been raised. Shame—shame! Thirdly, it is because such concessions as have been made under pressure have been made only to the global majors, the Googles and the Facebooks, not to the citizens of New Zealand, and that is very revealing about whose interests this Government will in fact listen to.

Let us turn first to the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act, and this is relevant and absolutely fundamental to the core of this bill because the interception capabilities it provides for are a necessary step for the operation of the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act. It is completely nonsensical to say, as the Minister just has, that this bill does not change the privacy protections. It does not need to, because they have just been done away with in the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act, which this legislation implements. Without this legislation, the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act could not work because it would not be able to plumb into people’s telecommunications systems. Likewise, the Minister’s protestation that this is only real-time interception and has nothing to do with data storage is ridiculous because it facilitates the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act, which makes clear that the storage of data is completely within the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). So it goes through the pipe, which this bill institutes, and it is then subsequently stored. We oppose this bill because of its instrumental effects, as well as its intrinsic weaknesses.

Let me turn to a raft of problems in the drafting. To say that this bill is too broad and its drafting is shoddy is to pay it a compliment. It expands the reach of interception obligations to a much wider group of companies—now, for the very first time, including service providers. So all internet service providers are, as a starting proposition, covered by the impact of this bill. Any internet service providers, even smaller ones, must at the very least be “intercept ready”, and substantial ones must actually be intercepted. That is a huge cost, and it is a huge broadening of the powers of the State to access the private information of New Zealanders. But they do not care about the balance between protecting New Zealanders from foreign attack and protecting New Zealanders from the loss of their own freedoms, because there is no adequate protection in this bill.

Let me get a little technical for a second. In the companion Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act, it provides for the ability to intercept “all transmissions” that apply to “information infrastructure” for any purpose to do with “cybersecurity”. So the GCSB only has to decide that a risk is related to cyber-security, and it can take any step, without a warrant, to address matters to do with information infrastructure, which includes all of the transmissions going across it. That is not just phone calls; that is emails, text messages, gaming, records from Google and Facebook—a history of anybody’s internet use. In fact, the entire so-called digital shadow of any New Zealand citizen could be deemed to be a transmission for the purposes of information infrastructure and thus is accessible without a warrant under the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act. It is this bill that technically makes that possible. How could any responsible party sign up to that?

The Prime Minister, when confronted with those issues, said that he would require a warrant for cyber-security intercepts. When asked to put that personal assurance in the bill, he said: “Oh, no—oh, no.” We all know that the Prime Minister’s personal assurances are not worth the paper that the media report is written on. Take, for example, “I will not raise GST.”, or “Working for Families is communism by stealth.”, or a host of other slippery little manoeuvres that mean that the Prime Minister’s word is not to be accepted. The case for the expansion of these powers has not been made.

Let me raise another very serious matter in relation to that. In the companion bill, now the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act, there is no explicit requirement for the warranting provisions to apply to overseas-sourced data that is used by the New Zealand agencies. As we all know, we are part of the “Five Eyes” partners. If the New Zealand agencies were required to get a warrant to access the data on, say, a member of Parliament, the overseas partners were not. Thus, the New Zealand agency need only ask for or dial up the information obtained by the “Five Eyes” partner, and, hey presto, the requirement for a warrant could be circumvented. The Government has never, in the history of the GCSB legislation, answered that debate. Today, we are asked to pass legislation that provides the pipes and wires that make that travesty possible. So there is no doubt at all as to why the Labour Party opposes this rotten bill. It is because it gives effect to another rotten bill that should never have been passed by the New Zealand Parliament.

The definitions in this bill are all over the place. It widens its scope to network operators, service providers, and resold overseas telecommunications company services. Like the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act, it widens the scope for interception from security matters to economic matters. Well, goodness me! Economic matters could be anything—anything—within the purview of the Minister for Economic Development—

💬 Grant Robertson: That’s everything.

—which is, as we know, pretty much anything, because here he is, representing the entire Government. Why? Because this bill gives him the power to intercept anything that he or his agencies deem to be of economic advantage. That is a travesty. The only thing standing between New Zealanders’ personal privacy and that Minister is John Key’s word.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: That’s a scary thought.

That is a truly scary thought.

On the third broad issue that we have raised, we welcome the withdrawal of the odious clause 39, which meant that the Government, by fiat, could prevent the provision at all of a telecommunications service in New Zealand. But we note that it is only in response to the Googles and the Microsofts of the world—rather like, perhaps, the Warner Bros of the world—that this Government is ever prepared to change its mind. To say “change its mind” might be something of an overstatement in regard to certain of its members.

But what about the interests of the ordinary New Zealander? Today we drew attention to the loss of jobs in our regions, and the Government felt it was OK to laugh. It may laugh, but New Zealanders will get their own back when the ballot boxes open in a year’s time, and they rise up to say very, very, simply: “No. 1, we think our rights and freedoms matter. No. 2, you, Big Brother National, have not made the case to take them away. You have not got the balance right. This legislation stinks, and we, the little people, matter.” They matter as much as Google. They matter as much as Facebook. They matter as much as Apple. They matter as much as Amazon. They matter as much as anything, because it is the principle, not the power, that should be guiding the Government in framing fundamentally important legislation that affects the rights, personal freedoms, and privileges of every single New Zealander.

I rise with great pleasure in the second reading of the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. This bill repeals and replaces the Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act 2004. It is probably good to remind the House, and for the House to remember, that that was in fact a bill that was brought in by the previous Labour Government. So it does seem a little unnatural, does it not, for the Labour Government to have brought in the original Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act, and for the Labour members now—perhaps it is matter of convenience—to not support this bill before the House.

