Turei Metiria: Intelligence and Security Committee — MembershipText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership[Sitting date: 18 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1711. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): 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?METIRIA TUREI: —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.