Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership

on behalf of the Leader of the House: I move, That under section 8 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996, this House endorse the following as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee: Hon Christopher Finlayson and Hon Amy Adams, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 7(1)(c) of the Act; and David Shearer, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition under section 7(1)(d) of the Act.

I also move, That

(a) the Intelligence and Security Committee will examine the Estimates Vote for each intelligence and security agency (Standing Orders 247, 248, 249, and 338 are to be read and applied accordingly)

(b) the Intelligence and Security Committee will examine the Supplementary Estimates for each intelligence and security agency (Standing Orders 247, 248, 249, and 341 are to be read and applied accordingly)

(c) the Intelligence and Security Committee will conduct an annual review of the performance in the previous financial year and the current operations of each intelligence and security agency (Standing Orders 247, 248, 249, 344, and 345 are to be read and applied accordingly)

(d) no select committee can examine an intelligence and security agency

(e) a bill or other matter relating to an intelligence and security agency may be referred by the House to the Intelligence and Security Committee (Standing Orders 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 276, 277, 278, 279, 288, 289, 291, 295, 296, 298, 299, and 300 are to be read and applied accordingly)

(f) the Clerk will allocate any petition relating to an intelligence and security agency to the Intelligence and Security Committee (Standing Order 370)

(g) for the purposes of this order—

intelligence and security agency means the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service or the Government Communications Security Bureau; and

Intelligence and Security Committee means the Intelligence and Security Committee established by section 5 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996.

I am honoured to take the first call in the parliamentary debate on the formation of the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Intelligence and Security Committee is an important part of the oversight mechanisms of the intelligence and security agencies, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). The committee provides scrutiny on behalf of this House of the agencies’ policies, administration, and expenditure.

The committee plays a fundamental role in our democracy. It is a watchdog and a safeguard, and a necessary and fundamental oversight to provide New Zealanders with the trust and confidence they expect from our intelligence and security agencies. These agencies exist because we live in a world of growing threats of international terrorism, human trafficking, and cyber-security. These are very real threats and we as a country are not immune. We need to safeguard against these threats. Security and intelligence play an important role in protecting New Zealanders both here and abroad against those perils.

The committee’s governing legislation recognises the need for balance between transparency and secrecy in overseeing the agencies’ activities—transparency to enhance the confidence of Parliament and the public that the agencies are properly accountable and operating strictly in accordance with the law; and secrecy, so that the sensitive work of the agencies can be adequately reviewed. The transparency side of this balance was enhanced by measures Parliament agreed to in its review of 2013. The committee now carries out its annual financial reviews of the agencies in public session, and that will be one of the first duties in the coming weeks. I am sure that the committee will build on the good work that was done during the first public review in December 2013.

The committee consults with the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who has an important independent oversight role, on her annual report. The committee is also now required to present an annual report on its activities to Parliament. At the same time, the Government recognises that the need for secrecy remains when reviewing the work of the agencies, to ensure that they are able to carry out that work effectively. During this Parliament the committee will have important roles in the review of the intelligence and security agencies, the legislation governing them, and their oversight legislation, which will begin in coming months.

In my role as Acting Attorney-General I will be consulting the committee on the terms of reference for that review, and on the appointments of the two people who will carry out the review. The reviewers will report their results to the committee for its consideration, and if, as is likely, there are changes to legislation arising from the review, Parliament can be expected to refer the bill for the committee’s consideration. I reiterate that in this context the Government remains committed to a thorough public consultation process on any proposed changes.

The Government considers that the whole oversight framework for the New Zealand SIS and the GCSB is substantially stronger and more effective than it was 3 years ago. The key pillars of this framework are represented by the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and the Commissioner of Security Warrants. All three are important in building confidence in Parliament and amongst the general public.

The Intelligence and Security Committee works on some of the most critical issues facing New Zealand. It is essential to have members with the right skills, understanding, and experience to contribute constructively to the committee’s work, who understand the criticality of the decisions to be made, who are committed to moving beyond posturing and point-scoring, and who will participate in a meaningful way. The committee’s role is to scrutinise our intelligence agencies and to provide a platform for informed political discourse.

I am confident that the proposed membership of the committee will provide the balance of expertise, skills, and constructive debate necessary to make the committee an effective part of protecting the core foundations of New Zealand society, as we grapple with some of the most complex issues facing this country, and without looking to use the committee to advance personal agendas.

Every member comes to this House because we are passionate about this country and we are passionate about making a difference. We live here, we raise our families here, and we care deeply about the rights of New Zealanders and their safety. Every one of us is motivated to ensure we have an accountable and robust system, and I am confident that the Intelligence and Security Committee will deliver exactly that.

I rise to support the motion and to echo, at the very least, the principles that the Acting Attorney-General has just adumbrated, and that is about the importance of the security and intelligence oversight that Parliament provides as part of Government. As the Acting Attorney-General outlined, the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee is to conduct financial reviews of the security agencies and to deal with petitions and bills almost as if it were a select committee. What is interesting about this committee is that its default setting is one of confidentiality—one of secrecy. It requires a unanimous decision of that committee to act in an open way.

The committee acts in a climate today of the need for greater confidence not only about our security agencies but about the quality of the oversight that is provided, and of a growing demand in the 21st century for open government, including when it comes to the conduct of our security agencies and the powers that they wield. Those powers are extraordinary and they need effective oversight. Most New Zealanders will agree that we are caught between this tension or balance between the need for security for our people—people are entitled to move throughout their neighbourhood and their country with a sense of physical security—and for threats, whether from within or without, to be properly monitored and matched by the correct powers in order to provide that security. But, with the technology now available, New Zealanders are equally concerned about the ease with which their privacy can be intruded upon. We must get that tension right.

I have nominated David Shearer for three principal reasons. I have nominated him because he has an extraordinary background in dealing with security and security risks and in some of the greatest trouble spots in the world. He headed the UN mission in Iraq, running a budget of $2 billion and 500 staff. He was the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon. He was head of the UN’s humanitarian office in Jerusalem. He was an adviser to the Afghanistan Government. He coordinated relief to 460,000 Kosovo refugees in Albania. The list goes on. In that fieldwork, David Shearer worked alongside security personnel and security agencies. He knows what it means in the field. In this part of the 21st century, as we head into the rest of this century, we know that the risks to the world are defined by what is happening in the parts of the world where he has greatest experience. He understands the risks. He understands the social, cultural, and ethnic drivers to the risks that are posed to us today. He has that background.