I think it would be a great idea for this House to remember what this bill is for, and what this bill is intended to do. So, there are two parts to this bill. The first part is to clarify interception obligations for telecommunications companies, recognising that time has passed since 2004, when the then Labour Government brought in the original Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act 2004. The second part introduces a transparent network security regime for network operators and for the Government to work together on matters of national security. That is what the bill is for—for telecommunications companies and the Government to work together on matters of national security. To believe otherwise, I think that one would have to live in some kind of parallel universe, where it was not believed that there was a necessity for police and security agencies to have the ability to solve crime. That is what this bill empowers our security agencies and our police, on receipt of a warrant, to do—to get in and to solve crime. So, interception of telecommunications and intercepting telecommunications in real time play an absolutely vital role in investigating crime, in disrupting crime, in prosecuting crime, in detecting and prosecuting international and domestic cyber-crime, in combating threats to national security, and in responding to emergencies such as kidnappings, which happen in our society.

If the Labour members want to turn a blind eye to national security, then on their heads be it, because in opposing this bill, that is exactly what Labour is doing. What Labour is saying to the people of New Zealand is that it does not believe there is any serious crime in New Zealand, that it does not believe that methamphetamine is a problem, that it does not believe that there are cyber-crime issues, or that there are issues relating to overseas companies’ investment into New Zealand and our global reputation as a good place to do business. Labour does not buy into any of those issues in opposing this bill. Well, I can tell Labour that that is exactly what this telecommunications bill does.

I just want to go over a couple of case studies. One relates to the solving of crime to do with methamphetamine. The New Zealand Police were advised by an overseas police force about an organised crime group that was smuggling drugs and precursors to drugs into New Zealand, so the New Zealand Police—and, of course, they were acting under the 2004 Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act, which was brought in by the previous Labour Government—were able to intercept communications and bring about a successful prosecution. I think they realised something like 150 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, which otherwise, had it not been intercepted, would have ended up on the streets of New Zealand, in the communities that Labour professes to care so much about. It would have caused untold misery to the very people whom Labour professes to really care about because of the interception capability under the previous telecommunications Act, which is being brought up to date with this bill. That crime would have gone unsolved and untold misery would have been brought about for the New Zealand public.

Another case study I just want to talk about is to identify and rule out innocent people. A child was murdered, again, under the time of the previous telecommunications Act, which was brought in by the previous Labour Government—you see, Labour liked national security when it was in Government, so why is it that it does not like national security any more? Perhaps the next speaker from Labour might explain to the House how not supporting this bill would have helped this child who was kidnapped, where the police regarded the child’s own family as being responsible? How much heartache would there be around circumstances like that? Through the telecommunications of the day, the police were able to determine that the child’s own family were not responsible for this crime and, indeed, the police were able to detect who the perpetrators of the crime were. Well, Labour needs to tell the House how, without the kind of provision that is being brought in by this bill, we are going to solve crimes like that. How are the police and our security agencies going to protect New Zealanders if it were not for this bill? That is what this legislation is all about, and I commend it to the House.

It is a pity that the chair of the Law and Order Committee did not spend more time talking about the bill before the House, the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill, rather than the previous legislation. New Zealand is a small, stable democracy and the provisions around the privacy of our citizens should be paramount. The security of our public and our private sector entities is also paramount. The mark of a democracy is to commit to both and to always strive to achieve a balance. Unfortunately, this bill before us today tips that balance, and it tips that balance, along with its companion bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau Bill, in ways that ignore the importance of citizens’ privacy. It also ignores the concerns of New Zealand - based companies in our New Zealand technology industry. It also largely ignores the concerns of the bigger internationally based internet companies that are increasingly providing services to New Zealanders over the internet, and it has ignored the concerns of civil society.

This is a bill that New Zealand should, and does, feel ashamed of, and it is one that this Government has made effectively no case for. It has barely listened and it is rushing the legislation through the last stages in this week because it knows that it cannot truly defend it and it wants to get it over and done with as soon as possible. We need a rights-based approach to policy making and to legislation in this country—one that promotes New Zealand as an innovative nation in a digital environment, one that guarantees the privacy of citizens’ information, and one that promotes a digital economy in a fair and open, transparent manner, not one that is setting up barriers and that results in a chilling effect on our digital economy. That is what this bill does today.

There are many reasons to vote against it. There are three main ones, which I am going to touch on today in this second reading speech. Firstly, this bill impinges on the rights of New Zealanders. It creates a chilling effect on New Zealand industry and it has resulted in major internationally based service providers calling into question the conflict between this bill and international law, and the extraordinary increased powers being provided to both the Government Communications Security Bureau and Ministers without checks and balances to provide balance against a rights-based approach.

New Zealand has the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We are proud of this framework and we believe it is there for a purpose. Every piece of legislation that passes through this House is meant to be vetted against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and the Attorney-General is meant to report any consequences. We can make comment about the rubber-stamping of that vetting process, which is increasingly apparent under this Government, but we should also make comment about what happens when a bill is significantly amended in the select committee and where it appears that there may indeed be conflicts with other law.

Labour supports InternetNZ’s submission in calling for a thorough test of this bill, the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill, against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The New Zealand Law Society called for the same in its submission on the Government Communications Security Bureau Bill. In its sparingly used direct reporting power to the Prime Minister, the Human Rights Commission determined that the Ministry of Justice’s vetting of the Government Communications Security Bureau Bill and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act both fell short. Just as the Government Communications Security Bureau Bill failed to provide the adequate safeguards for people’s privacy to balance that intrusive right of the State to collect the private information of New Zealanders, the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill, as implementing legislation, has failed as well, and the Government has refused to add adequate safeguards.

