Street Maryan: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionStreet Maryan: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14040. Text is subject to correction.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour):I rise to speak to Part 4 of the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. I just want to back up a little bit because we have got a bit of a theme emerging not just in relation to this bill but in relation to a number of the Government’s activities. Although it might sound as if it is recalling some of the echoes of the previous urgent debate it is entirely pertinent to this bill. Mr John Key the Prime Minister said in November 2008: “I expect high standards from my ministers … If they don’t meet the standards I set then obviously I will take action if necessary.” He said: “If they don’t meet the standards I set then obviously I will take action if necessary.” What we have with this bill is a bill that the Prime Minister controls. It is my suggestion that the Prime Minister far from requiring high standards of his Ministers—standards repeatedly broken by some who have been ostensibly punished but then rehabilitated—does not even apply high standards to himself. There is no accountability there is no transparency and there is no appeal in this bill.In this part this is the bit where we are talking about registration enforcement and miscellaneous provisions. One could be forgiven for thinking that it is pretty pedestrian stuff and it is just the mechanics of what has gone on before. But the point is that whathas gone on before in this legislation which sets the context for these mechanical pieces to apply has not had any transparency or accountability or appeal processes within it. What we see repeatedly is a reference to the only person or delegated person who may be able to take action and it is constantly repeatedly either the Prime Minister or the Director of the Government Communications Security Bureau. Here we have a registrar as well within the police. Unfortunately the police were not allowed to present evidence in the select committee process. The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was prevented from presenting evidence. The SIS was prevented from giving evidence. Immigration New Zealand and the Customs Service were not allowed to give evidence. So that was the whole process by which this offensive at worst and inadequate at best piece of legislation has come back to the House.The follow-up to my quotation from John Key from November 2008—“I expect high standards from my ministers … If they don’t meet the standards I set then obviously I will take action if necessary.”—is that having seen that breached on a number of occasions which have been rehearsed in the previous urgent debate I just want to say that in relation to this bill the Prime Minister being the architect of it the designer of it and the person who gives effect to it has not upheld high standards at all. He has not upheld any expectation that people in this country have of the laws including mechanical things like miscellaneous provisions registration and enforcement that are found in this bill having any comeback to those matters.One of the other quotations I would like to offer comes from the State Services Commission’s code of conduct. It says: “failure to meet expectations causes people to lose trust in Government.”—failure to meet expectations causes people to lose trust in Government. For the first time in this country despite the protestations from members opposite about the original legislation existing and coming in under Labour’s term the GCSB can spy on ordinary citizens—for the very first time the GCSB can spy on ordinary citizens. It was not able to do that under previous legislation. So it does not matter how much Jacqui Dean says “Oh well this was really introduced by the Labour Party.”; this is qualitatively different—qualitatively different. We now have the sanctioned ability for the GCSB to spy on ordinary citizens and that has never happened before. It happened previously in error and instead of correcting the error this Government has gone on to compound it by not getting the provisions right.In Part 4 we do not see any further ability for ordinary people—or in this case network operators in particular—to get the Government or the GCSB or the Prime Minister to revisit any decision. They do not have that ability they do not have that right and they must do what is asked of them at every turn. If we go to clauses 75 and 76 of the bill—and I would like to go on from the point that my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard made about clause 75—as one goes down that page the miscellaneous provisions only compound the absolute power of this bill. There is no comeback. There is no ability for a network operator or anybody who has had a document seized or a system seized to get that back or to be able to withhold that information. The point remains that in this section we have the nuts and bolts of some of the things that are operational in the bill but it cannot be seen separately from the context in which it rests. That context has not got either the protection of citizens or the protection of citizens’ rights in balance. The protection of citizens—that is the protection of our security—is terribly important but so is the protection of citizens’ rights. Those things are not in balance in this legislation.What we have throughout these rather mechanistic bits of registration enforcement and other provisions is the repeated reference to the Director of the Government Communications Security Bureau who may require information who may seizematerial and who may really examine and cause to have under surveillance the networks that service the information and communication requirements of New Zealanders. In the course of that the rights of New Zealanders to have their communications kept private have been breached. Where there is a security risk certainly there would be a need for the correct authorities through the proper processes which are always transparent accountable and appealable to be able to carry out proper surveillance and proper seizure if necessary. But there is no nod even in the direction of—