Curran Clare: Intelligence and Security Committee — MembershipText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Intelligence and Security Committee — Membership[Sitting date: 13 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11147. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):The question today is whether Tony Ryall should be appointed to the Intelligence and Security Committee that very important but very secret committee of Parliament. A huge amount of responsibility rests on the members of Parliament who sit on it. The question is whether Tony Ryall is suitable for that appointment. In order to examine that question we need to look at what is currently before that committee and that is the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill a bill that is extremely controversial.The bill is extremely controversial for a number of reasons. It was extremely controversial before last Friday when it was revealed that there were very serious allegations and evidence appearing about a massive surveillance programme operating out of the United States and there was comment about the implications of that for our country and in particular for the legislation that is currently before that secretive Intelligence and Security Committee. There are too many questions for this legislation to be before that committee now. That was our position before last Friday. It is even more our position today. We have said that we need an inquiry. Before we look at legislation like this we need a full inquiry into our intelligence agencies.The Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill which is before the Intelligence and Security Committee is one of two bills that are being considered together but at different select committees. The second bill is the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. It is also a bill over which there rests an enormous number of questions. We believe there has to be an inquiry into the intelligence agencies because of the importance of privacy and the importance of balance. It is absolutely important to put on the record that communications security is important—it is absolutely important—but so are the freedoms and the privacy of New Zealanders. Who is looking after that? Who is representing New Zealanders when we are taking into account the issues that are in these two bills? Nobody on the Government side of the House. That is what we fear and that is why there are huge question marks over whether the appointment of Tony Ryall to that committee will actually make things worse.Getting the right balance between privacy and security is absolutely critical. It is a huge responsibility for a Parliament—for a Parliament as well as for the people who sit on that committee. They have huge responsibility. Our fear is that another brother is going to join Big Brother on that committee and that the legislation which is going to be forced through will not have adequate scrutiny.So is Tony Ryall fit to sit on that committee? Will he ask the questions? Will he represent New Zealanders? Or will he obfuscate and block? This is about integrity and that is what is under scrutiny—integrity and trust. On 10 June John Key said: “to make a contribution you have to have integrity and to have integrity there has to be a directness and a fullness in your answers.” The problem is that there is no fullness in his answers because there are usually no answers at all. The answers that are given skirt around the questions and certainly do not provide adequate answers. It is happening time and time again in this House and it is a serious issue.I want to pose some questions. Before that the question of integrity and trust is absolutely critical. Yesterday a major telecommunications company told me that it would have knowledge as to whether the Government Communications Security Bureau or another security agency wanted to access New Zealand phone numbers in ourcountry because there would have to be a warrant but it would not know whether an overseas intelligence agency such as the National Security Agency or the FBI was hoovering up intelligence on New Zealanders’ phone calls texts and use of social media and the internet. The company said to me that it has to take the Prime Minister on trust that that is not happening in our country. The problem is how we would know because he will not tell us and that is a serious issue.In considering whether Tony Ryall is a suitable appointment to the Intelligence and Security Committee we have to know whether he is going to ask the right questions. I want to put some of those questions to the House today because he needs to be accountable if he is sitting on that committee. We need to know that those questions will be asked or that at least he will want to know the answer to questions such as whether the new provisions within the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill will make it possible for a PRISM-like system to operate legally within New Zealand. On the face of it that is what it does.Will including services what they call the service providers like Facebook Yahoo! Skype and Google in the Telecommunication (Interception Capability and Security) Bill which impacts on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill have a chilling effect on the growth of the weightless export economy within New Zealand? On the face of it that is what will happen.Will the Telecommunication (Interception Capability and Security) Bill and the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill have a far-reaching impact on the privacy of citizens? There has been no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vetting released yet so we do not know. Will Tony Ryall ask why new section 15A(1) and (2) in clause 14 in the Government Communications Security Bureau bill explicitly gives the Prime Minister unilateral authorisation to allow the Government Communications Security Bureau to act unlawfully? Because that is what this bill does. If he does not ask those questions if he does not want the answers to those questions then he does not deserve to be on that committee.This is such a serious piece of legislation before that committee. Mr Ryall’s position on that committee is absolutely critical—that he gets it right. The notion that personal privacy is a right rather than a privilege is being eroded at a blinding speed. Those were the words of a New Zealand commentator this week. The whistleblower who made the revelations about PRISM in the United States has sparked deep anger and unease in countries across the region in the United States in Australia in Canada and in the UK.In our country those issues are continuing to raise concern. There have been requests from stakeholders and organisations for extensions on the time to make submissions on this legislation. I am pleased to say that there does appear to be an extension of 1 week for the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation. In the case of the other piece of legislation there is no extension. This is not democracy. This is not accountability. This is very concerning.There is one risk that is not in this—one of our biggest risks is that the good guys who catch the bad guys will not always be seen as the good guys if their capacity to delve deeply into what should be private goes too far. Instead of appointing Tony Ryall to this committee there should be an independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence agencies. That is what we need to have in this country.