My motion put at the beginning of the second reading of this bill sought to refer the bill back to the Law and Order Committee following the amendments put forward by the Minister last night, because it is our view that although most of those amendments are window dressing, the impact of those amendments need to be tested against advice by officials and that there has not been discussion at the select committee about the costs and implications on networks of the capital expenditure required to comply with the provisions of this bill. So Labour stands by its comment that the Government has been negligent and irresponsible in its approach to this bill and in its handling of the bill through the whole of the select committee process.

I want to comment on two other aspects of the bill that submitters raised in the select committee and subsequently that have not been addressed and that leave us with a deeply flawed and anti-democratic piece of law, which will have a chilling effect on our innovative economy. The Minister for Communications and Information Technology has claimed that this bill is merely an updating and modernising of previous legislation and that it does not increase the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau or Ministers; rather, it clarifies those powers and clarifies the duty to assist of various organisations. Well, if that were true, then Labour would have very little to argue with in this bill, because we agree that modernising legislation is important, we acknowledge that law in the digital environment is important, and we agree that ensuring the security of citizens and public and private sector entities is important. We also acknowledge that the important role of our security agencies is important. But this bill does not do that.

The definition of a “network operator” in the legislation is so broad that it captures any entity that has an interactive website—any entity that has an interactive website. I say that again because it is really important. It uses the broadest possible definition of a “network operator”, which is “(b) a person who supplies (whether by wholesale or retail) another person with the capability to provide a telecommunications service”. As the Minister has heard from submitters, this encompasses just about everyone involved in the information and communications technology sector who supplies “goods, services, equipment, and facilities that enable or facilitate” the “conveyance by electromagnetic means from one device to another”. That is the definition of a network operator drawn from this bill, but it relies on the definition of “telecommunications service” drawn from the Telecommunications Act. So that could mean any software as a service that allows a user to share content via a social networking site, such as a post to Facebook or Twitter. It would appear that any web-based platform, provided that it includes those social functions that are then used to enable or facilitate telecommunication, may be caught. That could include the Stuff website, the New Zealand Herald website, the Television New Zealand or the TV3 websites, or the TradeMe website. Are those services caught up in the definition of this bill? I am advised that technically they are. So what are the implications of this bill for our news media?

It can also include a physical data centre provider that leases rack space to a virtual server provider, which in turn leases space and services on those virtual servers to businesses, which enables customers of those businesses to communicate electronically with each other. They also appear to be under the definition of a network operator. All or some of the businesses in that chain may be defined as network operators.

Every member of Parliament today will have received a letter from NZRise, which is the industry group for the New Zealand - owned digital technology sector. NZRise wrote to all of us and asked us to vote against this bill because it says that the bill is drafted so broadly that it creates huge uncertainty, and that, therefore, creates business and investment risk for anyone in the New Zealand information and communications technology industry, or anyone considering entering it. NZRise says that the compliance obligations create chilling and unworkable effects. It says that many non-traditional telecommunications companies will technically and financially be unable to comply with those obligations, so they will be faced with either being in breach or curtailing their activities. This is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that a bill should have gone through a select committee process, and that the Minister for Communications and Information Technology and the National-dominated committee should have ignored all of the advice and all of the submissions on this particular issue. If for no other reason, this is a reason to oppose this bill.

I rise to speak to the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. We too agree that this bill should actually have gone back to the Law and Order Committee because of the changes to it. In fact, changes were dropped to us even as late as last night, in terms of Supplementary Order Paper 366, which has got right down into some of the things that we were, in fact, asking for. But they have not been addressed properly, and we have not been able to look at them deeply enough yet. Some of them appear to be helpful to industry to a degree, but there is certainly nothing helpful for the citizenry of New Zealand.

This bill is part of the fix following the Government’s mess-up with illegal spying on at least 85 people whom it has admitted to spying on. The Government admitted to illegally spying. Then we got the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) bill and now we have the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill, which is its partner in crime, as such. The GCSB bill has basically set up the philosophy that you can spy on New Zealanders, that you can invade their privacy, and that you can breach their human rights, and then this bill is the technical part of how that can happen.

There are some little chips and changes, it seems, and as we get into the Committee stage later we can maybe look at those a little bit more deeply. But there is a bundle of people—80-plus people—who have the right right now to know whether they were illegally spied on while it was illegal. They are, I am very sure, due for an apology because not one of them whom I am aware of was arrested or charged with any crime, and yet they were illegally spied on. Then we would also need to ask how they were spied on, exactly which agency or agencies spied on them, and what conduit was used to spy on them. Was it part of what is covered in this bill? Was it something external to New Zealand and fed back into New Zealand?

Although we are opposing this bill, we also see this bill as a veneer. It is just a wee bit of a legalised surface to the whole spying operation. We have had plenty in international media, and consequently in New Zealand media, about Edward Snowden, PRISM, the National Security Agency in the United States, and its link into New Zealand through the Waihopai spy base and the GCSB. What was going on there? And what we have been saying for decades—and now it has been shown to come true—is not even covered by this bill. This bill certainly opens up the portals that those agencies will be able to exploit, possibly without the different service providers even knowing. The service providers make sure that their technology and their services are snoop-friendly. Sometimes, no doubt, they will be aware that that is happening when there is a proper warrant and everything going through, but do they know for the rest of the time? Did they know in the past, when New Zealand’s “Five Eyes” complicity was involved, that the information that was going through their portals was being taken away and being stored by the National Security Agency of the United States?

