Chauvel Charles: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — First Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21446] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill. What persons not in the House might not realise is that the bill was placed on the Table of the House about 7 minutes ago so there is really no opportunity to comment on its provisions. So the traditional first reading speeches will not occur in this debate. It is true that that is a consequence of the House having taken urgency but it is regrettable that the bill’s sponsor did not seek the leave of the House to release a copy of it in its current form earlier given that members of the public are expected to front up to a select committee I understand tomorrow morning and make submissions on it. That is not a satisfactory process and nobody should be surprised if we do not get a good result out of it. 
I am afraid that the sponsoring Minister has simply engaged in brinkmanship on the questions that are raised by the bill and by the Supreme Court decision in the Hamed case. It is quite clear that he does not have any desire or any intention to try to reach any sort of multiparty solution to the problems identified in that case. He simply wants to try to bully other parties in the House and to make it appear as if any party that does not support the legislation demanded by National to be passed is soft on law and order and that is quite apparent from the way in which John Key the leader of the National Government has presented the arguments in favour of the bill to date. I say to the members of National that that will not wash. They will not get as members of the Government party a blank cheque from this Parliament to do what they think is necessary without scrutiny and without a careful testing of the claims that have been made in favour of the legislation. At least there will be some of that testing however unsatisfactory because as I say there is I understand to be a select committee process—however truncated—so that there can be some scrutiny of the bill. It is a small mercy but at least it is happening. 
What we see in the approach taken on the questions raised by the Hamed decision is arrogance—arrogance from a Government that thinks it can get its way no matter what. We saw this arrogance in respect of the Government’s dealings with my colleague the shadow Attorney-General over the question of support for the Search and Surveillance Bill. 
One of the things that has to be said right upfront is that Parliament would not be in the position that it is in at the moment—being asked to rush through an emergency fix on police surveillance powers—if Simon Power had responded to David Parker back in November last year. Mr Parker said that we would cooperate to pass the Search and Surveillance Bill—now that it has come out of the select committee now that it is much improved now that it actually sets in place limits on what the police can do by way of covert video surveillance and sets out a regime governing what they should do—if the Government agreed to make three small amendments the most important of which was about protecting the freedoms of the media from some of the provisions in the Search and Surveillance Bill. Well we heard Mr Power yell out during question time that he did send a response—he said “I’ll consider it.” We know that Mr Power has 6 days left in this House so let us hope he does consider it and let us hope we get finally a response on the question put to him by Mr Parker. 
That sort of arrogance has typified the Government’s approach to the issue of vital police powers. Parliament has been asked to address window-dressing bills like the three-strikes legislation boot camps and taking votes away from inmates in prison—all the things that actually make not one jot of difference to people’s safety—while the vital issue of defining and limiting police powers on search and surveillance has been left to languish on the Order Paper. This is not a responsible Government on law and order. 
As I said the bill was tabled a mere matter of minutes ago. There is no point in trying to comment on its text but what I will say is this: members of the Labour Party have always agreed that there is an issue that needs to be dealt with here and it goes back way before the Supreme Court case in Hamed. That is why there was a Law Commission reference on the question of general search and surveillance powers by enforcement agencies. 
We have known for a long time that the law is not clear and needs clarification. But that clarification has not occurred so what do we do in the current situation? We say there needs to be a reference of the Government’s proposed fix to a select committee. We at least have some agreement from the National Government that that will occur. Then the question is how broad the fix should be. 
What appears to be proposed—although the draft that has been tabled is radically different from the draft that was being consulted on last week—is that the current vague state of the law will be carried on for a year by reference to the issue of lawful searches in the legislation which begs the question as to what is a lawful search and what is not. And we are to have retrospective validation of all actions on the part of enforcement agencies that have occurred any time in the past as well as for a year hence. 
We need to test whether that sort of broad taking of powers is an appropriate exercise in the present case. I have big reservations about that; so do many of the respected academic commentators. Their views deserve credit and we do need to test as I say very carefully the claims that are made in favour of this legislation. The scope of the bill must be carefully looked at. 
Finally we have to make sure that there are appropriate safeguards in the legislation. It has been suggested by a number of commentators that what we should do is simply take the regime out of the Search and Surveillance Bill; it has already been through a select committee and agreed by most parties in the House. We could take that regime out and we could put it into the Summary Proceedings Act so that there is a clear limit on the powers of the police and other enforcement agencies but a clear definition of what those powers are. 
Mr Finlayson said that that was much too difficult for the officials to do in the time available. Well we have had a go at it. In question time today I tried to table this Supplementary Order Paper which would do exactly that. I was prevented by the Leader of the House from doing so. Given that the select committee is to consider these issues again at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning and given that they will have the bill before them I would like them to have the Supplementary Order Paper. 
So I am concluding by making an application for leave to have the Supplementary Order Paper tabled and to have it referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee on the same basis that the Minister intends as he has foreshadowed to refer the bill itself to that committee. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I take it that leave is sought for that course of action. Leave is sought for that Supplementary Order Paper to be tabled. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Debate interrupted.