Worth Richard: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — In Committee 
Worth Richard: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4372] 
RICHARD WORTH (NZ National—Epsom) 
: 
 I would like to start by talking briefly about the commencement provision as there was an alteration to it as the bill went through the Intelligence and Security Committee. The plan now is that the Act other than section 32 comes into force on the day after the date on which the bill receives the royal assent. The drafters considered three possibilities when they looked at the commencement date. The first possibility was a date nominated by Order in Council.That was not chosen. The second possibility was a fixed date—some date in futurity which could have been the commencement date. The third possibility which has been seized on by the draftsman relates to the date on which the bill receives the royal assent. On that date we are to see a very significant change in the context of structural issues relating to a core element in the security services. 
The Government Communications Security Bureau has been with us for a number of years and the contribution that the bureau and the Security Intelligence Service make to this nation is absolutely undoubted. Since 1977 the bureau has provided the New Zealand Government with intelligence information from foreign signals derived from the interception of the communications of foreign Governments and other foreign entities. It strikes me as somewhat ironic that in these days of sophisticated electronic transmission of data and electronic transmission of documents the safest way for materials to be handled is probably by personal courier. That is why all around the world personal couriers carrying top-secret materials are travelling long distances in aircraft rather than those materials being entrusted to the electronic networks that exist throughout the world. 
The bureau was set up without specific statutory authority. As I understand it the director’s authority as chief executive of the bureau derives but for this legislation from an instruction that was issued by the Prime Minister. It was also the case that the bureau’s signals intelligence function and its role of ensuring the security of New Zealand Government communications and information systems were not formally defined. That adds substance to the point Mr Prebble offered—that for those who are deeply suspicious of Government activity often in a quite irrational way there is security in knowing that these activities are now to be statute-based and subject to a degree of statutory oversight that would not otherwise have been the case. 
So before 1996 Parliament’s oversight of security intelligence—and I am speaking now of the three core elements in our security intelligence system: the External Assessments Bureau the Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau—was basically left to the Prime Minister. Sure there was some faint involvement by the Government Administration Committee but it did not have any real control or power over the security intelligence agencies. So we had the situation that by convention secret briefings were given to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and together the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition would certify each year that the agencies had met accountability rules and complied with the law. National introduced some key changes in 1996 after extensive public consultation. So it was that the Intelligence and Security Committee Act set up the Intelligence and Security Committee—a statutory committee with specific functions.