The Minister for Communications and Information Technology says that this bill is no back door. It may be that this bill does not seem to be that, but the fact is that the different service providers have to either have their services intercept-ready or be capable of doing that at relatively short notice, because this bill goes on about the short time they have to comply. Is it a back door? I do not think the Minister can say that with the confidence she appeared to have before.

I point out that in the United States at least one operator has said that it is over it and that it is not going to even carry on operating in this business any more, because it is not prepared to be complicit with the breach of human rights. It was not prepared to have surveillance on its customers, and it has actually closed down shop. This is part of the risk here where some operators will not provide services that could be available in other parts of the world, because they are not prepared for their customers to be under this sort of surveillance, and it clearly stops the innovation within New Zealand. I do note as well that in the Supplementary Order Paper, which we will get into through the Committee stage, innovation is mentioned as one of the considerations, and I think that is a positive thing. However, that is very subjective. We have got no idea as to what degree innovation will be considered at that point.

The Minister has invited us to meet some time to discuss the legislation, and I think that will be appropriate and we will take that up. But one aspect in her note to the Green Party states that nothing in the information-gathering powers under clauses 72 and 73 will permit a designated officer or the GCSB director to require a network operator to supply, produce, or reproduce any information that could have been obtained or should have been sought under an interception warrant or other lawful interception authority. That is that back-door part, and that will be something I would like to explore. Some things I will point out, but other things about that I will question. The “Five Eyes” scenario that we are part of through Waihopai definitely seems to be part of that.

I notice that Google, Microsoft, Skype, and Apple are still unhappy, even though the Minister appears to have tried to make some changes to accommodate some of their concerns. They are still unhappy. They can see where the weaknesses lie in this bill. The Minister has also given us a flow chart showing us where intercept ability already exists, what the current Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act does, and where the proposed changes sit, and she has said what the bill does not do. She says that it does not change the authority of agencies to intercept communications. Well, we have got the Government Communications Security Bureau Act and the Search and Surveillance Act, both of which certainly allow a certain amount of interception of telecommunications. So, no, this bill does not do that; it is basically just, as someone described it, the pipes and the conduits to do that. She says that it does not change existing privacy protections. No. We have asked for, we still believe in, and we will be looking forward—later, in 2014—to being able to initiate a full inquiry into the security services in this country, to ensure that we have an understanding of what is going on with our security agencies. We might also be able to find out how the Minister can say the things she is saying, when Snowden and others have exposed those “Five Eyes” points. We might be able to expose who the 80-plus people were who were spied on unreasonably. The Green Party will be opposing this bill through its stages. Thank you.

When the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill came before the House in its first reading, New Zealand First said that we would support it going to the Law and Order Committee, and that our support was conditional on there being sufficient oversight and safeguards put in place so that the rights and freedoms of New Zealand citizens and residents are not jeopardised or disregarded in the execution of the powers that this bill encompasses.

The fact is, though, that at the select committee it became very apparent that this bill has been watered down, but that the Hon Amy Adams does not understand it, or the internet, or any of the technical implications of the law she is trying to pass. She has four of the largest providers of internet content and email—Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Facebook—saying that there will be legal conflicts with other countries, and that this law is out of alignment with approaches taken by the UK, Canada, the United States, and Australia. That is pretty damning when you think about it, because those are the other parties to the “Five Eyes” arrangement, much vaunted by the members of the National Government for a long period of time. The New Zealand Government’s approach differed from how the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia had decided to tackle interception issues—so say Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo!. However, Amy Adams rejected that, saying that this bill was “not out of step”. The real question straight away becomes how she would know.

The reality is that New Zealand First is concerned by the way the Government and Ministers, and the Prime Minister in particular, expect people to believe their assurances—assurances blandly given. You will recall that before the House rose for the adjournment, we raised the issue of a raid by the SIS in July of last year on members of the Fiji Democracy and Freedom movement in this country. Here is Mr Key’s answer: “I am not in a position to comment on that.”, he said. “I do not have those details, but I will say that I understand that there has been a radio report—at least, I have been advised that Mr Singh said that he complained to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. I am advised that the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has no record of a formal complaint to the inspector-general in relation to what the member is talking about. If Mr Singh feels there is a problem, he should follow his legal rights and make a complaint to the inspector-general.” Well, there was a complaint to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has referred that on to the inspector-general, but the Prime Minister came to this House and he told everyone that there is no concern, because the only example of illegality is in the case of Kim Dotcom. That was his statement.

When you see a group like United Front for a Democratic Fiji put out, on Thursday, 10 October—just a few days ago—a statement like this, you have got to be concerned. It said: “It is therefore with nothing short of horror that the council has reacted to the response by the Prime Minister to recent revelations in Parliament regarding an illegal raid carried out by the SIS in July last year upon members of the Fiji Democracy and Freedom movement in Auckland, in which the Terrorism Suppression Act was invoked by way of justification.” The raid was based upon the pretext of alleged discovery of an assassination plot against the Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama. That is the background to this. Do not forget that the Prime Minister, on successive days, got up in Parliament and said there was nothing to worry about.

Here are the objectionable features. The raid was carried out in collusion with the Fiji military. That is abundantly clear from all the texts from the commander of the Fiji land forces back to New Zealand, all on his phone, showing that he had knowledge, at the time the raid was being carried out, of the raid itself. The second matter is this: those carrying out the raids, who identified themselves as members of the SIS, asserted that there was cogent evidence to support the assertion of the existence of an assassination plot, yet no follow-up action or criminal proceedings were ever taken or are prospected to be taken even now. So that disposes of that humbug. Third, the plot—the subject of the raids—was used as a pretext for stripping a New Zealander of his New Zealand passport, whereas when he filed proceedings in the High Court to challenge that step, the Minister of Internal Affairs backed down and conceded, one week before the set hearing date occurred. So one week out, when challenged with all this information and knowing that it now had to justify the SIS action, the Government withdrew. Again, the Prime Minister claims that there is nothing wrong with that—nothing untoward.

