Mackey Moana: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:13963. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I want to pick up on the issue that my colleague Kris Faafoi was talking about at the end of his call which is the definition of “surveillance agency”. I would very much like it if the Minister in the chair the Minister for Communications and Information Technology would take a call because Part 1 is incredibly important. These are the definitions that define who is covered by the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill when they are covered by it how they are covered by it and when they are not covered by it. So if we do not get the definitions right then the rest of the bill is not going to be much use. Given that the whole reason we are here debating Part 1 of the bill is that our surveillance and security agencies could not interpret the previous legislation according to the law I think it is even more important that we are very clear around the definitions that we are putting in place in Part 1 of this piece of legislation. What has become clear from the debate here in the Chamber today is that there is no clarity around these definitions. That echoes what submitters said at the Law and Order Committee.So what we would like is for the Minister to do her job which is to provide that clarity. She is sitting there like a dried arrangement. I do not know whether she is giving us her impersonation of a terminal device—all the data just stops with her and no more information is passed on whatsoever—but she should get on her feet and provide the kind of certainty that we are asking for. These are not unreasonable questions that members on this side of the Chamber are requesting of her especially when we consider how far-reaching the implications of this bill are. The balance between privacy and security is one of the most sensitive issues we will ever cover off. So any clarity the Minister can provide around the definitions of “network operator” and “surveillance agency” can only be good for this legislation.I am not quite sure why she is not taking a call. She has got an army of advisers behind her to provide her with that clarity—unless she wants this to be uncertain unless she wants this to actually be far broader in its interpretation than New Zealanders are comfortable with and than we were led to believe this legislation would be unless she is happy with that uncertainty because that allows the broad powers in this bill to be extended even further. If she refuses to take a call and provide us with that certainty then that is really all that we can assume unfortunately.My question to the Minister is whether this definition of “surveillance agency” which is “(a) a law enforcement agency; or (b) an intelligence and security agency” applies only to New Zealand agencies or whether it applies to any agency internationally—to any law enforcement agency or intelligence and security agency. Minister are the people who can access this data restricted only to New Zealand law enforcement agencies and New Zealand intelligence and security agencies or could they be any law enforcement agency or intelligence and security agency internationally? Is it just New Zealand?It really really worries me that she has acknowledged my question but has not given me an answer. That is really serious. Because if it applies just to New Zealand I think people would like to hear the Minister say that so that we can limit this bill to New Zealand law enforcement agencies and New Zealand intelligence and security agencies.Clare Curran: I think we know the answer.MOANA MACKEY: I think we know the answer which is that this opens us up—the privacy around the information of New Zealand citizens is opened up to any law enforcement agency or any intelligence and security agency around the world. I am looking at the National MPs over here. Are you really comfortable with that? Are they really comfortable?Clare Curran: They didn’t know.MOANA MACKEY: Did they even know that this goes international in its broad-ranging powers? [Interruption] The Minister says it is rubbish. She should stand up and provide some certainty. Does she not think this is an important enough issue to stand up and provide some certainty over it?This is going to form the basis of a lot of the rest of the debate on the protections around that and the limitations around that. She might think it is funny but actually it is deadly deadly serious—it is deadly deadly serious. Given how we got into this mess in the first place given that this is around one of the most sensitive issues and given that New Zealanders feel incredibly strongly about this I think we deserve to know whether the broad powers being given to the intelligence and security agencies now actually apply to every law enforcement and intelligence and security agency around the world not just those based here in New Zealand. I look forward to the Minister taking a call on that. I think that is actually a really critical point. She can chip away at me from the chair but she should stand up and actually take a call. That is what she is paid to do. That is actually what the Committee of the whole House stage is meant for.I want to come back to Supplementary Order Paper 370 in the name of my colleague Clare Curran. This is in relation to the commencement clause of the bill which is clause 2 of the bill. [Bell rung]The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am calling Moana Mackey.Iain Lees-Galloway: Asleep at the wheel Nicky.MOANA MACKEY: It is because they are so worried about the definition of “surveillance agency”. They were pondering it. They want to know as well. They were hoping that the Minister was going to take a call and reassure her own colleagues that she is not selling away New Zealanders’ right to privacy to every law enforcement agency and intelligence and security agency around the world and they are right to be concerned.I come back to the commencement clause and the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of my colleague Clare Curran. It makes two changes. The first change is that it inserts a requirement that the bill may not be assented to without first holding an independent review of New Zealand’s security agencies and incorporating those recommendations into the bill prior to the third reading. This is sensible. This is sensible given the process we have gone through with this bill and given the fact that we have a Minister who refuses to provide any answers to the very very serious questions we are posing to her. The only way we are going to be able to provide any kind of comfort to the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who are deeply deeply concerned about this piece of legislation is to actually do a proper review of our intelligence and security agencies and find out what the issues actually are. What a novel idea—that when we try to fix a problem we might work out what the problem actually is before we do that.I know from the conversations that I have had with people that they saw an intelligence and security agency that went far outside its mandate under the law broke the law and acted illegally. Most New Zealanders would say that if you were going to have a knee-jerk reaction to that it would be to restrict their powers. Lo and behold we ended up with two pieces of legislation that broadly expand their powers to the point where the Minister in the chair will not even guarantee—actually she pretty much told us—that these powers do now go offshore and that every surveillance agency and law enforcement agency around the world is now able to have access to the private data of New Zealand citizens. That is serious stuff. That is not the kind of response I think New Zealanders expected following the illegal activities of the Government Communications Security Bureau.So how about we pass the recommendation in the Supplementary Order Paper from Clare Curran have that inquiry and find out what actually went wrong find out what actually needs to change in law and find out how we can get that very critical balance between privacy and security right? In the telecommunications age when we are dealing with streams of information that we have never had to consider before when we originally had legislation around these issues how about we actually do it properly? What a novel idea. That is what the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of my colleague Clare Curran says that we should do—that there will not be any Royal assent to this bill until we have that inquiry and the changes recommended through that inquiry are then incorporated into this piece of legislation.The second suggestion or amendment that Clare Curran is putting up to the commencement clause is requiring that the bill be reconsidered by a select committee and found to be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 before it can be submitted for Royal assent. This is a bill that was substantially changed at the Law and Order Committee. The Minister herself is introducing the extensive Supplementary Order Paper 366. Once again we have a regulatory impact statement that is hugely redacted. Did anyone even really use that word “redacted” before the National Government? I do not think so. I think most people had never—Grant Robertson: It’s like liquefaction; it’s a new word.MOANA MACKEY: It is a new word. Thanks to this Government “redacted” is so commonly used now because in the regulatory impact statements that are meant to inform—Dr David Clark: Have a look at this page. See what you can find on there.MOANA MACKEY: This is great. This is the kind of information that the National Government is asking this Parliament to make its decisions on. This is a regulatory impact statement on this piece of legislation which we are very interested in and this is what the National Government is allowing the Parliament to consider when it passes this bill. It is a completely redacted page just like many of the other regulatory impact statements we have had from the Government. We are used to it from the National Government but when you are considering the implications of this bill it is not appropriate at all that we are not given the relevant information to make those decisions.So Supplementary Order Paper 370 in the name of my colleague Clare Curran amends clause 2 to say that this should go back to a select committee we should have that discussion and we should get clarification that we are not breaching the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and only then can it come back and be submitted for the Royal assent. That is just practical. That is good common-sense lawmaking. I know that the National Party does not really give due regard to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act or clearly the right of New Zealand citizens to privacy but on this side of the Chamber we actually value good process. We actually value that process of a properNew Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet. As my colleague Clare Curran said it got a cursory vet at the very beginning. It has been substantially changed.