Dyson RuthHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I have been really interested in the debate so far this evening on these amendments to the Intelligence and Security Bill. I want to speak particularly to the definition of serious crime". It has been referred to by a previous speaker Denis O'Rourke but I have a new question that I want to ask Minister Finlayson. Before I do can I just say to the Minister that I really commend the way that he has engaged and not just this afternoon and this evening. He is a competent Minister. He is respectful of people he engages and he does it with a modesty that is really admirable! That was my joke Minister that end bit. The first three parts were not a joke though. I think that the competence and the engagement and the respect were not a joke and I think they are really appreciated.They are particularly important in a bill like this. It is quite a fundamental part of democracy actually where you have to balance what we are giving—through this authorisations regime which is Part 4 which we are debating currently we are giving the intelligence and security agencies powers and part of the responsibility of that has to be to balance the protection of privacy and other rights of New Zealanders. Getting that balance right I think is best achieved if the positions that the Minister has adopted are undertaken so that the debate is done in an open way where questions are properly answered and people's views are considered.I also wanted to just ask the Minister because I was not able to get a call on the earlier part whether he thought that Francis Messines was a good "aka".Hon Christopher Finlayson: Lohia.Hon RUTH DYSON: No—you can answer me when you take your next call.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No no no. You are allowed to.Hon RUTH DYSON: I know I know but he obviously has not got that one. Unusually he has missed the point of my comment.Denis O'Rourke raised the issue about what the deal with "serious crime" was. Why would 3 years be any better than 2? Why was 5 years proposed? Why did we not just stick to 2? I think that is the question that I do not believe in the same way that Denis O'Rourke mentioned has been properly answered. The reference I heard from David Parker was that he thought that "serious crime" would link better with an imprisonment of 5 years rather than 2 years. He thought 2 years would cover too much and the Minister came back with a compromise of 3 years.David Parker mentioned that the advice that they had received was that there would be offences that should be considered as serious crime that would be missed out if the length of imprisonment in the definition was 5 years. What I would like to ask the Minister—his officials will have to tell him if they would not mind because he is being distracted. I want to know the sorts of crimes that would not be covered and that the Minister thinks should be covered if the "serious crime" definition was set as "in relation to New Zealand any offence punishable by 5 or more years' imprisonment". What are the sorts of crimes that are going to be missed out on? It does feel to me that 2 years may well cover a whole lot of things that we would not consider serious crime and that we do not want to have covered.In relation to the other point that Denis O'Rourke made which goes to 55A(2)(e) and again I would appreciate the Minister's comments on this I am not sure whether the "serious crime" that is referred to in that is in addition to the "serious crime" definition because that is quite specific talking about "in relation to New Zealand any offence punishable by 2 or more years' imprisonment" whereas the 55A(2)(e) is quite specific about originating from outside New Zealand or determined by another country. So I am not clear in my own mind about the relationship between those two parts and the consequential implications for the definition of serious crime. So Minister the question I asked is: what crimes would be missed if it was taken out to 5 years that in the Minister's view should be included in the definition of serious crime? I think it is an important point and if we can get that resolved then I think we will all leave the building tonight in a much happier state.I think we have made a valuable contribution to security and intelligence services in New Zealand. After the general debate I was not feeling so cheerful about the behaviour of our Parliament but I think after the debate this evening we can be pretty proud of the work we have done."