This is the fourth point: no warrant was shown to justify the raids. A warrant was requested to be shown, but was refused to be shown on the basis of being confidential. That is a most extraordinary claim for an SIS officer—a female in this case—to make, because the reason why the warrant is in that person’s hands is that it is the legal and authoritative justification for that member to be there carrying out that raid. When requested, it must be shown. In fact, it should be shown voluntarily. Plus, their name should be given. So on all four counts, the Prime Minister’s assurance to this House is found wanting, and seriously wanting. That might be the behaviour of somebody from Merrill Lynch, but it is not the behaviour of someone who seeks to lead one of the great democracies of this world, one of only nine nations that can boast a long line of unbroken elections for the last 150 years. That is how much this Prime Minister misunderstands his duties and responsibilities. He is prepared to come here and say “Trust me.” Really? Why would we, given that when he is asked this series of questions over 2 days, he gives these bland assurances that because he is in charge, he can be trusted? Everyone knows now that he cannot be.

This case will not go away, but it is the background to the kind of information that is being discussed in this House today, and here comes the Minister for Communications and Information Technology, who says “Look, I’ll send somebody to brief you.” Who? Her? What is her expertise in this industry? You have got Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook, all of which know that their arrangements with the other “Five Eyes” countries—Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA—are different. But, no, we are expected to believe that by some giant intellectual feat, this Minister and the Prime Minister can be trusted to understand the issue and ensure that the legal safeguards are in place.

What the bill is basically asking for is the equivalent of getting New Zealand Post, at a moment’s notice, to read all incoming mail for a group of people, make it contact whoever wrote the letters, and demand that they cooperate with the New Zealand Government.

💬 Jacqui Dean: Not true.

I know that what I have just heard from over there is rubbish, but I am not dealing in the speciality of that member from the South Island; we are dealing with facts. What the bill is basically asking from us is the equivalent of getting New Zealand Post, at a moment’s notice, to read all incoming mail for a group of people, make it contact whoever wrote the letters, and demand that they cooperate with the New Zealand Government. How on earth is that responsibility one that New Zealand Post should bear? New Zealand Post is also expected to bear the cost. That is exactly what is going on here. In this case, the internet service provider—that institution—is the post office. It will pass the costs on to the consumers to pay for the privilege, madam, of being spied upon. Either put up somebody else to refute the argument being put up by the Opposition or kindly keep quiet, because sitting there and not putting anyone up is not an adequate defence for what the Government says is a laudable, needed, essential bill for the security and safety of New Zealanders.

That is why we have changed from supporting the bill, having seen it at the select committee hearings and seen the way the Minister has treated it, to now opposing it.

The Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill is a very good bill. In simple terms, we would be negligent as a country, as a Government, and as a party if we allowed a company to come in here and build a highway—a privately built highway—gave people access to it, and allowed them to use it without any form of oversight and without any form of policing. You are going to get a lot of people who want to use that road. They are going to want to use that highway, and they are going to want to use it for legitimate purposes. But I can tell you something right now: you are going to get a lot of people who want to use it for illegal purposes. If we as a country turn round and say: “You know what? Go for it. Fill your boots. Use it any way you want.”, then we are not going to be able to do anything about it.

All we have done is we have said that the police, if they have information, will be able to access the information that is being used on these information highways. It is a good bill. The bill does not change the fundamentals of existing safeguards to protect people’s privacy, it does not change in any way the authority of agencies to intercept telecommunications, and it still requires data to be stored and stored data to be disclosed. Thank you.

This legislation, the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill, as I foreshadowed in the first reading of the bill, shows all the signs of being rushed, being ill-conceived, and lacking proper consultation. We saw that with major changes made at the Law and Order Committee. The authors of the bill seemed to imagine that they could order the network providers to decrypt communications carried over their networks for which they never had the keys for the decryption to take place. They had to back off that. The authors of this bill and the Government seemed to think that they could order companies that were not domiciled in New Zealand to follow our law as against the conflict with the laws in their country of origin. They had to admit that and back off that.

They made changes in the select committee, but I woke up this morning and read the Dominion Post to find that another major change has been made at the eleventh hour, coming in in the Minister Amy Adams’s Supplementary Order Paper 366, and that is that clause 39 will now be removed. That is the clause that allows the Government to block an overseas company from offering services in New Zealand if it lacks interception capability. What is the cause of that? That change in that Supplementary Order Paper has been made outside of the select committee process. It has been made in a private deal between the Minister and some of the big companies. We have not been given an explanation and we should be given an explanation as to why the Government members on the select committee were ordered to stand behind that clause all the way through the discussions, to die in a ditch for the Government’s stand on it, only to have the rug pulled out from under their feet and to have that clause changed at the eleventh hour. Does that sound to you like legislation that is properly thought through, properly worked out, and introduced in the right way?

Do you know how it was introduced? It was tabled one day and it came in under urgency the very next day. It was rammed through the House under urgency. And then the Government referred it to a select committee, but it did not give the normal period of time on a particularly complex and controversial piece of legislation for those making submissions to put those submissions together and for the committee to properly consider the bill and analyse its shortcomings and its lack of safeguards. This legislation, in a word, is a shambles, and it is shown by the Minister’s act this very day in reversing a stance that her lobby-fodder MPs on the committee supported all the way through to deliberation.