The second reason is his experience here in Parliament with the committee when he was Leader of the Opposition and, more recently, a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee when it dealt with the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill at the end of last year. It was David Shearer’s advocacy on that committee, along with Phil Goff’s, that led to much tighter restrictions on the exercise of intrusive powers by our security agencies, much greater protection for those who are targets of our security agencies, and also better recourse to appeal of those powers. So he knows this stuff and he is experienced in it.

It was David Shearer who led the call for a review of our security agencies. It was David Shearer who led the campaign to tighten up and improve the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation at a time when the Government had the numbers. The skill of parliamentary advocacy when the numbers are against you is measured by the achievements that have been made. I look at the legislation at the end of last year and I see the improvements that were made because of the knowledge, skills, understanding, and experience of someone like David Shearer.

There is a third reason why I have nominated David Shearer, and that is the issues that the committee will shortly face in terms of the reviews that the Acting Attorney-General just outlined. The truth is this: we need change in our security oversight architecture. This committee—which will be required to commence its review of the security agencies by 30 June this year, which with the Attorney-General will consult on the terms of reference, and to which the reviewers appointed by the Attorney-General will report—has its own issues. There are conflicts in its present structure. This is a committee chaired by the Prime Minister to provide oversight for agencies for which he is the responsible Minister. No other Government department or agency has that arrangement in terms of its parliamentary oversight. Its default setting, or a default arrangement for its meeting, is secrecy. But we are in an age of openness now, and an expectation by citizens is that they know what is being done in their name by the Government and that they have a chance to have a say, as they did in open forums last year with the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

This committee acts to all intents and purposes as a select committee, and there is no reason why it should not extend to citizens the same rights and protections as an ordinary select committee. Greater transparency is warranted. We saw last year that an ordinary select committee—the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—was capable of dealing with a bill that was highly sensitive, that dealt with the security agencies, and that could be debated and dealt with effectively in that ordinary setting.

The other reality is this: our nation and our world face more threats, worse threats—some real; some perceived. In that climate, there are growing claims by our security agencies for more intrusive powers, at the same time as citizens want greater openness. We have to get that right. Labour’s position is that if we are to get that balance right, that debate itself must be conducted in an open forum and an open environment. Our position is that we can do that without compromising the integrity of our security agencies or the information they deal with. These are the issues. This is the fundamental issue that will sit at the heart of the reviews this year and however long they take, and what is important is that we have advocates on that committee who understand those issues, understand the tensions, and are prepared to go in to bat for the rights and protections of citizens in this very sensitive area. David Shearer has demonstrated in his fieldwork prior to coming to this House and in his work in this House in this area that he is up for that task. I would wager that he will be the most effective MP in the Opposition benches, if not indeed in the entire Parliament, who is up for that role. So I support the motion.

According to the Prime Minister, the business of the Intelligence and Security Committee will be a lot less complicated without the Green Party asking pesky questions and challenging the status quo. Well, I rest my case. John Key is quite right. National and Labour will be able to whip through the business of the committee with lightning speed without the Greens there attempting to provide the actual oversight that the committee is supposed to undertake. That is precisely why it is so wrong to exclude us from its membership.

By locking out the Greens, the two old parties have yet again colluded to entrench the powers of the Prime Minister and his spy agencies behind a façade of pretend accountability. As members of the committee, the Greens have done our very best to ensure that it is the watchdog it is supposed to be, rather than the lapdog that John Key and Andrew Little have now turned it into. If that complicated matters for the Government, then tough; it was a very good thing for the rest of New Zealand.

When we were members of the committee, the Green Party sought, among other things, an inquiry into John Key’s appointment of Ian Fletcher as head of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), asked for an inquiry into “Five Eyes”, and was the only member of that committee to bother to submit questions to the financial reviews of the GCSB and the SIS. This is what effective oversight looks like. This is what the old boys’ club has silenced.

No doubt a major review of our spy agencies by the committee this year would have been more complicated with the Greens there to ask questions about whether the spies, or the Prime Minister, actually need more intrusive powers, but that is what happens in a democracy. It is also true that it would have been easier for National to water down the Resource Management Act and to open up more areas of our pristine ocean for oil exploration without the Greens getting in the way with our pesky questions. It would have been much less complicated for National to gut the emissions trading scheme, to sell our laws to Skycity and Warner Bros, and to give tax cuts to the rich if the Green Party was not there questioning whether any of these things was such a great idea.

Yes, we scrutinise Government decisions and we hold Ministers to account. Yes, we come up with ideas like plans to feed hungry kids in this country. Yes, the Green Party gives voice to those who have asked us to speak for them. That is called democracy. That is called being the Opposition—a role that Labour has abdicated on security matters. Since 1999 Labour has voted with National on security and intelligence legislation 83 percent of the time. National and Labour agreed on increasing powers of intrusion and surveillance 83 percent of the time. The club is too cosy.

The history of the 20th century has shown that our democracies are made better and they are made stronger by the actions of people who stand up and question the authority of Governments. Kate Sheppard showed us this. Kate Sheppard drove Richard Seddon nuts with her pesky insistence that women participate in the old boys’ club that was the parliamentary democracy of the day. Seddon said of Kate Sheppard that she “did not have the training which fitted her to man’s equal.” But she presented petition after pesky petition calling for the right for women to vote. She made things more complicated, and in doing so she made New Zealand better. Kate Sheppard helped improve our democracy by asserting the right of all women to play a part in it. She did not make it better by keeping quiet.

If anything, this whole debacle shows the need for a full and independent review of New Zealand’s spy agencies. This has been the Green Party position for many years, and we are not the only ones. The Dominion Post today described the Intelligence and Security Committee as “a constitutional monstrosity, being led by the prime minister who has great powers to restrict its investigations”. The Dominion Post went on to say “what is needed is a proper select committee to replace it” and we agree. The Intelligence and Security Committee is also a constitutional anachronism, one that reflects the old days of first past the post, and neither the reality nor the intentions of MMP.

