Norman Russel: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNorman Russel: General Debate[Sitting date: 31 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12124. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):This has been a very important period in defending the basic democratic values that underpin our country. We have had a Government that has engaged in attack after attack on some of the fundamental freedoms that we as New Zealanders have taken for granted. We have had the Government Communications Security Bureau a spy agency that has been illegally spying on over 80 New Zealanders. In spite of its legislation which makes it very clear that the bureau is not to spy on New Zealand citizens and residents that is exactly what the bureau did when it purposely and immorally broke the law that governed its own organisation. This comes in spite of the fact that when this law went through this Parliament Tony Ryall and many others from the National Party said expressly in this House that the bureau was forbidden from spying on New Zealanders. Then the bureau went ahead and did it anyway.Secondly we have seen that the New Zealand Defence Force has decided that journalists are subversives and hence they are the target of covert surveillance. People might not know this but under the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act the SIS is responsible for protecting the security of New Zealand and under the Act that means protecting the security against subversives. When the New Zealand Defence Force describes journalists as subversives it is providing a lawful basis for the SIS to engage in covert surveillance of journalists so it is no surprise that when this Defence Force manual came to light as a result of the great work done by Nicky Hager the Government had to back-pedal pretty quickly to step away from this manual. And it is of course a source of great disgrace that this manual predates the current Government even though it is probably the current Government that was engaged in spying on Jon Stephenson. It is a pretty sad state of affairs that the New Zealand Defence Force sees it like that.Then of course we have had the Prime Minister’s office using his power to put pressure on the Parliamentary Service to release information about members of Parliament and journalists. We know that the Prime Minister’s office leaned on the Parliamentary Service to release Peter Dunne’s parliamentary emails without Peter Dunne’s consent. Peter Dunne gave no consent. WayneEagleson the Prime Minister’s right-hand man—his right hand effectively—said to the Parliamentary Service: “You must release those emails of Peter Dunne.” Even though Peter Dunne never gave consent for those emails to be released they were released anyway.Then we have Andrea Vance. Andrea Vance is a journalist. She works in the press gallery. She works for Fairfax. Her movement records—so the swipe card access of her movements around the parliamentary complex—were winkled by the Henry inquiry by the Prime Minister’s office. The Prime Minister’s office went to the Parliamentary Service and said: “Hand over the movement records the swipe-card records of a journalist.” That is what the Prime Minister of New Zealand did and what his office did just recently. In 2013 we have the Prime Minister the highest officer in the Government demanding and getting the records—the movement records—of a journalist.Then on top of that there is the dispute about whether the Henry inquiry was also after Andrea Vance’s phone log. We know that it went after Peter Dunne’s phone log; the question is whether it went after Andrea Vance’s phone log. Certainly it had Andrea Vance’s phone log and according to Peter Dunne the Henry inquiry—David Henry—told him that it intended to compare Peter Dunne’s phone log with Andrea Vance’s phone log which would make sense therefore only if it had Andrea Vance’s phone log. We know that it had it but it tells us: “Yes we had it but we sent it back without looking at it.” or “without using it” which were the actual words.So now we have a situation where the Prime Minister’s office is going after the email and movement records of MPs in this House—in this Parliament—and journalists. This is a fundamental breach of our constitution. The constitution has a separation of powers between the executive headed up by the Prime Minister and the Parliament and it has a further separation between the Government and the fourth estate. We need the fourth estate or the media to be free from this kind of surveillance and intrusion and bullying and menacing by the Prime Minister’s office. We need Parliament itself to be free of the kind of intrusion that the Prime Minister has been perpetrating against Parliament to access our email accounts and our movement records. It seems to me that following all the Green Party’s written questions we have finally unearthed what is going on here—