It is serious that any legislation be handled in this way, but it is particularly serious when you have a piece of legislation that confers major powers on to a Government to intrude on the privacy of New Zealanders and to direct private companies as to how they should operate. This bill, for example, requires companies to notify the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) about any procurement that they might make. And is the company expected to sit back and wait until it gets approval from the Government, whose time frame might be quite unreasonable and might hold up the process of the change that the network provider needs to make? This bill allows the Minister to direct industry to take actions or to desist from taking actions without the adequacy of the safeguards put into the English legislation dealing with security, where you at least had an advisory board where somebody knew the technical details, the implications, and the consequences of what the Minister was doing. Too often we have seen in this House that the Minister him or herself will not understand these technicalities or those implications. We saw that from the Minister of Education at question time today. We needed adequate time to analyse this legislation, but the Government insisted on ramming it through its first reading under urgency and curtailing the time that people had to make submissions and that the committee had to consider those submissions.

The other big worry about this legislation is that it might simply provide the mechanisms for the intrusion on privacy, but what it does is it actually implements a huge policy change made in a related piece of legislation, the Government Communications Security Bureau Act. That legislation was changed, also under urgency, by the Government in order to give this agency, for the first time in its history, the right to spy on New Zealanders. And it did so without even considering—

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: You’re making it up.

—holding an independent public inquiry, which was the first thing, Mr Joyce, that the Australians did when they were introducing their legislation that gave powers to intrude on the privacy of individuals. They held an inquiry, and, by God, we needed an inquiry because this legislation and its associated bill came about because of abuse of power by the GCSB. They came about because there are not sufficient safeguards on how the GCSB exercises its authority. In our fraternal parliaments in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, they do not put the Minister in charge of the agency on the committee that oversees that. They keep Ministers off. But we have our Prime Minister chairing the Intelligence and Security Committee, setting the agenda, and very rarely calling it together, and we call that a safeguard against the abuse of powers of the GCSB.

We opposed the Government Communications Security Bureau Act and therefore we oppose this legislation, which enables it to be implemented. I will remind the House that the Government Communications Security Bureau Act was passed on the vote, by the narrowest of margins, by two votes from two members who are widely regarded by the public as being discredited.

We have not got the safeguards, and we know from what is happening internationally that this sort of legislation needs proper safeguards. We have had the revelations from the leaks by Edward Snowden, the man who showed that the American National Security Agency was actually spying on hundreds of thousands of American citizens, not just citizens who had any association with terrorist or criminal organisations. Actually, it was the Government Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom, revealed in the same leaks, that was spying on friendly allied countries. We need the safeguards in the companion legislation or this legislation will not do.

It is a fact that almost every submission before the Law and Order Committee on this legislation opposed it. Vodafone, Telecom, the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand, InternetNZ, Google, Facebook, Tech Liberty, the New Zealand Law Society, Microsoft, and Mega—every one of those agencies said that this is ill-conceived legislation that will not do what it is meant to do. Let me make this point: we had the officials admit to us that loopholes will prevent this legislation even doing what the Government members have claimed for it. There is a loophole whereby over-the-top providers like Skype—and more and more people are using Skype—are not covered by this legislation, and a loophole that says that small telecommunications companies are exempt. They are massive loopholes that professional terrorist and criminal organisations will use. We will not be catching the crooks, but we will be locking up in the data gathering tens of thousands of innocent New Zealanders, who will be spied upon and whose data will be collected.

In the last minute that I have—I think it is about a minute—I just want to say this. The submission from Google said that given the short time available on the bill it was unable to analyse it properly, but it did say that “The lack of transparency involved in the various processes under the Bill would likely raise public fears of unjustified intrusion into their privacy.” It said that the additional costs in time and the challenges imposed by the bill will discourage local and international entities from making new service offerings available in New Zealand, and also lead to existing agencies withdrawing services. This is bad legislation, introduced under bad process, and Labour is opposing it.

I seek leave for my vote to be recorded in support of the earlier motion to refer the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill to the Law and Order Committee. In doing so, I acknowledge that the Greens support democracy by casting my proxy vote, and I regret that on this occasion I did not clearly communicate my intention to the Greens.

Just as clarification, the member cannot actually seek to go back and change the vote, but he can seek to have it recorded in the Journals of the House. Is that what the member is seeking?

💬 Brendan Horan: Yes.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There is no one. It will be so recorded.

Without security there can be no democracy, and, likewise, with no democracy there will be no security. It seems a little odd, I guess, that I have got to remind the Opposition or that I feel the need to remind the Opposition that the rush around the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill—in fact, the need to introduce this bill at all—was created in 2004 by some inept legislation put in place by the very Labour members who are criticising the bill we have in the House now. We have heard at least three senior members of the House criticising this bill this afternoon. Most of them spent most of the speech time they had talking about something quite contrary to this bill. This bill is a very simple bill. It updates existing provisions that were put in place, as I said earlier, by the Labour Government in 2004, it modernises the existing requirements for telecommunications companies to assist with interception under warrant, and it introduces a formal framework to protect network security.

I want to very briefly comment on one topic that was raised by the last speaker, Phil Goff. I want to briefly talk about encryption, because this bill does not and cannot insist on encryption services being provided when the encryption tools are held by an independent provider. The very best war stories and spy stories all contain most intriguing lines on code-breakers. I do not know what has changed now.