The real solution is for this committee to be established as a regular select committee of Parliament, with real powers to inquire into the activities of the spy agencies, and with all political parties playing a role. It absolutely should not be the responsible Minister—who until recently was the Prime Minister—who is the chair of the committee. Members of the select committee would have skills, understanding, and expertise, not as intelligence experts but as political representatives doing their democratic duty to hold those with the highest powers to the highest standards. And that is what is missing here.

Not only has Labour chosen to lock out the obvious second Opposition party from membership of the committee, but John Key has also turned his back on the long-held convention to have other Government parties represented as well. The membership of this hugely important committee has never been so closed at a time when concern over the powers of spy agencies has never been greater.

Historically, under other Prime Ministers there were always at least two other parties, other than National and Labour, represented on the committee. In choosing wider representation, those leaders, including, I might add, Helen Clark, acknowledged the constitutional gravity of the committee’s role. Somehow under National and, sadly, with the endorsement of our friends in Labour, this grave responsibility has been reduced down to the need to get a meeting over and done with in 5 minutes. I have made it clear that my concerns are not just about the process of nominations. The committee will be a better watchdog with us on it. Better still, it would be better if it was a genuine, representative select committee, and that remains the Green’s preferred position.

Some have suggested that the way this has been handled does not bode well for a future Labour-Green Government. Quite to the contrary—

💬 David Shearer: You want to go down this track? Seriously? Throwing your toys out of the cot?

—it shows that for those New Zealanders who are concerned about Labour’s approach to security and intelligence, Mr Shearer, among the other matters where we have disagreement, a bigger Green Party is needed to help steer a future progressive Government on a better course. It has always been our view that we have an agree-to-disagree approach with Labour, and a mutual respect for those differences. Clearly, this is one of those issues where we disagree.

I would like to finish by suggesting that we all be aware of the truism in our democracy that the longer a Government is in power, the fewer questions it wants asked about how it exercises that power. Kate Sheppard knew this, but she asked the questions anyway. She made things very complicated for the Government of the day, and showed us just what a little peskiness can achieve. Thank you.

The motion before us is that three members of Parliament—Chris Finlayson, Amy Adams, and David Shearer—be endorsed as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee. All three people are, no doubt, fine individuals. Speaking for myself, I have nothing against any of them. Each has, no doubt, some shining quality. The issue for the Green Party is not one of individual competence. Each of these individuals would no doubt pass the litmus test of minimal competence to serve on this committee. That is not the problem. The problem is that in one of these nominations the law was breached.

The Intelligence and Security Committee Act provides for the membership of the committee. Section 7(1)(d) addresses the nomination by the Leader of the Opposition. The member shall be nominated “following consultation with the leader of each party that is not in Government”. In February 2015, for the 51st Parliament, the Leader of the Opposition did not consult with the leaders of the Green Party. That is a violation of the Act and a breach of New Zealand legislation. Does it matter? Yes, it matters. The Parliament is the sovereign body of New Zealand. It is not constitutionally proper for any member, whether the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition, to ignore its legislative provisions. To do so undermines the constitutional integrity of this country, which they are sworn to uphold.

It is strange for an Opposition leader, aspiring to be Prime Minister, to do such a thing. Perhaps Mr Little did not mean to do such a thing. Perhaps it was an oversight. But he stands by his decision not to have consulted. He declared an undertaking to consult with the Green Party about the committee’s deliberations. This, he said, would fulfil his legal obligations—wrong on both counts. First, the section states clearly that the MP shall be nominated following consultations. Mr Little acknowledges he did not consult. It is disingenuous to then assert that future consultation on the committee’s deliberations will meet his legal obligation to consult prior to and on the subject of a nomination. As a lawyer, he knows very well that this is incorrect. As a political leader, he knows very well that this is disingenuous. As an aspiring Prime Minister, he knows very well that he should have done better. He should have done better not only leading up to this nomination but in his subsequent dissembling.

Secondly, the law prohibits Mr Little, actually, from consulting with anyone about the deliberations of the committee. For someone aspiring to be a good committee member, this gentleman is in need of some elementary training. Well, that is that, and we leave it to Mr Little to reflect on what he needs to do. In case he has not reached for the legislation, it may be worth pointing out that section 9(2) states: “The Leader of the Opposition may at any time revoke the nomination of any person nominated by the Leader of the Opposition …”. This Act obviously presumes that the Leader of the Opposition has the moral compass to realise that people make mistakes, and that a nomination might be invalid through procedural error.

We repeat: the Green Party has nothing against the member whom Mr Little has nominated. The individual has some admirable background in issues of UN affairs, being a humanitarian aid chief in a number of conflict zones. It is not an easy job to do. It often takes courage to go there. It takes stamina, often, to stay. It requires judgment, including political judgment, about how to be effective there and what to do in some tough spots. I know how difficult some of these challenges can be. When I worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I was privy to intelligence reports we used to get about the strategic thinking that would go on in the major capitals of the world during the height of the Cold War. I found it sobering to say the least. Some of the tactical scheming that undermined and underpinned much of the strategising was not disarmingly pretty. You could age a few years on reading just one report.

Of course, this does not make every intelligence report a model of perfection. The US National Security Agency got it badly wrong over Iraq’s nuclear weapons in 2002, leading to the sad picture of a misled Colin Powell, an honourable man by and large, misleading the world with a PowerPoint and a pointer in the Security Council. And it is possible for an excitable Prime Minister to over-interpret some ambiguous material. Mr Blair’s disposition to hype anything that passed under his nose led him to declare London to be 45 minutes away from disaster from Iraq’s missiles—some intelligence. Maybe this is the price of the club.

Intelligence reporting is an art, and part of that art is in not overhyping the fragile shards of evidence that you can glean from fallible, often biased, and occasionally fraudulent sources. There is a temptation to bake a cake from crumbs. I recall that when I would travel to the Thai-Cambodian border shortly after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia back in the early 1980s, I and colleagues from other countries would try to make sense out of what was going on in front of our eyes in the resistance fighters’ camps up there. They were Son Sann’s Khmer People’s National Liberation Front and Sihanouk’s FUNCINPEC. We then went to Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge hung out. I remember talking with Son Sann one day about the strength of his forces and then a few hours later to Sihanouk’s people about theirs, and then comparing notes with colleagues. Arriving at an informed estimate that we could agree on was a nightmare.

So intelligence gathering is more an art than a science. This is not to say it is a completely useless art, but it is to say that you need to be politically careful and circumspect with your material. I guess that is the job of the committee in the sense of responsible political oversight. That is the reason the Green Party has in the past called for a review of the reviewers—not because we do not live in the real world but because we know how complex the real world actually is. These days that complexity is increasing. It is not just military violence and geostrategy that is at issue these days in a world of intelligence.

In the past decade or so the UN has begun to recognise the broader array of threats to peace and security that now exists. In 2004 the Secretary-General appointed the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change to report to him on this. That report, for which I served as a consultant, identified the whole gamut of new threats to peace. The report said: “we know all too well that the biggest security threats we face now, and in the decades ahead, go far beyond States waging aggressive war. They extend to poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation; war and violence within States; the spread and possible use of …. [weapons of mass destruction]; terrorism; and transnational organized crime. The threats are from non-State actors as well as States, and to human security as well as State security.”

So our intelligence gathering in New Zealand, whether it is through our own national resources or through a sharing arrangement, needs to focus on the whole notion of human security and how to ensure that the State serves to protect the individual rather than the other way around. I saw this in starkest relief when I served as a UN official in the Middle East. When I went to the Syrian border and into the West Bank and Gaza it was clear that human security begets instability, and instability leads to violence. It was equally apparent to the Jordanian intelligence, the Mukhabarat, just down the road. That was why the king was so attentive to both his Bedouin tribes and his Palestinian refugees at home and to neighbouring Governments on his borders.

No doubt our Intelligence and Security Committee performs its functions with due diligence. No doubt it needs parliamentary review. It would not be a bad idea if the Leader of the Opposition recognised the need for a diverse range of experience and humble viewpoint on this committee.

I am pleased to take this call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Government motions. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Hon Chris Finlayson, the Hon Amy Adams, and David Shearer on their appointment to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

This committee was established by the Intelligence and Security Committee Act to increase the level of oversight and review of our SIS and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). The Act requires that the committee has a membership of five, which includes the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. Two of the remaining three members are to be appointed by the Prime Minister and one by the Leader of the Opposition.

In the past the Leader of the Opposition has offered the nomination to a fellow Opposition member, in consultation with other Opposition party leaders. So can I say that our party is somewhat surprised that a former foreign Minister, in the form of the Rt Hon Winston Peters, was not offered a position nor even consulted, as is required by law. It is, of course, the prerogative of the Leader of the Opposition to make this appointment, but in terms of bringing people inside the tent it is, perhaps, a missed opportunity. A problem shared is a problem halved. I am sure Mr Shearer would have worked just as diligently to support his new leader in this role.

Within our party the security agencies could have worked in the knowledge that the issues and the conversations that would have taken place would not be leaked. We have to seriously wonder how a National Party vassal who has leaked like a sieve in the past from this committee could continue to be rewarded at the taxpayers’ expense.

Last night this House debated the third reading of Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Amendment Bill. It was ironic to see Labour and the Greens line up behind the Government to add yet another tax on to the New Zealand motorist. My point is that only New Zealand First grasped the fact that our fuel stocks are held offshore in tickets, under this legislation. These are promissory notes that say we need these stocks and we will get them. Apparently they will be shipped to us if a ship turns up to collect them and bring them down to New Zealand. It seems—and I noted this last night—an incredibly naive position, when the only reason that we may have a shortage of oil supply to this country is if there is some kind of global crisis.

It highlights the acute vulnerability internationally and the vulnerability of our own infrastructure. Aside from Auckland’s well-publicised power outages over the past few years, a little over 1 year ago there was a shortage of diesel in the South Island when a planned outage at the Marsden Point oil refinery in Whangarei overran. You could say we face threats both external and internal, and we have choke points where infrastructure and even our banking system could be assailed physically and electronically. The cyber-attack on Sony and the theft from international banks just this past week is a warning that the focus of our security agencies is currently askew. Instead of warrantless surveillance on New Zealanders and the politicisation of our security services, our security agencies need to build capacity and responsiveness and focus on real threats.

The role of the Intelligence and Security Committee is an absolutely critical one, and it must be a self-critical one. It needs to challenge assumptions. But, above all, it needs to ensure the actions of our agencies and the people working within these agencies are legal and can be held to account by an independent authority—one whose primary role is not to work for the pleasure of the Minister in charge, which our current legislation defines; one whose job security is not determined by the Minister she is auditing, who, in fact, is her employer.

The objective of terrorism is to create fear where people feel safest. This was at the heart of the plan in Sydney to behead a member of the public. This can be seen in the organised attacks in London, Madrid, Paris, Copenhagen, Bali, and New York. Closer to home, the attack in Sydney was a truly chilling reminder about a lone wolf, not on a watch list, and with a security service funded infinitely better than our own. It was an object lesson that we cannot watch everyone, and nor should we. Instead, we saw heroic men and women respond to a real threat with numbers and resources. Police sending out debt collectors is not an answer to a 5-year budget freeze.

New Zealand, as we know, is at the far end of the world. We are seen to be a genuinely safe country. I would venture that this makes us an ideal target. To strike at the safest country on earth would strike a discordant note throughout the world. If you can hit at New Zealand you can hit at anyone in any community, anywhere on earth.

So we in this party look to the members of this Intelligence and Security Committee to take this challenge seriously. I make a plea on behalf of every person who made a submission to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee regarding the countering terrorism legislation, and I make this plea further on behalf of every New Zealander. Our newly appointed members cannot allow this Government to continue to corrupt our political system, for supposed political expediency. New Zealanders need to know what we are doing—not the operational matters; there are security issues—and they need to have a voice and a say into how this country meets its organisation and its obligations.