Finally, I just want to comment very briefly on what I thought was amazing advice that we had from a very competent team of advisers on what was a pretty technical bill for us to understand. I think the Law and Order Committee has done pretty well in getting through this bill in the manner it has and in getting it back to the House in the form it has. I also want to congratulate the Minister for Communications and Information Technology on her understanding of the bill and the way she has presented it to the House. Thank you.

I call Gareth Hughes—5 minutes.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to oppose the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. It was around 7 years ago today that we saw masked gunmen on behalf of the New Zealand Government terrorise a community in New Zealand under the rubric of protecting New Zealanders, but all they did was terrorise a community and scaremonger amongst the New Zealand population. What we see 7 years on is a continuation of that Government approach, this time using online and internet communication technologies. I am proud to oppose this bill. It is a small contribution I will be making. I oppose it because I want to stand up for freedom, I want to stand up for Kiwis’ privacy, and I want to stand up for less State interference in people’s lives.

I remember when the last Government was in and we saw low-flow showerheads and efficient light bulbs saving Kiwis money. It was called the nanny State. Here we have the Government under the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Act and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act literally going down the country’s internet cables, through its fibre connections, and into its homes to intercept it. What we are seeing are interceptions on behalf of other Governments as part of our relationships with other “Five Eyes” network Governments. I am proud to be voting against this bill. It is bad law, it is badly drafted, it is being seen through a bad process, it is bad for Kiwis, and it is bad for our thriving information and communications technology sector.

First up, it is bad law. This bill, which is coupled with the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation, rewards the unlawful activities of our spies. What we saw after those Urewera raids was 85 Kiwis unlawfully spied upon. Instead of inquiring into what went wrong and trying to fix those mistakes, what this Government has decided to do is legislate to make right what was unlawful. What we see is the Government expanding its surveillance reach. We now see service providers included under that massive, big government under National. What we see in this law is interception capabilities being enhanced, and then we see on the network security side of this bill that information and communications technology companies now need to consult with the GCSB and get its sign-off for installing new kit, and they must be intercept ready.

It is badly drafted. I would like to quote from NZRise, the open-source software community of New Zealand. It writes that “The bill is currently drafted so broadly it creates huge uncertainty and therefore business and investment risk for anyone in the New Zealand ICT industry or considering entering it.” We see some improvements from the Minister for Communications and Information Technology, like the removal of clause 39, which would rule out things like Facebook Messenger and Google Hangouts, which many Kiwis use, because they use encryption technology. It was incredibly poorly drafted.

We are seeing this through a poor process. We are missing a crucial step, which is an inquiry. We need to find out what this Government got so wrong when we saw unlawful spying on Kiwis, so we can make it right. After all those cases of unlawful spying and after the Snowden revelations, we need an inquiry and we need a better process, and it is bad for our information and communications technology sector. What we see is greater uncertainty and greater Government involvement in what people invest in and install. We are going to see greater delays. We even see our information and communications technology companies say that they are going to have to choose between breaking either New Zealand law or US law. In fact, what we might see is those Kiwis choosing not to operate in New Zealand. We will be the poorer for it.

With the rise of cloud-based computing, we see real risks to the next frontier where New Zealand could see true, thriving growth. Just 2 days ago, we saw Rod Drury’s Xero raise $180 million in capital for his cloud-based accounting software. Using these new cloud-based tools, we can offer the world services. But what this Government has decided to say is “You need to do it with the GCSB signing it off.” It is going to stifle innovation and it is going to squash the potential of our information and communications technology sector, and that is why we are voting against it. It is a bad law, badly drafted, bad for our information and communications technology industry, and a bad process. That is why we are voting against it. Kia ora.

I also want to add my concerns to those that others have expressed on this Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. Other people have talked about the content of the bill, the flawed nature of the content, and the damage that it is likely to do for an innovative and expanding industry in New Zealand. I share those concerns, but they are not the concerns that I wish to elaborate on this afternoon.

My concerns are around process. My concern is that what we have seen with this piece of legislation—which was introduced in a hurry, which was referred to the Law and Order Committee for a truncated period of time, and which the Government is now seeking to dispose of this week through its second reading and Committee stage—is a complete disdain for process and for lawmaking in this country. Why it is particularly important in this respect is that this piece of legislation is a companion piece of legislation to the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation that was passed by a slim margin earlier this year.

The concerns around process are, for me, fundamental. We heard the start of a sermon a moment ago from a National Party speaker, Ian McKelvie, about the protection of democracy. I would say in addition to this that privacy is an important underpinning element of a democracy. What this bill does not do is get the balance right between the protection of security measures, which we on the Labour Party side of the House absolutely understand and recognise, and the need to protect privacy.

Individuals have a right to have their privacy protected in a democracy because otherwise they will not speak up. They will not be able to speak up for fear of interception and retribution and punishment of one sort or another. Whether it is the Minister for Social Development making a beneficiary’s private records public for her own point—for her own sake—or whether it is the selling of legislation to big business interests, this Government seems to have no regard for the protection of a democracy that is about individual liberties and responsibilities as well as collective ones.

Let me just elaborate on that a bit further. The points that concern me in this in particular are that this legislation was another opportunity—another opportunity lost—for the Government to stimulate a public debate about what our security systems ought to look like in the modern age, and how we can do that and still achieve a vibrant communications sector that could be allowed to contribute to the Government’s GDP.

What we have in this bill is the worst of all worlds. We have a capitulation to big business, because the Minister for Communications and Information Technology has come in with eleventh-hour Supplementary Order Paper 366—which is a defiance of process in itself—which deletes clause 39, the clause that was going to require overseas companies to comply with our legislation in a way that was not consistent with their own legislation.