We live in an imperfect and often evil world—evidenced by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Syria and Iraq and its new franchise in Libya. There is also Boko Haram in Africa, and in our backyard, Abu Sayyaf, as well as the Islamic insurgency in southern Thailand. We need security agencies such as the GCSB and the SIS. They need to be adequately resourced. We need good leadership on issues of national security and leaders whom we can trust.

New Zealand needs to be a good leader internationally. The club that this Government does belong to is the United Nations and we are now in that critical inner circle—the Security Council. How can we be taken seriously, when this Prime Minister is slowly but surely manipulating the New Zealand public into another club—a club that will work more for his own personal retirement plan rather than New Zealand’s national interests? The official club is the UN Security Council—a council that New Zealand helped to form—and New Zealand must now be seen as a world leader on that council. This country belongs to it now, and we must be seen as setting international standards. This Government’s actions are currently and absolutely counter to that necessity.

Trust has been in very short supply in recent years as our security agencies have become politicised—not just our security agencies but our military, as evidenced by the script prepared by Defence Force public relations for the captain of HMNZS Wellington to read out on her return to Port Chalmers. To ensure we get that trust we first need the members of this committee to do the hard yards and to win that trust back. It also means that political oversight, unfortunately, is now a duopoly of Labour and National. I am sure that the people of New Zealand now wonder who benefits more, and I personally feel it is not the Labour Party, nor the people of New Zealand.

New Zealand First wants a secure New Zealand. The challenge to the Intelligence and Security Committee is to ensure unbridled power does not erode hard-fought civil liberties. Power corrupts, but we must never forget that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would just like your view on Speaker’s ruling 209/1. My understanding is that last night Metiria Turei wrote to the Speaker to ask for a ruling in relation to the legality of the nomination prior to consultation, and a letter was sent back saying that the Speaker did not have the authority to enforce that. But it seems from this ruling that actually it is within the Speaker’s gift to enforce that, and from what we have just heard from the member Fletcher Tabuteau it appears that New Zealand First was also not consulted prior to the nomination being made. This is new information and it may change the nature of things from the exchange of letters last night.

I thank the member for those comments in relation to Speaker’s ruling 209/1. I have sought advice and I have a written statement here, which I hope will clarify it for the member. The motion asked for the House to endorse members of the Intelligence and Security Committee nominated by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

The process of nomination is a statutory one. The Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 requires the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to make nominations having consulted with the leaders of parties. The Speaker has no part in the statutory process but obviously has a concern to ensure that the House operates within the law, which requires consultation to be undertaken. The House cannot make good a failure to consult. This is a matter for the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition. It is they who have the statutory responsibility. It is not for the Speaker to set out what is required by way of consultation.

However, it is well established that in consultation the consulter should give the person being consulted the opportunity to be heard. It is more than simply informing a person of a decision but beyond that we cannot be too precious about consultation in a political context. Debate in the House provides members with the opportunity to make their case. Concerns have been raised about consultation. The Leader of the Opposition was advised of these concerns in the expectation that he would resolve them. It is always open for the House not to endorse a nomination to the Intelligence and Security Committee. If this were to happen the Act provides for further consultation or a new nomination to be made to the House.

Members may move to omit a name of a nominee but cannot move amendments. The House does not make the appointments. It merely confirms the nominations of the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am just attempting to understand and draw accurate conclusions from what you have said. Are we to understand that if the two people who have the responsibility statutorily to nominate other members for the committee fail to perform their statutory obligations in that respect, the only remedy lies within the hands of those very same two people? Is that a correct understanding?

The second paragraph—I will just read that again. The process of nomination is a statutory one. The Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 requires the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to make nominations. Then the final paragraph that I read states: members may move to omit a name of a nominee but cannot move amendments. The House does not make the appointments. It merely confirms the nominations of the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Well, I do conclude from what you have said, particularly from your first statement, that the only remedy for any procedural invalidity lies within the hands of the two people who have committed the procedural invalidity. I draw that conclusion, and so be it—that appears to be the ruling. May I make one more point, Mr Assistant Speaker?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Yes.

From what you have said, and having studied the Act, it appears to me—and no doubt you can make a ruling, and no doubt the House will—that there appears to have been a procedural invalidity committed by one of those two persons. I presume it appears to be only in the hands of the House to make that determination, but, in the event the House acknowledged that, would it then follow that if there is a procedural invalidity the House cannot then proceed to endorse all of them, or any of them, or omit one?

No, I mentioned also in my third paragraph that the Speaker has no part in the statutory process, and if one is referring to the point that I made earlier about consultation, that is a statutory requirement. It is not a requirement for this House to determine. That can be determined only in a court. So the ruling that I have given is a ruling that stands, and I am now calling the next speaker.

Underlying the issues that we are discussing today are the issues of basic rights and basic principles—that is, New Zealanders’ right to live securely, the right to life, and the right to be able to prosper. Those are protected by our security services, our police force, and obviously our intelligence services as well. On the other side, there is the balance that we also expect between those rights and our right to privacy and to have our human rights respected in terms of not being, for example, listened to, and there is also our right to be able to confer with others and not have that interfered with secretly as well. That is the balance that we are trying to establish.

We are living in challenging times at the moment. We have seen right across the world an increase in the amount of terrorism that is focused basically on innocent civilians for political and religious purposes, mainly stemming out of the Middle East region. I do not want to talk those up too much. When you look at the threat that they pose versus what we faced in the 1960s and 1950s during the Cold War, we are talking about very small numbers versus the possibility of human extinction. Nevertheless, they are still conflicts that we are seeing that are impinging on our rights and our right to life.

For those reasons, we need to have good, solid expertise within our intelligence services to ensure that we are well protected. At the same time, we cannot just rely on our intelligence services to rectify the possible threats that are coming from within our society. It is also about reaching out to those very communities from which some of the threats might come, and, in my view, we have not done that adequately enough. We have talked about, in a sense, the security, which often tends to be the bottom-of-the-cliff response, and not the other, and we need to take much more care in dealing with the issues that underlie some of the grievances that might lead to terrorist activities occurring here in New Zealand.

Two years ago, the Labour Party announced that we should have a review of our intelligence services. That was largely ignored by the Government. It wanted to push through changes to the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) legislation. It was prepared to do that without cross-party support. It was going to do that with only the barest majority of one member of this House, which it had, and it went and did that. Now, 2 years later, I would say that those 2 years have been wasted, because we could have had that review done and dusted. I remember talking to the Prime Minister and suggesting that the review be done over the course of the election so that whoever was in power after the election would actually be able to pick up that review and put its recommendations in place. That did not happen, and now we are facing the situation where, a long way further down the track, we are looking at having a review of our intelligence services, and I welcome that.

I think there are a couple of other things that we insisted on as part of that review that I would hope that the Government would take up. One is that the terms of reference of that review be shared right across the entire House. We should all have confidence that that review is going to be a thorough and robust one and that we will have a say in the terms of reference. Second is that we should have a look at the people who are going to be conducting that review to ensure that they are of the highest calibre and, again, have the confidence not only of this House but of New Zealand as a greater whole. So my firm recommendation, before these terms of reference are completed and handed to any of us as a fait accompli, is that those two things are seen to.

Last year we had a very interesting exercise with regard to the way that we dealt with some legislation designed to combat a terrorist threat. We went into a truncated select committee process, which none of us were very happy about. But, nevertheless, we worked very hard and collegially in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to make sure that we had the best possible outcome from it that we could possibly achieve. We did do that. It was a robust process that was much too short, and we have talked about that at length, but we had a wide range of people coming into that select committee, speaking openly in public. It was reported on by the media, with the exception of some of the proceedings that we heard when we heard from the SIS, and that was for very good reason.

I think that this serves to act as a model for what we can expect in the future. Andrew Little talked about this in his speech. I believe that we should not send this review to the Intelligence and Security Committee; it actually should be sent to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, because I believe that it is open. Frankly, it has got fewer logistical problems about hearing evidence due to the composition of that committee. It is composed right across the board of members from all major parties on that committee, as well. So I would make a third suggestion, in addition to my others, that the terms of reference be consulted on, the membership of that review, again, be consulted, and that the review itself be heard in public in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and not in the Intelligence and Security Committee.

There have been some changes made, and some very good changes made, to our intelligence services in terms of the oversight that we place on them. Certainly from what we understand—and having been a former member of that Intelligence and Security Committee—I can say that the operational procedures within the SIS and the GCSB have improved. We have made some changes in the judicial overview, which is what I would call the second level of oversight, with the appointment of Cheryl Gwyn to the position of Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and the power that she holds and that she is free to wield is important as well.

The area where we are missing proper oversight is the area of our political oversight, and that comes down to the actual composition and the functioning of the Intelligence and Security Committee itself. This review must take on this responsibly and look critically at the way that this committee functions. It is unlike any other committee. It is unlike any other committee in one important way, and that is that the Minister in charge of the SIS and the GCSB is also the chair of the committee that looks into the oversight of those departments. That is a direct conflict of interest. There is no other place in Parliament where that occurs. If we compare the way that that occurs in New Zealand with the political composition of the committee in Australia, we find that it is made up of non-Cabinet members. When we look at the composition of the committee in the United Kingdom, it is also made up of non-Cabinet Ministers. These are people who are very respected and who have generally been in Government and have served their country, but who are no longer Cabinet Ministers and, therefore, they no longer have the direct conflict of interest that our committee in New Zealand has. We have one of the most conflicted intelligence and security committees in the world.

If you take a look at Norway as a more contrasting example, it has no MPs on its intelligence and security committee, and that committee provides the oversight.

I believe that we need to step forward carefully when we go into this review to make sure that we have a review that is robust and upholds the confidence of New Zealand, and I have made some suggestions about some of the practicalities on which that should be based. I also believe that the Intelligence and Security Committee itself needs to be reformed. That should be a major focus of the review coming up.

I would like to speak about the membership of the Intelligence and Security Committee. It is unfortunate that we learnt of the decisions around the membership through the media rather than being consulted along with other parties, such as New Zealand First, beforehand, as should have happened and as is legally required. It does not build public confidence in the committee when such poor regard for process and legal requirements is shown right at the start.

I have to say that as a woman I was particularly dismayed by the comment made by the leader of the Labour Party to the media when he said that he did not invite our co-leader Metiria Turei to be on the committee because he wanted someone with the skills, understanding, and experience to be on that committee, implying that Metiria did not have these qualities, which is so far from the truth as to be farcical. I was dismayed because whatever one’s politics it is abundantly clear that Metiria is both a highly experienced and extremely skilled member of Parliament who has not only 5 years of extremely stable and successful leadership, 3 years as a whip, and 12 years of parliamentary experience but comes from a strong legal background. Her intelligence and legal expertise would have been valuable indeed on such an important committee. It is hard to escape the feeling the male privilege played a key role in the dismissal of Metiria’s formidable skills and expertise. I find myself wondering what planet the leader of the Labour Party lives on—not “Planet Key” I hope. I would like to be generous and give Little, who has been a member of Parliament for just 3 years, and a leader for all of 2 months, the benefit of the doubt and assume that he made these comments without thinking. But that makes these comments no less offensive to me and many other women.

This kind of arrogant dismissal of women’s skills and expertise is nothing new. It happens every day throughout New Zealand when skilled women who apply for jobs are overlooked for promotion and find themselves competing with men with far less experience and skill. This dismissal of women’s skills and expertise relative to men’s is a major reason why we have a gender wage gap. Men in New Zealand earn 25 percent more for the same work as women. I would also say that as a woman with a disability, I have also experienced, frequently, the assumption that I will not have the skills or the expertise for a particular role, such as chairing a group, because of my hearing loss. That is a scenario that many others are also all too familiar with.

The Green Party knows all too well about the need for oversight of formerly dodgy institutions that have spied, ineffectively but offensively, on New Zealanders, on our friends, and on our colleagues, including our colleague Catherine Delahunty. Because of this former background I believe that as well as Metiria’s skills, understanding, and experience, her commitment to human rights and critical thinking would have been invaluable on that committee. She might well have brought to the committee views that some others do not want to hear, such as, maybe, a powerful understanding of what powerlessness and humiliation feels like, and maybe a haunting view of surveillance based on the experiences of how prejudice and privilege excludes and labels the potentially spied-upon. She would bring exactly what is needed on this committee.