So not only has this been badly done but it has been done badly. The process has been flawed from beginning to end. This Government apparently has no regard for the democratic health of this country. The Government has sold our industrial laws to Warner Bros, our gambling laws to Skycity, our democratic right to protest to the oil and gas industry, and this is just another capitulation in a hurry on a piece of legislation that ought to be protecting individual liberty and not restricting it.

I commend the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill to the House.

It is a great pleasure to rise and take the spot that has been left by the National Party, which did not take one of its calls on what is a very significant piece of legislation, the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. It is a bill that the Labour Party strongly opposes, and my colleagues, the previous Labour speakers, have outlined in great detail why we oppose it, starting with our leader, David Cunliffe, Clare Curran, who has done enormous work in this area, the Hon Phil Goff, and, most recently, Maryan Street. I want to follow those Labour speakers and just put on record again our concerns about both the content of this Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill and the process around this bill.

First of all, this bill is problematic because it has added to the previous legislation, the Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act 2004, a significant new component to the title, and that relates to security. What this bill is doing is facilitating the changes that the Government pushed through under the Government Communications Security Bureau Bill. That bill failed to provide enough protections for New Zealanders, and many people listening have followed both that bill and this bill very closely. As my colleague the Hon Maryan Street has said, the people who care about democracy and the people who actually care about civil liberties and about privacy have been following these bills very closely. So this bill also fails in that regard.

It involves a major expansion of the Government’s powers over network providers and the information provided through them. As the Hon Maryan Street has said, of course we are concerned, like other people, about security, but it has to be balanced, and this bill is not balanced and it does not balance protections for people’s privacy. That is what is so concerning. It is also concerning that the bill gives Ministers extraordinary powers. Given the behaviour of a number of Ministers—and the Hon Maryan Street referred to the behaviour of the Hon Paula Bennett, but there are other examples that have taken place of bullying by Government Ministers—we would be very concerned about Ministers opposite having these extraordinary powers. So these powers are likely to increase the risk of incursions. It significantly increases the role of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) overall and its role in decisions by network providers and the information that must be provided to it. Telecommunications companies are being required to make their networks interceptable and to consult with the GCSB on upgrades and technology suppliers.

Again, the Hon Maryan Street in her recent contribution has talked about this Government’s dependence on big business and its continued cronyism and its continued selling of legislation. This one has actually been quite interesting because this bill was strongly opposed by the major telecommunications companies, in terms of the risks that it places on their being able to continue to provide services in New Zealand. Of course, as we just heard last night, the Minister for Communications and Information Technology actually backed down and issued Supplementary Order Paper 366 to remove clause 39, which required overseas companies to comply. Again, the Government has been putting issues on to big business that we do not necessarily agree with, and it is yet another example of the Government complying with the demands of business. But does this Government actually listen to the concerns of individual New Zealanders as opposed to big business? We think not. There are so many examples of that. This is a Government that is completely out of touch with the concerns of New Zealanders. The National-led Government is not concerned about New Zealanders’ very rightful fear of incursions into their privacy, into their being spied upon.

Of course, we also know that the bill is shoddy. It is poorly drafted, and the Law and Order Committee is dealing with this. I want to acknowledge and commend to people the Labour minority report, which covers a lot of these issues, but powers and provisions were, in the Law and Order Committee’s words, “not clear or are too broad.” This is very important in a bill that actually has so much ability to undermine people’s privacy. To have a select committee saying that the powers that were being given were not clear or too broad is extremely concerning. So the select committee has made changes to try to limit and clarify powers and processes, but will there be further rushed changes from the Minister? Obviously there has been really poor drafting, pushing through legislation again. This is not a good way to make law. It is particularly not a good way to make law of such significance.

So just to really summarise, I guess, we are concerned that the balance between privacy and security has not been met in this legislation, that there is a significant expansion of powers, and that that is always something that should be very, very carefully dealt with. It is a companion measure to the Government Communications Security Bureau Bill. This is something, as I have said earlier, that New Zealanders are worried about, that a lot of people are following. I think that National underestimates that level of concern.

We agreed with InternetNZ’s submission, for example, that the challenge was to strike “the appropriate balance between addressing national security concerns without introducing a permission-seeking process that is too involved and uncertain to incentivise network operators to [innovate] and to support a competitive telecommunications market.”

Other concerns that we have raised are the cost implications. That is referring to submissions by several network operators. The case for expansion of powers has not been made. During the hearing of submissions Labour members consistently asked submitters whether they considered there was a case for the expansion of powers in this bill to the GCSB and to Ministers. Not one submitter agreed that there had been a case for the expansion of those powers. The committee was not allowed to hear submissions from any of the surveillance agencies—including the GCSB, the SIS, or the New Zealand Police—outlining the case for increased interception powers or expanded powers in network design and build. I think that is something that is also extremely troubling. Supposedly those agencies have reasons for wanting this expansions of powers. Surely to goodness that should be on record, and surely to goodness the select committee should be able to hear from them and question those agencies. The fact that the committee was not able to is, I think, very concerning for our democracy. As Maryan Street also said, there are a number of pieces of legislation and Acts of this Government that when you put them together show a complete and utter disregard for our democracy.

Just to finalise, I am standing here along with my four former speakers to say that the Labour Party strongly opposes this bill, and it will continue to do so.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Law and Order Committee by majority be agreed to.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary, No. The Ayes have it. [Interruption] The Ayes have it.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Party vote called for.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): If you want to have a party vote, you must challenge me at the time, not when I am ready to move on. A challenge to my ruling has to happen at the time, not once I have announced the result. So a party vote has been called for, but in future I will not accept one.