Leadership is the inspirational moment when a person can articulate a vision and build unity for the greater good. Leadership cannot be built on the assumption that male able-bodied politicians are better fitted for important roles than female politicians, especially on a committee that needs to have strong oversight from a human rights perspective. The Green Party is the only party in the House that has achieved gender balance and has a commitment to gender equity, through practice not rhetoric. We know the value of our commitment to this balanced approach. We know that power sharing is better than the dominant group chest thumping. We stand here today as experienced, knowledgable, and skilled women in a party that values us as leaders and we say to this House that you are under surveillance and we will continue to speak out for women and other marginalised groups.

Metiria is inspiring, intelligent, and a highly talented woman who absolutely should have been considered for selection for the committee, and it is a shame—an absolute shame—that her skills, understanding, and experience were dismissed out of hand in such an arrogant way. This is an opportunity for genuine oversight of the committee that has been missed and our country will be poorer for it.

I want to focus my comments in this debate on the need for structural change in the Intelligence and Security Committee, rather than narrowly on the personality and membership composition of it, because I think the former is the most important.

But I do want to say this first: the decision that was made by Andrew Little to nominate David Shearer for this committee was not based on a negative reflection on the Greens, or on New Zealand First, or on anybody else; it was based on a positive assessment of the skills and the experience that David Shearer brings to this job. I know better than most—but I think the members to whom I am referring now also recognise—that over a 20-year period David has experience that has not previously been seen in this House, in terms of the places where he worked, the way that he needed to conduct himself, and the understanding that he developed, in places like Kosovo, Somalia, Rwanda, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These are areas where he developed an understanding of the level of international threat and the nature of that threat, which will be invaluable on this committee.

But I want to talk about the structure of the committee because I think that is the point that is most important. New Zealanders want two things when it comes to security intelligence services. First of all, they want the certainty that they are safe and secure, and that they live in a society where the State can meet its fundamental obligations to its people, which are the right to life and the right to live free from fear of violence against them.

But they also want something else. They want the certainty that when you give extraordinary powers to an agency like the SIS or the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), and those extraordinary powers are exercised in secrecy, that they can have the confidence that there will be proper scrutiny and accountability over the exercise of those powers, that there will not be an abuse of those powers, and not only that the agencies themselves do not behave improperly and irresponsibly in regard to invasion of privacy but that the political masters of that agency also behave properly.

I had some personal experience where both the agencies and the political masters behaved improperly. That is not my prejudice against them—that was the finding of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, where she said that the person who was in charge of the SIS behaved in a way that was unbalanced and lacked responsibility and was prejudiced.

That is an appalling indictment on an official whom I worked with over a 15-year period. But it happened, and it is a recent example of why we need to make sure that these people are accountable. I concede immediately to the SIS that Rebecca Kitteridge came into my room and apologised for the appalling behaviour of her predecessor. I am still waiting for the apology from the person who allowed his political office to politicise the SIS through Whale Oil Beef Hooked, but I will not be lying awake at night waiting for that apology, because to apologise for something you have got to be man enough to do so.

I want to come to the structure of the Intelligence and Security Committee, because I do not believe that it is structured to do the job that we expect of it. This is a body that should be a safeguard against abuse of either political power or power by the agencies. But how can it possibly be a watchdog and a safeguard, and all of the other things that Amy Adams said were important about it, when it is chaired by the very Minister whose work it is overseeing? It is an absolute conflict of interest.

Mr Key, or whoever is the Minister at the time, is the Minister who directs the SIS and the GCSB. The role of the committee should be to exercise oversight as to whether the Minister is doing his job properly, and it is quite unacceptable, and also unprecedented among other Western democracies, to have the Minister who should be being scrutinised chairing the committee. I sat on that committee, so I know something about it.

The power of the chair is to call the committee together. It scarcely ever meets, scarcely ever meets, and it is entirely at the discretion of the Minister unless there is a statutory requirement, as in the financial review—and that is the only time, actually, the committee met. Not only does he call the committee together, he sets the agenda; so the Minister is scarcely going to set an agenda that puts him under greater pressure.

There is no other Western democracy that operates like that. Our mates across the Tasman, the Australians, do not do it. The Brits do not do it. The Americans do not do it. They have independent scrutiny over the actions of the security agencies, and that is what we should do as well.

So my first point is in setting the terms of reference for the review of the security agencies—something that we have called for, and I think all of the parties have called for—there should be an input from every party in this House. I mean, it is really important that we can develop a consensus around an issue like security agencies. That is the best protection against abuse of power. So I call on the Ministers and the Prime Minister to allow all parties to have an input into those terms of reference. But specifically I call on the Prime Minister to ensure that in those terms of reference a full review and a restructuring of the Intelligence and Security Committee takes place, because it is not doing the job that it should be doing and it needs to change. It needs to change quite radically.

I want to say one other thing, however. I am pleased that the role of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security as an independent watchdog has been borne out, and I am pleased to give credit to Cheryl Gwyn as a person who has been able to act independently and neutrally. And I say it is really important that we have those safeguards to ensure that the SIS and the GCSB act independently and neutrally because, while I think they are both better organisations today, they have a history of not acting neutrally and impartially.

You have only to look at the track records of whom they have spied upon over the years to see that they have been members—including members of this House, or past members of this House—who are absolutely committed to democratic and peaceful ways of going about things but who were subject to scrutiny. The groups that are subject to scrutiny are groups that tend to be left of centre rather than right of centre.

I am one who believes that the intelligence agencies need to be absolutely politically neutral. That is what my real grievance was against the Prime Minister’s politicising of it in terms of the leaking of material to Cameron Slater. The second thing I want to say—it will be the last thing I want to say, I guess, with the bell ringing—is that when the new legislation comes in I want to commend to Amy Adams and Chris Finlayson and John Key the role of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee as the appropriate select committee to look at this. If we are examining the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee, it is better that another committee outside of that committee looks at it.

The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee worked cooperatively and responsibly on the legislation we looked at last year. I had different views from Kennedy Graham and from Fletcher Tabuteau, but we worked cooperatively, we contained our differences, and we came out with some really good changes that strengthened that legislation. And Labour and National worked quite responsibly across the select committee.

So my call to the Prime Minister is: when the legislation is drafted, send that legislation to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. It has the other advantage, which almost goes without saying, of there being broad membership on that committee. It has got all of the Opposition parties on it. What we need, as much as anything, is the confidence of all sides of this House, and all Kiwis, that the powers that quite properly we give to intelligence agencies are properly safeguarded, are subject to proper scrutiny, and what better way to do that than to seek a genuine consensus about it by putting it before the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. I commend that idea, genuinely, to the National Party. That is the best way this House as a whole will have confidence in the output of that legislation and the review that inspires it.

It has been an interesting debate. I would like to begin by saying to those who have doubt about the ability of Labour to hold the Government to account in terms of any review or the Intelligence and Security Committee that they needed only to listen to the contributions that we have heard from Mr Shearer, Mr Goff, and Mr Little to know that we are determined to carry out our role in a transparent and open way and in the best interests of New Zealand.

I just want to answer some points that have been made today. I have to disagree with Mojo Mathers. This is not about whether it is a man or a woman, or a bum on a seat, or numbers; it is about the most competent person for the job. For example, I am the deputy leader of this party and I have been a Minister of Police; I perhaps could have done this role. But I do not believe that I have the skills that David Shearer has. When I look, on balance, as to whom we should put on this committee, I could not go past a person who has had on-the-ground experience, has actually worked in these areas, has worked with intelligence agencies, and has been the Leader of the Opposition. So when deciding who was the best person, there could have been a number of people. It could have been someone from New Zealand First. It could have been someone from the Greens. But at the end of the day I believe that David Shearer has the skills that we need on this committee.

This is going to be very important work. I know as a New Zealander, as a parent, as a constituency MP, that there is a lot of unease in the New Zealand community about what is happening overseas. It does seem like a long way away from New Zealand, but it is not in reality. You need only speak with the Australians to know how concerned they are about security matters.

We are a little different in New Zealand. We do have the distance from these places and we do have a different idea about the balance between security and human rights and the ability for people to have their privacy. What we have to do here is balance those two rights—the right for New Zealanders to be secure in their homes, in their streets, and to be secure against threats from other nations, from other people, and the right to have their privacy. That is going to be where we are going to put a lot of effort into getting that balance right.

I think it is important to point out that we have been interested in a review of these security intelligence agencies for a long time. As David Shearer pointed out, 2 years ago we called for a review. We believed that there had been too much secrecy and not enough openness. When we hear criticism that Labour has been in the club and things happened under Labour, I can assure members that if the former Prime Minister knew that there were illegal things happening, she would have acted. So I take exception to the idea that we just let illegal activities by those agencies occur. We have said there ought to be a review of the intelligence services. They ought to be held to account and there ought to be much more transparency.

I am very attracted to the three issues that David Shearer put forward today. The terms of reference for this review should be shared, and we will push for that. We will push the Government to share the terms of reference. Why would it not share them? What would be the problem with that? I believe a Government that has its ears open, knowing that we need to work across this House, will listen to that call. I do believe we should have an input on those who do carry out the review. I think that there should be a call across this House for people to put in nominations for those people to carry out the review.

Phil Goff made a very, very good point, and so did Mr Shearer, and it was about the use of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. That committee, as you heard today, was able to undertake work that you would normally have in the privacy and the secrecy of another committee. It was able to do it in public and to work across this House. Why should that not be a standard practice in this country? We are very keen to have a committee that is able to work, that is able to get out decisions, and that is more open and more transparent.

I think we have shown in the work we did on recent legislation that we are able to implement change if you know how to work cooperatively. If you look at the changes that were made in the legislation that we recently had, you will see that we were able, for example, to cut down the time for warrantless surveillance from 48 hours to 24 hours. That was done by negotiation, by working on being constructive in terms of the work that we carried out. We negotiated restricting the new powers of the SIS to counter-terrorism work only. That was able to be done by working constructively and maturely within a committee. We were able to bring in a sunset clause. These were changes the Government did not want. It was not in favour of these changes, but they were negotiated by our excellent members on that committee, Phil Goff and David Shearer. I think they have shown that Labour is able to work constructively for the benefit of New Zealanders.

I have to say, in conclusion, that I support the nomination of David Shearer to this committee. I want this committee to be a more open and transparent one. I want us to get the very best intelligence services in New Zealand, to benefit New Zealanders so that they can feel secure in their homes and on the streets as much as is possible in this troubled world that we live in. There is no doubt it is a different world from the world of the 1960s and 1970s and the benign environment many of us lived in. It is a problem that we face this far away, and how we react to it is going to be important. Good intelligence services are an important part of it. But, as I said, the balance between intelligence services and their ability to carry out their job and the rights of New Zealanders to their privacy is a balance that we will watch very closely indeed.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a very quick call just to clarify, to reiterate, New Zealand First’s position on this motion, as articulated by Fletcher Tabuteau. I want to make it very clear that New Zealand First has not at any time criticised Mr Shearer, his experience, his abilities, or the job that we believe he will be able to do on that committee, nor have we at any time criticised Mr Goff and his input, or Mr Little and his input, or the Labour Party’s input around other issues for the Government Communications Security Bureau and the security of this nation.

The concerns that New Zealand First has expressed have been around the statutory obligation to consult. The concern that New Zealand First will continue to express is the unfortunate position we find ourselves in, where we are asked to agree to an assumption that we will agree. That is a very difficult place to come from, from the Labour Party, when talking about the fact that it will uphold transparency, trust, and these other things. We obviously have a very experienced member, but there is nothing to say that should New Zealand First have been spoken to we would not have endorsed Mr Shearer’s selection. I want to be very clear. New Zealand First does not see this as a gender issue; nor do we see this as an issue around Mr Shearer’s abilities. We see this as an unfortunate incident, where a single phone call could have created a sense of collaboration that would have meant our position would be different today. Kia ora.